The Space Opera Novella

by Frank Belknap Long

  If a master had been kind they’d never forgot! If a mistress had been kind—The wetness at the corners of my eyes was making me blink.

  So the mirage pup had followed her out on the hull, long ago. Crouched down perhaps, shivering, its paws covering its face. And the electrolube hadn’t touched it! A small body, a small positive charge! No nourishment for an electrolube in a mirage pup!

  Then it had crawled back, whining and hopeless and lost, back into the ship. Hibernation in a dark corner! For one hundred years!

  “I found him in the tube room!” Pete grunted. “He was hidin’ behind one o’ the atomotors, coiled up like a porcupine. But I knew he was just playin’ possum! I could see his eyes—blazin’ out at me in the dark!”

  “Yeah,” I said, gruffly.

  “You want to hold him, Jim?”

  Pete extended the little beast toward me, but I shied away. I couldn’t bear to touch anything that she had touched! Later, maybe, when I got over the shock.

  “Guess we’ll never know how the ship found its way to the graveyard!” Pete said. “Say, do you suppose if we’re patient he’ll project a picture of what happened? Maybe he’ll start fillin’ the tub with mirages again!”

  “They only do it when they’re scared!” I told him. “And lonely and miserable! He’s not scared now! He likes us, worse luck!”

  “He was homesick, eh?”

  “That’s right! For his past, for his mistress.” I looked at Pete. “As for the ship, I can make a pretty good guess. Ship went into an orbit of its own, close to Saturn. It drifted around for about a century. Then a salvage crew found it and towed it to Callisto City to be sold as junk. It has happened before, plenty of times!”

  “Never with a mirage pup inside, I bet!”

  “Maybe not!”

  I turned away, feeling all hollow inside, like one of those caterpillars that pupae wasps sting to death and feast on until they’re nothing but husks. Grave bait, lying in a tunnel deep in the earth.

  I knew the only chance I had of crawling out of the tunnel into the sunlight again was to give the little beast a kick. If he got lonely and frightened, he’d see her again! He’d start dreaming about her, and she’d come to life again, as a memory in the brain of a mirage pup!

  But I never could be that cruel.

  “What’s the matter, Jim?” Pete asked, concerned. “You look sick!”

  I wheeled on him. “I didn’t tell you what happened outside. If you open your trap again—I will!”

  Pete avoided my eyes. “I didn’t ask you, Jim!”

  I knew then that the pup had projected two sets of images, one in the control room for Pete’s benefit and one outside for me to live through. A mirage pup could generate images like an electronic circuit, duplicate them in all directions, pile them up in layers. Automatically without thinking, to ease its own wretchedness.

  Pete had been able to follow me as I crawled along the hull. He knew what I was going through.

  I moved away from him, sat down on the chronometer and cradled my head in my arms.

  Dusk.

  Dawn.

  Dusk.

  Dawn.

  You don’t see the sun rise and set inside a spaceship, but that’s how the days seem to pass. Your mind grows a little darker when it’s time for the sun to set on Earth. Lightens when it rises.

  Dusk. Dawn. Dusk. Dawn. Three days. Four. But for me it was just dusk. My mind didn’t lighten at all.

  How does it feel to love a woman a century dead? If you’d asked me, I couldn’t have told you. Because she wasn’t dead to me. I kept seeing her pale, beautiful face and everywhere I turned time seemed to stretch away into endless vistas. If I’d been on Earth, in New York or Chicago, I could have gone out and lost myself in the crowds and the glitter. But it wouldn’t have helped.

  I turned and looked at the sleeping mirage pup. He lay on my bunk with his legs coiled up under him, his moist nose resting on his folded forelimbs. He looked like a prize puppy at a pet show, but what a puppy!

  In his unfathomable animal mind was that strange capacity for projecting illusions, of making them seem three-dimensional and real. He could blur the viewpane, fill it with unreal star fields, draw shapes of energy from the void.

  But he couldn’t change his memories by sicklying them over with the pale cast of thought! At bottom he was just a dumb beast. He had the mind of a puppy, a mind that chased phantasms while asleep through a labyrinth of dark alleyways. He twitched and shook while asleep, just like an excitable mutt.

  Little agitated noises came from him. His nostrils quivered, his tail vibrated and he rolled over in his sleep and started scratching himself. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  What was he thinking about? A girl in a garden with the moonlight in her hair? Stooping to pat him or feeding him yummies? He’d rolled over and was lying with his forelimbs stretched straight out, as though he were reaching for the moon.

  But I knew he wasn’t seeing the moon. He was reaching for something I couldn’t see or hear or touch, something older than the human race maybe.

  I was hating him furiously when Pete came into the compartment. He grabbed my arm and started shaking me.

  “Jim! Jim, lad! Get a grip on yourself! We’ll be hittin’ the Heaviside in a minute!”

  “What do I care?” I lashed out. “Go away, can’t you? Blow!”

  “Now, now, son!” he pleaded. “That’s no way to act! You can’t bring her back! And if you keep eatin’ your heart out—”

  “Get out!” I shouted, heaving myself from the bunk. “Get out—get out!”

  “Don’t be a fool, Jim! You’ve got to get rid of that grievin’ look! The skyport Johnnies are funny that way! You walk out of this ship with your eyes burnin’ holes in your face, and they’ll think you got somethin’ to hide!

  “Look at yourself in a mirror! Whiskers sproutin’ out of your chin, face sooty as a tube fittin’ and no fight left in you! You got to get back the look of a fightin’ fury, son! A lad who can stand up to a port clearance inspector and say, ‘Me an’ my buddy, here, we’re headin’ for that gate, and if you want to stay healthy—’”

  “What?”

  “Jehoshaphat!” Pete groaned. “He don’t even hear me!”

  I stood up. “Okay. Pete!” I told him. “I heard you! Most of it, anyway. And I’ll get myself spruced up. How close are we to the Heaviside?”

  He heaved a high sigh of relief. “We’ll hit it in half an hour, Jim!”

  He grinned. “He’s got to have a harness, Jim. I’ll rig up a harness for him!”

  CHAPTER IV

  New York Kid

  We made as good a landing as could be expected, considering the way my hands shook when I brought her down.

  Right smack in the middle of La Guardia field! It’s the biggest skyport in the System, and you can’t miss it if you’re a New York kid, with the lay of the land and the navigation lights burned into your brain from boyhood.

  One of my own ancestors had brought a primitive skyplane down on that field during the Second World War, when the First Atomic Age was just starting.

  They’d built the field up quite a bit in the intervening years—built it in revolving stations toward the Heaviside. You could make contact with the atomic clearance floats at sixty-five miles, and pick up a guiding beam from a rocket glider twenty miles above the grounded runways.

  But you can’t build the past out of existence. There were ghosts all over that field, grease monkeys in khaki jeans, and taking care of jet planes that had passed into limbo before the first space crate took off for Mars. At least, that’s the way Pete seemed to feel, and I could sympathize with his screwball occultism.

  I had a feeling that my own ancestor was down there, shading his eyes, watching me make a perfect twenty-point landing. His eyes shining with pride because I made such a
good job of bringing her in. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

  I thought we’d have trouble with the clearance officials, but when I came striding out of the gravity port with the mirage pup clinging to my right shoulder I was greeted with nothing but merriment. Tickle a man’s sense of humor if you want him to do you a favor!

  Just seeing that crazy little beast put everyone in the best of humor. A tall, young-old lad with puckered brows and graying hair, his skin bleached by irradiation particles, took one swift look at my pilot’s license, ignored Pete’s jittery stare, and gave the mirage pup a pat that set his tail wagging.

  “What’s his name?” somebody asked.

  I thought fast. “Flipover!” I said.

  “Boy, he’s quite a pup! Cute! Don’t see many of them since the new quarantine regulations went into effect. They have to be de-fleaed too often!”

  “All the little critters jumped off him in deep space!” I said.

  The officer chuckled. “Okay, my friend! You can pass through. The first gate on your right!”

  We were through the gate and ascending a ramp toward a skyline that brought a lump to my throat in less time than you could say, “Flip Flipover!”

  Little old New York hadn’t changed much in ten years. The white terrific flare that spiraled up from its heart was as bright as the day I’d first seen it. Broadway—and a New York kid is hooked for life. He’ll always come back to it.

  But now I didn’t want to head for the bright lights. I wanted to find a lodging close to the harbor lights, where I could look out over the bay at night and—remember things. Her face just before she let go, not really seeing me. Her eyes—Pete was shaking his arm. “Set him down, Jim! Put him into that harness I rigged up. Give him a chance to stretch his legs!”

  “Sure, why not?” I grunted.

  I set Flipover down on the ramp, fitted Pete’s makeshift harness to his shoulders, and wrapped the leash-end around my wrist.

  The little beast started tugging right off.

  “Looks like he knows his way around!” Pete chuckled. “Maybe New York was his home town!”

  That didn’t sound funny to me. But a few minutes later. I was taking it seriously. The crazy pup had led us deep into the labyrinth of dark streets which bordered the skyport, and there was no stopping him. I had all I could do to keep up with him.

  Pete’s eyes were shining with excitement. “Give him his head!” he urged.

  “What do you think I’m doing?” I yelled.

  From the houses lights streamed out. Corner-set windows flamed in the dusk and people moved across shadowed panes. Music came from beyond the windows, loud, tumultuous. Someone was playing Milhaud’s Bal Martiniquais on an old-fashioned percussion instrument with shallow keys.

  I liked it. Give me color in music, polychromes. Give me color in life. The flare of rocket jets, the blackness of space, a spinning wheel in a big crystal casino—

  I’d stay one week on Earth! Then I’d be off again and never come back. I’d bury myself in the farthest—

  “Give him his head!” Pete yelled.

  Flipover had swerved and was heading for a narrow walk leading to a fairly large circular house surrounded by a garden plot bright with yellow flowers. There was a fountain in the middle of the garden and it was sending up jets of spray which drenched Flipover as he tore down the path.

  I almost let go of the leash as I played it out. The house had the look of age about it but not of neglect. We were within thirty feet of it when the front door banged open and a big, angry-faced man came striding out.

  Down the path he came, straight toward me. A sun-bronzed giant of a lad built like a cargo wrestler, but with keen, probing eyes behind glasses that had slipped far down on his nose.

  When he saw me he stopped dead. Then he adjusted his glasses and peered at me wordlessly, his hands knotting into fists.

  Flipover was straining furiously, but I drew him in quickly and returned the big lug’s stare.

  “So you’re the guy!” he roared.

  It happened so quickly I was taken by surprise. His fist lashed out, caught me on the jaw.

  I felt Flipover tear loose as I went crashing backwards, my head filled with forked lightning.

  He jumped me the instant I hit the ground. About three tons of flailing weight crashed down on my shoulders, pinning me to the walk.

  As deliberately as I could, I raised my right knee, whammed it into his stomach and threw one arm about his neck in a strangle lock he couldn’t break.

  “That’s showin’ him, son!” I heard Pete yell.

  I tried not to break his glasses. But I had to be a little rough because he wanted to play rough.

  About one minute later he was standing in the fountain, eying me angrily from behind a rising curtain of spray. The water came to his knees.

  Suddenly his lips split in a grin. He threw back his head and roared with laughter. “By George, you sure know how to cool off a hot-head!”

  “Well—thanks!” I said, modestly.

  He stepped out of the fountain, walked up to me and thrust out his hand. “Phillip Goddard’s the name!” he said. “She just gave me my ring back! When she said she couldn’t marry a certified public accountant I knew there was someone else. You’re the kind of lad her great-grandmother went for—and she’s just like that famous ancestor of hers!”

  “Ancestor?” I gulped.

  He nodded. “Just like her! Pluckiest girl in the System! Back in the First Atomic Age it was. First girl pilot to make a solo hop to Saturn—”

  His face darkened. “Something happened to her! She never came back. But she’s come alive again in her granddaughter! No indoor cookie for Anne Haven’s granddaughter! I’m not exactly a lightweight, but I make my living adding up long rows of figures. If she married me what would be the result?”

  The grin returned to his face. “She’d pine away from boredom. I like it. I enjoy it! But the girl for me will have to be a redheaded adding machine.”

  He stepped back. “When I saw you coming up the walk I lost my head! Sour grapes, fella! If I couldn’t have her—I didn’t intend to step aside for a rival without putting up a fight! Little boy stuff! I had no call to take a sock at you! You’re all right, fella!”

  He gave me a resounding thump on the back. “So the best man gets her! Okay, I can be a good loser! I don’t know how long you’ve known her, but I bet if you pop the question tonight, when she has that faraway look in her eyes again—”

  “He never bets!” Pete cut in.

  I didn’t wait to thank him. I was running up the walk toward the house before he could let out a startled grunt. But I heard the grunt—far off in the darkness.

  Then a door slammed and I was standing in a brightly lighted living room staring at her. A log fire was crackling in the grate and there was a big, framed painting in oils hanging on the wall, facing the entrance hall.

  She was standing directly before the painting, staring down at Flipover. Flipover was wagging his tail and pawing at her knees, and she was stooping and patting him on the head. Only—she wasn’t calling him by the name I had given him. She was calling him, “Tow Tow.”

  “Oh, I can’t believe it! I can’t, I can’t. Granny’s pup! You’ve come home, Tow Tow—and you are Tow Tow! I’d know you anywhere! You precious darling.”

  Then I saw the girl in the painting. She was wearing a space suit a hundred years out of date, and her hand was on the head of a mirage pup too. Only it was a mirage pup in oils! Life-sized, lifelike and unmistakably Tow Tow! The pup in the painting had the same dumb-bright unweaned look about him! Any child brought up with that painting before her would know the real Tow Tow when he came bounding home! He was like no other pup!

  The girl who was patting the real Tow Tow raised her head suddenly, and looked at me!

  For a fu
ll minute we just stood there, staring at each other. I don’t know how she felt, but I knew how I felt! A family resemblance can be a remarkable thing! The contours of a face, the way the eyes look at you, and the trembling of lips shaped in a certain way can—make the universe reel!

  Especially when there’s no difference at all between the face of a girl a century dead and a living face you’d never thought to see again!

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  I told her.

  Her eyes were shining when I stopped telling her about myself. She swayed a little, and I think we both knew then how it was going to be.

  She was in my arms before I realized that I didn’t even know her name.

  “It’s Barbara!” she whispered, when I got around to asking her. That was quite a few minutes after I’d met her. You can’t kiss a girl and ask her name in the same breath. And there was just a chance she’d be offended and refuse to tell me.

  But Barbara was a darned good sport about it!

  “I’ve never been kissed by a total stranger before!” she said. “Jim, it was wonderful!”

  It sure was. We went back to it again.

  It’s been a long time, now. Seven years. And if I haven’t proved you can fall in love with the same woman twice I’ve been living a lie. But I know that it isn’t so. If I was living a lie, Tow Tow would be unhappy, and he’d be filling the house with mirages. But my five-year-old son, Bobby, isn’t a mirage, and neither is the girl I married.

  Sometimes, when I see the lights of the skyport through a corner-set window, and winds howl in from the bay, I get to wondering about Pete.

  You see, he never came in that night, never joined us! He may have looked in through a window, and realized I’d reached my last “port o’ call,” a quiet harbor in a storm that had died away forever. He may have turned and gone stumbling off into the night!

  I’ll never know, of course. Good old Pete! Sometimes I get to thinking. A mirage pup can coil up in an old ship and hibernate for a century. Could a human being do that?

  There are strange influences in deep space. Are there discharges in the electromagnetic field that could slow up the metabolism of a tired little character like Pete?