Barry Williams emerged from the YMCA entrance, his head still damp from his swim in the pool. Outside, the heat of the August afternoon was like the torrid waves of heat from a furnace. The stagnant air was soggy and the sun still glared upon the street into shimmering waves, making the sidewalk burn the soles of the feet right through the soles of the shoes.
One of the loungers on the YMCA steps looked up and nodded. "Hot, ain't it? " he said.
Williams nodded. "Hotter than," he answered grimly. "Almost better to be at work."
The other man agreed. "At least, at work you can get your mind off of it," he added finally.
Barry's cheer faded. "We've still got that problem."
"Not finished yet?"
"Nope," said Barry. "The _Star Lady_ stands there, sort of champing at the bit to take off into interstellar space -- but there's no one to put on the bridle."
"Better keep her there," said the other man. "No sense in taking off if you are almost certain to burn up in space."
"We'll lick it," said Barry. "Some day. I hope it is within my lifetime. I'm slated to go, you know."
"I don't know whether you're lucky or not," said the lounger on the steps. "It's mostly a matter of opinion, I guess. Your meat, Barry, is my poison. " At which the lounger's eye caught sight of a pleasant girl in a printed silk. She kept his attention for moments.
"Nice," he said as she passed out of sight.
Barry nodded.
The lounger looked up in astonishment. "Yet you'd leave gals such as she? " he said. "Barry, are you sure you want to go off into space for a couple of years?"
Barry lifted one eyebrow, looking back at the now empty corner as though the corner had been somehow altered by her passage near to it.
"Uh-huh," he said absently.
Slowly Barry left the YMCA and continued on down the street. The lounger on the steps turned to a half-dozing companion and said:
"Old Books begins to sound human."
His companion stirred. "They all fall sooner or later," he said laconically.
"I wonder what's the matter with him."
"Look, sport, there's men and there's men. Barry never really got interested in women. You are. Ergo, neither of you see eye to eye on the subject. I predict that eventually you'll both end up married, reasonably happy, and raise families."
"Morbid thought."
"Well, you have too many irons in the fire to settle to one, and Barry has too few to know. But don't think that because he doesn't go overboard at the rustle of a skirt that he might not have what it takes."
They both looked down the street at the retreating figure.
Barry was walking with a long stride, his mind working on the problem of keeping the atomic engines from consuming themselves once they reached the critical level of output. That danger point was only twelve percent or so above the output required to drive the _Star Lady_ into interstellar space at a velocity that made such travel practical.
A cluster of motor vehicles awaited the change of the light. A street car was poised at the intersection, and a traffic cop stood on the curb, watching the cross traffic.
Barry came up to the curb and stopped. He decided then to cross with existing traffic and made the change in his course. It put him outside of the lane of walkers, all alone on the point of the curb. He stepped into the street, and at that instant he caught the eye of a passing motorist.
The man's face was starting to register fear. His mouth was opening to shout. The car was starting to go out of control. The man's eyes were staring fixedly above Barry's head, with bulging, terrified eyes. This registered on Barry's mind in the camera-shutter instant of an eye swing.
Barry's head continued on around and his glance fell on the face of a girl in the street car. Her hand was approaching her throat and her chest was raising in a tremulous intake of breath. Fear distorted her perfect lips and had whitened her face under the make-up.
Not many steps away, the traffic policeman was turning toward Barry, the instinct to protect a citizen coming to the fore. His mouth was opening, too, and Barry noted swiftly that in another instant there would be a volley of shouts. As Barry's head continued to turn, he saw that all eyes were staring fixedly at some spot above his head.
He looked up and saw a dangling high-tension wire swinging down from a fresh break, the free end heading for the top of his still-damp head.
Terror came.
And Barry's muscles fought against the inertia of his mass to get him into motion. In maddening slow-motion, he started to move away, but it was not enough.
Down upon his cheek fell the ribbon of copper wire. It was slightly greenish-black from the corrosion of rain and smoke, he saw, excepting the broken end, which was a copper-frosted area of crystallization. It landed.
Awareness came, a basic, unsatisfying awareness of time and space only. Time, in eons, and space in unthinkable infinities. Universes passed and they were swirling galaxies, a riot of moving color because his time sense was racing madly.
Then awareness of self came, and a wonder of how and why.
He sat up, feeling the luxury of a soft bed and knew that he had been taken care of.
"He's coming around," said a voice. It was a throaty voice that stirred an inner pulse with a vital urge to awaken swiftly, to break the bonds of this illness, to recover his youth and his virility. He did not recognize the urge, but he followed it.
"What happened? " he asked. Shaking his head he cleared his mind and to show his true grasp of the situation he added: "I mean after the car-line feeder landed?"
"Car-line feeder? " asked the throaty voice.
"Delirious," said a pleasant male voice.
"I am not in delirium," stated Barry flatly.
"Hallucinations? " asked the throaty voice.
Barry turned and looked at the young woman who sat upon the side of the bed holding his hand.
"Do I sound delirious? " he demanded.
She smiled. It was a bright smile that illuminated the room according to Barry's idea. She was small and dark, with laughing eyes and a wide, good-natured mouth. She sat on the edge of the bed with easy familiarity, swinging one shapely leg that just missed the floor from the high hospital bed. On the other side stood the doctor, an elderly man with a face that showed the wisdom of long years of experience.
The girl answered him: "It is hard to tell. " She laughed.
"Vella means that you often sound less lucid when completely in possession of your wits."
"You're Vella? " asked Barry. "Vella who?"
She looked at the doctor. The medical man blinked as though this defied his prognosis completely.
"You speak with lucidity," said the doctor. "You ask intelligent enough questions though about an event of which we know nothing -- even of its meaning -- and demand whether we think you in delirium. We are about to say we think you cured, and then you profess ignorance of Vella."
"Why should I know Vella? " demanded Barry. "I've never seen her before. " He looked at her shyly and then with an inner boldness, he squeezed the hand and said: "An egregious error that I shall rectify."
"Are you fooling us? " asked Vella, pleadingly. She returned the squeeze, which made Barry's pulse skip a beat. "Johntha, are you having fun at our expense? Please, this is no time to play. You've been through enough already."
"What did you call me? " he asked.
"Wha -- " she started to echo.
"Johntha," said the doctor.
"Are you sure you have the right party? " asked Barry. "I'm not this Johntha. I'm -- I'm -- "
Barry stopped aghast. He knew his name. He knew it well. It was on the tip of his tongue, but it stalled.
Because the name was meaningless!
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