A Galaxy Of Strangers Read online

  Pops was amused. “Ballplayers?”

  “I think they’d be better than I am, sir. Or maybe luckier. Do you —would you give them a trial?”

  “I’d give anybody a tryout,” Pops said seriously. “Especially shortstops and second basemen and pitchers, but I’d have a look at anybody.”

  Zilo pushed himself erect on his crutches. “I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

  “All right. But leave a little of that luck here, will you?”

  Zilo turned and looked at Pops strangely. “I wish I could, sir. I really wish I could.”

  Ed Schwartz took Zilo to L.A. and put him on a plane for the East. For Maine. And at Baseball, Cal, the Pirates won two more games and went into a cataclysmic slump. They lost ten straight and slipped to sixth place. Pops put through a phone call to the Maine address Zilo had given him and was informed that there was no such place. Then he called Pete Holloway.

  “I wondered what was happening to you,” Pete said. “No, I haven’t seen the kid. He dropped out of nowhere last summer and played a little sandlot ball for me. He never told me where he came from, but I don’t think it was Maine. If he shows up again, I’ll get in touch with you.”

  “Thanks,” Pops said. He hung up slowly.

  Ed Schwartz said thoughtfully, “I suppose I better get a detective on it.”

  “Detectives,” Pops said and wearily headed for the field and another shellacking.

  Two more weeks went by. The detectives traced Zilo to Maine, where he seemed to have vanished from the ken of mortal man. The Pirates were tottering on the brink of last place.

  Then Pops received an airmail letter from Zilo—from Brazil.

  “I got lost,” he wrote plaintively. “We crashed in the jungle and they won’t let us leave the country.”

  Pops called President Wilks into conference, and Wilks got on the phone to Washington. He knew enough of the right people to make the necessary arrangements and keep the matter out of the papers. Zilo was flown back on a chartered plane, and he brought four friends with him.

  Ed Schwartz met them in L.A. and rushed them out to Baseball, Cal, in President Wilks’s own plane. They arrived during the fourth inning of another Pirate beating.

  “How’s the ankle?” Pops demanded.

  Zilo beamed. “Just fine, sir.”

  “Get in there, then.”

  Zilo got his friends seated in the president’s box, and then he went out to loft a long fly ball over the fence for a home run. The Pirates came to life. Everyone hit, and a 10 to 0 drubbing was transformed like magic into a 25 to 12 victory.

  After the game Zilo introduced his friends. They were John Smith, Sam Jones, Robert White, and William Anderson. Smith and Jones, Zilo said, were infielders. White and Anderson were pitchers.

  Ed Schwartz took in their proportions with a groan and went to work on the uniform problem. They were built like Zilo but on a much more lavish scale. They towered over Pops, answered his questions politely, and showed a childlike interest in all that went on about them.

  Pops called one of his catchers over and introduced him to White and Anderson. “See what they got,” he said. The catcher led them away, and Pops took Smith and Jones out for infield practice. He watched goggle-eyed as they covered ground like jet-propelled gazelles and made breathtaking leaps to pull down line drives.

  The catcher returned, drew Pops aside, and said awesomely, “They got curves that break three feet. They got sliders that do a little loop-the-loop and cross the plate twice. They got fast balls I’m scared to catch. They got pitches that change speed four times between the mound and the plate. If you’re figuring on pitching those guys, you can get yourself another catcher.”

  Pops turned the ceremony of signing them over to Ed Schwartz, handed releases to four players who weren’t worth the space they were taking up on the bench, and went home to his first good night’s sleep in more than a month.

  Priority Rating: Urgent

  From: Jard Killil, Minister of Juvenile Affairs

  To: All Planetary Police Organizations

  All Interplanetary Patrol Units Subject: Juvenile detention escapees

  Enclosures: Character analyses, filmstrips, retinal patterns

  All law-enforcement agencies are hereby informed of the escape of four inmates of the Juvenile Rehabilitation Center on Philoy, Raff III, Sector 1311. Escapees have high psi ratings and may use them dangerously. Kindly give this matter top-priority attention and notify Philoy JRC immediately upon detention.

  The next day Pops started Anderson against the Braves. The Pirates bounced forty hits over and through and around the infield and scored thirty-five runs. Anderson pitched a no-hit game and struck out twenty-seven. White duplicated the performance the following day. Thereafter Pops pitched them in his regular rotation. He wasn’t sure whether they hypnotized everyone in the park or just the ball, but as Dipsey Marlow put it, they made the ball do everything but stop and back up.

  Pops’s other pitchers suddenly looked like champions with Smith and Jones playing behind them. In spite of their boxlike builds, they ranged about the infield with the agility of jackrabbits. No one ever measured exactly how high they went up after line drives, but one sportswriter claimed they were a hazard to air traffic and should be licensed as aircraft. They sped far into the outfield after fly balls. Jones made more catches in right field than the right fielder, and it was not an unusual sight to see Jones and Smith far out in center contesting the right to a descending ball while the center fielder beat a hasty retreat. And both men swung murderous bats.

  The Pirates had won fifty-seven games in a row and rewritten the record book when Zilo timidly knocked on the door of Pops’s office. He was carrying a newspaper, and he looked disturbed.

  “Sir,” he said anxiously, “it says here that we’re ruining baseball.”

  Pops chuckled. “They always say that when one team starts to pull away.”

  “But-is it true?”

  “Well, now. If we keep on winning the way we are now, that won’t do the game any good. People like to see a close race, and if one team wins too much, or loses too much, a lot of people stop watching the games. But don’t let it worry you. We’ll do our best to go on winning, but we’ll drop a few, one of these days, and things will be back to normal. Your friends been playing over their heads and we’ve been luckier than usual.”

  “I see,” Zilo said thoughtfully.

  That evening Pops ruefully wished he’d kept his big mouth shut. Talk about jinxing a winning streak!

  Anderson got knocked out in the first inning and lost his first game. White failed the next day, and the Pirates dropped five straight. Then they got off on another winning streak, but the talk about their ruining the game had quieted down. Pops never bothered to remind Zilo about how right he’d been. He wasn’t going to jinx the team again.

  “Those baseball players of yours,” his daughter said to him one evening. “You know—the funny-looking ones.”

  “Sure, I know,” Pops dead-panned. “What about ‘em?”

  “They’re supposed to be pretty good, aren’t they?”

  Pops grinned wickedly. “Pretty fair.” It would have been a waste of time referring Marge to what was left of the record book.

  “I was over at the bowling alley with Ruth Wavel, and they were there bowling. They had everybody excited.”

  “How’d they do?”

  “I guess they must be pretty good at that, too. They knocked all the pins over.”

  Pops grinned again. Marge’s idea of a sport was crossword puzzles, and she could go through an entire season without seeing a single game. “Nothing unusual about that,” he said. “Happens all the time.”

  She seemed surprised. “Does it? The people there thought it was something special.”

  “Someone was pulling your leg. How many strikes did they get?” “How many what?”

  “How many times did they knock all the pins down?”

  “They knocke
d all of them down every time. All evening. It was the first time they’d ever bowled, too.”

  “Natural athletic ability,” Pops muttered. They’d never played baseball before, either, except that Zilo had coached them a little. The more he thought about it, the odder it seemed, but he wasn’t one to argue with no-hit games and home runs and sensational fielding plays. “What’d you say?” Marge asked.

  “Never look a gift ballplayer in the mouth,” Pops said and went to bed.

  TO ALL SHIPS OF THE SPACE NAVY SECTORS 2161, 2162, 2163 [] GENERAL ALERT [] FIVE ESCAPEES JUVENILE REHABILITATION CENTER PHILOY RAFF III PILOTING STOLEN SPACE YACHT STELLAR CLASS II RANGE UNLIMITED HAVE BEEN TRACED THROUGH SECTOR 2162 [] DESTINATION UNSURVEYED QUADRANT C97 [] CONTACT BASE HEADQUARTERS SECTOR 2162 FOR PATROL ASSIGNMENTS [] ACKNOWLEDGE [] ZAN FIRST ADMIRAL.

  The pennant race leveled into a five-team contest for first place. The Pirates stayed in first or second, playing sometimes with unbelievable brilliance and sometimes with incredible ineptitude. Pops took the race stoically and tried to ignore the tourist hysteria that enveloped Baseball, Cal. He was doing so much better than anyone expected—so much better than he had thought possible even in his wildest moments of preseason optimism—that it really didn’t matter where he finished. He was a cinch to be Manager of the Year. He might add a pennant and a World Series, or he might not. It didn’t matter.

  Another season might see him in last place again, and a smart manager went out as a winner—especially a smart manager who was well along in his sixties. Pops called a news conference and announced his retirement at the end of the season.

  “Before or after the World Series?” a reporter asked.

  “No comment,” Pops said.

  The club owners erected their World Series stands early, and the tourists jammed them—fifteen thousand for every game. Pops wondered where they came from. National League President Rysdale wandered about smiling fondly over the daily television receipts, and President Wilks sent Pops a load of beer that filled his basement.

  Over in Baseball, Arizona, the American League officials were glum. The Yankees, who were mainly distinguished for having finished last more frequently than any other team in major-league history, had suddenly and inexplicably opened up a twenty-game lead, and nobody cared any longer what happened in the American League.

  “Three weeks to go,” Pops told his team. “What d’ya say we wrap this thing up?”

  “Right!” Zilo said happily.

  “Right!” Smith, Jones, Anderson, and White chorused. The Pirates started another winning streak.

  TO ALL SHIPS OF THE SPACE NAVY PATROLING UNSURVEYED QUADRANT C97 [] PREPARE LANDING PARTIES FOR PLANETARY SEARCH [] THIS MESSAGE YOUR AUTHORIZATION TO INVESTIGATE ANY PLANET WITH CIVILIZATION AT LEVEL 10 OR BELOW [] CONTACT WITH CIVILIZATIONS HIGHER THAN LEVEL 10 FORBIDDEN [] SPACE INTELLIGENCE AGENTS WILL BE FURNISHED EACH SHIP TO HANDLE HIGH-CIVILIZATION PLANETS [] ACKNOWLEDGE [] ZAN FIRST ADMIRAL.

  The last week of the season opened with the Pirates in first place, two games ahead of the Dodgers. A provident schedule put the Dodgers and Pirates in a three-game series. The league hastily erected more stands, and with twenty-two thousand howling tourists in attendance and half of Earth’s population watching on TV, White and Anderson put together no-hit games and the Pirate batters demolished the Dodger pitching staff. The Pirates took all three games.

  Pops felt enormously tired and relieved that it was finished. He had won his pennant and he didn’t see how he could lose the World Series. But he never had felt so old.

  President Wilks threw another champagne party, and the sportswriters backed Pops into a corner and fired questions.

  “How about that retirement, Pops? Still going through with it?”

  “I’ve gone through with it.”

  “Is it true that Dipsey Marlow will take your place?” “That’s up to the front office. They ain’t asked my opinion.” “What if they did ask your opinion?” “I’d faint.”

  “Who’ll start the Series? Anderson or White?”

  “I’ll flip a coin,” Pops said. “It don’t matter. Either of them could pitch all thirteen games and not feel it.”

  “Does that mean you’ll go all the way with just Anderson and White?”

  “I’ll use four starters, like I have most of the season.”

  “Going to give the Yankees a sporting chance, eh?” “No comment,” Pops said.

  President Wilks and League President Rysdale rescued him from the reporters and took him to Rysdale’s private office.

  “We have a proposal from the American League,” Rysdale said. “We’d like to know what you think of it and what you think the players would think of it. They want to split up the Series and play part of the games here and part of them in Arizona. They think it would stir up more local interest.”

  “I wouldn’t like it,” Pops said. “What’s wrong with the way it is now? Here one year, there the next year, it’s fair to both sides. What do they want to do—travel back and forth between games?”

  “We’d start out with four games here, and then we’d play five in Arizona and the last four back here. Next year we’d start out with four in Arizona. It used to be done that way years ago.”

  “One ball park is just like another,” Pops said. “Why travel back and forth?”

  “They think we would draw more tourists that way. As far as we’re concerned, we’re drawing capacity crowds now. It might make a difference in Arizona, because there are fewer population centers there.”

  “They suggested it because it’s in California this year,” Pops said. “Next year they’d want to change back.”

  “That’s a thought,” Rysdale said. “I’ll tell them it’s too late to make the change this year, but we might consider it for next year. That’ll give us time to figure all the angles.”

  “For all I care, you can play in Brazil next year,” Pops told him.

  In the hallway, Pops encountered half a dozen of his players crowding around infielder Jones. “What’s up?” he asked Dipsey Marlow.

  “Just some horsing around. They were practicing high jumps, and Jones cleared three meters.” “So?”

  “That’s a world record by almost half a meter. I looked it up.”

  TO JARD KILLIL [] MINISTER JUVENILE AFFAIRS [] SPACE SHIP PRESUMED THAT OF JRC ESCAPEES FOUND IN JUNGLE UNSURVEYED QUADRANT C97 PLANET [} HAS TYPE 17D CIVILIZATION [] INTELLIGENCE AGENTS CALL SITUATION CRITICAL [] AM TAKING NO ACTION PENDING RECEIPT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS [] REQUEST MINISTRY TAKE CHARGE AND ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY [] ZAN FIRST ADMIRAL.

  Pops retired early the night before the Series opened. He’d ordered his players to do the same. Marge was out somewhere. Pops hadn’t gone to sleep, but he was relaxing comfortably when she came in an hour later.

  She marched straight through the house and into his bedroom. “Those ballplayers of yours—the funny-looking ones—they were at the bowling alley.”

  Pops took a deep breath. “They were?”

  “They’d been drinking!”

  Pops sat up and reached for his shoes. “You don’t say.”

  “And they were bowling, only—they weren’t bowling. They’d pretend to throw the ball but they wouldn’t throw it, and the pins would fall down anyway. The manager was mad.”

  “No doubt,” Pops said, pulling on his trousers.

  “They wouldn’t tell anyone how they did it, but every time they waved the ball all the pins would fall down. They’d been drinking.”

  “Maybe that’s how they did it,” Pops said, slipping into his shirt.

  “How?”

  “By drinking.”

  He headed for the bowling alley at a dead run. The place was crowded with players from other teams, American and National League, and quite a few sportswriters were around. The writers headed for Pops, and he shoved them aside and found the manager. “Who was it?” he demanded.

  “Those four squares of yours. Jones, Smith, Anderson, White.”


  “Zilo?”

  “No. Zilo wasn’t here.” “Did they make trouble?”

  “Not the way you mean. They didn’t get rough, though I had a time getting them away from the alleys. They left maybe ten minutes ago.”

  “Thanks,” Pops said.

  “When you find them, ask them how they pulled that gag with the pins. They were too drunk to tell me.”

  “I got some other things to ask them,” Pops said.

  He pushed his way through the crowd to a phone booth and called Ed Schwartz.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Ed said. “Don’t you worry about a thing.” “Sure. I won’t worry about a thing.”

  “They may be back at their rooms by now, but we won’t take any chances. I’ll handle it.” “I’ll meet you there,” Pops said.

  He slipped out a side door and headed for Bachelor’s Paradise, the house where the unmarried Pirates lived with a couple of solicitous houseboys to look after them. All the players were in bed—except Smith, Jones, Anderson, White, and Zilo. The others knew nothing about them except that Zilo had been concerned about his friends and gone looking for them.

  “You go home,” Ed said. “I’ll find them.”

  Pops paced grimly back and forth, taking an occasional kick at the furniture. “You find them,” he said, “and I’ll fine them.”

  He went home to bed, but he did not sleep. Twice during the night he called Ed Schwartz, and Ed was out. Pops finally reached him at breakfast-time, and Ed said, trying to be cheerful, “No news is supposed to be good news, and that’s what I have. No news. I couldn’t find a trace of them.”

  The reporters had picked up the story, and their headlines mocked Pops over his coffee, pirate stars missing!

  Ed Schwartz had notified both President Wilks and President Rysdale, and the league president had called in the FBI. By ten o’clock, police in every city in the country and a number of cities in other countries were looking for the missing Pirates, but they remained missing.

  When Pops reached the field for a late-morning workout, there still was no word. He banned newsmen from the field and dressing room, told Lefty Effinger he might have to start, and went around trying to cheer up his players. The players remembered only too vividly their fourteen-game losing streak at the beginning of the season and the collapse that followed Zilo’s departure. Gloom hung so thickly in the dugout that Pops wished he could think of a market for it. He could have bottled and sold it.