A Galaxy Of Strangers Read online

  An hour before game time, Pops was called to the telephone. It was Ed Schwartz, calling from L.A. “I found them,” he said. “They’re on their way back. They’ll be there in plenty of time.”

  “Good,” Pops said.

  “Bad. They’re still pretty high—all except Zilo. I don’t know if you can use them, but that’s your problem.” Pops slammed down the phone. “Did they find ‘em?” Dipsey Marlow asked. “Found ‘em dead drunk.”

  Marlow rubbed his hands together. “Just let me at ‘em. Ten minutes, that’s all I ask. I’ll have ‘em dead sober.”

  “I dunno,” Pops said. “These guys may not react the way you’d expect.”

  The delinquent players were delivered with time to spare, and Marlow went to work enthusiastically. He started by shoving them into a cold shower, fully dressed. Zilo stood looking on anxiously.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to Pops. “I’d have stopped them, but they went off without me. And they never had any of that alcohol before and they didn’t know what it would do to them.”

  “That’s all right,” Pops said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Zilo had tears in his eyes. “Do you think they can play?”

  “Leave ‘em to me,” Marlow said. “I’m just getting started.” But when he emerged later, he looked both confused and frustrated. “I just don’t know,” he said. “They tell me they’re all right, and they look all right, but I think they’re still drunk.”

  “Can they play?” Pops demanded.

  “They can walk a straight line. I won’t say how long a straight line. I suppose you got nothing to lose by playing them.”

  “There ain’t much else I can do,” Pops said. “I could start Effinger, but what would I use for infielders?”

  Even Pops, who had seen every World Series for forty-five years as player, manager, or spectator, had to admit that the winter classic had its own unique flavor of excitement. He felt a thrill and a clutching emptiness in his stomach as he moved to the top step of the dugout and looked out across the sunlit field. Along both foul lines, the temporary stands were jammed with tourists. Beyond them, areas were roped off for standees, and the last tickets for standing room had been sold hours before. There was no space left of any kind.

  Ed Schwartz stood at Pops’s elbow looking at the crowd. “What is it that’s different about a submarine sandwich when you buy it at the ball park?” he asked.

  “Ptomaine,” Pops growled.

  Clutching his lineup card, he strode toward home plate to meet the umpires and Yankee manager Bert Basom.

  Basom grinned maliciously. “Your men well rested? I hear they keep late hours.”

  “They’re rested well enough,” Pops said.

  A few minutes later, with the National Anthem played and the flag raised, Pops watched critically as Anderson took his last warmup pitches. He threw lazily, as he always did, and if he was feeling any aftereffects it wasn’t evident to Pops.

  But Anderson got off to a shaky start. The Yankees’ leadoff man clouted a tremendous drive to left, but Zilo made one of his sensational, lumbering catches. The second batter drove one through the box. Jones started after it, got his feet tangled, and fell headlong. Smith flashed over with unbelievable speed, gloved the ball, and threw to first—too late. Anderson settled down, then, and struck out the next two batters.

  Zilo opened the Pirates’ half of the first with one of his lucky hits, and Smith followed him with a lazy fly ball that cleared the fence. The Pirates led, 2 to 0.

  The first pitch to Jones was a called strike. Jones whirled on the umpire, his large face livid with rage. His voice carried over the noise of the crowd. “You wouldn’t know a strike zone if I measured it out for you!”

  Pops started for home plate, and Jones saw him coming and meekly took his place in the box. Pops called time and went over to talk to Dipsey Marlow.

  “Darned if I don’t think he’s still tight. Maybe I should lift him.”

  “Let him bat,” Dipsey said. “Maybe he’ll connect.”

  The pitcher wasted one and followed it with a curve that cut the outside corner. “Strike two!” the umpire called.

  Jones’s outraged bellow rattled the center-field fence. “What?” he shrieked. He stepped around the catcher and stood towering over the umpire. “Where’s the strike zone? Where was the pitch?”

  The umpire gestured impatiently to show where the ball had crossed the plate. Pops started out of the dugout again. The umpire said brusquely, “Play ball!”

  Still fuming, Jones moved back to the batter’s box. His high-pitched voice carried clearly. “You don’t even know where the strike zone is!”

  The pitcher wound up again, and as the ball sped plateward Jones suddenly leaped into the air—and stayed there. He hovered six feet above the ground. The ball crossed the plate far below his dangling legs, was missed completely by the startled catcher, and bounced to the screen.

  The umpire did not call the pitch. He took two steps forward and stood looking up at Jones. The crowd came to its feet, and players from both teams edged from their dugouts. A sudden, paralyzed hush gripped the field.

  “Come down here!” the umpire called angrily.

  “What’d you call that pitch? Strike, I suppose. Over the plate between my knees and armpits, I suppose.”

  “Come down here!”

  “You can’t make me.”

  “Come down here!”

  “You show me where it says in the rules that I have to bat with both feet on the ground!”

  The umpire moved down the third-base line and summoned his colleagues for a conference. Pops walked out to home plate, and Zilo followed him.

  “Jones,” Zilo said pleadingly.

  “Go to hell,” Jones snarled. “I know I’m right. I’m still in the batter’s box.”

  “Please,” Zilo pleaded. “You’ll spoil everything. You’ve already spoiled everything.”

  “So what? It’s time we showed them how this game should be played.”

  “I’m taking you out, Jones,” Pops said. “I’m putting in a pinch-hitter. Get back to the dugout.”

  Jones shot up another four feet. “You can’t make me.”

  The umpire returned. “I’m putting you out of the game,” he said. “Leave the field immediately.”

  “I’ve already left the field.”

  Pops, Zilo, and the umpire stood glaring up at Jones, who glared down at them. Into that impasse came Smith, who walked slowly to home plate, soared over the heads of those on the ground, and clouted Jones on the jaw. Jones descended heavily. Smith landed nearby, calmly drying his hands on his trousers.

  Effective as his performance was, nobody noticed it. All eyes were on the sky, where a glistening tower of metal was dropping slowly toward the outfield. It came ponderously to rest on the outfield grass while the outfielders fled in panic. The crowd remained silent.

  A port opened in the tower’s side, and a landing ramp came down. The solitary figure that emerged did not use it. He stepped out into midair and drifted slowly toward the congregation at home plate. There he landed, a tremendous figure, square like Zilo and his friends but a startling nine feet tall and trimly uniformed in a lustrous brown with ribbons and braid in abundance.

  Zilo, Jones, and Smith stood with downcast eyes while the others stared. Anderson and White moved from the dugout and walked forward haltingly. The stranger spoke one crisp sentence that no one understood—except Zilo, Jones, Smith, Anderson, and White.

  Smith and Jones lifted slowly and floated out to the ship, where they disappeared through the port. Anderson and White turned obediently and trudged to the outfield to mount the ramp. Only Zilo lingered.

  A few policemen moved nervously from the stands and surrounded the ship. The hush continued as the tourists stared and half of Earth’s population watched on TV.

  Zilo turned to face Pops. Tears streaked his face. “I’m sorry, Pops,” he said. “I hoped we could finish it off for you. I really wan
ted to win this World Series. But I’m afraid we’ve got to go.”

  “Go where?” Pops asked.

  “Where we came from. It’s another world.”

  “I see. Then—then that’s how come you guys played so well.”

  Zilo blubbered miserably, trying to wipe his eyes. His good-natured, freckled face looked tormented. “The others did,” he sobbed. “I’m only a Class F telekinetic myself, and that isn’t much where I come from. I did the best I could, but it was a terrible strain keeping the balls I hit away from the fielders and stopping balls from going over the fence and holding balls up until I could catch them. When I hurt my ankle I tried to help out from the bench, and it worked for a while. Sometimes I could even control the ball enough to spoil a pitcher’s control, but usually when the ball was thrown fast or hit hard I couldn’t do anything with it unless I was in the outfield and it had a long way to go. So I went home where I could get my ankle fixed, and when I came back I brought the others. They’re really good—all of them Class A. Anderson and White—those are just names I had them use—they could control the ball so well they made it look like they were pitching. And no matter how hard the ball was hit, they could control it, even when they were sitting on the bench.”

  Pops scratched his head and said dazedly, “Made it look like they were pitching?”

  “They just pretended to throw, and then they controlled the ball —well, with their minds. Any good telekinetic could do it. They could have pitched just as well sitting on the bench as they did on the pitcher’s mound, and they could help out when one of our other pitchers was pitching. And Smith and Jones are levitators. They could cover the ground real fast and go up as high as they wanted to. I had a terrible time keeping them from going too high and spoiling everything. I was going to bring a telepath, too, to steal signs and things, but those four were the only ones who’d come. But we did pretty good anyway. When we hit the ball, Anderson and White could make it go anywhere they wanted, and they could control the balls the other team hit, and nothing could get past Smith and Jones unless we wanted it to. We could have won every game, but the papers said we were spoiling baseball, so we talked it over and decided to lose part of the time. We did the best we could. We won the pennant, and I hoped we could win this World Series, but they had to go and drink some of that alcohol, and I guess Jones would have spoiled everything even if we hadn’t been caught.”

  The stranger spoke another crisp sentence, and Zilo wiped the tears from his face and shook Pops’s hand. “Good-bye, Pops,” he said. “Thanks for everything. It was lots of fun. I really like this baseball.”

  He walked slowly out to the ship, passing the police without a glance, and climbed the ramp.

  Reporters were edging out onto the field, and the stranger waved them back and spoke English in a booming voice. “You shall have a complete explanation at the proper time. It is now my most unpleasant duty to call upon your nation’s President to deliver the apologies of my government. Muko Zilo says he did the best he could. He did entirely too much.”

  He floated back to the ship. The ramp lifted, and the police scattered as the ship swished upward. The umpire-in-chief shrugged his shoulders and gestured with his mask. “Play ball!”

  Pops beckoned to a pinch-hitter, got a pitcher warming up to replace Anderson, and strode back to the dugout. “They been calling me a genius,” he muttered to himself. “Manager of the year, they been calling me. And how could I lose?”

  A sportswriter leaned down from the stands. “How about a statement, Pops?”

  Pops spoke firmly. “You can say that the best decision I made this year was to resign.”

  An official statement was handed out in Washington before the game was over. That the Yankees won the game, 23 to 2, was irrelevant. By that time, even the players had lost interest.

  Priority Rating: Routine

  From: Jard Killil, Minister of Juvenile Affairs

  To: Milz Woon, Minister of Justice

  Subject: Escapees from the Juvenile Rehabilitation Center, Philoy, Raff III, Sector 1311.

  A full report on the activity of these escapees no doubt has reached your desk. The consequences of their offense are so serious they have not yet been fully evaluated. Not only have these escapees forced us into premature contact with a Type 17D civilization for which neither we nor they were prepared, but our best estimate is that the escapees have destroyed a notable cultural institution of that civilization. I believe that their ages should not be used to mitigate their punishment. They are juveniles, but they nevertheless are old enough to know right from wrong, and their only motive seems to be that they were enjoying themselves. I favor a maximum penalty.

  Baseball, as students of the game never tired of pointing out, was essentially a game of records and statistics. The records were there for all to see—incredible records, with Jones and Smith tied with 272 home runs and batting above .500, with Anderson and White each hurling two dozen no-hit games, and with the strikeouts, and the extra-base hits, and the double plays, and the games won, and the total bases, and the runs batted in, and the multitudinous individual and team records that the Pirates had marked up during the season. The record book was permanently maimed.

  Who had done this? Four kids, four rather naughty kids, who—according to the strange man from outer space—were not especially bright. And these four kids had entered into a game requiring the ultimate in skill and intelligence and training and practice, entered into it without ever playing it before, and made the best adult ballplayers the planet Earth could produce look like a bunch of inept Little Leaguers.

  The records could be thrown out, but they could not be forgotten. And it could not be forgotten that the four kids had made those records when they weren’t half trying—because they didn’t want to make Earth’s ballplayers look too bad. No one cared to consider what would have happened had the people from outer space sent a team made up of intelligent adults.

  The Yankees took the World Series in seven straight games, and few people cared. The stands were empty, and so sparse was the TV audience that the Series ended as a financial catastrophe. A committee met to decide what to do about the aliens’ records and reached no decision. Again, no one cared.

  The baseball establishment, fussing futilely with long-range plans to correct the damage, suddenly realized that the awards for the Most Valuable Players and Managers of the Year and the various individual championships had not been made. The oversight was not protested. People had other things on their minds.

  And when a dozen TV comedy teams simultaneously resurrected an ancient, half-legendary, half-forgotten comedy sketch, they got no laughs whatsoever. The sketch was called, “Who’s on First?”

  page 112

  ROUND TRIP TO ESIDARAP

  Jeff Allen pressed his nose against the door and steamed the glass with an angry snort. “A bomb would do it,” he said. “Something big enough to make a nice bang and clean out the office but not big enough to knock over the building. Ann, where can we get a bomb?”

  His wife looked up from her typewriter and smiled. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re getting all riled up over nothing.”

  Allen turned gloomily. “You know very well that Centralia is too small to support two travel agencies.”

  “Business hasn’t fallen off since he opened up. In fact, it’s improved.”

  “That’s a temporary fluke. It’s bound to fall off. If he does any business at all, it has to cut into our business. Where else would it come from? So where can I get a bomb?”

  She laughed, and he leaned over to kiss her before he went despondently back to his desk. Things probably had been going too smoothly, he told himself. He was just fifteen hundred dollars short of a down payment on that rambling, California redwood, ten-room ranch house with a rustic lake view, and he and Ann had been working and planning ever since their marriage three years before—working hard—to build the business to a point where she could retire from her role as clerk and pers
onal secretary and concentrate on being a housewife with perhaps a robust crop of little Allens.

  And now everything they’d worked for was threatened by a villainous-looking man with a brownish-red beard and a spectacularly bald head, who had appeared suddenly in Centralia and opened a new travel agency directly across the street from Allen’s Globe Travel Agency. And he’d had the infernal nerve to name his business the Gloob Travel Agency.

  “What did the Chamber of Commerce say?” Ann asked.

  “They’re puzzled. Gloob seems to be an obvious infringement on Globe. On the other hand, he says his name is Gloob, so how can we keep him from using his own name? They’re going to investigate. On my way back I stopped by for a brief conversation with Mr. Gloob. Charming gentleman. He seemed deliriously happy to meet me. He feels confident that we’ll get along fine, and he even promises to send me any business he can’t handle himself—which I take as evidence of a fiendish sense of humor.” He shook his head. “I suppose we’ll have to let Doris go. We might as well tell her now. She’s entitled to a month’s notice.”

  “But the business hasn’t fallen off!” Ann protested. “Let’s wait and see what happens. There’ll be plenty of time—”

  She broke off as a tiny, gray-haired old lady pushed open the door and stepped briskly to the counter. “I wish immediate accommodations for Sirap,” the caller said.

  Ann winced. “For—what was the place?”

  “Sirap.”

  “What country is that in?”

  The old lady cocked her head to one side and cast puzzled glances about the office. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she said suddenly. “I must have the wrong—”