Arkwright Page 5

  Nat opened his mouth and then closed it. Out in the field, the Cometeers first baseman had just tagged out the Panthers player who’d slugged a ground ball to the pitcher, but he barely paid attention. Maggie had a point. There was nothing in the story he planned to write that was much different from anything he’d read in Astounding, Amazing, Startling, or any of the other pulps.

  “Let me ask you something.” George slid a little closer to him. “The spaceships in your story … do they travel faster than the speed of light?”

  “Umm … yeah, sure.”

  “Uh-huh.” George nodded. “And what’s the speed of light? I’ll settle for an approximate figure.”

  “Uh—” Nat had to think about this for a moment. “It’s about 186,000 miles per second, isn’t it?”

  “Close enough. However, Einstein clearly stated in his general theory of relativity that the speed of light is a maximum value, and nothing—nothing—may exceed it. Not even the spaceships in all those stories we read.”

  George pointed to the baseball diamond. “Let’s say that this field is the solar system. Earth is home plate, and the Moon is the pitcher’s mound. Okay?” Nat nodded, and George went on, “Well, on that scale, Mars is way out there past center field, the asteroid belt is the fence, and Jupiter is the Perisphere.”

  “It’s not that far away!” Harry had tuned in on the conversation.

  “Yes, it is, and Pluto is somewhere in the Bronx.” George was still speaking to Nat. “So, with that scale in mind, where do you think the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is located?”

  Nat looked around, saw the distant Manhattan skyline to the west of the ball field. “The Empire State Building?”

  “That’s a pretty good guess. I would’ve said New Jersey, but we’ll go with that. Now, providing that the speed of light is absolute and nothing can travel faster, no ship we’ll ever build could reach the nearest star in less than four and half years. So you can pretty much forget Smith’s or Hamilton’s ships reaching the center of the galaxy in only a few days.”

  “Yeah, but so what?” Harry was determined to become part of the conversation. “It’s just a science fiction story.”

  George sighed, shook his head. “Let me try it this way … when you go up to bat, you’ve got a good chance of hitting the ball over the pitcher’s mound. You might even score a home run by knocking it all the way over the fence. But it’s physically impossible for you to hit the Empire State Building. Not even Superman could do that.”

  “Superman could hit the Empire State Building,” said a Queens fan sitting nearby.

  “Shut up, Julius,” Harry said, scowling at him.

  “The point is, just about everyone who writes about space travel gets it wrong!” George intently stared at Nat over the top of his glasses. “You know, when I let one of the profs at MIT know that I read science fiction, he asked me why I was wasting my time with that trash … that’s what he called it, not me. I asked him if he’d ever read any, and he told me that he had, but he’s given up on it because, most of the time, the people who write it either pay no attention to science or simply get it wrong. He said, ‘If those writers produced science fiction that got the science right and still told a great story, people might pay more attention to that stuff.’”

  “So you’re saying…?”

  “If you want to distinguish yourself from all the other fellows who are writing science fiction, do it better than they do. Get the science right.” He pointed to the field. “Rockets are like softballs. You’ll never going to get out of the ball park if you keep playing with those. If your Galaxy Patrol is going to other stars, they’re going to need something on a whole different order of magnitude.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Ever heard of Paul Dirac’s theories about antimatter? Or the Einstein-Rosen Bridge?” Nat shook his head, and George smiled. “I’ll tell you later. And remember, next semester, I’ll be just across the Charles River from you.”

  “That’s great!” Harry was grinning broadly. “Can I ask you for help too? I’m—”

  “Skinner!” The fan who was managing the Philly team was yelling to him from the batter’s box. “Your turn! Get down here!”

  “Coming!” Harry stood up and started to climb down from the bleachers, and then he stopped and turned to Maggie. “Hey, sweetheart, if I can hit this ball all the way to Mars, can I take you to the fireworks tonight?”

  Maggie laughed. “Sure! You’re on! Knock it to Mars, and I’m your date.”

  “But you’ll never break the speed of light,” Nat said.

  “I won’t need to.” Harry winked at Maggie. “If I score a run this inning, I’ll be a bigger hero than Kimball Kinnison.”

  “He’ll never do it,” Nat said quietly as Harry walked away.

  He was wrong. Harry’s next ball went over the fence, and although the Cometeers beat the Panthers 23–11, Maggie went with him to the fair that evening.

  But the conversation with George changed his life.

  7

  Maggie had warned Kate that her grandfather’s memoirs were incomplete, but she didn’t realize just how much was left untold until the narrative came to an abrupt halt shortly after the first World Science Fiction Convention. Nathan wrote about making his first sale to Astounding just a few months after he entered Boston College and how a subsequent series of short stories had helped pay his way through school and also made him one of the magazine’s regular contributors during science fiction’s Golden Age. But he’d just finished telling how a failed induction physical had kept him out of the wartime draft when the manuscript came to an abrupt end.

  Perhaps her grandfather’s failing health had stopped him, or maybe he’d heeded his agent’s advice and decided not to write his life story. In any case, Kate came away from My Life in the Future only knowing how he’d met Maggie, Harry, and George and that they’d become this Legion of Tomorrow that they appeared to take so seriously even after sixty years. If she wanted to learn more, obviously she’d have to get it from them.

  When she tried calling Margaret Krough, though, her assistant informed her that she was out of town; she’d flown to Germany earlier in the week for the annual Frankfurt Book Fair and would be there for a couple of more days. Kate was frustrated until she remembered that Harry had told her that he was available too. Directory information had his number in Philadelphia, and a phone call resulted in an invitation to visit him. A few days later she boarded the morning Amtrak train from Boston, and by midafternoon a taxi had dropped her off at the address he’d given her.

  Harry Skinner lived in a large brick apartment building on Pine Street in the Washington Square neighborhood, a former row house that had been converted for use by senior citizens. A wheelchair ramp had been installed beside the steps leading to the front entrance, and a typewritten sheet of paper taped to a wall in the foyer gave the days and times when van service would be available to residents who wanted to go shopping. Kate pushed the button above Harry’s mailbox; his voice came through the intercom a minute later and invited her to come up, advising her to take the elevator.

  It wasn’t Harry who answered the door, though, but a young man about Kate’s age. One look at him and she had a clear impression of how Harry must have looked many years ago; the family resemblance was unmistakable, even though he’d substituted a goatee for a mustache. He welcomed her with a warm smile and a handshake and introduced himself as Jim Skinner, Harry’s grandson.

  Harry’s apartment was small but not uncomfortable; the living room furniture was old yet well made, the rugs a little worn out, the bookcases as stuffed as one would expect of a lifelong reader. Like his late friend Nathan, Harry was evidently a widower. Kate noted several framed photos atop the fireplace mantel, pictures of Harry with a woman who could only have been his wife, the most recent of them only a few years old. It wasn’t hard to guess that he’d moved here after she passed away.

  “Gramps is in the bathroom,” Jim said as he show
ed Kate in. “I just dropped in for a visit. I’ll be off soon.” A meaningful glance at an antique wall clock. “Almost time for me to go to work.”

  “This late in the day?”

  “I’m an ER physician at Pennsylvania Hospital, just a few blocks away.” A shrug and a grin. “Evening shift this week … lucky me.”

  She was about to reply when the bedroom door opened and Harry emerged. He wasn’t in his wheelchair today but instead stood upright, leaning upon a wheeled stroller. “My grandson, the doctor,” he said as he pushed the stroller into the living room. “When my ticker gives out and they rush me in, his nurse gets to be the one to say…”

  “‘It’s dead, Jim.’” His grandson rolled his eyes at what was apparently an old joke. “Not for a while, Gramps.”

  “Yeah, but I hope I’m around to hear it. God, I love that line.”

  “Yeah, you should have written for Star Trek.” Jim helped his grandfather to an armchair near the window and then picked up his overcoat from the nearby couch. “Can I get you anything before I leave, Miss…?”

  “Kate … just Kate. No, but thanks, anyway.” She couldn’t help but give him her best smile. “Very nice to meet you, Jim.”

  “Pleased to meet you too.” He paused to bend over Harry and give him a quick kiss on the top of the head. “Tomorrow, same time?”

  “Sure. Bring some women next time.” Harry cast a mock-surprised look in Kate’s direction. “Oh! Never mind—I’ve got one already!”

  “Watch out for him,” Jim said to Kate. “He’s a dirty old man.” Then he headed for the door. “Bye.”

  Harry waited until the door closed behind him before he turned to Kate. “I’ll have you know that he’s single, straight, and very much available.”

  Kate had already noticed the absence of a wedding ring. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “Just saying.” Harry pushed away his stroller, stretched out his legs. He wore a baggy cardigan and old jeans and looked a bit frailer than he had at the funeral. Kate wondered if it had been Jim’s idea to move his grandfather into senior citizen housing near the hospital. “So … still persuing the life and times of Nathan Arkwright, are we?”

  “I read his book—what there is of it, anyway. He didn’t get very far, but he did talk about how he met … um, the Legion of Tomorrow.”

  Harry grinned. “Like the name? I know it’s kinda childish, but that’s what we’ve called ourselves ever since.”

  “I’m a little surprised, I guess, that you’ve continued to get along after all these years. I can understand why you and Grandpapa still know Maggie—she became your agent, after all—but he makes it sound like you and he were rivals from the start.”

  “Well, yeah, we were, sort of. I made my first sale to Startling Stories just a few months before he broke into Astounding, so we came in at the same time. But Nat was never drafted, so he was able to keep writing while most of us—Bob Heinlein, Ted Sturgeon, Isaac Asimov, Sprague de Camp—either got shipped off or were otherwise involved in the war effort. Your grandfather did his bit by working as an engineer at the navy shipyard here in town—he and Bob shared an office, in fact—but otherwise, he remained a civilian.”

  “So he came to Philly?”

  Harry nodded. “After he got his degree, he moved here for a while. That was when—”

  He suddenly stopped. Looking out the window, he was quiet for a few moments. “Damn,” he said quietly. “You’d have to bring that up, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t—”

  “Did he mention that Maggie and I were an item for a little while?” Kate shook her head, and Harry shrugged. “Guess that’s something he didn’t feel was worth mentioning. Or maybe it was a little too close to something he didn’t like to talk about.” He sighed and went on. “Yeah, anyway, Mags and I started seeing each other just before the war. Nat was in Boston by then, but a degree from Central High was the furthest my formal education went. My folks couldn’t afford to send me to college, so I went to work in my dad’s machine shop instead. But every now and then, I’d take the train to New York on the weekends to see Maggie, and it wasn’t long before we became pretty serious about each other. But then Pearl Harbor happened, and since my family’s always had some navy blood, I didn’t wait for Uncle Sam to draw my number. I kissed my best girl good-bye, went to the nearest recruitment office, and got in the fight.”

  He gestured toward the shelf where Kate had noticed pictures of him and his wife. “See that one on the end?” he asked, pointing to a small black-and-white snapshot of a group of bare-chested young men standing beneath the wing of a B-29 Superfortress. “That’s my Seabee group in the South Pacific. I spent the summer of ’45 on a small island in the Marianas.” He paused meaningfully. “Does the name Tinian ring any bells for you?”

  “No, it—” Then she remembered history, and her eyes widened. “Oh, my God. You mean you were there for…?”

  “Yes, I was. And so was George.”

  8

  The Army Transport Command C-53s from Albuquerque began arriving in late afternoon. One at a time, only a couple of minutes apart from each other, the Dakotas touched down on the broad, two-mile-long landing strip navy construction crews had spent the last few months bulldozing and paving down the length of the small island. The transports followed three B-29s that had flown in earlier that day from Kirtland Air Force Base in Texas; just offshore, the USS Indianapolis lay at anchor, having arrived from San Francisco shortly after dawn.

  It was July 26, 1945, and Harry Skinner had a gut feeling that something big was about to happen.

  PO First Class Skinner leaned against a jeep, idly smoking a Lucky as he watched the most recent plane taxi toward a nearby row of hangars. The largest hangar was specially air-conditioned, and although no one except flight crews and aircraft engineers were now being allowed in there, everyone knew what they were doing. A B-29 from the 509th Composite Group, Enola Gay, was parked inside, and it was rumored that its bomb bay had been specially converted to carry a larger-than-usual payload.

  Harry had an idea what it was, but he carefully kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t just the fact that he didn’t want to draw the ire of navy intelligence officers. Over the past few years, he’d discovered that it wasn’t wise to show how smart he was. Most of the guys he worked with were much like himself, working-class kids from the East Coast; they were often poorly educated, and some of them had just enough brains to operate a bulldozer or a crane. Harry didn’t want to have to try explaining his suspicions to them; they probably wouldn’t have understood or believed him, anyway.

  The last C-53 came to a halt in front of Enola Gay’s hangar, its twin props winding down. Unlike the others, this one apparently carried passengers; Harry could see them through the side windows. He watched as a ground crewmen pushed a ladder to its hatch, and he immediately stood up and buttoned his shirt when he recognized the first passenger to emerge from the plane. General Curtis LeMay had visited Tinian many times over the past several months and was notorious for chewing out enlisted men for sloppy appearance even though they were working in the island’s broiling heat. Harry dropped his cigarette and was about to make himself look busy when he caught sight of one of the men who followed LeMay down the ladder.

  “Oh, man,” he muttered. “That can’t be.”

  Yes, it was. George Hallahan.

  George wasn’t in uniform but instead wore civilian clothes, a fedora pulled low over his head. He was standing beside the plane, waiting for the rest of the passengers to disembark, when Harry walked across the field toward him. George turned around just as Harry was about to tap him on the shoulder, and at first it seemed as if he didn’t recognize him. Then his mouth fell open, and a smile stretched across his face.

  “Harry Skinner … well, I’ll be damned.”

  “George, you old…” Harry was about to grab his friend in a bear hug, but then he caught a sidelong glance from General LeMay and stopped himself. “What are
you doing here?”

  The smile faded slightly; too late, Harry realized that he’d said the wrong thing. “Can’t really talk about it,” George murmured as he offered a handshake. “I’m … well, a consultant. Call it an inspection.”

  Harry nodded. That was probably as accurate a description as George could give without revealing too much. “It’s been ages,” he said as they shook hands. “Last time I heard from you, you were still at MIT.”

  “Yes, well…” The smile returned, albeit a bit more tentatively. “I received my doctorate just in time to be recruited for an advanced research program.”

  “Uh-huh. I see.” Harry looked past him. LeMay was no longer paying attention to them. “The same sort of operation I’ve been working on here, I take it.”

  George didn’t reply at once but instead glanced over his shoulder at the other passengers coming off the plane. For the moment, no one was looking their way. “Let’s take a little walk,” he said quietly. “You can show me the field.”

  They strolled away from the C-53, heads lowered as if they were examining the runway apron. Nearby was a long, shallow pit that the Seabees had excavated in the concrete hardstand; its purpose was to allow a ground crew to load an unusually large payload into a B-29’s underbelly. Harry guided George toward it.

  “No one’s come right out and told us what’s going on,” Harry said, keeping his voice low as he pointed out the pit, “but I think I know.”

  George hesitated. “I’m under security restrictions not to discuss what we’re doing,” he said at last, “so I can’t say anything, but—” He stopped to think about it a little. “Let me ask you something. Have you been keeping up with Astounding lately?”

  The question, seemingly off topic, caught Harry by surprise. “Uh … yeah, sort of. My dad sends it to me. Mail always takes a while to get here, so I’m a few issues behind, but—”