Rob Chilson

This story appeared in September, 1990: Analog

The spaceship came down over Port Michigan. Bobby Wilson sat up on Melancholy Heights, where he had been lying in the clover. He caught his breath, he looked again where he had lain dreaming over the town's steeples and hot sloping roofs nestling amid the green cotton-candy of the trees.
Yes! A ship coming down, throwing back the rays of Columbia's warm sun, and growing, growing! It was as big as a baseball, but a fat sausage in shape. Bobby yelled.
"Starship!" He leaped to his feet. "*Sta-a-arship ho-o-o*!"
Bobby leaped and cavorted on his high green hill, pointing, shouting. His voice went echoless away from the Heights.
The sheep looked up briefly, glanced quizzically at each other, and shook and slatted their ears about their heads. It's only the boy, shouting again. Never mind *him*.
Spike and Tyke, the dark sable Cross Collies, arose and looked south, tongues hanging, bobbing and dripping, looked down on the town, on the Michigan Sea sparkling beyond. Puzzled, they looked back at him. Finally they saw the ship. They watched it, ears up, interested but not excited.
Hearing Bobby's yells, a few birds flew up. Rabbits, too, raised their semaphore ears, swivelled them about; then lowered them, their alarm short-lived.
The ship grew to a cloud, a solid silent drifting cloud of scarlet and gold, blown on a wind where no wind blew, sideways and down, sideways and down.
"It can't be *Annis*," Bobby told the dogs, excitedly. They glanced at him, pulled their tongues in, gulping.
"*Annis* isn't due for four months, not till after school starts," Bobby said. *Annis* was the annual ship of the Far East Colony Circuit. "And it can't be *Golightly*; they don't expect it for six months."
He stood staring in awe as the massive construction came down lightly as dandelion-fluff.
"So it has to be a tramp. A star-hopper!" Bobby leaped again into the air, yelling his loudest. For what greater felicity could a boy wish, in his twelfth summer, than a tramp starship?
Like the wind, tramps went where they willed. They were novelty, glamour, adventure. They were the *stars*.
What a time for the boys and girls in Port Michigan! Now, down there, they were running south toward Starport Bay, like children following some pie-eyed piper, their dogs running and barking with tongues hanging out. And the grown-ups also were pulled by the gravity of the Bay toward the south, walking of course, but walking fast. All Port Michigan was flowing south, to stand staring and pointing and calling out on the wharfs.
A starship, a tramp! Bobby thought of John Hennessey, who stowed away on *Bedelia* twenty-one years ago, and of Ryan Atteborough, who stowed away on *City of New Beijing* twenty-eight years before that. And others he named, who had gone, to school, to distant jobs, and had never come back.
And down the great ship came. Its mighty shadow passed across Port Michigan and all the steeples and roofs and treetops went dark. The great scarlet and gold cloud came down upon its shadow, smoothing all the waves. Bobby let out a long-pent breath as the great ship rocked, belly-deep in the waters of Starport Bay.
"Down! She's down!"
Not only Port Michigan moved toward Starport Bay, Bobby knew. From the east and the west and the north, the special trains were flying. Ships were leaving harbor in a dozen towns along the coast, making their way to the planet's starport.
Bobby glanced at the sun and groaned. It would be hours until it was time to bring the sheep in. Hours in which all the other boys and girls in Port Michigan would line the wharves, beg rides on the lighters, even speak to shipmen! And here he stood on Melancholy Heights, watching the dogs, who needed no one to watch them, watch the stupid sheep, who scarcely needed the dogs.
"It isn't fair," he told the dogs, plopping down suddenly. "The only week in the whole summer I haf to herd sheep."
His voice trembled; tears threatened. No wreck of a grown man's hopes can be more poignant than a boy's loss of *a ship*.

***
At last the sun set, and the Cross Collies brought the still-grazing sheep down the slopes. Bobby Wilson hurried the sheep into the fold and ran around to the office.
"Mr. O'Kelly! Mr. O'Kelly!"
The old man wasn't there. Bobby pounded on the door, but the old man still wasn't there. Finally, with a sob of impatience, he went in, Spike and Tyke dancing around him. Bobby got down an earthen crock. Warm dry meaty odors arose as he lifted the lid.
"Where's your bowls? Oh, here they are."
Hastily he scooped out mounds of red-brown, dry pebbles, dumped them into the heavy earthen bowls. The Cross Collies sat on the floor, craning their necks to see, glancing at each other in embarrassment.
"Outside! Outside!"
He caught up a bowl in each hand and staggered to the door, the weight of the bowls pulling at his wrists. Outside, he set the bowls down. Politely Spike and Tyke waited for him to invite them to eat.
They watched till he had turned the corner and was out of sight, then looked after him, prick-eared, till his footsteps faded. Apologetically each looked at the other, approached the bowls as if idly, looked around. Then, embarrassed, each ate without invitation.
Not even the first ship to land this year could keep the grown-ups of Columbia from their supers: roasts, fried chicken, sweet corn, biscuits, cakes and pies and ice cream. Bobby Wilson ran through the odors of these things.
The boardwalk gave back muted thunder beneath Bobby's feet, rumble rumble *slam*, rumble *slam slam*, rumble rumble rumble *slam*! He jumped with both feet on every loose board, and knew them all. Elm Street, Maple Street, Oak Street, and Cherry. Down Cherry Street Bobby pelted, panting.
"Ho, lad!"
Panting, Bobby peered at a tall, slim, elegant figure. His school teacher; Mr. Ladysmith.
"Ah, Bobby Wilson." The teacher looked young till you saw the lines at eye and mouth. "I trust you have not been improving the shining hours this day, nor indeed this summer. But of course it is too much to expect you to keep up with your summer studies with *Rosa* in port. I will uphold awhile the unyoked humor of your idleness, lad, but I shall expect your echo to answer cheerfully when it comes time to write you down as one who mourned not his unwasted youth."
Grown-ups were hard enough to understand; Mr. Ladysmith was impossible. "Yes, sir," Bobby said at random.
"I fear I waste your time, Bobby. For a boy's will is the wind's will, and the thoughts of youth -- but I forebear." The elegant teacher saluted him with a tip of his straw boater.
Bobby looked after him wonderingly. But home was near.
Bobby ran. In at the Wilson gate, his feet slapping the flagstone walk, up to the porch, bump-bump across it to the front door. He threw the screen back, fell through the front door with a crash, the screen slammed, the front door swung, left open. He ran through the living room, slap-slap-slap, through the food-odored kitchen, back through the dining room, through the parlor.
The house was empty.
He ran panting back to the kitchen, where he found honey-glazed ham in the oven of the porcelain stove. Potatoes bubbled in one pot, peas in another, and yams steamed in one steamer and string beans in the other.
Bobby ran to the back door. "Teddy! Teddy!" Even his dog had gone to see the ship. *Rosa*, Mr. Ladysmith had called it.
Bobby ran across the Wilson yard, around the lilac into the Hardesty yard, avoiding the dim-seen rosebush in the gloam, and checked. He could see no one in the kitchen of the Hardesty house. He ran around it, and saw Uncle Mordecai lighting the gaslights at the yard gate.
"Uncle Mord, Uncle Mord!"
The old man turned slowly. "Bobby. Thought it was about time you were gettin' in." Carefully he scratched a match, twisted the stopcock, held the match to the slow rush of gas. Soft yellow light lit his lined face, his white hair and mustache and neat beard. A moth hurried up. He brushed it away and replaced the globe.
"Where is everybody, Uncle Mord? My family and your family --"
"They're all down at the wharfs, greeting the shipmen."
"It's suppertime!"
"They'll be back any minute now. We've got the doctor coming to supper, and your family is entertaining one of the lieutenants, I think. My granddaughter Annie will be eating with you. Listen."
Bobby strained his ears, and heard over the crickets the muted happy babble of conversation. A large family party approached.
"Oh boyoman!" Bobby ran back past the Hardesty house, past the rosebush, and around the lilac. Teddy came running into the back yard, panting, and leaped up at him, the harbinger of the family.

***
Lieutenant Ricardo Montoya was slim, had ageless good looks and wore an elegant light-lemon uniform. He had amber skin, brown eyes, and raven black hair. And he was a *shipman*.
Lt. Montoya was visibly embarrassed at being the center of attention. Father and mother, daughter and son, grandmother and cousin, all gave him their attention. He ate little.
"We should have no trouble making up a cargo for you," said Mr. Wilson with relish, as if he were on the Board of Trustees of the planet. "We've got ten thousand tons of radiation-preserved apples. And a hundred tons of preserved fruit pies."
"Tell me, Lieutenant Montoya," said Bobby's older sister Sharon, leaning toward the shipman like a flower toward the sun. "What do you think of Columbia?"
"Oh, call me Ricardo, please, or Rick, Senorita -- er -- Miss Wilson." The lieutenant blinked in alarm. Bobby's cousin Annie also leaned breathlessly forward, though she was older than Sharon.
"Oh, thank you, Ricardo! Please call me Sharon. Do you call women Senorita on your ship?"
He smiled apologetically. "I fear Espanyol is no longer spoken on Nuevo America. But yes, we still say Senorita for Miss, and Senora for Mistress, and Senor for Mister, and we add Don to most titles. Don Capitan, for instance, no?"
"Don?" Bobby's mother asked. Mr. Wilson's name was Don.
"An old espanish word meaning Lord." Ricardo managed to swallow a bite of ham.
Bobby laughed, looking at his father.
His father frowned back at him. Bobby sobered instantly and made sure he was not gobbling his food, or resting his elbows on the table, or committing any of the other sins that so provoke grown-ups.
"You never said what you think of Columbia," Mr. Wilson said.
"It looks more like old Earth than any planet I have seen," Lt. Montoya said. "The trees, the birds, the flowers, the grass."
Mr. Wilson expanded. "The Founders discovered Columbia early in its biological evolution. There are only a few reedy native plants, and some sea creatures. So we imported Earthly life."
"Tell me . . . Ricardo," said Sharon breathlessly. "What is it like on New Waybo America?"
But the lieutenant's reply was diverted by Mrs. Wilson's offering more ham.
Bobby gulped his own ham, his imagination at work on the lieutenant's home planet.
A strange place. Different from Columbia. The sun, maybe, rose in the west, or in the north or south! Snow fell in summer and it tasted like mint! In autumn, the leaves flapped and flew away south in flocks, clouds; red, yellow, tiger-striped, never to return! Flowers glowed at night, and fireflies came looking for them. Bees made fruit custard instead of honey, and all you had to do was freeze it to get ice cream!
If he, Bobby, lived there, he would never leave. He looked at Lt. Montoya in amazement. How could he bear to leave such a place, especially for dull old Port Michigan?
"Bobbeee! Bobbeee! Coooeee!" The calling voice broke on the last note, shattering it into ten thousand pieces.
Bobby started. "It's Philly!"
He started to jump up, but his father said, "Drink your milk, Bobby! And excuse yourself from the table."
"Sorry, Dad! Momma, Philly'scallingme, canIgo?"
"*May* I."
"*May*Igo?"
"Very well, you may go."
Lt. Montoya smiled at him, perhaps wishing he might go also, to play in the warm summer dark under the old trees of ancient Earth.

***
It is not wise for pirates and financiers and such like desperadoes to meet in the glare of the street light; rather, they should seek the darker corners of the yard. Thus it was that Bobby found Philly in their usual place, an arbor of shade trees and shrubs.
"Oboyoman! You missed the ship!" Philly cried. "It's named *Rose* and it's from New Wavo Something! Jan 'n' me went 'n' watched it."
"I saw it come down," Bobby said. He was subdued. "It was great. It's named *Rosa* and it's from New Wavo America. We ennertained Lootenant Ree -- Reecartho Mon-toy. My stoopid sister Sharon's crazy about him, and so is Annie."
"Wow, your family was lucky. A shipman! My Dad tried to invite one, but he was too late." He changed his tone abruptly. "You're still herdin', ain'tcha?"
"Yeah, 'nless I can get out of it."
Philly frowned, hardly seen in the shadow. "I dunno. *Nobody's* gonna want to herd stoopid sheep when there's a ship in."
"I been thinkin'," said Bobby. "There's that feeb Chris Brinker."
"She's too dumb to play with anyone," said Philly. "But," he added doubtfully, "will she want to miss the ship?"
"It's not my turn for two weeks!" Chris Brinker cried sturdily. "I wouldn't trade with *you*, Bobby Wilson, if you was to beg me with bended knees! Not if you was to beg me a hundred times with bended knees with sugar on it! It's your turn, you little feeb! So there!"
"You dumb feeb! You couldn't have fun with a ship in port anyway," Bobby cried desperately.
"Teacher's pet! Teacher's pet!" Philly joined in loyally. But it was no good.
They tried lanky Joe Finkle, who hooted hysterically at them, and short dumpy Rachel Dyakov, whose negative was physical assault, and Mike Atteborough, a brown older boy who smiled scornfully, and BeBe Feder, who sicced her poodle on them (he played with Teddy), and Diana White, whose mother said she had gone to bed.
And now all about them in the night the mothers were calling their children home, and calling their children home, their voices variously patient, wistful, or exasperated, yet always melodious with love. The echoes tolled across the town, tolling the children home. Reluctantly they drifted away from their groups gossiping in darkness, each telling the other what he or she had done that day and would do the next: John Hennessey and Ryan Atteborough were dismissed as pikers.
Bobby Wilson and Philly Wu drifted homeward, toward their own tolls. At his door, Philly was charged severely by his mother with lateness. Knowing he would receive no warmer welcome, Bobby did not hurry.
"Bobbywherehaveyou *been*! It's bedtime. Off with you!"
"Momma," he said. "Momma!"
"Yes, Bobby?"
"Momma," he said desperately. "Can I skip the herding tomorrow? Can I, Momma? Please? Mr. O'Kelly could go! Please, Momma?"
"What? No, Bobby. Mr. O'Kelly can't go, he has to oversee the sale of the town's wool to the shipmen. Maybe you can get a substitute tomorrow night, and stay home the day after."
But the day after tomorrow is ten years from now, a hundred, a thousand! when you're twelve. Bobby broke into tears and ran through the house, slapslapslap, burst through the screen door slam *bang*!
"Teddy! Teddy! Where are you?" Teddy was the pillow he always wept on. But the little black and white dog thought he wanted to play, and Bobby had to pursue him into his cousins Hardesty's yard and tackle him before Teddy understood.
He lay then, panting and whining companionably while Bobby wept on his long fur. His tail thumped the ground with misplaced cheerfulness. The night was rich with the scent of dew, of flowers; rich with the scent of old summer.
Uncle Mordecai found him there. "Trouble, Bobby?"
Sniffing, gulping, Bobby wiped his eyes on the little dog's fur. "I-I have to herd sheep tomorrow."
"Oh. Yes, this is your week."
Uncle Mord sat down slowly, picked up a stick, broke it. "The ship couldn't have picked a worse time to planet in," he said.
Sniff. "No." Sniff.
Uncle Mord sighed. "Bobby, I'll go up tomorrow; you have fun."
"Oh, Uncle Mord! Oh, would you? Oh, Uncle Mord!" Tumultuously he hugged the older man. Teddy leaped to his feet, barking in relief.
"Easy, easy, lad. Yes, of course I'll do it. I know how boys and girls are about ships. Yes, lad," he said musingly, removing the boy's arms from about his neck and taking him on his lap, "old though I be, I understand."
"Mr. Archer, the Last of the Founders, died nineteen years before I was born," said Bobby. "Covered with years and honors."
"Covered, as you say, with years and honors," said Uncle Mord gravely.
This phrase, to Bobby, conjured an image of an old man with white hair and beard tottering along the street -- "covered with years" -- greeted with bows and smiles, to which he responded with a flourish of his stick and a lift of his hat, like Mr. Ladysmith -- "covered with honors." Bobby had often wished to be that old man.
"Have you ever been covered with years and honors?" he asked.
Uncle Mordecai grunted in something like amusement. "With years only, I fear."
"Anyway, you'll take my place tomorrow? You don't mind?"
"Yes, I will. I shan't be bored. I'll take along my knives and the current project. A little something for you, perhaps."
Uncle Mord carved wood. He carved chains, and cages with birds in them, and door knockers with comical faces whose eyes rolled when their broad noses were struck. He carved windmills and ancient airplanes. And he carved toys. He was famous among children for blocks around, and they covered him with honor.
"Oh, yes, golly, thanks, Uncle Mord."
"Bobby? Bobby? Where are you, Bobby?"
"Coming, Mom! ThanksUncleMord Igottago."

***
The next morning Bobby Wilson's sister Sharon rose early. He heard her singing in her room and remembered: a ship was in! The *Rosa*, the *Rosa*, the *Rosa*, of New Something! He scrambled into the clothes he'd worn yesterday, and ran bammity bammity bam downstairs and across the yard and past the lilac and around the rose bush, and in the back door of the Hardesty house.
"Aunt Kate, Aunt Kate!" he cried. "Did Uncle Mord go up the Heights today?"
Nobody had called him. If he was to herd sheep, he was late; the sun was already beginning to pour level rays of heavy light across the roofs and treetops of Port Michigan.
"Hush, you'll wake your cousin Annie. Yes, Bobby, he left before sun-up."
"ThanksAuntKate! Bye!"
He shot back across the yards, through the kitchen, into the living room. His father sat there, reading the Port Michigan *Newsbreak*. He glanced up in irritation at Bobby, then looked with even more irritation toward the door of the parlor. Music came out of it.
Sharon was playing the stereo horn there and dancing dreamily. "That's a very good sign, that he's your tootsie-wootsie, in the good old SUM-mer time," she sang. She twirled about, her lace-white skirt swirling, and did not see Bobby, he not being on the ceiling.
"A hopeless case," Mr. Wilson said gravely. "Extremely contagious. One exposure and she's down with it. One shudders."
Bobby nodded. Sharon was in love again.
"I'll be with you in a-ap-ple blossom time," Sharon sang, waving her fingers. "I'll be with you, to cha-ange your name to mine."
"Go ahead and stare at her. She won't notice," said Mr. Wilson. "She won't hear anything you say either, the condition makes her deaf. We should charge admission. Rare specimen of a young girl in love."
"Breakfast is ready."
Bobby arrived at the table at a dead run. Mr. Wilson folded his paper and walked in with dignity. Grandma Bartram came in, went out, came back leading Sharon, still dancing.
"Mmm mm-mm mm ooomm m-mm," Sharon hummed, preferring sound to sense. Mrs. Wilson slid a plate of pancakes under her nose. She sniffed its aroma dreamily.
Mr. Wilson stared at her. "I suppose your cousin Annie is over at the Hardesty house, in a similar condition," he said.
Sharon poured maple syrup delicately over her pancakes. Bobby saw that she was trying to write "Ricardo" in syrup. But when she had done, she did not eat the cakes, only dipped up some of the syrup and sat dreamily tasting it, syrup sweet as anticipated kisses.
"Your Uncle Mord should have taken her up on Melancholy Heights," said Mr. Wilson. "Spike and Tyke could look after her."
"Oh, hush, Don," said Mrs. Wilson. "You were young yourself."
"Young, yes; a young woman, no; a foolish young woman, never."
Mrs. Wilson looked at Grandma Bartram. "I think I can remember a few foolishnesses," said Grandma. "Like the time you tried to stow away on *Annis*. You ran around with John Hennessey too much."
Bobby knocked his milk over, but he caught the glass and only spilled half of it. "Oops, sorry," he said, and jumped up for a cloth. When he had mopped up the milk and washed out the cloth, he sat down and they were all looking at him. Except Sharon. She was looking at the ceiling.
"I gotta go meet Philly," he said hurriedly. "May I go? Please?"
His parents exchanged glances and his father said judiciously, "I believe that we can permit that. Perhaps even encourage it."
Bobby ran out and grabbed his bike. Into the Wu yard, around to the back door. "Philly! Philly!"
Inside, he heard an altercation, and Philly came running out. Behind him his mother was wailing, "You didn't finish your breakfast!"
"Let's go!"
They mounted their getaway bikes and escaped the scene of the crime. "You're not herding!" Philly cried joyfully.
"Got Uncle Mord to go!"
All over town boys and girls were pedalling, converging on the docks. Here Bobby and Philly met the third of their usual trio, Jan Conway.
All night the special freights had come hissing in, and the ships too had wallowed into Starport Bay, and still they came, with the goods which Rosa would carry to the stars. Men packed bales and barrels and boxes tightly away in shipping containers, which were lifted by crane and lowered into lighters, then lifted again into the cavernous echoing holds of the great starship.
And the children were there. Bobby and Philly and Jan rode a lighter back and forth, falling into the water and being fished out, laughing. They got in the way of the sweating men packing containers on the wharfs and were chased away with oaths and laughter. Some sailors from Superior City invited them aboard ship for lunch and they ate ham sandwiches and pickles and smoked fish and hardtack. Everybody laughed, everybody worked and sweated, many sang as they worked.
Until Jan remembered that the *assistant purser of the ship* was invited to her house for dinner! She jumped up and ran dithering around the deck for three minutes, but there was no way ashore, and no time. So she sat down with them again and ate pie mournfully and stuck out her peach-coated tongue at everybody who laughed at her. . . .
Bobby Wilson, Philly Wu, and Jan Conway trailed their bikes tiredly home as the shadows lengthened.
They parted at Bobby's house. Bobby dropped his bike on the new-cut grass, to be greeted exuberantly by Teddy, who had been left whining on the wharf. Sharon wadded up a ball of grass and hurled it viciously at him. Barking in delight, Teddy raced around her wildly.
"I have always hated that feeb Esmeralda Wu!" Sharon declaimed intensely. If she had not always hated her before, she had always hated her now. "Do you know what she's *done*? She got that snake-in-the grass *father* of hers to go and invite *Ricardo Montoya* to supper!"
Sharon hurled more grass at the dancing dog, but he was too fast. She chose instead a slower-moving target, the tree by the gate.
"She lives in storm and strife," said Mr. Ladysmith, unseen till now, leaning over the gatepost. "With banneret and pennon," he continued, "trumpet and kettle drum, and the outrageous cannon."
Sharon stood balancing a grass ball in her hand, contemplating outrages and cannon. Mr. Ladysmith glanced at Bobby and said, "Ah, but the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. And the wind, it bloweth where it listeth." He took off his hat to Sharon.
To Bobby he said, "I fear that I bear bad tidings from Ghent to Aix. The City Council of Trustees will need your uncle, Mordecai Hardesty, to help decide which of its stored goods and chattels it should sell to *Rosa*. So you will be forced to take the sheep up again. You have my sympathy, lad. I shall see thee at Phillippi." And he went away, swinging his hat, covered with nothing.
Supper was not a pleasant meal at the Wilson house. Bobby ate mechanically, but food did not fill the hollow within him. And only the nudgings of her mother prevented Sharon from putting her head down on the table in adolescent despair.
Bobby wept in the gloaming on Teddy, was not consoled by Uncle Mord's apology. He had to be called three times, last by Sharon, who jerked the pillow viciously from beneath his head, declaring she was fed up with hearing her mother yell at him. He went heavily downstairs, and heavily ate without tasting, and went heavily off.
Mr. O'Kelly said, "Oh, there you are." Spike and Tyke accepted him with some reserve, moving the loud sheep out with wary glances over-shoulder at him: the boy who would have let them starve.
When, however, on his melancholy height, he broke down and sobbed with the abandon of a small boy, the dogs gathered round, perturbed. They whined and nuzzled him until he seized Spike, flung him down without any respect for his sheep dog's dignity, and wept on his sleek side. Spike looked in consternation at Tyke, who sat looking back with droll astonishment.
When he was not weeping Bobby lay on Melancholy Heights, chin upon crossed arms, and meditated on John Hennessey, who stowed away on *Bedelia* when his father was young, and on Ryan Atteborough, who stowed away on *City of New Beijing* when Uncle Mord was young. And never came back. And never came back.
Bobby had no use for Connie Maplethorpe, the girls' heroine, who married onto *Merimna* seventeen years ago. Everybody knew that a shipman woman who married a planet man would most likely settle on the planet, like old Mrs. Ping Ping Norton.
How could they give up *stars*? Bobby yearned for stars, stars wheeling by the ship's ports. And planets, not like dumb old Columbia, planets of wonders and delights beyond the imagination even of small boys.

***
And so the days of that glorious and mournful week passed, days Bobby languished on his green hill. Once Lt. Montoya came to dinner, and that noonday Sharon Wilson was in heaven; there was not even Annie to compete for him, for she hadn't told her cousin of his visit.
Came the evening of the day before The Day on which *Rosa* was to depart. The children stood on the end of the longest wharf, looking hungrily out at the great scarlet and gold bulk bobbing slightly.
"John Hennessey," Philly Wu asserted, "fixed up a container with a bed an' a box of food an' a light! He was loaded aboard just like any ole container, and stacked! Nobody ever knew he was there till *Bedelia* was gone two weeks."
"No he didn't," Jan Conway said. "No he didn't."
"Then what did he do, you know so much?" Bobby asked.
"He rowed out at *night* and climbed a *rope*," Jan said. "My goodness gracious, you make up the biggest stories, Philip Philadelphia Wu!"
"John Hennessey was sweet on a shipman girl, and she helped him sneak aboard," little Rachel Dyakov asseverated loudly. "Everybody knows that!"
"I don't know it!" Bobby said. "I don't know it!" And when Rachel seemed disposed to urge her view, he drowned her with further repetitions.
"Then what *do* you know?" the even-tempered Jan was driven to ask.
"Yeah, you're so smart, Mr. Big Wilson, what do you know?" Rachel Dyakov cried, making fists and visibly preparing for assault, her normal mode of communication.
"What do *I* know? What do *I* know? Whose *father* used to *run around* with John Hennessey, I'd beg to ask! That's all I'd beg to ask, just whose *father* --" Rachel attacked and he was forced to hold her off.
"Well, anyway, Ryan Atteborough stowed away in a container," Philly said, raising his voice over this polite converse. "I know mighty well *somebody* did, and if it wasn't John, it must've been Ryan."
Exhaustion ended the argument, and despair; even Rachel scarcely had the energy to pummel people bigger than herself.
"Gonna be quiet around here when that ole ship is gone," Jan murmured.
"Ole Starport Bay's gonna look mighty empty," Philly said.
"They're not lifting off till tomorrow night," Bobby said.
"Not till after dark," Rachel added, eyes gleaming.
The others nodded. "Yeah. Gonna salute 'em takin' off with good ole Founders' Day fireworks!"
"Yeah! I'm gonna be down here first thing, right on the edge of this ole wharf, front row seat, yes sir!"
An argument over who was going to be first, and first of the first, and on the edge of the wharf, and on a boat in *front* of the wharf, and on the *bow* of the boat, was interrupted by the melodious, lovely calls to suppers.
As they wended homeward, Bobby's spirits sank. They passed through the warehouse district back of the wharfs. These ageing buildings were made of a peculiar dull-gray brick with black speckles, the cheap native brick of Port Michigan. From a distance they had a characteristic dull color that was now, to Bobby, the very essence of all mundanity. Tomorrow The Ship would depart, taking with it all the magic of the world.
He would grow up dumb and satisfied, like the sheep, and marry someone who had never wanted to go far far away, and would live bored forever after on Columbia. Walking toward home, Bobby hated the warehouses, the bricks of which they were made, the clay from which the bricks sprang, and the scrawny, dusty, every-day weeds that grew in the spaces between them, with such an intensity he could not begin to express it.
At the top of the street they turned for a last look at The Ship. Only one more day, Bobby thought, and he must miss it!
On his front porch, Bobby found Sharon abandoned at full stretch on the floor before the door. He paused, alarmed until he heard her sniffle.
"Out of the way, feeb, you're blockin' the door," he said.
"Go away," she said dully, not moving.
"How *can* I go away when you're in the way? You're blockin' the dumb door!"
As if with great effort, Sharon muttered something that ended with, "other door."
Bobby was too tired to walk all the way around the house. He knew that he would just absolutely completely die if he had to walk so far. His legs felt like lead weights.
"You don't haf to lay here!" he cried. "You could lay on the grass. You could lay on the porch swing. You could lay on the roof! You don't haf to lay all the time in the way like you always are."
She raised her head from her arms and looked at him with wrathful, teary eyes. "Oh go away, Mr. Smart-aleck-Bobby-Wilson! Go play with the dog!" And she bumped her head back down again in despair.
"I *can't* go away," Bobby said, his voice cracking in irritation. "You're still in the way, feeb!"
With that he stepped on the small of her back and tried to open the screen door. Sharon made no effort to resent this liberty with her sorrow, except to roll slightly toward the door, further frustrating his attempt to open it. It banged against her jeans-clad hip and Bobby cried, "You're too *fat*!"
Even this insult did not animate her. She merely sniffed and turned her head to watch his efforts scornfully. Stepping down into the narrow space between her and the wall, Bobby opened the screen as far as it would go and tried unsuccessfully to wriggle behind it. Rolling further, Sharon applied so much pressure to it as to render him red-faced and popeyed with effort.
"Hold still, can't you, you ole thing, you!" he cried wrathfully.
Crouching, he tried to roll Sharon away from the door, but his hands slipped and he sprawled across her with a grunt, eliciting nothing but a scornful, satisfied "Huh!" from her.
"It was a shocking sight, after the field was won," said Mr. Ladysmith, at the gate. "For many bodies here lay rotting in the sun. But things like that must be, after such a famous victory." He approached, mounted to the porch. Bobby pushed himself off Sharon and knelt between her and the door. Sharon was too far gone in despair to care how she looked; she returned Mr. Ladysmith's gaze sullenly, craning her head back over her shoulder.
"I have come," said Mr. Ladysmith, seating himself on the porch swing, "to talk of not very many things. Not so much of shoes, or sealing wax, as ships. Or the ship."
Mr. Ladysmith swung a few centimeters back and forth, with immense dignity. "Bobby, my lad, you are one of my pupils, or would be if you were a student. A place has been set aside for the school children -- in my opinion, to keep them quiet -- where they may watch the farewell to the shipmen. I believe we shall be seated on Mr. Slatter's flat-bed truck. A few selected scholars will be called upon to recite short poems in farewell -- fear not, you have not been singled out for this dismal honor. The mayor of our fair city, and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Columbia, will not be restrained from making speeches, and I presume Don Capitan Cardenas will be forced to reply."
He looked at them with lifted eyebrow. "After which, the good shipmen will be conveyed back to their ship, and *Rosa* will depart through a cloud of left-over fireworks. Of which, again, from the truck bed you will have a good view. Is this not felicitous?"
Bobby debated. "I guess so," he said sullenly.
"I shall expect you then, on Main Street wharf at the appointed time. Ah, but tonight, all is depression, darkness, and desolation. Parting is such sweet sorrow. I know I can in no way console you, or abate a jot of your despair. Yet, I cannot forbear; the thoughts of youth are long enough, and to spare."
He stood slowly; the swing creaked once in relief and was silent. "As you get older (it is no consolation now) your hearts will come to such things colder. Then, you may weep, but will know why: this is the blight we are born for; it is ourselves we yearn for."
He descended to the walk, then turned for a murmured antinomy. "That is, if you should grow up. That is not a common fate."
Bobby and Sharon arose, disconsolate, and entered the house. "At least," Sharon said resentfully, "that nasty Esmeralda Wu didn't get him either." Flinging herself onto the couch, she said dreamily, "Everybody would have loved him so much."
"If you really think he would have done it!" Bobby exclaimed. "I wouldn't jump off a ship for some dumb ole girl!" Sharon didn't deign to answer, but he hadn't time for her anyway. He hurried over to Uncle Mordecai's, where Annie had already slumped off to bed.
"It's the last day," he said, despairing.
"I know it is, Bobby, but I really am tied up all day." Apologetically, the old man offered: "It's human nature. We want what we can't have, and can't want what we do have. I wish it could have been me, instead of Ryan Atteborough."
Bobby looked at his white-bearded relative in amazement. "Did *you* ever think about stowing away on a ship, Uncle Mord?"
"I think about it every time one planets in," said the older man gravely. "I have always yearned for stars."
"Mr. Ladysmith says we yearn for ourselves."
"What would Mr. Ladysmith know?" Uncle Mord said, irritated. "*He* never yearned. But neither Ryan nor John stowed away. They applied for jobs posted by the captains of *Bedelia* and *City of Beijing*. Maybe, someday, you'll have that chance."
Not likely, Bobby thought, knowing Mr. Ladysmith's opinion of his scholarship. He hadn't even been chosen to recite a dumb old poem. And even if so, the remote possibility could not compensate for his lost, last tomorrow. He mumbled as much.
"I know," Uncle Mord agreed soberly. "I felt the same way at your age. I still do."