The Happy Unfortunate Page 2

Don't go, Rolf. You're crazy to go."

  "Why am I crazy?" He tried to control his voice. "Why should we keepourselves apart from the Earthers? Why shouldn't the two races gettogether?"

  * * * * *

  She put down her tray and sat next to him. "They're more than tworaces," she said patiently. "Earther and Spacer are two differentspecies, Rolf. Carefully, genetically separated. They're small and weak,we're big and powerful. You've been bred for going to space; they're thecastoffs, the ones who were too weak to go. The line between the twogroups is too strong to break."

  "And they treat us like dirt--like animals," Kanaday said. "But_they're_ the dirt. They were the ones who couldn't make it."

  "Don't go to the party," Laney said. "They just want to make fun of you.Look at the big ape, they'll say."

  Rolf stood up. "You don't understand. Neither of you does. I'm partEarther," Rolf said. "My grandmother on my mother's side. She raised meas an Earther. She wanted me to be an Earther. But I kept getting biggerand uglier all the time. She took me to a plastic surgeon once, figuringhe could make me look like an Earther. He was a little man; I don't knowwhat he looked like to start with but some other surgeon had made himclean-cut and straight-nosed and thin-lipped like all the otherEarthers. I was bigger than he was--twice as big, and I was onlyfifteen. He looked at me and felt my bones and measured me. 'Healthylittle ape'--those were the words he used. He told my grandmother I'dget bigger and bigger, that no amount of surgery could make me small andhandsome, that I was fit only for space and didn't belong in Yawk. So Ileft for space the next morning."

  "I see," Laney said quietly.

  "I didn't say good-bye. I just left. There was no place for me in Yawk;I couldn't pass myself off as an Earther any more. But I'd like to goback and see what the old life was like, now that I know what it's liketo be on the other side for a while."

  "It'll hurt when you find out, Rolf."

  "I'll take that chance. But I want to go. Maybe my grandmother'll bethere. The surgeons made her young and pretty again every few years; shelooked like my sister when I left."

  Laney nodded her head. "There's no point arguing with him, Kanaday. Hehas to go back there and find out, so let him alone."

  Rolf smiled. "Thanks for understanding." He took out Quinton's card andturned it over and over in his hand.

  * * * * *

  Rolf went to Yawk on foot, dressed in his best clothes, with his face asclean as it had been in some years. Spacertown was just across the riverfrom Yawk, and the bridges spanning the river were bright and gleamingin the mid-afternoon sun.

  The bombs had landed on Yawk during the long-forgotten war, but somehowthey had spared the sprawling borough across the river. And so Yawk hadbeen completely rebuilt, once the radioactivity had been purged from theland, while what was now Spacertown consisted mostly of buildings thatdated back to the Twentieth Century.

  Yawk had been the world's greatest seaport; now it was the world'sgreatest spaceport. The sky was thick with incoming and outgoing liners.The passengers on the ship usually stayed at Yawk, which had become aneven greater metropolis than it had been before the Bomb. The crewcrossed the river to Spacertown, where they could find their own kind.

  Yawk and Spacertown were like two separate planets. There were threebridges spanning the river, but most of the time they went unused,except by spacemen going back home or by spacemen going to the spaceportfor embarkation. There was no regular transportation between the twocities; to get from Spacertown to Yawk, you could borrow a jetcar or youcould walk. Rolf walked.

  He enjoyed the trip. _I'm going back home_, he thought as he paced alongthe gleaming arc of the bridge, dressed in his Sunday best. Heremembered the days of his own childhood, his parentless childhood. Hisearliest memory was of a fight at the age of six or so. He had stood offwhat seemed like half the neighborhood, ending the battle by picking upan older bully, much feared by everyone, and heaving him over a fence.When he told his grandmother about the way he had won the fight shecried for an hour, and never told him why. But they had never picked onhim again, though he knew the other boys had jeered at him behind hisback as he grew bigger and bigger over the years. "Ape," they calledhim. "Ape."

  But never to his face.

  He approached the Yawk end of the bridge. A guard was waiting there--anEarther guard, small and frail, but with a sturdy-looking blaster at hiship.

  "Going back, Spacer?"

  Rolf started. How did the guard know? And then he realized that all theguard meant was, are you going back to your ship?

  "No. No, I'm going to a party. Kal Quinton's house."

  "Tell me another, Spacer." The guard's voice was light and derisive. Aswift poke in the ribs would break him in half, Rolf thought.

  "I'm serious. Quinton invited me. Here's his card."

  "If this is a joke it'll mean trouble. But go ahead; I'll take your wordfor it."

  Rolf marched on past the guard, almost nonchalantly. He looked at theaddress on the card. _12406 Kenman Road._ He rooted around in his fadingmemory of Yawk, but he found the details had blurred under the impact offive years of Mars and Venus and the Belt and Neptune. He did not knowwhere Kenman Road was.

  The glowing street signs were not much help either. One said 287thStreet and the other said 72nd Avenue. Kenman Road might be anywhere.

  He walked on a block or two. The streets were antiseptically clean, andhe had the feeling that his boots, which had lately trod in Spacertown,were leaving dirtmarks along the street. He did not look back to see.

  * * * * *

  He looked at his wristchron. It was getting late, and Kenman Road mightbe anywhere. He turned into a busy thoroughfare, conscious that he wasattracting attention. The streets here were crowded with little peoplewho barely reached his chest; they were all about the same height, andmost of them looked alike. A few had had radical surgical alterations,and every one of these was different. One had a unicorn-like horn;another, an extra eye which cunningly resembled his real ones. TheEarthers were looking at him furtively, as they would at a tiger or anelephant strolling down a main street.

  "Where are you going, Spacer?" said a voice from the middle of thestreet.

  Rolf's first impulse was to snarl out a curse and keep moving, but herealized that the question was a good one and one whose answer he wastrying to find out for himself. He turned.

  Another policeman stood on the edge of the walkway. "Are you lost?" Thepoliceman was short and delicate-looking.

  Rolf produced his card.

  The policeman studied it. "What business do you have with Quinton?"

  "Just tell me how to get there," Rolf said. "I'm in a hurry."

  The policeman backed up a step. "All right, take it easy." He pointed toa kiosk. "Take the subcar here. There's a stop at Kenman Road. You canfind your way from there."

  "I'd rather walk it," Rolf said. He did not want to have to stand thestrain of riding in a subcar with a bunch of curious staring Earthers.

  "Fine with me," the policeman said. "It's about two hundred blocks tothe north. Got a good pair of legs?"

  "Never mind," Rolf said. "I'll take the subcar."

  * * * * *

  Kenman Road was a quiet little street in an expensive-looking end ofYawk. 12406 was a towering building which completely overshadowedeverything else on the street. As Rolf entered the door, a perfumedlittle Earther with a flashing diamond where his left eye should havebeen and a skin stained bright purple appeared from nowhere.

  "We've been waiting for you. Come on; Kal will be delighted that you'rehere."

  The elevator zoomed up so quickly that Rolf thought for a moment that hewas back in space. But it stopped suddenly at the 62nd floor, and, asthe door swung open, the sounds of wild revelry drifted down the hall.Rolf had a brief moment of doubt when he pictured Laney and Kanaday atthis very moment, playing cards in their mouldering hovel while hewalk
ed down this plastiline corridor back into a world he had leftbehind.

  Quinton came out into the hall to greet him. Rolf recognized him by themissing ears; his skin was now a subdued blue to go with his orangerobe.

  "I'm so glad you came," the little Earther bubbled. "Come on in and I'llintroduce you to everyone."

  The door opened photoelectrically as they approached. Quinton seized himby the hand and dragged him in. There was the sound of laughter and ofshouting. As he entered it all stopped, suddenly, as if it had been shutoff. Rolf stared at them quizzically from under his lowering brows,