A rosy astrogator came next: Pam Stokes blushing from nipple to eyebrow, accompanied by an ashen legislator. Councilman Luthguster, shaped very much like the balloons being carried by some of the younger spectators, appeared to have been drained by a vampire before leaving the house that morning. Upon this pallid sausage casing, the hobnails of embarrassed perspiration stood out in bold relief. Would he faint, or would he make it to Main Street? He suffered from the loss of his pomposity much more severely than the simple loss of his clothes.
Pam suffered from the loss of clothes. She was beautiful, but she didn’t want to be beautiful; she was graceful, but she didn’t want to be graceful; she was a treat, but the last thing on Earth — or Figulus — that Pam Stokes wanted to be was a treat. Her expression was like that sometimes seen in dentist’s offices.
Finally there came Billy and the ensign, and here the mark of the ensign’s determination really showed itself. Although it would certainly be embarrassing for him or for Billy to appear naked in public, it wouldn’t, in truth, be quite the horror it clearly was for the others, so for himself and Billy the ensign had escalated the attack.
They were dancing.
Arm in arm, the ensign leading, Billy following pretty well, they turned and turned in great loops, waltzing to John Philip Sousa’s The Thunderer — not impossible but not easy.
Nobody stopped them; nobody knew what to do but stand and gape. For two blocks past the astounded populace, down Broadway from Elm past Church to Main — that being the reach of the video camera — the captain paced, the chief engineer plodded, the councilman trudged, the astrogator inadvertently and unwillingly promenaded and the lieutenant and the ensign waltzed. At Main, surrounded by a populace still immobilized by disbelief, they broke and ran for it, around behind the crowd, through back yards and alleys and away. With many a hoarse cry and broken gasp, this unlikely herd thundered all the way home, up the stoop, across the porch, into the house and slammed the door.
Knock, knock.
“Who’s there?”
“Hank Carpenter, Miss Hanshaw. You folks all right in there?”
“Go away.”
“It’s been five days; you can’t just—”
Hank waited. He went over and sat on the porch railing and looked out at the sunny day. The rubbernecks who had filled this street at first had given up by now, and everything was back to normal. But what had it all been about, anyway?
This was one of those rare moments when the charts didn’t help. If it were simple madness, of course, that would explain a lot, since insanity can play merry hob with your probabilities, but somehow Hank didn’t believe lunacy was the answer.
The front door opened and Ensign Benson came out, carrying a thin folder. He shut the door behind himself, gave Hank a quick, nervous smile, then frowned out at the street.
“They’ve all gone,” Hank assured him.
“I didn’t know it would be quite that I bad,” the ensign said. “It does something to your nervous system to be naked in front of that many people.” He had a twitchy look to him and didn’t quite meet Hank’s eye.
“What we can’t figure out is why you did it.”
“So you could let us go, of course.”
Hank smiled in confusion. “You mean, we’d take pity on you because you lost your minds?”
“We didn’t lose our minds, just our clothes. You’ve got it all on tape, right?”
“I don’t know why you’d want such a thing,” Hank said, “but yes, we do.”
“Look at this,” Ensign Benson said, extending the folder.
Hank took it, opened, found himself reading a report to the Galactic Council about the lost colony known as Figulus. “Says here, the settlement was abandoned. Colonists long dead. Some unanticipated poison in the atmosphere.”
“Not suited for human life,” the ensign said. “As soon as we’re aboard ship, that’s the report we’ll send.”
“Why?”
“You’re keeping us here because you’re afraid well spread the news about you and a lot of people will show up to learn all about the future.”
Hank nodded. “Destroying our future in the process.”
“If anybody did arrive, the ensign said, “you’d blame us. You’d probably be mad enough to show that tape.”
“I’m beginning to see the light,” Hank said. “You were looking for a way to bust loose from the probabilities.”
“That’s right. What could we do that we wouldn’t do?”
“Walk down Broadway at high noon, naked, with a brass band.”
“As long as you have that tape,” Ensign Benson said, “we’ll do anything — anything — to keep the rest of the human race away from here.” Wanly he smiled. “And if this doesn’t work,” he said, “if you still won’t let us go, we’ll just have to get more improbable.”
“How?” Hank asked, a bit wide-eyed.
“I don’t know yet,” the ensign told him. “I hope I never know. How about you?”
Out, out, out across the illimitable void soared the Hopeful. Its crew, garbed in every piece of clothing they owned and not looking one another in the eye, had left Figulus without even having their charts done. They knew nothing of the future.
Just as well.
1989
Here’s Looking at You
Imitation is not always a form of flattery.
From the beginning of Time, Man has been on the move, ever outward. First he spread over his own planet, then across the Solar System, then outward to the Galaxies, all of them dotted, speckled, measled with the colonies of Man.
Then, one day in the year eleven thousand four hundred and six (11,406), an incredible discovery was made in the Master Imperial Computer back on Earth. Nearly 500 years before, a clerical error had erased from the computer’s memory more than 1000 colonies, all in Sector F.U.B.A.R.3. For half a millennium, those colonies, young and struggling when last heard from, had had no contact with the rest of Humanity.
The Galactic Patrol Interstellar Ship Hopeful, Captain Gregory Standforth commanding, was at once dispatched to re-establish contact with the Thousand Lost Colonies and return them to the bosom of Mankind.
When the sky filled with the roar of the descending ship, they all slithered into their holes to wait.
“You know,” Captain Standforth said, unclenching his fingers from the controls as the ship shuddered its last and sagged onto the ground, “I think I’m beginning to get the hang of this landing business.”
Groans answered him. Chipper young Lieutenant Billy Shelby, the person who normally dealt with landings — Captain Standforth was apt to take the term planetfall literally — managed a cheerful smile and even injected a little perkiness into his voice as he said, “Much better, sir. Why, this was quite smooth!”
Chief Engineer Hester Hanshaw, blunt in body, mind and mouth, gave Billy a look. “Not as smooth as you, you little toady.”
Billy’s handsome if not brilliant face clouded. He said, “What’s a toady?”