"Oh, yes! He is! Listen to this! Four years ago, in Miami, he married a girl named Doris L. Cockingham. There's no record of a divorce! He just married her-set up a trust for her with the royalties from an electric underwater lung, left her pregnant and disappeared. Eh?"
"I don't believe you," sobbed his sister.
"Then listen to this! Eleven months later, in Troy, New York, he married Marsha Gutknecht. Revolting! Can you understand a man like that? Loose morals, bigamy-why, he'd never get credit with a record like that."
"There must be some perfectly simple explanation," whimpered Mary Lynne. "When Jim comes back-"
"He won't be back!" said her brother brutally. "Get used to that idea, Mary Lynne! The Gutknecht woman never saw him again, and~ she was pregnant, too. He meant to run away! He used false names. Told different stories to each of them. But he couldn't fool Consolidated Credit. He put four hundred thousand dollars in trust for this woman and took off and never gave her another thought. How do you like that, Mary Lynne?"
"Jim wouldn't-"
"Jim did! And again the following year. Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin-a girl named Debris Bennyhoff. Then in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania-" He crumpled the paper in rage. "Ah, what's the use? Five women! He married them, runs off, leaves them pregnant. And what do you have to say to that, Mary Lynne?"
Mary Lynne looked at her brother through blurred eyes.
In a faint, faint voice, she said, "Well, at least he runs true to form, Alden."
Oh, they looked for him. But they couldn't find him. The police couldn't find him, private detectives couldn't find him, even Consolidated Credit couldn't find him. Jim Croy was gone-probably forever, at least under that name. And while they were booking, events took their natural course, and Mary Lynne made reservations at the hospital and began to pack a little bag.
And Aunt Nora phoned.
Her plump face peered somberly out of the phone screen. "I'm coming east," she announced.
"You're not!" croaked Alden, wincing already. "I mean-"
"Thursday," she said. "On the six o'clock plane."
"But, Aunt Nora-" It was the last thing he wanted! So many years of cutting her out of the family circle because of the indiscretion of her youth, and now- "Meet me," she said, and hung up.
There was nothing to be done about it. Aunt Nora showed up at the house her sister had left the children just as Mary Lynne gasped, checked her wristwatch, gasped again and reached for her ready-packed bag.
"Hello, Aunt Nora," said Alden distractedly. "Mary Lynne, aren't you ready yet? Good-by, Aunt Nora. Make yourself at home."
"Wait!" cried Aunt Nora, but she was talking to a closed door. She sighed, shook her head irritably and took off her coat. Men were so foolish about babies! There would be plenty of time; she would unpack her bag, get settled in, and then, with full leisure, proceed to the hospital. And she was willing to bet that she would be there well before the baby arrived.
She was right-though what she found in the upper bureau drawer of her room made her hurry to the hospital sooner than she'd planned.
"Alden!" she gasped. "The picture! I saw the picture-"
"Hello, Aunt Nora," said Edkin gloomily. "Lord, but this takes a long time!"
"It just seems long," snapped Nora and waved a picture under his nose. It was inscribed in white ink: For Mary Lynne, from Jimmy, with love. "Who's this?"
Edkin said guiltily, "Mary's-ah-husband. He's away just now."
"I bet he is! That's not any Jimmy! That's Sam!"
"Sam?"
"My Sam. The one who left me in a delicate condition years ago! And the only difference is, now he marries them!"
Alden, hardly listening, said soothingly, "That was a long time ago, Aunt Nora. We don't worry about it now. Besides, you gave the baby up for adoption, didn't you? I never even saw him-or her? What was it, a boy?"
She said shortly, "No."
"A girl, then."
"Guess again," said Aunt Nora in a more peculiar tone. "And it wasn't exactly adoption."
Her tone was peculiar enough to attract his full attention. He looked at her queerly, but she didn't seem to be joking. Funny. He didn't have the faintest idea of what she meant- Until an endless twenty minutes later.
Until the white-faced nurse came out of the delivery room wheeling a bassinet; until, without a word, the nurse pointed a shaking finger, and Edkin saw what it was that his sister had-with the help of what called itself James Croy-brought into an unsuspecting world.
Father of the Stars
I
NORMAN MARCHAND sat in the wings of the ballroom's small stage, on a leather hassock someone had found for him. There were 1,500 people outside in the ballroom, waiting to do him honor.
Marchand remembered the ballroom very well. He had once owned it. Forty . . . no, it wasn't forty. Not even fifty. Sixty years ago it had been, sixty and more years ago that he and Joyce had danced in that ballroom. Then the hotel was the newest on Earth, and he was the newly married son of the man who had built it, and the party was the reception for his wedding to Joyce. Of course, none of these people would know about that. But Marchand remembered
Oh, Joyce, my very dear! But she had been dead a long time now.
It was a noisy crowd. He peered out through the wings and could see the head table filling up. There was the Vice-President of the United States shaking hands with the Governor of Ontario as though, for the moment, they had forgotten they were of different parties. There was Linfox, from the Institute, obligingly helping a chimpanzee into the chair next to what, judging by the microphones ranked before it, would probably be Marchand's own. Linfox seemed a little ill at ease with the chimp. The chimpanzee had no doubt been smithed, but the imposition of human intelligence did not lengthen its ape's legs.
Then Dan Fleury appeared, up the steps from the floor of the ballroom where the rest of the 1,500 diners were taking their places.
Fleury didn't look well at all, Marchand thought - not without a small touch of satisfaction, since Fleury was fifteen years younger than himself. Still, Marchand wasn't jealous. Not even of the young bellhop who had brought him the hassock, twenty years old at the most and built like a fullback. One life was enough for a man to live.
Especially when you had accomplished the dream you had set out to bring to fruition. Or almost.
Of course, it had cost him everything his father left. But what else was money for?
"It's time to go in, sir. May I help you!" It was the young fullback nearly bursting his bellhop's uniform with the huge, hard muscles of youth. He was very solicitous. One of the nice things about having this testimonial dinner in a Marchand hotel was that the staff was as deferential to him as though he still owned the place. Probably that was why the committee had picked it, Marchand ruminated, quaint and old-fashioned as the hotel must seem now. Though at one time- He recollected himself. "I'm sorry, young man. I was-woolgathering. Thank you."
He stood up, slowly but not very painfully, considering that it had been a long day. As the fullback walked him onto the stage, the applause was enough to drive down the automatic volume control on his hearing aid.
For that reason he missed the first words from Dan Fleury. No doubt they were complimentary. Very carefully he lowered himself into his chair, and as the clapping eased off, he was able to begin to hear the words.
Dan Fleury was still a tall man, built like a barrel, with bushy eyebrows and a huge mane of hair. He had helped Marchand's mad project for thrusting Man into space from its very beginnings. He said as much now. "Man's grandest dream!" he roared. "The conquering of the stars themselves! And here is the one man who taught us how to dream it, Norman Marchand!"