Margaret dried her eyes. “Davey… David, we’re going to try to take your piano with us.”
His chin lifted, his features momentarily relaxed, then the tight unhappiness returned. “Sure. They’ll just dump out some of dad’s seeds and a few tools and scientific instruments for my…”
“There’s another way,” she said.
“What other way?” His voice was fighting against a hope that might be smashed.
Margaret explained her plan.
“Go begging?” he asked. “Asking people to give up their own…”
“David, this will be a barren and cold new world we’re going to colonize—very few comforts, drab issue clothing—almost no refinements or the things we think of as belonging to a civilized culture. A real honest to goodness earth piano and the… man to play it would help. It’d help our morale, and keep down the homesickness that’s sure to come.”
His sightless eyes appeared to stare at her for a long moment of silence; then he said: “That would be a terrible responsibility for me.”
She felt pride in her son flow all through her, said: “I’m glad you see it that way.”
The small booklet of regulations and advice handed out at the first assembly in White Sands carried names and addresses of all the colonists. Margaret started at the top of the list, called Selma Atkins of Little Rock, wife of the expedition’s head zoologist.
Mrs. Atkins was a dark little button of a woman with flaming hair and a fizzing personality. She turned out to be a born conspirator. Before Margaret had finished explaining the problem, Selma Atkins was volunteering to head a phone committee. She jotted down names of prospects, said: “Even if we get the weight allowance, how’ll we get the thing aboard?”
Margaret looked puzzled. “What’s wrong with just showing that we have the weight allowance, and handing the piano over to the people who pack things on the ship?”
“Charlesworthy’d never go for it, honey. He’s livid at the amount of equipment that’s had to be passed over because of the weight problem. He’d take one look at one thousand four hundred and eight pounds of piano and say: That’ll be a spare atomic generation kit!’ My husband says he’s had to drill holes in packing boxes to save ounces!”
“But how could we smuggle…”
Selma snapped her fingers. “I know! Ozzy Lucan!”
“Lucan?”
“The ship’s steward,” said Selma. “You know: the big horse of a man with red hair. He spoke at one of the meetings on—you know—all about how to conserve weight in packing and how to use the special containers.”
“Oh, yes,” said Margaret. “What about him?”
“He’s married to my third cousin Betty’s oldest daughter. Nothing like a little family pressure. I’ll work on it.”
“Wouldn’t he be likely to go directly to Charlesworthy with it?” asked Margaret:
“Hah!” barked Selma. “You don’t know Betty’s side of our family!”
Dr. Linquist arrived in the middle of the morning, two consultant psychiatrists in tow. They spent an hour with David, came down to the kitchen where Margaret and Rita were finishing the microfilming of the recipe files. David followed them, stood in the doorway.
“The boy’s apparently tougher than I realized,” said Linquist. “Are you sure he hasn’t been told he can take that piano? I hope you haven’t been misleading him to make him feel better.”
David frowned.
Margaret said: “Dr. Charlesworthy refused to take the piano when I asked him. However, he’s sent two experts to the Steinway factory so we’ll be sure of an exact duplicate.”
Linquist turned to David. “And that’s all right with you, David?”
David hesitated, then: “I understand about the weight.”
“Well, I guess you’re growing up,” said Linquist.
When the psychiatrists had gone, Rita turned on Margaret. “Mother! You lied to them!”
“No she didn’t,” said David. “She told the exact truth.”
“But not all of it,” said Margaret.
“That’s just the same as lying,” said Rita.
“Oh, stop it!” snapped Margaret. Then: “David, are you sure you want to leave your braille texts?”
“Yes. That’s sixteen pounds. We’ve got the braille punch kit and the braille typewriter; I can type new copies of everything I’ll need if Rita will read to me.”
By three o’clock that afternoon they had Chief Steward Oswald Lucan’s reluctant agreement to smuggle the piano aboard if they could get the weight allowance precise to the ounce. But Lucan’s parting words were: “Don’t let the old man get wind of this. He’s boiling about the equipment we’ve had to cut out.”
At seven thirty, Margaret added the first day’s weight donations: sixty-one commitments for a total of two hundred and seven pounds and seven ounces. Not enough from each person, she told herself. But I can’t blame them. We’re all tied to our possessions. It’s so hard to part with all the little things that link us with the past and with Earth. We’ve got to find more weight somewhere. She cast about in her own mind for things to discard, knew a sense of futility at the few pounds she had at her disposal.
By ten o’clock on the morning of the third day they had five hundred and fifty-four pounds and eight ounces from one hundred and sixty of their fellow colonists. They also had an even twenty violent rejections. The tension of fear that one of these twenty might give away their conspiracy was beginning to tell on Margaret.
David, too, was sinking back into gloom. He sat on the piano bench in the music room, Margaret behind him in her favorite chair. One of David’s hands absently caressed the keys that Maurice Hatchell had brought to such crashing life.
“We’re getting less than four pounds per person, aren’t we?” asked David.
Margaret rubbed her cheek. “Yes.”
A gentle chord came from the piano. “We aren’t going to make it,” said David. A fluid rippling of music lifted in the room. “I’m not sure we have the right to ask this of people anyway. They’re giving up so much already, and then we…”
“Hush, Davey.”
He let the baby name pass, coaxed a floating passage of Debussy from the keys.
Margaret put her hands to her eyes, cried silently with fatigue and frustration. But the tears coming from David’s fingers on the piano went deeper.
Presently, he stood up, walked slowly out of the room, up the stairs. She heard his bedroom door close softly. The lack of violence in his actions cut her like a knife.
The phone chime broke Margaret from her blue reverie. She took the call on the portable in the hall. Selma Atkins’ features came onto the screen, wide-eyed, subdued.
“Ozzy just called me,” she blurted. “Somebody snitched to Charlesworthy this morning.”
Margaret put a hand over her mouth.
“Did you tell your husband what we were doing?” asked Selma.
“No.” Margaret shook her head. “I was going to, and then I got afraid of what he’d say. He and Charlesworthy are very close friends, you know.”
“You mean he’d peach on his own wife?”
“Oh, no, but he might…”
“Well, he’s on the carpet now,” said Selma. “Ozzy says the whole base is jumping. He was shouting and banging his hands on the desk at Walter and…”
“Charlesworthy?”
“Who else? I called to warn you. He…”
“But what’ll we do?” asked Margaret.
“We run for cover, honey. We fall back and regroup. Call me as soon as you’ve talked to him. Maybe we can think of a new plan.”
“We’ve contributions from more than half the colonists,” said Margaret. “That means we’ve more than half of them on our side to begin…”
“Right now the colony organization is a dictatorship, not a democracy,” said Selma. “But I’ll be thinking about it. Bye now.”
David came up behind her as she was breaking the connection. “I heard,” h
e said. “That finishes us, doesn’t it?”
The phone chimed before she could answer him. She flipped the switch. Walter’s face came onto the screen. He looked haggard, the craggy lines more pronounced.
“Margaret,” he said. “I’m calling from Dr. Charlesworthy’s office.” He took a deep breath. “Why didn’t you come to me about this? I could’ve told you how foolish it was!”
“That’s why!” she said.
“But smuggling a piano onto the ship! Of all the…”
“I was thinking of Davey!” she snapped.
“Good Lord, I know it! But…”
“When the doctors said he might die if he lost his…”
“But Margaret, a thousand-pound piano!”
“Fourteen hundred and eight pounds,” she corrected him.
“Let’s not argue, darling,” he said. “I admire your guts… and I love you, but I can’t let you endanger the social solidarity of the colony group…” he shook his head “…not even for David.”
“Even if it kills your own son?” she demanded.
“I’m not about to kill my son,” he said. “I’m an ecologist, remember? It’s my job to keep us alive… as a group and singly! And I…”
“Dad’s right,” said David. He moved up beside Margaret.
“I didn’t know you were there, son,” said Walter.
“It’s all right, Dad.”
“Just a moment, please.” It was Charlesworthy, pushing in beside Walter. “I want to know how much weight allowance you’ve been promised.”
“Why?” asked Margaret. “So you can figure how many more scientific toys to take along?”
“I want to know how close you are to success in your little project,” he said.
“Five hundred and fifty-four pounds and eight ounces,” she said. “Contributions from one hundred and sixty people!”
Charlesworthy pursed his lips. “Just about one-third of what you need,” he said. “And at this rate you wouldn’t get enough. If you had any chance of success I’d almost be inclined to say go ahead, but you can see for yourself that…”
“I have an idea,” said David.
Charlesworthy looked at him. “You’re David?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s your idea?”
“How much would the harp and keyboard from my piano weigh? You have people at the factory…”
“You mean take just that much of your piano?” asked Charlesworthy.
“Yes, sir. It wouldn’t be the same… it’d be better. It would have roots in both worlds—part of the piano from Earth and part from Planet C.”
“Darned if I don’t like the idea,” said Charlesworthy. He turned. “Walter, call Phil Jackson at the Steinway plant. Find out how much that portion of the piano would weigh.”
Walter left the field of the screen. The others waited. Presently, Walter returned, said: “Five hundred and sixty-two pounds more or less. Hector Torres was on the line, too. He said he’s sure he can duplicate the rest of the piano exactly.”
Charlesworthy smiled. “That’s it, then! I’m out of my mind… we need so many other things with us so desperately. But maybe we need this too: for morale.”
“With the right morale we can make anything else we may need,” said Walter.
Margaret found a scratch pad in the phone drawer, scribbled figures on it. She looked up: “I’ll get busy right now and find a way to meet the extra few pounds we’ll need to…”
“How much more?” asked Charlesworthy.
Margaret looked down at her scratch pad. “Seven pounds and eight ounces.”
Charlesworthy took a deep breath. “While I’m still out of my mind, let me make another gesture: Mrs. Charlesworthy and I will contribute seven pounds and eight ounces to the cultural future of our new home.”
Encounter in a Lonely Place
“You’re interested in extrasensory perception, eh? Well, I guess I’ve seen as much of that as the next fellow and that’s no lie.”
He was a little bald fellow with rimless glasses and he sat beside me on the bench outside the village post office where I was catching the afternoon edge of the April sun and reading an article called “The Statistical Argument For ESP” in the Scientific Quarterly.
I had seen him glance at the title over my shoulder.
He was a little fellow—Cranston was his name—and he had been in the village since as long as I could remember. He was born up on Burley Creek in a log cabin but lived now with a widowed sister whose name was Berstauble and whose husband had been a sea captain. The captain had built one of those big towered and shingle-sided houses that looked down from the ridge onto the village and the sheltered waters of the Sound beyond. It was a weathered grey house half hidden by tall firs and hemlocks and it imparted an air of mystery to its occupants.
The immediate mystery to me was why Cranston had come down to the post office. They had a hired hand to run such errands. You seldom saw any of the family down in the village, although Cranston was sociable enough when you met him at the Grange hall and could be depended on for good conversation or a game of checkers.
Cranston stood about five feet four and weighed, I guess, about a hundred and fifty—so you can see he wasn’t skinny. His clothing, winter or summer, was a visored painter’s cap, a pair of bib overalls and a dark brown shirt of the kind the loggers wore—though I don’t think he was ever a logger or, for that matter, ever did heavy labor of any kind.
“Something special bring you down to the post office?” I asked in the direct and prying village manner. “Don’t see you down here very much.”
“I was… hoping to see someone,” he said. He nodded toward the Scientific Quarterly in my lap. “Didn’t know you were interested in extrasensory perception.”
There was no preventing it, I saw. I’m one of those people who attract confidences—even when we don’t want confidences—and it was obvious Cranston had a “story.” I tried once more to head him off, though, because I was in one of those moods writers get—where we’d just as soon bite off heads as look at them.
“I think ESP is a damned racket,” I said. “And it’s disgusting to see them twist logic trying to devise mathematical proofs for…”
“Well, I wouldn’t be too sure if I were you,” he said. “I could tell you a thing or two and that’s no lie.”
“You read minds,” I said.
“Read’s the wrong word,” he said. “And it isn’t minds…” Here, he stared once up the road that branched above the post office before looking back at me. “It’s mind.”
“You read a mind,” I said.
“I can see you don’t believe,” he said. “I’m going to tell you anyway. Never told an outsider before… but you’re not really an outsider, your folks being who they are, and since you’re a writer you may make something of this.”
I sighed and closed the Quarterly.
“I’d just moved up from the creek to live with my sister,” Cranston said. “I was seventeen. She’d been married, let’s see, about three years then, but her husband—the captain—was away at sea. To Hong Kong if I remember rightly. Her father-in-law, old Mr. Jerusalem Berstauble, was living then. Had the downstairs bedroom that opens on the back porch. Deaf as a diver he was, for sure, and couldn’t get out of his wheelchair without you helped him. Which was why they sent for me to come up from the creek. He was a living heller, old Mr. Jerusalem, if you remember. But then you never knew him, I guess.”
(This was the sliding reference to my borderline status that no villager seemed able to avoid when discussing “olden times” with me—though they all accepted me because my grandparents were villagers and everyone in the valley knew I had “come home” to recover from my wound in the war.)
“Old Mr. Jerusalem dearly loved his game of cribbage in the evening,” Cranston said. “This one evening I’m telling you about he and my sister were playing their game in the study. They didn’t talk much because of his deafness and all we could
hear through the open door of the study was the slap of the cards and my sister kind of muttering as she pegged each hand.
“We’d turned off the living room lights, but there was a fire in the fireplace and there was light from the study. I was sitting in the living room with Olna, the Norwegian girl who helped my sister then. She married Gus Bills a couple years later, the one killed when the donkey engine blew up at Indian Camp. Olna and I’d been playing a Norwegian card game they call reap which is something like whist, but we got tired of it and were just sitting there across the fireplace from each other halfway listening to the cards slapping down the way they did in the study.”
Cranston pushed back his visored painter’s cap and glanced toward the green waters of the Sound where a tug was nursing a boom of logs out from the tidal basin.
“Oh, she was pretty then, Olna was,” he said presently. “Her hair was like silvered gold. And her skin—it was like you could look right into it.”
“You were sweet on her,” I said.
“Daft is the word,” he said. “And she didn’t mind me one bit, either… at first there.”
Again, he fell silent. He tugged once at his cap visor. Presently, he said: “I was trying to remember if it was my idea or hers. It was mine. Olna had the deck of cards still in her hands. And I said to her, ‘Olna, you shuffle the deck. Don’t let me see the cards.’ Yes, that’s how it was. I said for her to shuffle the deck and take one card at a time off the top and see if I could guess what it was.
“There was a lot of talk going around just then about this fellow at Duke University, this doctor, I forget his name, who had these cards people guessed. I think that’s what put the notion in my mind.”
Cranston fell silent a moment and I swear he looked younger for an instant—especially around the eyes.
“So you shuffled the cards,” I said, interested in spite of myself. “What then?”
“Eh? Oh… she said: ‘Yah, see if you can guess diss vun.’ She had a thick accent, Olna. Would’ve thought she’d been born in the old country instead of over by Port Orchard. Well, she took that first card and looked at it. Lord, how pretty she was bending to catch the light from the study door. And you know, I knew the instant she saw it what it was—the Jack of clubs. It was as though I saw it in my mind somewhere… not exactly seeing, but I knew. So I just blurted out what it was.”