Mr. Katsubishi whispered something in staccato Japanese to Mrs. Millay, who turned hesitantly to Millicent Baxter. “One doesn’t wish to intrude,” she said, “but if you are in fact going to see the Hall of Life and Death as your daughter suggests … well, we don’t seem to be able to find the rest of our tour group, you see, and we would like to go there. After all, it is the theme center for the entire fair, as you might say—”
“Why, of course,” said Millicent warmly, “we’d be real delighted to have the company of you and Mr. Kafs—Kats—”
“Katsubishi!” he supplied, bowing deeply and showing all of his teeth in a smile, and they all seven set off for the Hall of Life and Death, with little Louisa delightedly leading the way.
The hall was a low, white marble structure across the greensward from the Cenotaph, happy picnicking families on the green gay pavilions all around, ice-cream vendors chanting along the roadways, and a circus parade—horses and a giraffe and even an elephant—winding along the main avenue with a band leading them, diddley-boom, diddley-boom, diddley-bang! bang! bang!—all noise, and color, and excitement. But as soon as they were within the hall they were in another world. The Hall of Life and Death was the only free exhibit at the fair—even the rest rooms were not free. The crowds that moved through the hall were huge. But they were also reverential. As you came in you found yourself in a great domed entrance pavilion, almost bare except for seventy-five raised platforms, each spotlighted from a concealed source, each surrounded by an air curtain of gentle drafts. At the time the Baxters came in more than sixty of the platforms were already occupied with silent, lifeless forms of those who had passed on at the fair that day. A sweet-faced child here, an elderly woman there; there, side by side, a young pair of newlyweds. Randolph Baxter looked for and found the tall, smiling black man who had died in the line before him. He was smiling no longer, but his face was in repose and almost joyous, it seemed. “He’s at peace now,” Millicent whispered, touching her husband’s arm, and he nodded. He didn’t want to speak out loud in this solemn hall, where the whisper of organ music was barely audible above the gentle hiss of chilled air curtains that wafted past every deceased. Hardly anyone in the great crowd spoke. The visitors lingered at each of the occupied biers; but then, as they moved toward the back of the chamber, they didn’t linger. Some didn’t even look, for every tourist at the fair could not help thinking, as he passed an empty platform, that before the fair closed that night it would be occupied … by someone.
But the Rotunda of Those Who Have Gone Before was only the anteroom to the many inspiring displays the hall had to offer. Even the children were fascinated. Young Simon stood entranced before the great Timepiece of Living and Dying, watching the hands revolve swiftly to show how many were born and how many died in each minute, with the bottom line always showing a few more persons alive in every minute despite everything the government and the efforts of patriotic citizens could do—but he was more interested, really, in the mechanism of the thing than in the facts it displayed. Millicent Baxter and Mrs. Millay were really thrilled by the display of opulent caskets and
cerements, and Ralph Baxter proud to point out to Mr. Katsubishi the working model of a crematorium, with all of its escaping gases trapped and converted into valuable organic feedstocks. And the girls, Emma and Louisa, stood hand in hand for a long time, shuddering happily as they gazed at the refrigerated display cases that showed a hideous four-month embryo next to the corpse of a fat, pretty two-year-old. Emma moved to put her arm around her mother and whispered, “Mommy, I’m
so
grateful you didn’t abort me.” And Millicent Baxter fought back a quick and tender tear.
“I’d never let you die looking like
that,”
she assured her daughter, and they clung together for a long moment. But Randolph Baxter was becoming noticeably ill at ease. When they finally left the Hall of Life and Death, his wife took him aside and asked in concern, “Is something the matter, hon?”
He shrugged irritably at the foreigners, who were talking together in fast, low-toned Japanese. “Just look at their faces,” he complained. And indeed both Mr. Katsubishi and Mrs. Millay’s expressions seemed to show more revulsion than respect.
Millicent followed her husband’s eyes and sighed—there was a little annoyance in the sigh, too. “They’re not Americans,” she reminded her husband. “I guess they just don’t understand.” She smiled distantly at the foreign pair, and then looked around at her offspring. “Well, children, who wants to come with me to the washrooms, so we can get ready for the big fireworks?”
They all did, even Randolph, but he felt a need stronger than the urging of his bladder. He remained behind with the foreigners. “Excuse me,” he said, somewhat formally, “but may I ask what you thought of the exhibit?”
Mrs. Millay glanced at the Japanese. “Well, it was most interesting,” she said vaguely. “One doesn’t wish to criticize, of course—” And she stopped there.
“No, no, please go on,” Randolph encouraged.
She said, “I must say it did seem odd to, well,
glorify
death in that way.”
Randolph Baxter smiled, and tried to make it a forgiving smile, though he could feel that he was upset. He said, “Perhaps you miss the point of the Hall of Life and Death—in fact, of the whole Lottery Fair. You see, some of the greatest minds in America have worked on this problem of surplus population—think tanks and government agencies—why, three universities helped design this fair. Every bit of it is scientifically planned. To begin with, it’s absolutely free.”
Mrs. Millay left off her rapid-fire, sotto voce Japanese translation to ask, “You mean, free as far as money is concerned?”
“Yes, exactly. Of course, one takes a small chance at every ticket window, and in that sense there is a price for everything. A very carefully computed price, Mrs. Millay, for every hot dog, every show, every ride. To get into the fair in the first place, for instance, costs one decimill—that’s 1 percent of a .0001 probability of receiving a lethal injection from the ticket cuff. Now, that’s not much of a risk, is it?” he smiled. “And of course it’s absolutely painless, too. As you can see by just looking at the ones who have given their lives inside.”
Mr. Katsubishi, listening intently to Mrs. Millay’s translation in his ear, pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully. Mrs. Millay said brightly, “Well, we all have our own little national traits, don’t we?”
“Now, really, Mrs. Millay,” said Randolph Baxter, smiling with an effort, “please try to understand. Everything is quite fair. Some things are practically free, like the park benches and the restrooms and so on; why, you could use some of them as much as a
million times before, you know, your number would come up. Or you can get a first-class meal in the Cenotaph for just about a whole millipoint. But even that means you can do it a thousand times, on the average.”
Mr. Katsubishi listened to the end of Mrs. Millay’s translation, and then struggled to get out a couple of English words. “Not—us,” he managed, pointing to himself and Mrs. Millay.
“Certainly not,” Baxter agreed. “You’re foreign tourists. So you buy your tickets in your own countries for cash, and of course you don’t have to risk your lives. It wouldn’t help the American population problem much if you did, would it?” He smiled. “And your tour money helps pay the cost of the fair. But the important thing to remember is that the Lottery Fair is entirely voluntary. No one has to come. Of course,” he admitted, with a self-deprecatory grin, “I have to admit that I really like the job lotteries. I guess I’m just a gambler at heart, and when you’ve spent as much time on welfare as Mrs. Baxter and I have, those big jobs are just hard to resist! And they’re better here than at the regular city raffles.”
Mrs. Millay cleared her throat. Good manners competed with obstinacy in her expression. “Really, Mr. Baxter,” she said, “Mr. Katsubishi and I understand that—heavens, we’ve had to do things in our own countries! We certainly don’t mean to criticize yours. What’s hard to understand, I suppose, is, actually, that fetus.” She searched his face with her eyes, looking for understanding. “It just seems strange. I mean, that you’d prefer to see a child born and then perhaps die in a lottery than to abort him ahead of time.”
Mr. Baxter did his very best to maintain a pleasant expression, but knew he was failing. “It’s a difference in our national philosophies, I guess,” he said. “See, we don’t go in for your so-called ‘birth control’ here. No abortion. No contraception. We accept the gift of life when it is given. We believe that every human being, from the moment of conception on, has a right to a life—although,” he added, “not necessarily a
long
one.” He eyed the abashed foreigners sternly for a moment, then relented. “Well,” he said, glancing at his watch, “I wonder where my family can be? They’ll miss the fireworks if they don’t get back. I bet Mrs. Baxter’s gone and let the children pick out souvenirs—the little dickenses have been after us about them all day. Anyway, Mrs. Millay, Mr. Katsubishi, it’s been a real pleasure meeting the two of you and having this chance to exchange views—”
But he broke off, suddenly alarmed by the expression on Mr. Katsubishi’s face as the man looked past him. “What’s the matter?” he demanded roughly.
And then he turned, and did not need an answer. The answer was written on the strained, haggard, tearstreaked face of his wife as she ran despairingly toward him, carrying in her hands a plastic cap, a paperweight, and a helium-filled balloon in the shape of a pig’s head, but without Emma and without Simon and even without little Louisa.
Good science fiction sometimes means giving in to guilty pleasures. And 1956’s “The Celebrated No-Hit Inning” is nothing if not a guilty pleasure. First of all, it is, as you might surmise from the title, about baseball. There are those who might tune out because of that, but they’d be missing out on a terrific story.
Good science-fiction stories about baseball have to be good stories and good SF—and they have to make baseball sense. This story fulfills all those requirements.
Best of all, you really
can
enjoy this chronicle of the great all-around player Boley even if you don’t know much about baseball. There is one thing to remember, however, when reading this intriguing tale: It says right off the bat, “This is a true story.”
Well, it may or may not be true, because a lot of the action takes place in the future. No, it’s not true … yet! But if things keep going the way they have been going, it might not be too very long now … .
This is a true story, you have to remember. You have to keep that firmly in mind because, frankly, in some places it may not
sound
like a true story. Besides, it’s a true story about baseball players, and maybe the only one there is. So you have to treat it with respect.
You know Boley, no doubt. It’s pretty hard not to know Boley, if you know anything at all about the National Game. He’s the one, for instance, who raised such a scream when the sportswriters voted him Rookie of the Year. “I never
was
a rookie,” he bellowed into three million television screens at the dinner. He’s the one who ripped up his contract when his manager called him, “The hittin‘est pitcher I ever see.” Boley wouldn’t stand for that. “Four-eighteen against the best pitchers in the league,” he yelled, as the pieces of the contract went out the window. “Fogarty, I am the hittin’est
hitter
you ever see!”
He’s the one they all said reminded them so much of Dizzy Dean at first. But did Diz win thirty-one games in his first year? Boley did; he’ll tell you so himself. But politely, and without bellowing … .
Somebody explained to Boley that even a truly great Hall-of-Fame pitcher really ought to show up for spring training. So, in his second year, he did. But he wasn’t convinced that he
needed
the training, so he didn’t bother much about appearing on the field.
Manager Fogarty did some extensive swearing about that, but he did all of his swearing to his pitching coaches and not to Mr. Boleslaw. There had been six ripped-up contracts
already that year, when Boley’s feelings got hurt about something, and the front office were very insistent that there shouldn’t be any more.
There wasn’t much the poor pitching coaches could do, of course. They tried pleading with Boley. All he did was grin and ruffle their hair and say, “Don’t get all in an uproar.” He could ruffle their hair pretty easily, since he stood six inches taller than the tallest of them.
“Boley,” said Pitching Coach Magill to him desperately, “you are going to get me into trouble with the manager. I need this job. We just had another little boy at our house, and they cost money to feed. Won’t you please do me a favor and come down to the field, just for a little while?”
Boley had a kind of a soft heart. “Why, if that will make so much difference to you, Coach, I’ll do it. But I don’t feel much like pitching. We have got twelve exhibition games lined up with the Orioles on the way north, and if I pitch six of those that ought to be all the warm-up I need.”
“Three innings?” Magill haggled. “You know I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important. The thing is, the owner’s uncle is watching today.”
Boley pursed his lips. He shrugged. “One inning.”
“Bless you, Boley!” cried the coach. “One inning it is!”
Andy Andalusia was catching for the regulars when Boley turned up on the field. He turned white as a sheet. “Not the fast ball, Boley! Please, Boley,” he begged. “I only been catching a week and I have not hardened up yet.”
Boleslaw turned the rosin bag around in his hands and looked around the field. There was action going on at all six diamonds, but the spectators, including the owner’s uncle, were watching the regulars.
“I tell you what I’ll do,” said Boley thoughtfully. “Let’s see. For the first man, I pitch only curves. For the second man, the screwball. And for the third man—let’s see. Yes. For the third man, I pitch the sinker.”
“Fine!” cried the catcher gratefully, and trotted back to home plate.
“He’s a very spirited player,” the owner’s uncle commented to Manager Fogarty.
“That he is,” said Fogarty, remembering how the pieces of the fifth contract had felt as they hit him on the side of the head.
“He must be a morale problem for you, though. Doesn’t he upset the discipline of the rest of the team?”
Fogarty looked at him, but he only said, “He win thirty-one games for us last year. If he had
lost
thirty-one he would have upset us a lot more.”
The owner’s uncle nodded, but there was a look in his eye all the same. He watched without saying anything more, while Boley struck out the first man with three sizzling curves, right on schedule, and then turned around and yelled something at the outfield.
“That crazy—By heaven,” shouted the manager, “he’s chasing them back into the dugout. I
told
that—”
The owner’s uncle clutched at Manager Fogarty as he was getting up to head for the field. “Wait a minute. What’s Boleslaw doing?”
“Don’t you see? He’s chasing the outfield off the field. He wants to face the next two men without any outfield! That’s Satchell Paige’s old trick, only he never did it except in exhibitions where who cares? But that Boley—”
“This is only an exhibition, isn’t it?” remarked the owner’s uncle mildly.
Fogarty looked longingly at the field, looked back at the owner’s uncle, and shrugged.
“All right.” He sat down, remembering that it was the owner’s uncle whose sprawling factories had made the family money that bought the owner his team. “Go ahead!” he bawled at the right fielder, who was hesitating halfway to the dugout.
Boley nodded from the mound. When the outfielders were all out of the way he set himself and went into his windup. Boleslaw’s windup was a beautiful thing to all who chanced to behold it—unless they happened to root for another team. The pitch was more beautiful still.
“I got it, I got it!” Andalusia cried from behind the plate, waving the ball in his mitt. He returned it to the pitcher triumphantly, as though he could hardly believe he had caught the Boleslaw screwball—after only the first week of spring training.
He caught the second pitch, too. But the third was unpredictably low and outside. Andalusia dived for it in vain.
“Ball one!” cried the umpire. The catcher scrambled up, ready to argue.
“He is right,” Boley called graciously from the mound. “I am sorry, but my foot slipped. It was a ball.”
“Thank you,” said the umpire. The next screwball was a strike, though, and so were the three sinkers to the third man—though one of those caught a little piece of the bat and turned into an into-the-dirt foul.
Boley came off the field to a spattering of applause. He stopped under the stands, on the lip of the dugout. “I guess I am a little rusty at that, Fogarty,” he called. “Don’t let me forget to pitch another inning or two before we play Baltimore next month.”
“I won’t!” snapped Fogarty. He would have said more, but the owner’s uncle was talking.
“I don’t know much about baseball, but that strikes me as an impressive performance. My congratulations.”
“You are right,” Boley admitted. “Excuse me while I shower, and then we can resume this discussion some more. I think you are a better judge of baseball than you say.”
The owner’s uncle chuckled, watching him go into the dugout. “You can laugh,” said Fogarty bitterly. “You don’t have to put up with that for a hundred fifty-four games, and spring training,
and
the Series.”
“You’re pretty confident about making the Series?”
Fogarty said simply, “Last year Boley win thirty-one games.”
The owner’s uncle nodded, and shifted position uncomfortably. He was sitting with one leg stretched over a large black metal suitcase, fastened with a complicated lock. Fogarty asked, “Should I have one of the boys put that in the locker room for you?”
“Certainly not!” said the owner’s uncle. “I want it right here where I can touch it.” He looked around him. “The fact of that matter is,” he went on in a lower tone, “this goes up to Washington with me tomorrow. I can’t discuss what’s in it. But as we’re among friends, I can mention that where it’s going is the Pentagon.”
“Oh,” said Fogarty respectfully. “Something new from the factories.”
“Something very new,” the owner’s uncle agreed, and he winked. “And I’d better get back to the hotel with it. But there’s one thing, Mr. Fogarty. I don’t have much time for baseball, but it’s a family affair, after all, and whenever I can help—I mean, it just occurs to me that possibly, with the help of what’s in this suitcase—That is, would you like me to see if I could help out?”
“Help out how?” asked Fogarty suspiciously.
“Well—I really mustn’t discuss what’s in the suitcase. But would it hurt Boleslaw, for example, to be a little more, well, modest?”
The manager exploded,
“No.
”
The owner’s uncle nodded. “That’s what I’ve thought. Well, I must go. Will you ask Mr. Boleslaw to give me a ring at the hotel so we can have dinner together, if it’s convenient?”
It was convenient, all right. Boley had always wanted to see how the other half lived; and they had a fine dinner, served right in the suite, with five waiters in attendance and four kinds of wine. Boley kept pushing the little glasses of wine away, but after all the owner’s uncle was the owner’s uncle, and if
he
thought it was all right—It must have been pretty strong wine, because Boley began to have trouble following the conversation.
It was all right as long as it stuck to earned-run averages and batting percentages, but then it got hard to follow, like a long, twisting grounder on a dry September field. Boley wasn’t going to admit that, though. “Sure,” he said, trying to follow; and “You say the
fourth
dimension?” he said; and, “You mean a time machine, like?” he said; but he was pretty confused.
The owner’s uncle smiled and filled the wineglasses again.
Somehow the black suitcase had been unlocked, in a slow, difficult way. Things made out of crystal and steel were sticking out of it. “Forget about the time machine,” said the owner’s uncle patiently. “It’s a military secret, anyhow. I’ll thank you to forget the very words, because heaven knows what the general would think if he found out—Anyway, forget it. What about you, Boley? Do you still say you can hit any pitcher who ever lived and strike out any batter?”
“Anywhere,” agreed Boley, leaning back in the deep cushions and watching the room go around and around. “Any time. I’ll bat their ears off.”
“Have another glass of wine, Boley,” said the owner’s uncle, and he began to take things out of the black suitcase.
Boley woke up with a pounding in his head like Snider, Mays and Mantle hammering Three-Eye League pitching. He moaned and opened one eye.
Somebody blurry was holding a glass out to him. “Hurry up. Drink this.”
Boley shrank back. “I will not. That’s what got me into this trouble in the first place.”
“Trouble? You’re in no trouble. But the game’s about to start and you’ve got a hangover.”
Ring a fire bell beside a sleeping Dalmation; sound the Charge in the ear of a retired cavalry major. Neither will respond more quickly than Boley to the words, “The game’s about to start.”
He managed to drink some of the fizzy stuff in the glass and it was a miracle; like a triple play erasing a ninth-inning threat, the headache was gone. He sat up, and the world did not come to an end. In fact, he felt pretty good.
He was being rushed somewhere by the blurry man. They were going very rapidly, and there were tall, bright buildings outside. They stopped.
“We’re at the studio,” said the man, helping Boley out of a remarkable sort of car.
“The stadium,” Boley corrected automatically. He looked around for the lines at the box office but there didn’t seem to be any.
“The
studio
. Don’t argue all day, will you?” The man was no longer so blurry. Boley
looked at him and blushed. He was only a little man, with a worried look to him, and what he was wearing was a pair of vivid orange Bermuda shorts that showed his knees. He didn’t give Boley much of a chance for talking or thinking. They rushed into a building, all green and white opaque glass, and they were met at a flimsy-looking elevator by another little man. This one’s shorts were aqua, and he had a bright red cummerbund tied around his waist.
“This is him,” said Boley’s escort.
The little man in aqua looked Boley up and down. “He’s a big one. I hope to goodness we got a uniform to fit him for the Series.”