Short Romance Escapes

The Huddlers-2

HE HAD A PLAN, ALL right, and I was part of it. The humanities had been no major with me, but they didn't want a scholar, they wanted a reporter, anyway. Or perhaps I could be called a recorder.

Jars talked and the assembly listened. They always do, when Jars talks.

And I was their boy, and went into a concentrated and complete briefing. They put me under the lucidate and poured it to me, night and day, all the information we had on the huddlers and all the theories based on that information.

They put me into a space sphere, and said "good luck" and do our people proud, young man. Oh, yes. And don't fall in love. Oh, no. They'd pick me up, again, when they got a signal. They didn't expect to wait too long for that, I guess, at the time.

The sphere was a relic of the Algrean business, and Algrea hadn't been this much of a trip. But Mechanics said it would do, and it did.

I landed in the Pacific, about three-quarters of a mile off the Santa Monica yacht basin, and let the sphere float north for a while until I reached a secluded spot. In a small curve of the shore line, a few miles above Santa Monica, I beached her, and opened the dissolving c***s.

I watched her melt into the surging water, and turned to face the red and green light almost immediately overhead. I walked up from the beach to the road, not even knowing what they looked like. Their evolution should have matched ours, but who could be sure?

For all I knew, I might be a freak to them. I should have thought of that before dissolving the ship.

Above, the light changed from red to green and across the street, I saw a sign. This was Sunset Boulevard, and the Pacific Coast Highway. This was open country, but Los Angeles.

Along the Coast Highway, a pair of lights were bearing down on me, and they seemed to waver, as though the machine were under imperfect control.

I moved back, out of the way, and the light overhead turned to red. The car stopped about even with me, its motor running.

I couldn't see the occupants nor the driver. The light changed, the car jerked, and the motor stopped.

"Damn," somebody said. It was a female voice.

There was a grinding noise, and another damn, and then a head appeared through the open window on my side of the road.

It was a blond head, and what I could see of the face looked attractive.

"Are you sober?" she asked.

"Not always," I answered. "Some times I'm quite cheerful. But I'm some distance from home, and have nothing to be cheerful about, at the moment."

"Try not to be a Cerf," she said angrily. "What I mean is, are you—have you been drinking?"

"Not recently, though I could use some water." I could see her face more clearly now, and it was like the faces of our women, only prettier than most, I thought.

- - - -

* * * *

"LOOK," SHE SAID, "I'm drunk. Could you drive this thing? Could you drive me home?"

"I'd be glad to," I answered, "if you will tell me where you live."

She gave me an address on Sunset, and this was Sunset, this lateral street, ending at the ocean. So, quite obviously, it was an address I could find.

I went over to climb in behind the wheel. There were two smells in that pretty car with the canvas top. One smell was of gasoline, the other was of alcohol.

"There's obviously alcohol in the gasoline," I said, "though that shouldn't prevent it from igniting."

"A funny, funny man," she said. "Keep the dialogue to a minimum, will you, Bogart? I'm not exactly sharp, right now."

I depressed the starter button, and the motor caught. I swung left onto Sunset, and started up the hill.

The car was clearly a recent model, but Jars had been wrong about the mechanical excellence of these huddlers. The machine simply had no life, no zest.

- - - -