Hewitt turned disbelievingly and peered out of the window. He experienced a curious blending of relief, affection and pride as he saw the little rodog, compact and jaunty, trotting along the avenue towards the house. Its head and tail were held high and it looked absurdly pleased with itself, again like an animal character in one of the historic Walt Disney cartoons. Billy jumped down from the window seat, was out through the front door in a second and they saw him running across the front lawn. Bramble abruptly gathered speed, and boy and dog met in mid-air, then rolled in an excited, noisy tangle into a flower bed.
“Well, I’ll be …” Hewitt whispered reverently. “He must have got away from the store.”
Liz moved close to the window. “But how did he find his way back?”
“Damned if I know. Billy said he had a good memory, but I didn’t think this was possible,” Hewitt said. An instinct made him follow Liz to the window and slip his arm around her. She leaned back against him.
“Better not let the kid get too worked up over it,” Mendip said in an oddly taut voice. “I’m going back to the office now – I’ll drop the dog off at the commissary on my way. Save you the extra trip.” He hurried out of the room. Hewitt ran after him and caught up just as Mendip was grasping Bramble by the collar and pulling him out of Billy’s arms.
“Leave the dog alone,” Hewitt snapped.
“What are you talking about?” Mendip faced him on the sunlit grass. “This isn’t a real dog.”
“He’s more real than you are, Carl. Put him down.”
“You’re not thinking straight,” Mendip said.
“Perhaps not.” Hewitt was dimly aware of neighbours beginning to take an interest in the confrontation. “But if you don’t put him down, I’ll put you down.”
“You wouldn’t be that stupid,” Mendip said, brushing past Hewitt towards his car.
Hewitt threw a punch which was meant to land on Mendip’s chin, but which – because he had not tried to hit anyone since he was a boy – connected squarely with the other man’s forehead. Mendip gave a startled moan and dropped Bramble. Hewitt’s right hand was aching from the effects of the blow, he knew he was making a fool of himself in front of the entire neighbourhood, and he also knew he was ruining his chances of fast promotion – but he was filled with a sudden gratitude towards Mendip. It was a deep thankfulness for having made him understand what was important in his own life, and it was a thankfulness which could be expressed only by raining blows on Mendip’s head and upflung arms. The wild punches, often meeting with sharp elbows, threatened to break Hewitt’s own knuckles, but he succeeded in driving Mendip to his knees while Billy backed away holding the dog. Suddenly Liz was beside him, restraining his arms.
“That’s enough, Sam,” she said gently. “I think you’ve made your point.”
Mendip scrambled to his feet, dishevelled but virtually unhurt. “You’ve done it now, Sammy boy,” he panted. This has to go on report. You’re never going to see Nimrod.”
“You can send me a viewcard,” Hewitt said, through his own gasps. “Go away, Carl.”
Mendip turned to Liz. “Of course, it’s you I’m most sorry for.”
She held out her hand and smiled. “We want our clock back, please.”
Mendip took the clock from his pocket, dropped it into her hand and walked to his car without saying another word. They watched him drive away, then Hewitt went into his house, walking slowly and with as much dignity as possible. As soon as he was screened from the view of his neighbours, he held up his skinned and bleeding knuckles, blowing on them to ease the pain.
“Look what I’ve done to myself,” he said. “If I’d hit him once more, he’d have won.”
“I’ll soon fix those,” Liz replied. “Wait till I get the medikit.” A few minutes later, while Hewitt was having his battle wounds dressed, he heard his son laughing outside. He looked out of the rear window and saw Billy and Bramble running down the garden away from the house. They were still gathering speed as they reached the far end of the mowed plot and plunged, unafraid, into the long grass where the rest of the world began.
SMALL WORLD
I’ll do it today, Robbie thought. I’ll run across the sky today.
He drew the bedclothes more closely around him, creating a warm cave which was precisely tailored to his small frame, and tried to go back to sleep. It was not yet morning and the house was quiet except for occasional murmurs from the refrigerator in the kitchen. Robbie found, however, that making the decision about the sky run had changed his mood, permitted the big and hazardous outside world to invade his security, and that sleep was no longer possible He got up, went to the window and drew the curtains aside.
The three mirrors which captured sunlight had not yet been splayed out from the sides of the cylindrical space colony, and therefore it was still completely dark outside the house except for the luminance from the streetlamps. The nearby rooftops were silhouetted against the horizontal strip of blackness, unrelieved by stars, which Robbie knew as the night-time sky, but higher up he could see the glowing geometrical patterns of streets in the next valley. He stared at the jewelled rectangles and pretended he was a bird soaring above them in the night air. The game occupied his mind for only a short time – he had never seen a real bird, and his imagination was not fully able to cope with the old Earthbound concepts of ‘above’ and ‘below’. Robbie closed the drapes, went back to bed and waited impatiently for morning …
“Come on, Robbie,” his mother called. “It’s time for breakfast.”
He sat up with a jerk, amazed to discover that he had, after all, been able to doze off and return to the peaceful world of dreams after the pledge he had made to himself. All the while he was washing and dressing he tried to get accustomed to the idea that this was the day on which he was going to grow up, to become a full member of the Red Hammers. His mind was still swirling with the sense of novelty and danger when he went into the bright kitchen and took his place in the breakfast alcove opposite his father and mother.
Like most colonists who had managed to settle happily on Island One, they were neat, medium-sized, unremarkable people of the sort who leave their youth behind very quickly, but are compensated with a seemingly endless span of unchanging adulthood. Mr Tullis was a crystal-logenetic engineer in the zero-gravity workshops at the centre of the Island’s sunward cap – an occupation which was beyond Robbie’s comprehension; and Mrs Tullis was a psychologist specializing in verbal communication modes – an occupation Robbie might have understood had she ever talked to him about it. They both examined him critically as he sat down.
“What are you going to do today?” his mother said, handing him a dish of cereal.
“Nothin’.” Robbie stared down at the yellow feathers of grain, and he thought, I’m going to run across the sky.
“Nothing,” she repeated, emphasizing the ending for Robbie’s benefit. “That doesn’t sound very constructive.”
“The school holidays are too long.” Max Tullis stood up and reached for his jacket. “I’m going to be late at the plant.”
Thea Tullis stood up with him and accompanied him to the front door while they discussed arrangements for a dinner party that evening. On her return she busied herself for a few minutes disposing of the breakfast remains and, her interest in Robbie’s plans apparently having faded, disappeared without speaking into the room she used as study. Robbie toyed with his cereal, then drank the chill, malty-flavoured milk from the dish. He looked around the kitchen for a moment, suddenly reluctant to go outside and face the rest of the day, but he had discovered that when his mother was working in her study the house was lonelier than when he was the only person in it. Taking some candy from a dish on the window ledge, he opened the door and went out to the back garden.