But let me tell you the whole story, since I think we have plenty of time, and the story of what happened that day is worth it…
I was fourteen years old when the antigrav balance system of that aerobus accidentally broke down in flight. Right when it was passing over my hometown, Baracuyá del Jiquí, in the Sierra Cristal mountains… Well, it’s more of a hamlet than a town.
The two professors from the Center for Advanced Physics and Mathematical Studies who were passengers in the vehicle must have been in for a bumpy ride… All the pilot could do was make a forced landing, the aerobus wobbling like a drunken duck. But we were in luck: it came to a rest right in front of our house, on the open field where my brothers and I used to play baseball.
I remember it like yesterday. We were all arguing. My brother Romualdo had just run away from home, and without him we were only six boys and three girls. Neither team wanted Giselita, who couldn’t hit a watermelon with an ironing board. Or me, either, even though I was an okay player, because they all said my head had some of its stuffing missing. Besides, I was the youngest boy.
By the time the vehicle stopped shuddering my three sisters had already run to hide with my mother in the kitchen. Just the way my father taught them that decent women do when strangers come calling. The three of us boys who were still young, Hermenegildo and Esbértido and me, ran over and climbed onto the aerobus engine, still hot. We’d seen machines like that before already, but never so close up, and we’d never been able to touch one.
After greeting them and offering them the bacán, casabe, and pru that they were afraid to even try, my father and my older brothers tried to explain to the pilot—so tall and skinny he looked like a pitchfork—and the two doctors that there weren’t any stores or repair shops nearby that carried spare antigrav balancers, and there was no holonet connection or any sort of electronic link to the outside world. And the fastest way to get a message to the slightly larger town of Songo Tres Palmeras was to ride his compadre Robustiano’s mare there, because my uncle Segismundo’s messenger pigeons were laid up with the pip they had caught after last month’s gullywashers…
The pilot opened the engine compartment, took a look, spat out fifteen or twenty cusswords, sighed, and said his name was Larsen, and that if that’s how things were, well, there wasn’t much they could do. Afterwards he did try some casabe and bacán and drank some pru and even the strong coffee, brewed country-style, that my mother gave him without looking him in the eye.
Since he had forgotten to close the engine casing, I got in and started nosing around. It was so pretty, lubricated with a transparent oil that smelled nice, not like the smelly mutton grease my father made me smear over the gears of the little sugar mill and the axles of the ox cart to keep them from sticking. It all looked perfect to me—except for what I later found out was the precious antigrav balance system.
Something about it was terribly off. I’d always been handy with tools, and I loved going around looking things over and fixing them up. And since I was the youngest, it was my job to sharpen the axes, machetes, and plowshares and keep the little mill greased. Without really thinking about it, I set to work on that thing. A bit of wire here, a tiny stick there, a dab of earth over there, a pebble between these two metal clips, and…
Yikes! Suddenly the gizmo started bucking like an untamed bronco. Standing in the doorway, Larsen, the pilot, spit out the sip of coffee he had in his mouth, and I got scared and took off running. In one second it was a full-blown chase scene.
But when my father, who was familiar with my habits, started cutting a nice big poplar rod to break over my rump for meddling where I didn’t belong, Larsen stopped him.
My father nearly blew his top. Imagine: nobody had ever even raised his voice to him in his own house, and now this gangly city slicker, who wasn’t even half his boxing weight, was acting like he knew better than him how he should be treating one of his own sons! It went to his head, and… Good thing my mother stepped in and whispered, “Celedonio, just let him talk”—otherwise he would have killed the man then and there.
Larsen spoke… and then my father was so proud, he threw down the poplar switch, gave me a hug, and said I was his son, caray. Said I’d always been that way, a little strange, but better than anybody with all that mechanical stuff…
It turns out I had fixed the antigrav balance system without even realizing it. The best part was, I found out later that in theory no human being could fix one of those units, which only you xenoids were able to manufacture. They were superdurable, built to last, but when one failed you had to chuck it all out and get a new one.
And that was when the two doctors there, with their beards and their wild hair and their crazy eyes, started asking me question after question. They told me that their names were Hermann and Sigimer and that they were astrophysicists. They asked me about electromagnetism, about the Unified Field Theory, about everything. And I didn’t know how to answer any of it. Good thing Hermann had the idea of giving me his laser pen, which had stopped working days earlier—and I fixed it right away, too, with a tiny piece of glass.
Then they both said at once that I had a special gift, that I was a natural genius, a diamond in the rough. And I stood there wide-eyed, not understanding a word of it, thinking they were making fun of me, too, like my brothers… But they started talking with my father and my mother. They went off, talked for a long time, and I could see they were giving my parents money… and finally Mama came back weeping, and she hugged me. She handed me a little suitcase with all my best clothes, six small bars of guava paste, and two big bottles of pru, gave me a kiss, and told me never to forget that they loved me and that they were my mother and father. The old man hugged me, too, and his eyes were wet, but he looked away because men don’t cry, and he told me that I would be leaving with those professors and that it would be for the best for everyone. And to be a man and come out on top.
At first I didn’t want to, but when Hermann and Sigimer told me I’d be going to the city to see things and machines and learn a lot so I could be like them and serve Earth, I stopped feeling about to cry, and I boarded the aerobus, happy as could be.
And can you believe it? Even though Larsen and the doctors were scared, my repair job on the antigrav balance system held up for the rest of the trip, no problem.
“Is that your real name, please?”
I’ve never been back to Baracuyá del Jiquí. I do miss the family, but ever since I reached civilization, I’ve been involved in so many secret projects, they don’t even let me go to the corner store to buy pru anymore. My brain is a strategic weapon, they say.
Now, they do get me everything I ask for. If I ask for a bird on the wing, they bring me a bird on the wing.
I did manage to locate Romualdo. He was the brother who’d always been nicest to me. Two years ago, I started to get nostalgic about him and asked for information. Since he’d run away from home, and he’d always talked about going to the city…
Well, even though they warned me I’d only be allowed to see him from a distance, in less than a week they gave me his whole dossier and a pile of holovideos that showed him talking. My brother’s a sergeant in Planetary Security now. He lives and works in New Miami.
Knowing that, and having the holovideos, was all I needed. Why see him from a distance if he would never know I’d been nearby? Why make myself feel more alone?