“There will be,” promised Art.
“Of course. And a million other things … It isn’t particularly good for a child to be brought up in hiding, as Joe was.”
“No one could have done it any better than you, Hilda,” said Joe.
“Sweet,” she said; “but you all know I’m right.”
“Of course you are,” agreed Luther. “In fact, you’re so right that I’m a little afraid of you. It was much nicer when I thought you were pretty much a featherbrain.”
George said suddenly, “Joe, I never wangled you that introduction I promised you, did I?”
Joe’s eyes brightened. “To Clarke, the rocket man?”
“That’s the one. Luther, can you arrange it?”
“A pleasure. I didn’t know you were interested, Joe.”
“Yes,” said Hilda, a little regretfully, “I wish he weren’t.”
Joe looked uncomfortable. Morey spoke up unexpectedly: “You’ll have to face it, though. Hilda. This is one of the spheres where men take over.”
“That’s right,” said Morey, “that’s where they’ll have to go, the overflow, the extra population that’s had us all trembling in our socks the last three centuries. To the stars.” He pushed his chair back and sat looking out over the sunlit street, and the ’copters flashing in the sky. “That will make Golightly and me happy, at least, for the next few hundred years.” He smiled his unexpected, small-boy smile. “We can sit here and be as contrary and stubborn as we want. But we’ll be just a backwater, Hilda. It’s your Joe that’s going to be the human race.”
They drank to that, and afterward George found himself alone with Hilda for a moment before they left. She kissed him gently: there were no tingles up his spine. He felt warmly fond of her, and somehow at peace with himself.
The world was going to grow down to his size, he realized. He wouldn’t be The Child any more, not to everybody. In fact, the first colony on that far-off planet of Alpha Centauri might need a few older men around—men with a few centuries of solid experience under their belts. Now there was an idea!
Happily, he went down into the long afternoon.