Native Son

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  NATIVE SON

  _By T. D. Hamm_

  Tommy hated Earth, knowing his mother might go home to Mars without him. Worse, would a robot secretly take her place?...

  Tommy Benton, on his first visit to Earth, found the long-anticipatedwonders of twenty-first-century New York thrilling the first week,boring and unhappy the second week, and at the end of the third he wasdefinitely ready to go home.

  The never-ending racket of traffic was torture to his abnormally acuteears. Increased atmospheric pressure did funny things to his chest andstomach. And quick and sure-footed on Mars, he struggled constantlyagainst the heavy gravity that made all his movements clumsy anduncoordinated.

  The endless canyons of towering buildings, with their connectingSkywalks, oppressed and smothered him. Remembering the endless vistas of_rabbara_ fields beside a canal that was like an inland sea,homesickness flooded over him.

  He hated the people who stared at him with either open or hiddenamusement. His Aunt Bee, for instance, who looked him up and down withfrank disapproval and said loudly, "For Heavens sake, Helen! Take him toa _good_ tailor and get those bones covered up!"

  Was it his fault he was six inches taller than Terran boys his age, andhad long, thin arms and legs? Or that his chest was abnormally developedto compensate for an oxygen-thin atmosphere? I'd like to see _her_, hethought fiercely, out on the Flatlands; she'd be gasping like acanal-fish out of water.

  Even his parents, happily riding the social merry-go-round of Terra,after eleven years in the Martian flatlands, didn't seem to understandhow he felt.

  "Don't you _like_ Earth, Tommy?" queried his mother anxiously.

  "Oh ... it's all right, I guess."

  "... 'A nice place to visit' ..." said his father sardonically.

  "... 'but I wouldn't live here if they gave me the place!' ..." said hismother, and they both burst out laughing for no reason that Tommy couldsee. Of course, they did that lots of times at home and Tommy laughedwith them just for the warm, secure feeling of belonging. This time hedidn't feel like laughing.

  "When _are_ we going home?" he repeated stubbornly.

  His father pulled Tommy over in the crook of his arm and said gently,"Well, not right away, son. As a matter of fact, how would you like tostay here and go to school?"

  Tommy pulled away and looked at him incredulously.

  "I've _been_ to school!"

  "Well, yes," admitted his father. "But only to the colony schools. Youdon't want to grow up and be an ignorant Martian sandfoot all your life,do you?"

  "Yes, I do! I _want_ to be a Martian sandfoot. And I want to go homewhere people don't _look_ at me and say, 'So this is your littleMartian!'"

  Benton, Sr., put his arm around Tommy's stiffly resistant shoulders."Look here, old man," he said persuasively. "I thought you wanted to bea space engineer. You can't do that without an education you know. Andyour Aunt Bee will take good care of you."

  Tommy faced him stubbornly. "I don't want to be any old spaceman. I wantto be a sandfoot like old Pete. And I want to go home."

  Helen bit back a smile at the two earnest, stubborn faces soridiculously alike, and hastened to avert the gathering storm.

  "Now look, fellows. Tommy's career doesn't have to be decided in thenext five minutes ... after all, he's only ten. He can make up his mindlater on if he wants to be an engineer or a _rabbara_ farmer. Right now,he's going to stay here and go to school ... _and_ I'm staying withhim."

  Resolutely avoiding both crestfallen faces, Helen, having shepherdedTommy to bed, returned to the living room acutely conscious of Big Tom'sbleak, hurt gaze at her back.

  "Helen, you're going to make a sissy out of the boy," he said at last."There isn't any reason why he can't stay here at home with Bee."

  Helen turned to face him.

  "Earth _isn't_ home to Tommy. And your sister Bee told him he ought tobe out playing football with the boys instead of hanging around thehouse."

  "But she knows the doctor said he'd have to take it easy for a year tillhe was accustomed to the change in gravity and air-pressure," heanswered incredulously.

  "Exactly. She also asked me," Helen went on grimly, "if I thought he'dbe less of a freak as he got older."

  Tom Benton swore. "Bee always did have less sense than the average hen,"he gritted. "My son a freak! Hell's-bells!"

  Tommy, arriving at the hall door in time to hear the tail-end of thesentence, crept back to bed feeling numb and dazed. So even his fatherthought he was a freak.

  * * * * *

  The last few days before parting was one of strain for all of them. IfTommy was unnaturally subdued, no one noticed it; his parents were notfeeling any great impulse toward gaiety either.

  They all went dutifully sight-seeing as before; they saw the Zoo, andwent shopping on the Skywalks, and on the last day wound up at the greatshowrooms of "Androids, Inc."

  Tommy had hated them on sight; they were at once too human and tooinhuman for comfort. The hotel was full of them, and most private homeshad at least one. Now they saw the great incubating vats, and theprocessing and finally the showroom where one of the finished productswas on display as a maid, sweeping and dusting.

  "There's one that's a dead-ringer for you, Helen. If you were a littlebetter looking, that is." Tommy's dad pretended to compare themjudicially. Helen laughed, but Tommy looked at him with a resentfulness.Comparing his mother to an Android....

  "They say for a little extra you can get an exact resemblance. Maybe I'dbetter have one fixed up like you to take back with me," Big Tom addedteasingly. Then as Helen's face clouded over, "Oh, hon, you know I wasonly kidding. Let's get out of here; this place gives me thecollywobbles. Besides, I've got to pick up my watch."

  But his mother's face was still unhappy and Tommy glowered sullenly athis father's back all the way to the watch-shop.

  It was a small shop, with an inconspicuous sign down in one corner ofthe window that said only, "KRUMBEIN--watches," and was probably themost famous shop of its kind in the world. Every spaceman landing onTerra left his watch to be checked by the dusty, little old man who wasthe genius of the place. Tommy ranged wide-eyed about the clock andchronometer crammed interior. He stopped fascinated before the lastcase. In it was a watch ... but, _what_ a watch! Besides the regulationTerran dial, it had a second smaller dial that registered thecorresponding time on Mars. Tommy's whole heart went out to it in anecstasy of longing. He thought wistfully that if you could know whattime it was there, you could imagine what everyone was doing and itwouldn't seem so far away. Haltingly, he tried to explain.

  "Look, Mom," he said breathlessly. "It's almost five o'clock at home.Douwie will be coming up to the barn to be fed. Gosh, do you suppose oldPete will remember about her?"

  His mother smiled at him reassuringly. "Of course he will, silly. Don'tforget he was the one who caught and tamed her for you."

  Tommy gulped as he thought of Douwie. Scarcely as tall as himself; thebig, rounded, mouselike ears, and the flat, cloven pads that could carryher so swiftly over the sandy Martian flatlands. One of the lastdwindling herds of native Martian douwies, burden-carriers of a vanishedrace, she had been Tommy's particular pride and joy for the last threeyears.

  Behind him, Tommy heard his mother murmur under her breath, "Tom ... thewatch; _could_ we?"

  And his Dad regretfully, "It's a pretty expensive toy for a youngster,Helen. And even a _rabbara_ raiser's bank account has limits."

  "Of course, dear; it was silly of me." Helen smiled a little ruefully."And if Mr. Krumbein has your watch ready, we _must_ go. Bee and some ofher friends are
coming over, and it's only a few hours 'till you ...leave."

  Big Tom squeezed her elbow gently, understandingly, as she blinked backquick tears. Trailing after them, Tommy saw the little by-play and hisheart ached. The guilt-complex building up in him grew and deepened.

  He knew he had only to say, "Look, I don't mind staying. Aunt Bee and Iwill get along swell," and everything would be all right again. Then theterror of this new and complex world--as it would be without a familiarface--swept over him and kept him silent.

  His overwrought feelings expressed themselves in a nervously rebellingstomach, culminating in a disgraceful moment over the nearest gutter.The rest of the afternoon he spent in bed recuperating.

  In the living room Aunt Bee spoke her mind in her usual, high-pitchedvoice.

  "It's disgraceful, Helen. A boy his age.... None of the _Bentons_ everhad nerves."

  His mother's reply was inaudible, but on the heels of his father'sdeeper tones, Aunt Bee's voice rose in rasping indignation.

  "_Well!_ I never! And from my own brother, too. From now on don't cometo me for help with your spoiled brat. Good-_bye_!"

  The door slammed indignantly, his mother chuckled, and there was aspontaneous burst of laughter. Tommy relaxed and lay back happily.Anyway, that was the last of Aunt Bee!

  * * * * *

  The next hour or two passed in a flurry of ringing phones, people comingand going, and last-minute words and reminders. Then suddenly it wastime to leave. Dad burst in for a last quick hug and a promise to sendhim pictures of Douwie and her foal, due next month; Mother dropped ahasty kiss on his hair and promised to hurry back from the Spaceport.Then Tommy was alone, with a large, painful lump where his heart oughtto be.

  The only activity was the almost noiseless buzzing as the hotel androidran the cleaner over the living room. Presently even that ceased, andTommy lay relaxed and inert, sleepily watching the curtains blow in andout at the open window. Thirty stories above the street the noises werepleasantly muffled and remote, and his senses drifted aimlessly to andfro on the tides of half-sleep.

  Drowsily his mind wandered from the hotel's android servants ... tothe strictly utilitarian mechanical monstrosity at home, knownaffectionately as "Old John" ... to the android showroom where theyhad seen the one that Dad said looked like Mother....

  He jolted suddenly, sickeningly awake. Suppose, his mind whisperedtreacherously, suppose that Dad _had_ ordered one to take Mom'splace ... not on Mars, but _here_ while she returned to Mars with him.Suppose that instead of Mom he discovered one of those _Things_ ... oreven worse, suppose he went on from day to day not even knowing....

  It was a bad five minutes; he was wet with perspiration when he lay backon his pillows, a shaky smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Hehad a secret defense against the Terror. He giggled a little at thethought of what Aunt Bee would say if she knew.

  And what had brought him back from the edge of hysteria was thetriumphant knowledge that with the abnormally acute hearing bred in thethin atmosphere of Mars, no robot ever created could hide from him theinfinitesimal ticking of the electronic relays that gave it life. Secureat last, his overstrung nerves relaxed and he slid gratefully over theedge of sleep.

  He woke abruptly, groping after some vaguely remembered sound. A softclicking of heels down the hall.... Of course, his mother back from theSpaceport! Now she would be stopping at his door to see if he wereasleep. He lay silently; through his eyelashes he could see her outlinedin the soft light from the hall. She was coming in to see if he wastucked in. In a moment he would jump up and startle her with a hug, asshe leaned over him. In a moment....

  Screaming desperately, he was out of bed, backing heedlessly across theroom. He was still screaming as the low sill of the open window caughthim behind the knees and toppled him thirty stories to the street.

  Alone in the silent room, Helen Benton stood dazed, staring blindly atthe empty window.

  Tommy's parting gift from his father slid from her hand and lay on thecarpet, still ticking gently.

  It was 9:23 on Mars.

  The End

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy_ July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.