Star Mother Read online

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  STAR MOTHER

  By ROBERT F. YOUNG

  _A touching story of the most enduring love in all eternity._

  That night her son was the first star.

  She stood motionless in the garden, one hand pressed against her heart,watching him rise above the fields where he had played as a boy, wherehe had worked as a young man; and she wondered whether he was thinkingof those fields now, whether he was thinking of her standing alone inthe April night with her memories; whether he was thinking of theverandahed house behind her, with its empty rooms and silent halls, thatonce upon a time had been his birthplace.

  Higher still and higher he rose in the southern sky, and then, when hehad reached his zenith, he dropped swiftly down past the dark edge ofthe Earth and disappeared from sight. A boy grown up too soon, ridinground and round the world on a celestial carousel, encased in anairtight metal capsule in an airtight metal chariot ...

  _Why don't they leave the stars alone?_ she thought. _Why don't theyleave the stars to God?_

  * * * * *

  The general's second telegram came early the next morning: Explorer XII_doing splendidly. Expect to bring your son down sometime tomorrow_.

  She went about her work as usual, collecting the eggs and allocatingthem in their cardboard boxes, then setting off in the station wagon onher Tuesday morning run. She had expected a deluge of questions from hercustomers. She was not disappointed. "Is Terry really way up there allalone, Martha?" "Aren't you _scared_, Martha?" "I do hope they can gethim back down all right, Martha." She supposed it must have given themquite a turn to have their egg woman change into a star motherovernight.

  She hadn't expected the TV interview, though, and she would have avoidedit if it had been politely possible. But what could she do when the lineof cars and trucks pulled into the drive and the technicians got out andstarted setting up their equipment in the backyard? What could she saywhen the suave young man came up to her and said, "We want you to knowthat we're all very proud of your boy up there, ma'am, and we hopeyou'll do us the honor of answering a few questions."

  Most of the questions concerned Terry, as was fitting. From the way thesuave young man asked them, though, she got the impression that he wastrying to prove that her son was just like any other average Americanboy, and such just didn't happen to be the case. But whenever she openedher mouth to mention, say, how he used to study till all hours of thenight, or how difficult it had been for him to make friends because ofhis shyness, or the fact that he had never gone out forfootball--whenever she started to mention any of these things, the suaveyoung man was in great haste to interrupt her and to twist her words, byrequestioning, into a different meaning altogether, till Terry'sbehavior pattern seemed to coincide with the behavior pattern which thesuave young man apparently considered the norm, but which, if followed,Martha was sure, would produce not young men bent on exploring space butyoung men bent on exploring trivia.

  A few of the questions concerned herself: Was Terry her only child?("Yes.") What had happened to her husband? ("He was killed in the KoreanWar.") What did she think of the new law granting star mothers toppriority on any and all information relating to their sons? ("I thinkit's a fine law ... It's too bad they couldn't have shown similarhumanity toward the war mothers of World War II.")

  * * * * *

  It was late in the afternoon by the time the TV crew got everythingrepacked into their cars and trucks and made their departure. Marthafixed herself a light supper, then donned an old suede jacket of Terry'sand went out into the garden to wait for the sun to go down. Accordingto the time table the general had outlined in his first telegram,Terry's first Tuesday night passage wasn't due to occur till 9:05. Butit seemed only right that she should be outside when the stars startedto come out. Presently they did, and she watched them wink on, one byone, in the deepening darkness of the sky. She'd never been much of aone for the stars; most of her life she'd been much too busy on Earth tobother with things celestial. She could remember, when she was muchyounger and Bill was courting her, looking up at the moon sometimes; andonce in a while, when a star fell, making a wish. But this wasdifferent. It was different because now she had a personal interest inthe sky, a new affinity with its myriad inhabitants.

  And how bright they became when you kept looking at them! They seemed tocome alive, almost, pulsing brilliantly down out of the blackness of thenight ... And they were different colors, too, she noticed with a start.Some of them were blue and some were red, others were yellow ... green... orange ...

  It grew cold in the April garden and she could see her breath. There wasa strange crispness, a strange clarity about the night, that she hadnever known before ... She glanced at her watch, was astonished to seethat the hands indicated two minutes after nine. Where had the timegone? Tremulously she faced the southern horizon ... and saw her Terryappear in his shining chariot, riding up the star-pebbled path of hisorbit, a star in his own right, dropping swiftly now, down, down, andout of sight beyond the dark wheeling mass of the Earth ... She took adeep, proud breath, realized that she was wildly waving her hand and letit fall slowly to her side. Make a wish! she thought, like a littlegirl, and she wished him pleasant dreams and a safe return and wrappedthe wish in all her love and cast it starward.

  * * * * *

  Sometime tomorrow, the general's telegram had said--

  That meant sometime today!

  She rose with the sun and fed the chickens, fixed and ate her breakfast,collected the eggs and put them in their cardboard boxes, then startedout on her Wednesday morning run. "My land, Martha, I don't see how youstand it with him way up there! Doesn't it get on your _nerves_?" ("Yes... Yes, it does.") "Martha, when are they bringing him back down?"("Today ... _Today_!") "It must be wonderful being a star mother,Martha." ("Yes, it is--in a way.")

  Wonderful ... and terrible.

  If only he can last it out for a few more hours, she thought. If onlythey can bring him down safe and sound. Then the vigil will be over, andsome other mother can take over the awesome responsibility of having ason become a star--

  If only ...

  * * * * *

  The general's third telegram arrived that afternoon: _Regret to informyou that meteorite impact on satellite hull severely damagedcapsule-detachment mechanism, making ejection impossible. Will makeevery effort to find another means of accomplishing your son's return._

  Terry!--

  See the little boy playing beneath the maple tree, moving his tiny carsup and down the tiny streets of his make-believe village; the littleboy, his fuzz of hair gold in the sunlight, his cherub-cheeks pink inthe summer wind--

  _Terry!--_

  Up the lane the blue-denimed young man walks, swinging his thin tannedarms, his long legs making near-grownup strides over the sun-searedgrass; the sky blue and bright behind him, the song of cicada rising andfalling in the hazy September air--

  _Terry ..._

  _--probably won't get a chance to write you again before take-off, butdon't worry, Ma. The _Explorer XII_ is the greatest bird they everbuilt. Nothing short of a direct meteorite hit can hurt it, and the oddsare a million to one ..._

  _Why don't they leave the stars alone? Why don't they leave the stars toGod?_

  * * * * *

  The afternoon shadows lengthened on the lawn and the sun grew red andswollen over the western hills. Martha fixed supper, tried to eat, andcouldn't. After a while, when the light began to fade, she slipped intoTerry's jacket and went outside.

  Slowly the sky darkened and the star
s began to appear. At length _her_star appeared, but its swift passage blurred before her eyes. Tirescrunched on the gravel then, and headlights washed the darkness from thedrive. A car door slammed.

  Martha did not move. _Please God_, she thought, _let it be Terry_, eventhough she knew that it couldn't possibly be Terry. Footsteps soundedbehind her, paused. Someone coughed softly. She turned then--

  "Good evening, ma'am."

  She saw the circlet of stars on the gray epaulet; she saw the sternhandsome face; she saw the dark tired eyes. And she knew. Even before hespoke again, she knew--

  "The same meteorite that damaged the ejection mechanism, ma'am. Itpenetrated the capsule, too. We didn't find out till just a whileago--but there was nothing we could have done anyway ... Are you allright, ma'am?"

  "Yes. I'm all right."

  "I wanted to express my regrets personally. I know how you must feel."

  "It's all right."

  "We will, of course, make every effort to bring back his ... remains ...so that he can have a fitting burial on Earth."

  "No," she said.

  "I beg your pardon, ma'am?"

  She raised her eyes to the patch of sky where her son had passed in hisshining metal sarcophagus. Sirius blossomed there, blue-white andbeautiful. She raised her eyes still higher--and beheld the vastparterre of Orion with its central motif of vivid forget-me-nots, itsfar-flung blooms of Betelguese and Rigel, of Bellatrix and Saiph ... Andhigher yet--and there flamed the exquisite flower beds of Taurus andGemini, there burgeoned the riotous wreath of the Crab; there lay thepulsing petals of the Pleiades ... And down the ecliptic garden path,wafted by a stellar breeze, drifted the ocher rose of Mars ...

  "No," she said again.

  The general had raised his eyes, too; now, slowly, he lowered them. "Ithink I understand, ma'am. And I'm glad that's the way you want it ...The stars _are_ beautiful tonight, aren't they."

  "More beautiful than they've ever been," she said.

  * * * * *

  After the general had gone, she looked up once more at the vast andvariegated garden of the sky where her son lay buried, then she turnedand walked slowly back to the memoried house.

  THE END

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ January 1959. 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.