The Most Sentimental Man Page 2
"Sounds charming," said Johnson. "I too have read the Colonial Officehandouts.... I wonder what the people who wrote them'll do now thatthere's no longer any necessity for attracting colonists--everybody'salready up in Alpha Centauri. Oh, well; there'll be other systems toconquer and colonize."
"The word _conquer_ is hardly correct," the commander said stiffly,"since not one of the three planets had any indigenous life forms thatwas intelligent."
"Or life forms that you recognized as intelligent," Johnson suggestedgently. Although why should there be such a premium placed onintelligence, he wondered. Was intelligence the sole criterion on whichthe right to life and to freedom should be based?
The commander frowned and looked at his chronometer again. "Well," hefinally said, "since you feel that way and you're sure you've quite madeup your mind, my men _are_ anxious to go."
"Of course they are," Johnson said, managing to convey just the rightamount of reproach.
Clifford flushed and started to walk away.
"I'll stand out of the way of your jets!" Johnson called after him. "Itwould be so anticlimactic to have me burned to a crisp after all this.Bon voyage!"
There was no reply.
Johnson watched the silver vessel shoot up into the sky and thought,"Now is the time for me to feel a pang, or even a twinge, but I don't atall. I feel relieved, in fact, but that's probably the result of gettingrid of that fool Clifford."
He crossed the field briskly, pulling off his jacket and discarding histie as he went. His ground car remained where he had parked it--in anarea clearly marked _No Parking_.
They'd left him an old car that wasn't worth shipping to the stars. Howlong it would last was anybody's guess. The government hadn't beendeliberately illiberal in leaving him such a shabby vehicle; if therehad been any way to ensure a continuing supply of fuel, they wouldprobably have left him a reasonably good one. But, since only a littlecould be left, allowing him a good car would have been simply an exampleof conspicuous waste, and the government had always preferred its wasteto be inconspicuous.
He drove slowly through the broad boulevards of Long Island, savoringthe loneliness. New York as a residential area had been a ghost town foryears, since the greater part of its citizens had been among the firstto emigrate to the stars. However, since it was the capital of the worldand most of the interstellar ships--particularly the last few--hadtaken off from its spaceports, it had been kept up as an officialembarkation center. Thus, paradoxically, it was the last city to becompletely evacuated, and so, although the massive but jerry-builtapartment houses that lined the streets were already crumbling, theroads had been kept in fairly good shape and were hardly cracked at all.
Still, here and there the green was pushing its way up in unlikelyplaces. A few more of New York's tropical summers, and Long Island wouldsoon become a wilderness.
The streets were empty, except for the cats sunning themselves onlong-abandoned doorsteps or padding about on obscure errands of theirown. Perhaps their numbers had not increased since humanity had left thecity to them, but there certainly seemed to be more--striped and solid,black and grey and white and tawny--accepting their citizenship withequanimity. They paid no attention to Johnson--they had long sincedissociated themselves from a humanity that had not concerned itselfgreatly over their welfare. On the other hand, neither he nor thesurface car appeared to startle them; the old ones had seen such before,and to kittens the very fact of existence is the ultimate surprise.
The Queensborough Bridge was deadly silent. It was completely emptyexcept for a calico cat moving purposefully toward Manhattan. Thestructure needed a coat of paint, Johnson thought vaguely, but of courseit would never get one. Still, even uncared for, the bridges shouldoutlast him--there would be no heavy traffic to weaken them. Just incase of unforeseeable catastrophe, however--he didn't want to be trappedon an island, even Manhattan Island--he had remembered to providehimself with a rowboat; a motorboat would have been preferable, but thenthe fuel difficulty would arise again....
How empty the East River looked without any craft on it! It was rather acharming little waterway in its own right, though nothing to comparewith the stately Hudson. The water scintillated in the sunshine and theair was clear and fresh, for no factories had spewed fumes and smokeinto it for many years. There were few gulls, for nothing was left forthe scavenger; those remaining were forced to make an honest living bycatching fish.
In Manhattan, where the buildings had been more soundly constructed, thesigns of abandonment were less evident ... empty streets, an occasionalcracked window. Not even an unusual amount of dirt because, in thepast, the normal activities of an industrial and ruggedly individualcity had provided more grime than years of neglect could ever hope toequal. No, it would take Manhattan longer to go back than Long Island.Perhaps that too would not happen during his lifetime.
Yet, after all, when he reached Fifth Avenue he found that Central Parkhad burst its boundaries. Fifty-ninth Street was already half jungle,and the lush growth spilled down the avenues and spread raggedly outinto the side streets, pushing its way up through the cracks it had madein the surface of the roads. Although the Plaza fountain had not flowedfor centuries, water had collected in the leaf-choked basin from thelast rain, and a group of grey squirrels were gathered around it,shrilly disputing possession with some starlings.
Except for the occasional cry of a cat in the distance, these voiceswere all that he heard ... the only sound. Not even the sudden blast ofa jet regaining power ... he would never hear that again; never hear thestridor of a human voice piercing with anger; the cacophony of a hundredtelevision sets, each playing a different program; the hoot of a horn;off-key singing; the thin, uncertain notes of an amateur musician ...these would never be heard on Earth again.
He sent the car gliding slowly ... no more traffic rules ... down FifthAvenue. The buildings here also were well-built; they were manycenturies old and would probably last as many more. The shop windowswere empty, except for tangles of dust ... an occasional broken,discarded mannequin.... In some instances the glass had already crackedor fallen out. Since there were no children to throw stones, however,others might last indefinitely, carefully glassing in nothingness. Doorsstood open and he could see rows of empty counters and barren shelvesfuzzed high with the dust of the years since a customer had approachedthem.
Cats sedately walked up and down the avenue or sat genteelly with tailstucked in on the steps of the cathedral--as if the place had been theirsall along.
Dusk was falling. Tonight, for the first time in centuries, the streetlamps would not go on. Undoubtedly when it grew dark he would seeghosts, but they would be the ghosts of the past and he had made hispeace with the past long since; it was the present and the future withwhich he had not come to terms. And now there would be no present, nopast, no future--but all merged into one and he was the only one.
At Forty-second Street pigeons fluttered thickly around the publiclibrary, fat as ever, their numbers greater, their appetites grosser.The ancient library, he knew, had changed little inside: stacks andshelves would still be packed thick with reading matter. Books arebulky, so only the rare editions had been taken beyond the stars; therest had been microfilmed and their originals left to Johnson and decay.It was his library now, and he had all the time in the world to read allthe books in the world--for there were more than he could possibly readin the years that, even at the most generous estimate, were left to him.
He had been wondering where to make his permanent residence for, withthe whole world his, he would be a fool to confine himself to somemodest dwelling. Now he fancied it might be a good idea to move rightinto the library. Very few places in Manhattan could boast a garden oftheir own.
He stopped the car to stare thoughtfully at the little park behind thegrimy monument to Neoclassicism. Like Central Park, Bryant had alreadyslipped it
s boundaries and encroached upon Sixth Avenue--Avenue of theWorld, the street signs said now, and before that it had been Avenue ofthe Nations and Avenue of the Americas, but to the public it had alwaysbeen Sixth Avenue and to Johnson, the last man on Earth, it was SixthAvenue.
He'd live in the library, while he stayed in New York, that was--he'dthought that in a few weeks, when it got really hot, he might strikenorth. He had always meant to spend a summer in Canada. His surface carwould probably never last the trip, but the Museum of Ancient Vehicleshad been glad to bestow half a dozen of the bicycles from their exhibitsupon him. After all, he was, in effect, a museum piece himself and so asworth preserving as the bicycles; moreover, bicycles are difficult topack for an interstellar trip. With reasonable care, these might lasthim his lifetime....
But he had to have a permanent residence somewhere, and the