His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

Libonari stumbled on the carpeting that began at the threshold of Harwell's office. "I saw your ad," he began shrilly, "your ad for a junior copywriter."

"Have a seat." The boy was shabby and jittery. "Didn't you bring a presentation?"

He didn't understand. "No, I just saw your ad. I didn't know I had to be introduced. I'm sorry I took up your time—" He was on his way out already.

"Wait a minute, Angelo! I meant, have you got any copies of what you've done, where you've been to school, things like that."

"Oh." The boy pulled out a sheaf of paper from his jacket pocket. "This stuff isn't very good," 'he said. "As a matter of fact, it isn't really finished. I wrote it for a magazine, Integration, I don't suppose you ever heard of it; they were going to print it but they folded up, it's a kind of prose poem." Abruptly he ran dry and handed over the wad of dog-eared, interlined copy. His eyes said to Farwell: please don't laugh at me.

Farwell read at random: "—and then the Moon will drift astern and out of sight, the broken boundary that used to stand between the eye and the mind." He read it aloud and asked: "Now, what does that mean?"

The boy shyly and proudly explained: "Well, what I was trying to bring out there was that the Moon used to be as far as anybody could go with his eyes. If you wanted to find out anything about the other celestial bodies you had to guess and make inductions—that's sort of the whole theme of the piece—liberation, broken boundaries."

"Uh-huh," said Farwell, and went on reading. It was a rambling account of an Earth-Ganymede flight. There was a lot of stuff as fuzzy as the first bit, there were other bits that were hard, clean writing. The kid might be worth developing if only he didn't look and act so peculiar. Maybe it was just nervousness.

"So you're specially interested in space travel?" he asked.

"Oh, very much. I know I failed to get it over in this; it's all second-hand.

I've never been off. But nobody's really written well about it yet—" He froze.

His terrible secret, Farwell supposed with amusement, was that he hoped to be the laureate of space flight. Well, if he wasn't absolutely impossible, Greenbough and Brady could give him a try. Shabby as he was, he wouldn't dare quibble about the pay.

He didn't quibble. He told Farwell he could get along on it nicely, he had a room in the run-down sub-Bohemian near north side of town. He was from San Francisco, but had left home years ago—Farwell got the idea that he'd run away— and been in a lot of places. He'd held a lot of menial jobs and picked up a few credits taking night college courses here and there. After a while Farwell told him he was hired and to see the girl for his withholding tax and personnel data forms.

He buzzed his copy chief about the boy and leaned back in good humor.

Angelo could never get to be an accounts man, of course, but he had some talent and imagination. Tame it and the kid could grow into a good producer. A rocket fan would be handy to have around if Sales stuck Ops with any more lemons like Chicago Chair.

Worple drank that night at the Mars Room like a man with a hollow leg and Farwell more or less had to go along with him. He got the Kumfyseets item planted but arrived at the office late and queasy as McGuffy, the copy chief, was bawling out Angelo for showing up in a plaid shirt, and a dirty one at that.

McGuffy came in to see him at 4:30 to ask about Angelo. "He just doesn't seem to be a Greenbough and Brady man, J. F. Of course if you think he's got something on the ball, that's good enough for me. But, honestly, can you see him taking an account to lunch?"

"Is he really getting in your hair, Mac? Give him a few days."

McGuffy was back at the end of the week, raging. "He showed me a poem, J. F. A sonnet about Mars. And he acted as if he was doing me a favor! As if he was handing me a contract with Panamerican Steel!"

Farwell laughed; it was exactly what he would expect Angelo to do. "It was his idea of a compliment, Mac. It means he thinks you're a good critic. I know these kids. I used to—" He broke off, dead-pan.

McGuffy grumbled: "You know I'm loyal, J. F. If you think he's got promise, all right. But he's driving me nuts."

After the copy chief left, Farwell shook his head nervously. What had he almost said? "I used to be one myself." Why, so he had—just about 25

years ago, a quarter of a century ago, when he went into radio work temporarily. Temporarily! A quarter-century ago he had been twenty years old. A quarter-century ago he had almost flunked out of college because he sat up all night trying to write plays instead of studying.

He hazily remembered saying to somebody, a girl, something like: "I am aiming for a really creative synthesis of Pinero and Shaw." Somehow that stuck, but he couldn't remember what the girl looked like or whether she'd been impressed. Farwell felt his ears burning: "A really creative synthesis of Pinero and Shaw." What a little—!

He told the intercom: "Send in Libonari."