Departures

It made me proud. “Mind over matter,” I told him grandly, flexing what passes for my right bicep.

His eyes got big and round. They were a light, golden brown, an interesting color. “Let me have another one.”

Hell, I’d throw that thing all night if somebody’d catch it for me. I give him credit: he fought it all the way, catching the ones that didn’t knuckle too much, even a couple of good ones, getting his glove on most of them. But several got by him, and I’m afraid I nailed him a few more times, the last one in a tender spot. Knuckleball or not, he doubled over.

So did Pete, but he was laughing. “Ohh, that stings!” he sang out in falsetto.

Wes came rushing over. He wasn’t mad at Pete. He was mad at me. “Don’t you go racking Flush up, Dr. Strange,” he growled, and he meant every word of it. “He’s worth more to this team than you’ll ever be, you goddamn clown.”

“Do not blame him,” Michael said when he could talk again. “That is a remarkable talent he has, and the ball eluded me time after time. Pete is right: I think he does pitch like I hit.”

“Remarkable, my left one,” Wes snorted. “You okay?”

“Yes, yes.” Michael sounded impatient. It was about time to play; we started crowding into the dugout. Michael slapped me on the back. “Congratulations. I doubted your people could do such a thing.”

“Huh?” I said, but just then Stuart tied out, and Michael had to go out on deck. When he came up, he singled between second and first-nobody’d got him out since he had joined us. He promptly scored when Wes’ brother, Joe, boomed one past the center fielder. He tried to stretch it into a triple, slid hard into the Mother Truckers’ third baseman, and they started wrestling. Joe’s all right off the field, but he plays rough. He picked on somebody his own size; that third baseman had “Whale” lettered on the back of his shirt. Both benches emptied. We managed to pry ‘em apart without any punches getting thrown.

In the fun and games, I forgot about Michael’s peculiar remark. I didn’t make anything much of it, anyway. He had the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of weirdness as any other Gator.

Sure enough, he ended up going 3 for 3, two rollers and a humpbacked liner nobody could reach. We won; I think it was 8-5.

At Shakey’s afterward I remembered again. “Hey, Flush,” I said, and looked around for him.

“He took off, man,” Ted told me. “Gulped a beer and split. Probably afraid you were gonna clunk him some more.”

“Smartass. Something I wanted to ask him. Oh well, if I think of it, I’ll catch him with it next week.”

But when next Tuesday rolled around, Michael didn’t show. He hadn’t called; he hadn’t left word. He just wasn’t there. Wes cussed me up one side and down the other. He had no more idea than I did whether it was my fault, but he took no chances. And when we lost-nobody hit a lick-he reamed me all over again. He plain hates to lose.

Michael didn’t come back, either, and it took us a couple of games to get used to having him gone. We lost one of those, and then lost to the Tomcats again, and ended up tied for third with Snafu. Lord, Wes was furious.

We played in two summer leagues, then a fall one, then took a rest for winter-Sun Belt or not, it’s too damn cold. Life went on. Joe got married (again); Wes got divorced (again); Ted’s wife had twins; Pete got busted for drunk driving and spent a night in jail.

We were going to get together last week for our first spring practice, but it got canceled, of course-that was the day the aliens showed up. God knows how they did it from somewhere out around the orbit of Uranus, but they sent every country their message in its own number one language.

Naturally, you saw the one who was talking to us here m the States the same way I did. Humanoid, sure, but not from here, even if he did wear a pin-striped three-piece suit (to reassure the natives, I suppose): not with elephant-gray skin and bright blue hair. Those first few awful seconds, with everyone wondering whether they were going to blow us away, I was too freaked to notice that he corn-rowed it.

Then I saw a couple of the others going back and forth behind him. They were a little out of focus, but brown skin and brick-red hair isn’t a combination you forget in a hurry. “Ohmygod,” I said, all one word.

The one in front started talking. His English had the same raspy accent as Michael’s, but he knew how to handle himself in front of a camera. “I greet you in peace,” he said, and you believed him. He had a presence Dan Rather would kill for.

“I greet you,” he said again, “And congratulate you, and extend to you the invitation of the Confederacy of Sentient Beings to join our ranks. You have fulfilled the three criteria for membership. You have gained control of the atom. True, you use it in war, but your national struggles are over now. Yes, and this ship itself is armed. That is only proper: danger must be guarded against.

“You seek to explore space. A race without the curiosity to step outside its cradle is not worth knowing.