know whether to look happy or terrified. She did not show her son the letter.

"We've had enough of being here," she stated. "We're going home."

So they went back across the millions of miles. They cleaned up the house, on which obscene insults had been scribbled in chalk. On two successive days Eddie was jumped by gangs. He fought free and escaped. But on the third evening he was cornered. This time Ash Parker was the ringleader. Ed battled like a bobcat, but eight opponents were too many. He was flat on his back, and they were kicking him. His own blood was in his mouth. What might happen when he blacked out was anybody's guess. Once, before medical knowledge had advanced to where it was, it would have been murder for sure.

Somebody intervened—a big guy in a gray business suit who had come striding along the block with an eager attention.

He didn't say anything at first. He just collared the toughs, two at a time in swift succession, and thrust them away.

Eddie staggered up and faced his benefactor, intent on giving him sincere thanks. "Mister ... I ..."

"Hello, Eddie!" the man said, chuckling. "I see you turned out hardy. Seventeen you'd be now."

Young Ed Dukas heard the voice and looked at the face. He stiffened. Then he made a statement in a flat tone that sounded very formal and unemotional, which it was not: "Sir, you're my father."

The man nodded. "Just off the assembly line, pal. The same guy—because you and your mother, and some other people, remembered what I was like. There was no record of me or of my mind. So, okay, they made one, fella. From the memories of me left in other minds. Thanks, Eddie."

"Thanks?" Ed Dukas said in a choked voice.

Bloody and dirty, he stepped forward. Father and son clung to each other. It was a moment of great triumph.

Ed's mind pictured filaments, as fragile at first as pink spiderweb but already outlining a human shape, held suspended in a kind of jelly—growing there, forming according to a record. Now even the record could be synthesized. It seemed like real freedom from death at last.

Ash Parker had not fled. Now he spoke, sounding awed, "Jeez, Mr. Dukas. I didn't believe it. Maybe my folks can come back, too."

 Prev. P 26/125 next