Forsyte's RetreatMarks, Winston K. (Winston Kinney)
Science
Forsyte's Retreat
Marks, Winston K. (Winston Kinney)
Hotels -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
He dashed the sand jar through the window, chipped off the jagged edges
with his heel and climbed out. It was a twenty-foot drop to security,
and he made it without hesitation. What could a man hope to do with a
mess like--
Spang! His feet struck, not with a crunch on gravelled tar, but into a
springy fabric that sagged under his 180 pounds, tossed him six feet in
the air, caught him on the rebound and then juggled him down with
diminishing bounces.
* * * * *
They were waiting for him, as he regained his feet on the quivering
surface of a spring-loaded, canvas trampoline. The bright, mid-morning
sun blinded him for an instant, but their voices assailed his ears in a
mighty roar of approval as he squinted under his hand and peered around
him.
"Attaboy, Sexy," a shrill female voice piped. The roof-top was jammed
with a pressing throng of--nearly naked people. In the cleared
semi-circle about him a cordon of male bodies-beautiful restrained the
mob behind a rope from which a long streamer hung with letters reading:
"WELCOME, SEXTUS, TO 2153 A. D."
Reaching over the edge of the canvas platform with outstretched hand was
a single, willowy, sun-baked oldster in a purple loin-cloth. His hair
and beard were a dazzling white, and his face was wreathed in a silly
smile, the kind officials always wear when presenting the keys to the
city.
He shuffled his white kid sandals and spoke with an accent: "Welcome to
2153, Sextus Rollo Forsyte! California salutes you!"
Somewhere down on the street a raucous brass band broke into the _Stars
and Stripes Forever_ that quickly medlied into _California, Here We
Come_!
Sextus shrank back against the wall and felt ancient bricks crumble into
dust against his hands. The magnitude of his disaster crushed in upon
shrinking soul, and as his nimble imagination grasped the stunning
significance every molecule of his being vibrated with horror. _He had
been warned not to open a window._
"You have fulfilled the legend," the old man sang joyously. "You are a
famous man." How famous, Sextus was forced to acknowledge as a
television boom snaked over the heads of the crowd trailing a wisp of
cable and cast its baleful, glassy eye full into his face.
"Two hundred years to the day, as my great-great-grandfather predicted.
I am Clark Bradford, direct descendent of--"
Sextus stared wildly up at the open window. He bounced once
experimentally. It was a fine trampoline, and he flipped a foot off the
surface. Next bounce he flexed his knees a little and gained another
foot. Now he doubled up purposefully.
The one-man-delegate in purple frowned. "Stop that. We are here to
welcome you and start the celebration at the Hollywood Bowl and--Stop
that, I say!" Now he sensed Sextus' incredible intent. "Officer, help
out here, please!"
A bulgy, bronzed fellow clad mainly in an immaculately white brassard
left the rope barrier and joined Bradford.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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