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                          Jackie Sees a Star

                       By Marion Zimmer Bradley

                   Jackie's star was his own secret
                  discovery at first. But then--even
                     Dr. Milliken became excited.

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                  Fantastic Universe September 1954.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


    _Marion Zimmer Bradley is a New Englander by speech, habits and
    tradition. Transplanted to Texas four years ago, she complains that
    she never has enough room to roam in the sand flats surrounding her
    dwelling. Could it be that, like Jackie, she much prefers the vast
    sweep of the Galactic universe--and a splendor which makes even
    Texas seem spatially minute?_


So you want to hear about the Edwards child? Oh, no, you don't get by
with _that_ one! You can just put on your hat again, and walk right
back down those stairs, Mister. We've had too many psychologists and
debunkers around here, and we don't want any more.

_Oh_--you're from the University? Excuse me, professor. I'm sorry. But
if you _knew_ what we've put up with, from reporters, and all kinds
of crackpots ... and it isn't good for Jackie, either. He's getting
awfully spoiled. If you knew how many paddlings I've had to give that
kid in just this past week.

His mother? Me? Oh, no! No, I'm just Jackie's aunt. His mother, my
sister Beth, works at the Tax Bureau. Jackie's father died when he was
only a week old. You know ... he'd been in the Big Bombings in '64, and
he never really got over it. It was pretty awful.

Anyhow, I look after Jackie while my sister works. He's a good little
kid--spoiled, but what kid isn't, these days?

It was I who heard it first, as a matter of fact. You see, I'm around
Jackie a lot more than his mother is.

I was making Jackie's bed one morning when he came up behind me, and
grabbed me round the waist, and asked, real serious, "Aunt Dorothy, are
the stars _really_ other suns like this one, and do they have planets
too?"

I said, "Why, sure, Jackie. I thought you knew that."

He gave me a hug. "Thanks, Aunt Dorothy. I thought Mig was kidding me."

"Who's Mig?" I asked. I knew most of the kids on the block, you see,
but there was a new little girl on the corner. I asked, "Is she the
little Jackson girl?"

Jackie said, "Mig isn't a _girl_!" And did he sound disgusted!
"Besides," he said, "Mig doesn't live 'round here at all. His name is
really Migardolon Domier, but I call him Mig. He doesn't really talk to
me. I mean, just inside my head."

I said, "Oh." I laughed a little bit, too, because Jackie isn't
really an imaginative kid. But I guess most kids go through the
imaginary-playmate stage. I had one when I was a kid. I called her
Bitsy--but anyway, Jackie just ran out to play, and I didn't think
about it again until one day he asked me what a spaceship looked like.

So I took him to see that movie--you know the one Paul Douglas played
in about the trip to Mars--but would you believe it, the kid just
stuck up his nose.

"I mean a real spaceship!" he said. "Mig showed me a lot better one
than _that_!"

So I spoke kind of sharp. You know, I didn't like him to be rude. And
he said, "Well, Mig's father is building a spaceship. It goes all the
way across the Gal--the gallazzy, I guess, and goes through--Aunt
Dorothy, what's hyperspace?"

"Oh, ask Mig what it is," I said, real cross with him. You know how it
is when kids act smart.

The next day was Saturday, so Beth was at home with Jackie, and I
stayed with Mother. But when I came over Monday morning, she asked me,
"Dorrie, where on earth did Jack pick up all this rocketship lingo? And
what kind of a phase is this _Mig_ business?"

I told her I'd taken him to see ROCKET MARS, and she was quite
provoked. Beth still thinks rockets are kind of comic-book stuff,
and she gave me a long talk about trashy movies, and getting him too
excited, and overstimulating his imagination, and so forth.

Then she gave me the latest developments on this Mig affair. It seemed
that Jackie had given with the details. Mig was a little fellow who
lived on a planet half-way across the "gallazzy," and his father was a
rocketship engineer.

Well, you know how kids are about spaceships. Jackie wasn't quite six,
but he's always been kind of old for his age. That afternoon he started
teasing me to take him to the Planetarium. He kept on about it until I
finally took him, that evening, after Beth got home.

It was quite late when we left. The stars had all come out, and while
we were walking home, I asked him which one of the stars Mig lived on.
And, professor, do you know what that child said? He said, "You can't
live on a _star_, dummy! You'd burn up! He lives on a _planet_ around
the star!"

He pointed off toward the north, fidgeted around for a few minutes, and
finally said, "Well, the sky kind of looks different where Mig lives.
But I think it's up there somewhere," and he pointed into the Big
Dipper.

I didn't encourage the Mig business, but, good gosh, it didn't need
encouraging. I guess it was two or three days later when Jackie told
me that Mig's sun was going to blow up, so his father was building a
spaceship, and they were coming here to live.

I kept a straight face. But I couldn't help wondering what would happen
when Jackie got his Mig, so to speak, down to earth. Probably it would
just ease the fantasy off into a more normal phase, and it would
gradually disappear.

One night in August, Beth wanted to go to a movie with some girls from
her office, so I stayed with Jackie. I was reading downstairs when I
suddenly heard him bawling upstairs--not very loud, but real unhappy
and pitiful.

I ran upstairs and took him up, thinking he'd had a bad dream, and held
him, just shaking and trembling, until he finally quieted down to a
hiccup now and then.

And then he said, in the unhappiest little voice, "Mig has to leave
his--his _erling_ on the planet, to get blowed up with the sun! It's
a little bitty thing like a puppy, but his Daddy says there isn't any
room on the spaceship for it! But he got it for his--well, I guess it
was kind of like a birthday--and he wanted to show it to me when he got
here!"

Well!

I guess the lecture I gave him about imagination had something to do
with it, because I didn't hear any more about Mig for quite some time.
He kept Beth posted, though. He even told her when the spaceship was
going to take off and when Mig's sun was going to blow up, or else
where we'd see it. I don't know which. But anyway, he made her mark it
down on the Calendar. The fifth of November, it was.

Well, in September I went back to college, and--well, I don't just talk
about things outside of the family, but my boy friend, Dave, he was
almost like one of the family, and this year he'd got a job working
with Professor Milliken at the Observatory.

You know Professor Milliken, don't you? I thought so. I told Dave about
this Mig phase of Jackie's, and one night when Dave was over at Beth's
with me, he got the kid talking about it. He humored the kid a lot.
He even took him over to the Observatory and let Jackie look through
the big telescope there. And of course Jackie gave Dave all the latest
details on Mig.

It seems that this spaceship had already taken off--that was why he
hadn't heard much from Mig lately, because--"Mig's Daddy sealed him
up in a little capsule, so he won't wake up till they are 'way out
in hyperspace. Because the spaceship will go faster and faster and
_awful_ fast, and unless he is sealed up, and asleep, it will hurt
him something _awful_!" And Dave humored Jackie, and talked about
acceleration and hyperspace and shortcuts across the Galaxy, and I
don't know what all, and Jackie just sat there and drank it all in as
if he understood every word. Dave even wrote down the day when Mig's
sun was supposed to blow up, and promised to keep an eye on it.

Jackie started to kindergarten, of course, about then, and I thought
he'd forgotten all about Mig. I didn't hear anything more for at least
six weeks. But one night--I was babysitting for Beth again--the
telephone rang, and it was Dave.

"Dorothy! Remember Jackie's little Galactic citizen whose world was
supposed to go up in smoke tonight?"

I glanced at the calendar. It was November fifth. "Now, look here,
Dave," I said firmly. "You are not going to disillusion the kid like
that. He's forgotten all about the silly business. Besides, he's in
bed."

"Well, get him up!" said Dave. "Dorrie, get a load of this. The biggest
supernova I ever saw just exploded in the North. Get Jackie over here!
I want to ask him some questions!"

He meant it. I could tell that he meant it. I ran upstairs and bundled
Jackie up in a blanket--I didn't even bother to put his clothes on,
just a blanket over his pajamas--and took him down to the Observatory
in a taxi.

I wish you could have seen the place. Jackie sitting on a table, in his
pajamas, telling Professor Milliken all about Mig and the spaceship and
the little sealed capsule and the _erling_ and all the rest of it.

I guess you can imagine what a week we went through. Scientists, and
reporters, and psychologists and parapsychologists and just plain
debunkers. And the crackpots. Oh yes, the crackpots. And then they dug
up the records about Jackie's father.

They couldn't even let the poor man rest quiet in his grave, and when
they found out about the Bombing, they talked about hard radiations and
mutations until I darn' near went crazy, and Beth had to quit her job.

They even talked about telepathy, just as if Jackie was some kind of
a freak. We had to take the poor kid out of kindergarten. He hated
that--he was getting so much good out of it. And he enjoyed it so much,
having the other children to play with, and painting, and making those
cute little baskets, and he'd learned to tell time, and everything.

And then the spaceship landed, and I tell you, we haven't had a
minute's peace since.

Oh, _that's_ all right! I was going to call them in for lunch in a few
minutes, anyway. "Jackie! _Jackie_--will you and Mig come in here for
a few minutes? A friend of your uncle Dave's wants to talk to you two
boys."



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