THE DAY
OF THE
BOOMER
DUKES
by Frederik Pohl
Illustrated by EMSH
There was a silvery aura around the kid ... thecops' guns hit him ... but he didn't notice....I
Foraminifera 9
Paptaste udderly, sempedsempsemp dezhavoo, quedschmerz—Excuse me. Imean to say that it was like anendless diet of days, boring, tedious....
No, it loses too much in thetranslation. Explete my reasons,I say. Do my reasons matter? No,not to you, for you are troglodytes,knowing nothing ofcauses, understanding only acts.Acts and facts, I will give youacts and facts.
First you must know how Iam called. My "name" is Foraminifera9-Hart Bailey's Beam,and I am of adequate age andsize. (If you doubt this, I amprepared to fight.) Once the—thetediety of life, as you mightsay, had made itself clear to me,there were, of course, only twoalternatives. I do not like to die,so that possibility was out; andthe remaining alternative wasflight.
Naturally, the necessary machinerywas available to me. Iarrogated a small viewing machine,and scanned the centuriesof the past in the hope that asanctuary might reveal itself tomy aching eyes. Kwel tedietythat was! Back, back I wentthrough the ages. Back to theCentury of the Dog, back to theAge of the Crippled Men. Ifound no time better than myown. Back and back I peered,back as far as the NumberedYears. The Twenty-Eighth Centurywas boredom unendurable,the Twenty-Sixth a morass ofdullness. Twenty-Fifth, Twenty-Fourth—whereverI looked, tedietywas what I found.
I snapped off the machine andconsidered. Put the problemthus: Was there in all of thepages of history no age in whicha 9-Hart Bailey's Beam mightfind adventure and excitement?There had to be! It was not possible,I told myself, despairing,that from the dawn of thedreaming primates until my owntime there was no era at all inwhich I could be—happy? Yes,I suppose happiness is what Iwas looking for. But where wasit? In my viewer, I had fiftycenturies or more to look backupon. And that was, I decreed,the trouble; I could spend mylife staring into the viewer, andyet never discover the time thatwas right for me. There weresimply too many eras to choosefrom. It was like an enormouslibrary in which there must,there had to be, contained theone fact I was looking for—that,lacking an index, I mightwear my life away and neverfind.
"Index!"
I said the word aloud! For, tobe sure, it was the answer. I hadthe freedom of the LearningLodge, and the index in thereading room could easily findfor me just what I wanted.
Splendid, splendid! I almostfelt cheerful. I quickly returnedthe viewer I had been using tothe keeper, and received my depositback. I hurried to theLearning Lodge and fed myspecifications into the index, asfollows, that is to say: Find mea time in recent past where thereis adventure and excitement,where there is a secret, colorfulband of desperadoes with whomI can ally myself. I then addedtwo