“So I see two options. Option one’s I tell Yeager about the time when I was sixteen years old, and my father and I ran into King Hussein at a polo match the king’s son, Prince Abdullah, and a second cousin of mine on my Jason side were playing in, and we all decided to get a steak after the match; I could tell Yeager how King Hussein, on top of being snappy and bullyish with Abdullah, whose team had lost the match through no fault of Abdullah’s, was also a mess in terms of table manners, barking at the waiters, complaining about the temperature of the room, and always some Béarnaise on his chin or in the corners of his lips, and how at one point he even reached into his mouth with his entire thumb to pry a hunk of gristle off a molar, a hunk of pink gristle he then deposited onto his plate and we all had to look at while we ate our steaks. In other words: I could say something that might cause Yeager to no longer feel all too honor-bound to the king, who was, at least in his healthier days, kind of a disgusting brute, which, in case you’re wondering, isn’t just me being culturally insensitive or something. I’ve dined with plenty of Arabs, plenty of them royalty, and all of them knew how to eat their dinner. King Hussein, though: not the case.
“Anyway, that’s the first option that occurs to me: tear the king down, stain the bond of honor, corrupt the sense of duty. But even assuming that works—and it might not have, might have backfired, might have caused Yeager to think I was an asshole, shoot the messenger and all—even if it works, my hero, Chuck Yeager, maybe ends up feeling a little foolish, a little disillusioned. I don’t want that. He’s my hero. So I go with option two. I tell Yeager, ‘Look. Not only do I want to trade you your medals back for that cure, which I find to be as beautiful a gizmo as it sounds like King Hussein did, but I’m good with those things—my young son’s a budding expert, and he’s taught me a trick or two—and I know I can train one to become quadrupedal, and, once I do that, I’ll give you a marble, teach you how to do it, and then maybe you’ll be able to better understand King Hussein and that amazing-sounding something that passed between you in the hospital, that amazing-sounding moment you two shared together.’
“Yeager says he isn’t sure, but I can tell he’s half-swayed, maybe three-quarters swayed.
“I sweeten the pot. I tell him that I promise I’ll perpetuate the line.
“That’s all it took. He gave me the cure, I gave him his medals. All was well. Better than well. It was a lovely afternoon. Can’t remember how it ended, we were so completely hammered.
“But now listen to this. Yeager was right about the quadrupedal thing. There’s something defective with the Handsome Arthurs. None of the ones I’ve emerged—this one being the twelfth—has ever, ever, despite any method of training I’ve applied to it, walked quadrupedally for more than ten minutes, post-training. I’ve tried every method you can read about, every method Triple-J has ever suggested. I do everything I can think of as soon as I think of it. Spare no expense. The globe Handsome Arthur Twelve’s on right now? I had it specially made. It’s sized just for Handsome Arthur. It’s sized so Handsome Arthur can’t possible balance on it bipedally. Has to get on all fours, or fall off. Not only that, it’s got a super-low-friction axle: if you exhaled on this globe, it would spin for ten minutes—it’s as close to a perpetual-motion machine as any machine that’s ever been in motion. I put Handsome Arthur Twelve on top of it every day—I have an identical globe I travel with—and I’ve been doing this since it was three weeks old, increasing the amount of time it spends treading by a minute or two every week or so. It’s up to an hour and a half by now. Handsome Arthur Eleven, last year, by the time I dacted it, was up to two hours on the globe twice a day, and still, it never became quadrupedal.
“By now, you know, I’m almost prideful about it—the defect, I mean. I kind of love that the Handsome Arthurs, handsome though they are, are fundamentally flawed. I’ve asked around—and Triple-J has, too—and no one’s ever heard of another cure that has this problem. So the defect’s become a kind of positive attribute. It’s unique, you know? Or as near to unique as you can get, I guess, considering the whole cloning aspect or…It’s special, let’s call it. Anyway, if it weren’t for Yeager—for my promising Yeager I’d try to make a Handsome Arthur quadrupedal for him—I’d probably have given up by now, but since I promised him, I have to keep trying. And I do want to succeed, because I think it would please Yeager, who deserves to be pleased—deserves everything he wants, that guy, what a great guy, you know?—but at the same time, I’m at this point where I’m pretty sure I’ll be disappointed if I do succeed. If their flaw turns out to not be permanent, if it turns out not to be dyed in the wool—only kind of resilient, resistant—whatever—I’m pretty sure I’ll think less of the Handsome Arthurs. They won’t seem as special. I’ll be triumphant, but it’s not how I’ll feel, you know? I won’t feel victorious. I might even feel like I’d been tricked a little. Or not so much tricked as.”
He left the clause dangling, sat in his chair.
I didn’t know what to say.
“Chuck Yeager,” I said.
“Yeager,” echoed Burroughs.
“The best,” said Jonboat.
“I wish I could’ve been there.”
“You do,” Jonboat told me. “Believe me, you do. I wish I was always there. Well, that’s not true, but you know what I mean, though.” He rapped his knuckles on the desk a few times. “This contract,” he said. “Unless you object, Belt, I think I’ll have Burroughs make one small change here. Doesn’t seem right to me to pay you in parts, make you come back for the second installment.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind coming back,” I said. “It’s only just a few blocks’ walk for me, really.”
“Still,” he said. “I suppose I’d just rather save you the trouble. We’ll pay you the whole amount today. Can’t object to that.”
“I guess I’ll hop to it, then,” Burroughs said, taking a laptop off the credenza, and heading, from the sound of it, into the living room.
Handsome Arthur 12: still going strong.
“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” Jonboat said.
“Didn’t?” I said.
“Smoke in here,” he said.
I’d unboxed a Quill without having realized.
I started to apologize.
“No, please,” said Jonboat. “It’s no big deal. I’m not one these people who…whatever. Feel free, though, to go out front and smoke. I’m sure you’ve got time before the notary gets here.”
“Actually,” I said, reboxing the Quill, repocketing the box, “I had one not so long ago. You, on the other hand—I haven’t seen you in years.”