Trouble on His Wings by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, adventure
ISBN: 9781592126279
Publisher: Galaxy Press, L.L.C.
Published: 2011-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

MR. SEN SHU WU had the kind of a smile that is painted on dolls—with the exception that nothing could ever remove it, not even breakage. He answered all questions with the very best of polite language, bowed in payment for every attention and generally gave the impression that he had but one mission in life—to utterly efface himself. At this time in particular he was anxious to be as unnoticed as possible and, when he thought no one was looking, his small brown eyes would try to reach around corners as though expecting, from moment to moment, the arrival of at least a tiger.

Johnny, after seven years of photographing mankind in action, was not likely to miss any such signs, and before they had shoved off from San Francisco, he had already remarked to Irish in private, “I hope you can swim.”

“Huh?” Irish had said.

“Yeah, swim. But what I’m worrying about is not whether we’ll be lost along the wayside, as that’s pretty well established, but whether Mr. Sen Shu Wu will have company on the highway back to his ancestors.”

“Gee, y’think there’ll be trouble?”

When the big Clipper wallowed down the bay to swoosh into the sky and head westward, the Jinx asked the same question. “What’s the matter with our friend, Johnny? He looks like he expected the sky to fall in. Is there going to be trouble?”

Johnny looked at her grimly and she knew what he meant.

“I suppose there will be,” she decided, with a sigh. “But you don’t really think I’m a jinx, do you?”

Johnny leaned back on his head, dragging on a cigarette and scanning the vanishing coastline below.

“You don’t, do you, Johnny?” she persisted. “Honest, things just happen, that’s all. You . . . you’d have turned me over to the police if you really thought I was.”

“I don’t know why I didn’t,” said Johnny. “Why don’t you come clean with a guy? What did you do?”

She was instantly frightened, glancing around to see if any of the other passengers had overheard.

“All right,” said Johnny. “Keep it to yourself.” He looked at her speculatively, still asking himself over and over just why he considered it his bounden duty to play escort to her. She was lovely—especially so in those gracefully tailored whites she had mysteriously produced in San Francisco—and there was something . . . No! He was too damned tough to get caught falling in love with any girl. He’d been too far and seen too many. And besides, wasn’t she a jinx?

Mr. Sen Shu Wu, across from Johnny, smiled faintly and looked a little green. He was getting airsick, despite the calmness of the day, but he didn’t allow himself to be discomposed. “Nice sea, isn’t it, Mr. Brice?”

“Yeah,” said Johnny, “there’s lots of it.”

“Very strange, seeing the coast depart behind us. Makes one feel oddly without purpose, sailing off into the horizon. It is so very far to my country.”

“It’s plenty far to swim,” said Johnny.

Mr. Sen Shu Wu’s eyes flickered over Johnny’s camera which, at Johnny’s request, had been left in the cabin.

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