The Big Bounce | Page 4

to see the ball take its first bounce onto the concrete. I watched it, fascinated, when it hit--after the soft, energy absorbing turf, the concrete was like a springboard. Immediately the ball flew high in the air. I was running across the yard toward it, praying under my breath, Fall on that grass next time.
It hit before I got to it, and right on the concrete again, and this time I saw it go straight up at least fifty feet.
* * * * *
My mind was suddenly full of thoughts of dragging mattresses from the house, or making a net or something to stop that hurtling thirty-five pounds; but I stood where I was, unable to move, and saw it come down again on the highway. It went up a hundred feet. And down again on the concrete, about fifteen feet further down the road. In the direction of the city.
That time it was two hundred feet, and when it hit again, it made a thud that you could have heard for a quarter of a mile. I could practically see it flatten out on the road before it took off upward again, at twice the speed it had hit at.
Suddenly generating an idea, I whirled and ran back to Farnsworth's house. He was standing in the yard now, shivering from the morning air, looking at me like a little lost and badly scared child.
"Where are your car keys?" I almost shouted at him.
"In my pocket."
"Come on!"
I took him by the arm and half dragged him to the carport. I got the keys from him, started the car, and by mangling about seven traffic laws and three prize rosebushes, managed to get on the highway, facing in the direction that the ball was heading.
"Look," I said, trying to drive down the road and search for the ball at the same time. "It's risky, but if I can get the car under it and we can hop out in time, it should crash through the roof. That ought to slow it down enough for us to nab it."
"But--what about my car?" Farnsworth bleated.
"What about that first building--or first person--it hits in San Francisco?"
"Oh," he said. "Hadn't thought of that."
I slowed the car and stuck my head out the window. It was lighter now, but no sign of the ball. "If it happens to get to town--any town, for that matter--it'll be falling from about ten or twenty miles. Or forty."
"Maybe it'll go high enough first so that it'll burn. Like a meteor."
"No chance," I said. "Built-in cooling system, remember?"
Farnsworth formed his mouth into an "Oh" and exactly at that moment there was a resounding thump and I saw the ball hit in a field, maybe twenty yards from the edge of the road, and take off again. This time it didn't seem to double its velocity, and I figured the ground was soft enough to hold it back--but it wasn't slowing down either, not with a bounce factor of better than two to one.
* * * * *
Without watching for it to go up, I drove as quickly as I could off the road and over--carrying part of a wire fence with me--to where it had hit. There was no mistaking it; there was a depression about three feet deep, like a small crater.
I jumped out of the car and stared up. It took me a few seconds to spot it, over my head. One side caught by the pale and slanting morning sunlight, it was only a bright diminishing speck.
The car motor was running and I waited until the ball disappeared for a moment and then reappeared. I watched for another couple of seconds until I felt I could make a decent guess on its direction, hollered at Farnsworth to get out of the car--it had just occurred to me that there was no use risking his life, too--dove in and drove a hundred yards or so to the spot I had anticipated.
I stuck my head out the window and up. The ball was the size of an egg now. I adjusted the car's position, jumped out and ran for my life.
It hit instantly after--about sixty feet from the car. And at the same time, it occurred to me that what I was trying to do was completely impossible. Better to hope that the ball hit a pond, or bounced out to sea, or landed in a sand dune. All we could do would be to follow, and if it ever was damped down enough, grab it.
It had hit soft ground and didn't double its height that time, but it had still gone higher. It was out of sight for almost a lifelong minute.
And then--incredibly rotten luck--it came down, with an ear-shattering thwack, on the concrete highway again. I had