Chrissie and Missie and four horses into an old marine attack plane, and flew to southern Colorado. He disconnected the plane's phone and radio and hid the ship in a clump of trees and made camp.

For the whole of the next year, rain or shine, Jonnie worked on Timmie. Missie was fine and she helped her mother very well and learned all about real tanning and cooking and things like that. But it was Timmie who got the attention.

At first Jonnie had it a little rough for the boy obviously was getting a delayed start. But after a few months he saw he was making real progress. The boy learned to track, to spot different animals and their immediate intentions. He learned to round up wild horses and train them and he didn't need a sissy thing like a saddle. He came right along and was quite cheerful about it. Jonnie got him to throw kill-clubs with considerable accuracy and he even nailed a coyote with one. Jonnie was just beginning to feel some security about the boy's future and was about to post-graduate him into stalking wolves and then pumas. But on the very first day of this, he heard a plane in the afternoon sky. It wasn't a drone. It was a plane. Heading for the plume of smoke that marked their current camp.

Jonnie and the boy trotted back, Jonnie with uneasy forebodings.

It was Dunneldeen and Sir Robert.

Timmie sprang at them like a small windstorm, shrieking glad shrieks of welcome. “Uncle Dunneldeen! Uncle Wobert!"

Jonnie's manners let Chrissie fix them some supper. They didn't seem to be in any hurry to get on with their business. Evening came and the two of them and the family sat around the bonfire singing Scottish songs. Then Timmie showed them he hadn't forgotten the Highland fling and danced it for them like Thor had taught him.

Finally, when the children and Chrissie had gone to bed, Dunneldeen made the wholly unnecessary statement, “I suppose you're wondering why we're here.”

“What's the bad news?” said Jonnie.

“It isn't any bad news,” grumped Sir Robert. “We've been holding sixteen universes together like glue. Why should there be any bad news?”

It's been a year,” said Dunneldeen.

“You came for something,” said Jonnie suspiciously.

“Well,” said Dunneldeen, “as a matter of fact, come to think of it, we did. A couple of years ago you made a tour of all the Earth tribes. It 's been proposed that you make a tour of the major civilizations of the galaxies. A lot of governments want to bestow honors and estates and medals and things on you because galactic conditions are so prosperous.”

It made Jonnie very cross. “I told you I was taking a year off! Don't you realize I have family responsibilities?

What kind of father would I be to let my son grow up like an educated savage!” He really let them have it.

Dunneldeen heard him out and then laughed. “We thought you'd say that, so we sent Thor instead.”

Jonnie studied that over. Then he said, “So if you handled it, why have you come?”

Sir Robert looked at him. “Your year is up, laddie. Doesn't it ever occur to you that your friends miss you?”

So Jonnie went back home, and while Timmie learned to speak fifteen languages and do five kinds of math, while he learned to drive a ground car like Ker and drive and fly anything the company made, on any planet, including Dries Gloton's new yacht, his education was never finished. It was probably the one failure in Jonnie Goodboy Tyler's life.

Doctor MacDermott, the historian who considered himself expendable, lived on and on.

He wrote a book: The Jonnie Goodboy Tyler I Knew, or The Conqueror of Psychio, Prine of the Scottish Nation. It was not as good as this book, for it was intended for semiliterate people. But it had three-dimensional pictures that moved in full color– he had access to several archives– and it sold two hundred fifty billion copies in its first printing. It was translated into ninety-eight thousand different galactic languages and went into many editions.

Doctor MacDermott received royalties so far in excess of anything his simple life needed that he endowed the Tyler Museum. It is the first building you see, the one with the golden dome, when you leave the MacLeod Intergalactic Health Organization exit at the Denver terminal.

Not too long after his return from America, Jonnie disappeared. His family and his friends were very concerned. But they knew that he disliked adulation and being unable to move about without attracting crowds. He had remarked that he was not needed now and that he had done his work. A pouch, two kill-clubs, and a knife were also missing. The dragon helmet and bright-buttoned tunic were still there on a peg where he had last hung them.

But people in the galaxies do not know that he is gone. If you ask almost anyone on a civilized planet where he is, you are likely to be told that he is there, just over that hill, waiting in case the lords or the Psychlos come back. Try it. You'll see. They will even point.

– The End -

1.[Introduction moved to footnotes, since it have a little relevance to the text (and it’s BORING) – tbma]

Introduction.

Recently there came a period when I had little to do. This was novel in a life so crammed with busy years, and I decided to amuse myself by writing a novel that was pure science fiction.

In the hard-driven times between 1930 and 1950, I was a professional writer not simply because it was my job, but because I wanted to finance more serious researches. In those days there were few agencies pouring out large grants to independent workers. Despite what you might hear about Roosevelt “relief,” those were depression years. One succeeded or one starved. One became a top-liner or a gutter bum. One had to work very hard at his craft or have no craft at all. It was a very challenging time for anyone who lived through it.

I have heard it said, as an intended slur, “He was a science fiction writer, ”and have heard it said of many. It brought me to realize that few people understand the role science fiction has played in the lives of Earth's whole population.

I have just read several standard books that attempt to define “science fiction” and to trace its history. There are many experts in this field, many controversial opinions. Science fiction is favored with the most closely knit reading public that may exist, possibly the most dedicated of any genre. Devotees are called “fans,” and the word has a special prestigious meaning in science fiction.

Few professional writers, even those in science fiction, have written very much on the character of "sf". They are usually too busy turning out the work itself to expound on what they have written. But there are many experts on this subject among both critics and fans, and they have a lot of worthwhile things to say.

However, many false impressions exist, both of the genre and of its writers. So when one states that he set out to write a work of pure science fiction, he had better state what definition he is using.

It will probably be best to return to the day in 1938 when I first entered this field, the day I met John W. Campbell, Jr., a day in the very dawn of what has come to be known as The Golden Age of science fiction. I was quite ignorant of the field and regarded it, in fact, a bit diffidently. I was not there of my own choice. I had been summoned to the vast old building on Seventh Avenue in dusty, dirty, old New York by the very top brass of Street and Smith publishing company– an executive named Black and another, F. Orlin Tremaine. Ordered there with me was another writer, Arthur J. Burks. In those days when the top brass of a publishing company– particularly one as old and prestigious as Street and Smith-'invited" a writer to visit, it was like being commanded to appear before the king or receiving a court summons. You arrived, you sat there obediently, and you spoke when you were spoken to.