THE MARTlAN CHRONlCLES
RAY BRADBURY

Copyright

Voyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by

Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd 1951 under the title The Silver Locusts Panther Books 1977 publication also entitled The Silver Locusts

Copyright © Ray Bradbury 1951

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Cover images © Shutterstock.com (figures); Nasa (backround).

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Source ISBN: 9780007119622

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007496976

Version: 2019–01–04

Dedication

For My Wife Marguerite

with all my love

Epigraph

‘It is good to renew one’s wonder,’

said the philosopher. ‘Space travel

has again made children of us all.’

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

January 1999 ROCKET SUMMER

February 1999 YLLA

August 1999 THE SUMMER NIGHT

August 1999 THE EARTH MEN

March 2000 THE TAXPAYER

April 2000 THE THIRD EXPEDITION

June 2001 – AND THE MOON BE STILL AS BRIGHT

August 2001 THE SETTLERS

December 2001 THE GREEN MORNING

February 2002 THE LOCUSTS

August 2002 NIGHT MEETING

October 2002 THE SHORE

November 2002 THE FIRE BALLOONS

February 2003 INTERIM

April 2003 THE MUSICIANS

June 2003 WAY UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR

2004–05 THE NAMING OF NAMES

August 2005 THE OLD ONES

September 2005 THE MARTIAN

November 2005 THE LUGGAGE STORE

November 2005 THE OFF SEASON

November 2005 THE WATCHERS

December 2005 THE SILENT TOWNS

April 2026 THE LONG YEARS

August 2026 THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS

October 2026 THE MILLION-YEAR PICNIC

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

JANUARY 1999
Rocket Summer

One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.

And then a long wave of warmth crossed the small town. A flooding sea of hot air; it seemed as if someone had left a bakery door open. The heat pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The icicles dropped, shattering, to melt. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children worked off their wool clothes. The housewives shed their bear disguises. The snow dissolved and showed last summer’s ancient green lawns.

Rocket summer. The words passed among the people in the open air, airing houses. Rocket summer. The warm desert air changing the frost patterns on the windows, erasing the art work. The skis and sleds suddenly useless. The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground.

Rocket summer. People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the reddening sky.

The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat. The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land …

FEBRUARY 1999
Ylla

They had a house of crystal pillars on the planet Mars by the edge of an empty sea, and every morning you could see Mrs K eating the golden fruits that grew from the crystal walls, or cleaning the house with handfuls of magnetic dust which, taking all dirt with it, blew away on the hot wind. Afternoons, when the fossil sea was warm and motionless, and the wine trees stood stiff in the yard, and the little distant Martian bone town was all enclosed, and no one drifted out their doors, you could see Mr K himself in his room, reading from a metal book with raised hieroglyphs over which he brushed his hand, as one might play a harp. And from the book, as his fingers stroked, a voice sang, a soft ancient voice, which told tales of when the sea was red steam on the shore and ancient men had carried clouds of metal insects and electric spiders into battle.

Mr and Mrs K had lived by the dead sea for twenty years, and their ancestors had lived in the same house, which turned and followed the sun, flower-like, for ten centuries.

Mr and Mrs K were not old. They had the fair, brownish skin of the true Martian, the yellow coin eyes, the soft musical voices. Once they had liked painting pictures with chemical fire, swimming in the canals in the seasons when the wine trees filled them with green liquors, and talking into the dawn together by the blue phosphorous portraits in the speaking-room.

They were not happy now.

This morning Mrs K stood between the pillars, listening to the desert sands heat, melt into yellow wax, and seemingly run on the horizon.

Something was going to happen.

She waited.

She watched the blue sky of Mars as if it might at any moment grip in on itself, contract, and expel a shining miracle down upon the sand.

Nothing happened.

Tired of waiting, she walked through the misting pillars. A gentle rain sprang from the fluted pillar-tops, cooling the scorched air, falling gently on her. On hot days it was like walking in a creek. The floors of the house glittered with cool streams. In the distance she heard her husband playing his book steadily, his fingers never tired of the old songs. Quietly she wished he might one day again spend as much time holding and touching her like a little harp as he did his incredible books.

But no. She shook her head, an imperceptible, forgiving shrug. Her eyelids closed softly down upon her golden eyes. Marriage made people old and familiar, while still young.

She lay back in a chair that moved to take her shape even as she moved. She closed her eyes tightly and nervously.

The dream occurred.

Her brown fingers trembled, came up, grasped at the air. A moment later she sat up, startled, gasping.

She glanced about swiftly, as if expecting someone there before her. She seemed disappointed; the space between the pillars was empty.

Her husband appeared in a triangular door. ‘Did you call?’ he asked irritably.

‘No!’ she cried.

‘I thought I heard you cry out.’

‘Did I? I was almost asleep and had a dream!’

‘In the daytime? You don’t often do that.’

She sat as if struck in the face by the dream. ‘How strange, how very strange,’ she murmured. ‘The dream.’

‘Oh?’ He evidently wished to return to his book.

‘I dreamed about a man.’

‘A man?’

‘A tall man, six foot one inch tall.’

‘How absurd; a giant, a misshapen giant.’

‘Somehow’ – she tried the words – ‘he looked all right. In spite of being tall. And he had – oh, I know you’ll think it silly – he had blue eyes!’

‘Blue eyes! Gods!’ cried Mr K. ‘What’ll you dream next? I suppose he had black hair?’

‘How did you guess?’ She was excited.

‘I picked the most unlikely colour,’ he replied coldly.

‘Well black it was!’ she cried. ‘And he had a very white skin; oh, he was most unusual! He was dressed in a strange uniform and he came down out of the sky and spoke pleasantly to me.’ She smiled.

‘Out of the sky; what nonsense!’

‘He came in a metal thing that glittered in the sun,’ she remembered. She closed her eyes to shape it again. ‘I dreamed there was the sky and something sparkled like a coin thrown into the air, and suddenly it grew large and fell down softly to land, a long silver craft, round and alien. And a door opened in the side of the silver object and this tall man stepped out.’

‘If you worked harder you wouldn’t have these silly dreams.’

‘I rather enjoyed it,’ she replied, lying back. ‘I never suspected myself of such an imagination. Black hair, blue eyes, and white skin! What a strange man, and yet – quite handsome.’

‘Wishful thinking.’

‘You’re unkind. I didn’t think him up on purpose; he just came in my mind while I drowsed. It wasn’t like a dream. It was so unexpected and different. He looked at me and he said, “I’ve come from the third planet in my ship. My name is Nathaniel York—” ’

‘A stupid name; it’s no name at all,’ objected the husband.

‘Of course it’s stupid, because it’s a dream,’ she explained softly. ‘And he said, “This is the first trip across space. There are only two of us in our ship, myself and my friend Bert.” ’

‘Another stupid name.’

‘And he said, “We’re from a city on Earth; that’s the name of our planet,”’ continued Mrs K. ‘That’s what he said. “Earth” was the name he spoke. And he used another language. Somehow I understood him. With my mind. Telepathy, I suppose.’

Mr K turned away. She stopped him with a word ‘Yll?’ she called quietly. ‘Do you ever wonder if – well, if there are people living on the third planet?’

‘The third planet is incapable of supporting life,’ stated the husband patiently. ‘Our scientists have said there’s far too much oxygen in their atmosphere.’

‘But wouldn’t it be fascinating if there were people? And they travelled through space in some sort of ship?’

‘Really, Ylla, you know how I hate this emotional wailing. Let’s get on with our work.’

It was late in the day when she began singing the song as she moved among the whispering pillars of rain. She sang it over and over again.

‘What’s that song?’ snapped her husband at last, walking in to sit at the fire table.

‘I don’t know.’ She looked up, surprised at herself. She put her hand to her mouth, unbelieving. The sun was setting. The house was closing itself in, like a giant flower, with the passing of light. A wind blew among the pillars; the fire table bubbled its fierce pool of silver lava. The wind stirred her russet hair, crooning softly in her ears. She stood silently looking out into the great sallow distances of sea bottom, as if recalling something, her yellow eyes soft and moist. ‘“Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine,” ’ she sang, softly, quietly, slowly. ‘ “Or leave a kiss but in the cup, and I’ll not look for wine.” ’ She hummed now, moving her hands in the wind ever so lightly, her eyes shut. She finished the song.

It was very beautiful.

‘Never heard that song before. Did you compose it?’ he inquired, his eyes sharp.

‘No. Yes. No, I don’t know, really!’ She hesitated wildly. ‘I don’t even know what the words are; they’re another language!’

‘What language?’

She dropped portions of meat numbly into the simmering lava. ‘I don’t know.’ She drew the meat forth a moment later, cooked, served on a plate for him. ‘It’s just a crazy thing I made up, I guess. I don’t know why.’

He said nothing. He watched her drown meats in the hissing fire pool. The sun was gone. Slowly, slowly the night came in to fill the room, swallowing the pillars and both of them, like a dark wine poured to the ceiling. Only the silver lava’s glow lit their faces.

She hummed the strange song again.

Instantly he leaped from his chair and stalked angrily from the room.

Later, in isolation, he finished supper.

When he arose he stretched, glanced at her, and suggested, yawning, ‘Let’s take the flame birds to town tonight to see an entertainment.’

‘You don’t mean it?’ she said. ‘Are you feeling well?’

‘What’s so strange about that?’

‘But we haven’t gone for an entertainment in six months!’

‘I think it’s a good idea.’

‘Suddenly you’re so solicitous,’ she said.

‘Don’t talk that way,’ he replied peevishly. ‘Do you or do you not want to go?’

She looked out at the pale desert. The twin white moons were rising. Cool water ran softly about her toes. She began to tremble just the least bit. She wanted very much to sit quietly here, soundless, not moving until this thing occurred, this thing expected all day, this thing that could not occur but might. A drift of song brushed through her mind.

‘I—’

‘Do you good,’ he urged. ‘Come along now.’

‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘Some other night.’

‘Here’s your scarf.’ He handed her a phial. We haven’t gone anywhere in months.’

‘Except you, twice a week to Xi City.’ She wouldn’t look at him.

‘Business,’ he said.

‘Oh?’ She whispered to herself.

From the phial a liquid poured, turned to blue mist, settled about her neck, quivering.

The flame birds waited, like a bed of coals, glowing on the cool smooth sands. The white canopy ballooned on the night wind, flapping softly, tied by a thousand green ribbons to the birds.

Ylla laid herself back in the canopy and, at a word from her husband, the birds leaped, burning, towards the dark sky. The ribbons tautened, the canopy lifted. The sand slid whining under; the blue hills drifted by, drifted by, leaving their home behind, the raining pillars, the caged flowers, the singing books, the whispering floor creeks. She did not look at her husband. She heard him crying out to the birds as they rose higher, like ten thousand hot sparkles, so many red-yellow fireworks in the heavens, tugging the canopy like a flower petal, burning through the wind.

She didn’t watch the dead, ancient bone-chess cities slide under, or the old canals filled with emptiness and dreams. Past dry rivers and dry lakes they flew, like a shadow of the moon, like a torch burning.

She watched only the sky.

The husband spoke.

She watched the sky.

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘What?’

He exhaled. ‘You might pay attention.’

‘I was thinking.’

‘I never thought you were a nature-lover, but you’re certainly interested in the sky tonight,’ he said.

‘It’s very beautiful.’

‘I was figuring,’ said the husband slowly. ‘I thought I’d call Hulle tonight. I’d like to talk to him about us spending some time, oh, only a week or so, in the Blue Mountains. It’s just an idea—’

‘The Blue Mountains!’ She held to the canopy rim with one hand, turning swiftly towards him.

‘Oh, it’s just a suggestion.’

‘When do you want to go?’ she asked, trembling.

‘I thought we might leave tomorrow morning. You know, an early start and all that,’ he said very casually.

‘But we never go this early in the year!’

‘Just this once, I thought—’ He smiled. ‘Do us good to get away. Some peace and quiet. You know. You haven’t anything else planned? We’ll go, won’t we?’

She took a breath, waited, and then replied, ‘No.’

‘What?’ His cry startled the birds. The canopy jerked.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s settled. I won’t go.’

He looked at her. They did not speak after that. She turned away.

The birds flew on, ten thousand firebrands down the wind.

In the dawn the sun, through the crystal pillars, melted the fog that supported Ylla as she slept. All night she had hung above the floor, buoyed by the soft carpeting of mist that poured from the walls when she lay down to rest. All night she had slept on this silent river, like a boat upon a soundless tide. Now the fog burned away, the mist level lowered until she was deposited upon the shore of wakening.

She opened her eyes.

Her husband stood over her. He looked as if he had stood there for hours, watching. She did not know why, but she could not look him in the face.

‘You’ve been dreaming again!’ he said. ‘You spoke out and kept me awake. I really think you should see a doctor.’

‘I’ll be all right.’

‘You talked a lot in your sleep!’

‘Did I?’ She started up.

Dawn was cold in the room. A grey light filled her as she lay there;

‘What was your dream?’

She had to think a moment to remember. ‘The ship. It came from the sky again, and the tall man stepped out and talked with me, telling me little jokes, laughing, and it was pleasant.’

Mr K touched a pillar. Founts of warm water leapt up, steaming; the chill vanished from the room. Mr K’s face was impassive.

‘And then,’ she said, ‘this man, who said his strange name was Nathaniel York, told me I was beautiful and – and kissed me.’

‘Ha!’ cried the husband, turning violently away, his jaw working.

‘It’s only a dream.’ She was amused.

‘Keep your silly, feminine dreams to yourself!’

‘You’re acting like a child.’ She lapsed back upon the few remaining remnants of chemical mist. After a moment she laughed softly. ‘I thought of some more of the dream,’ she confessed.

‘Well, what is it, what is it?’ he shouted.

‘Yll, you’re so bad tempered.’

‘Tell me!’ he demanded. ‘You can’t keep secrets from me!’ His face was dark and rigid as he stood over her.

‘I’ve never seen you this way,’ she replied, half shocked, half entertained. ‘All that happened was this Nathaniel York person told me – well, he told me that he’d take me away into his ship, into the sky with him, and take me back to his planet with him. It’s really quite ridiculous.’

‘Ridiculous, is it!’ he almost screamed. ‘You should have heard yourself, fawning on him, talking to him, singing with him, oh gods, all night; you should have heard yourself!’

‘Yll!’

‘When’s he landing? Where’s he coming down with his damned ship?’

‘Yll, lower your voice.’

‘Voice be damned!’ He bent stiffly over her. ‘And in this dream’ – he seized her wrist – ‘didn’t the ship land over in Green Valley, didn’t it? Answer me!’

‘Why, yes—’

‘And it landed this afternoon, didn’t it?’ he kept at her.

‘Yes, yes, I think so, yes, but only in a dream!’

‘Well’ – he flung her hand away stiffly – ‘it’s good you’re truthful! I heard every word you said in your sleep. You mentioned the valley and the time.’ Breathing hard, he walked between the pillars like a man blinded by a lightning bolt. Slowly his breath returned. She watched him as if he were quite insane. She arose finally and went to him. ‘Yll,’ she whispered.

‘I’m all right.’

‘You’re sick.’

‘No.’ He forced a tired smile. ‘Just childish. Forgive me, darling.’ He gave her a rough pat. ‘Too much work lately. I’m sorry. I think I’ll lie down awhile—’

‘You were so excited.’

‘I’m all right now. Fine.’ He exhaled. ‘Let’s forget it. Say, I heard a joke about Uel yesterday, I meant to tell you. What do you say you fix breakfast, I’ll tell the joke, and let’s not talk about all this.’

‘It was only a dream.’

‘Of course.’ He kissed her cheek mechanically. ‘Only a dream.’

At noon the sun was high and hot and the hills shimmered in the light.

‘Aren’t you going to town?’ asked Ylla.

‘Town?’ he raised his brows faintly.

‘This is the day you always go.’ She adjusted a flower-cage on its pedestal. The flowers stirred, opening their hungry yellow mouths.

He closed his book. ‘No. It’s too hot, and it’s late.’

‘Oh.’ She finished her task and moved towards the door.

‘Well, I’ll be back soon.’

‘Wait a minute! Where are you going?’

She was in the door swiftly. ‘Over to Pao’s. She invited me!’

‘Today?’

‘I haven’t seen her in a long time. It’s only a little way.’

‘Over in Green Valley, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, just a walk, not far, I thought I’d—’ She hurried.

‘I’m sorry, really sorry,’ he said, running to fetch her back, looking very concerned about his forgetfulness. ‘It slipped my mind. I invited Dr Nlle out this afternoon.’

‘Dr Nlle!’ She edged towards the door.

He caught her elbow and drew her steadily in. ‘Yes.’

‘But Pao—’

‘Pao can await, Ylla. We must entertain Nlle.’

‘Just for a few minutes—’

‘No, Ylla.’

‘No?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Besides, it’s a terribly long walk to Pao’s. All the way over through Green Valley and then past the big canal and down, isn’t it? And it’ll be very, very hot, and Dr Nlle would be delighted to see you. Well?’

She did not answer. She wanted to break and run. She wanted to cry out. But she only sat in the chair, turning her fingers over slowly, staring at them expressionlessly, trapped.

‘Ylla?’ he murmured. ‘You will be here, won’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she said after a long time. ‘I’ll be here.’

‘All afternoon?’

Her voice was dull. ‘All afternoon.’

Late in the day Dr Nlle had not put in an appearance. Ylla’s husband did not seem overly surprised. When it was quite late he murmured something, went to a closet, and drew forth an evil weapon, a long yellowish tube ending in a bellows and trigger. He turned, and upon his face was a mask, hammered from silver metal, expressionless, the mask that he always wore when he wished to hide his feelings, the mask which curved and hollowed so exquisitely to his thin cheeks and chin and brow. The mask glinted, and he held the evil weapon in his hands, considering it. It hummed constantly, an insect hum. From it hordes of golden bees could be flung out with a high shriek. Golden, horrid bees that stung, poisoned, and fell lifeless, like seeds on the sand.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘What?’ He listened to the bellows, to the evil hum. ‘If Dr Nlle is late, I’ll be damned if I’ll wait. I am going out to hunt a bit. I’ll be back. You be sure to stay right here now, won’t you?’ The silver mask glimmered.

‘Yes.’

‘And tell Dr Nlle I’ll return. Just hunting.’

The triangular door closed. His footsteps faded down the hill.

She watched him walking through the sunlight until he was gone. Then she resumed her tasks with the magnetic dusts and the new fruits to be plucked from the crystal walls. She worked with energy and dispatch, but on occasion a numbness took hold of her and she caught herself singing that odd and memorable song and looking out beyond the crystal pillars at the sky.

She held her breath and stood very still, waiting.

It was coming nearer.

At any moment it might happen.

It was like those days when you heard a thunderstorm coming and there was the waiting silence and then the faintest pressure of the atmosphere as the climate blew over the land in shifts and shadows and vapours. And the change pressed at your ears and you were suspended in the waiting time of the coming storm. You began to tremble. The sky was stained and coloured; the clouds were thickened; the mountains took on an iron taint. The caged flowers blew with faint sighs of warning. You felt your hair stir softly. Somewhere in the house the voice-clock sang. ‘Time, time, time, time …’ ever so gently, no more than water tapping on velvet.

And then the storm. The electric illumination, the engulfments of dark wash and sounding black fell down, shutting in, forever.

That’s how it was now. A storm gathered, yet the sky was clear. Lightning was expected, yet there was no cloud.

Ylla moved through the breathless summer-house. Lightning would strike from the sky any instant; there would be a thunder-clap, a boll of smoke, a silence, footsteps on the path, a rap on the crystalline door, and her running to answer …

Crazy Ylla! she scoffed. Why think these wild things with your idle mind?

And then it happened.

There was a warmth as of a great fire passing in the air. A whirling, rushing sound. A gleam in the sky, of metal.

Ylla cried out.

Running through the pillars, she flung wide a door. She faced the hills. But by this time there was nothing.

She was about to race down the hill when she stopped herself. She was supposed to stay here, go nowhere. The doctor was coming to visit, and her husband would be angry if she ran off.

She waited in the door, breathing rapidly, her hand out.

She strained to see over towards Green Valley, but saw nothing.

Silly woman. She went inside. You and your imagination, she thought. That was nothing but a bird, a leaf, the wind, or a fish in the canal. Sit down. Rest.

She sat down.

A shot sounded.

Very clearly, sharply, the sound of the evil insect weapon.

Her body jerked with it.

It came from a long way off. One shot. The swift humming distant bees. One shot. And then a second shot, precise and cold, and far away.

Her body winced again and for some reason she started up, screaming and screaming, and never wanting to stop screaming. She ran violently through the house and once more threw wide the door.

The echoes were dying away, away.

Gone.

She waited in the yard, her face pale, for five minutes.

Finally, with slow steps, her head down, she wandered about the pillared rooms, laying her hand to things, her lips quivering, until finally she sat alone in the darkening wine-room, waiting. She began to wipe an amber glass with the hem of her scarf.

And then, from far off, the sound of footsteps crunching on the thin, small rocks.

She rose up to stand in the centre of the quiet room. The glass fell from her fingers, smashing to bits.

The footsteps hesitated outside the door.

Should she speak? Should she cry out. ‘Come in, oh, come in’?

She went forward a few paces.

The footsteps walked up the ramp. A hand twisted the door latch.

She smiled at the door.

The door opened. She stopped smiling.

It was her husband. His silver mask glowed dully.

He entered the room and looked at her for only a moment. Then he snapped the weapon bellows open, cracked out two dead bees, heard them spat on the floor as they fell, stepped on them, and placed the empty bellows-gun in the corner of the room as Ylla bent down and tried, over and over, with no success, to pick up the pieces of the shattered glass. ‘What were you doing?’ she asked.

‘Nothing,’ he said with his back turned. He removed the mask.

‘But the gun – I heard you fire it. Twice.’

‘Just hunting. Once in a while you like to hunt. Did Dr Nlle arrive?’

‘No.’

‘Wait a minute.’ He snapped his fingers disgustedly. ‘Why, I remember now. He was supposed to visit us tomorrow afternoon. How stupid of me.’

They sat down to eat. She looked at her food and did not move her hands. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her, not looking up from dipping his meat in the bubbling lava.

‘I don’t know. I’m not hungry,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know; I’m just not.’

The wind was rising across the sky; the sun was going down. The room was small and suddenly cold.

‘I’ve been trying to remember,’ she said in the silent room, across from her cold, erect, golden-eyed husband.

‘Remember what?’ He sipped his wine.

‘That song. That fine and beautiful song.’ She closed her eyes and hummed, but it was not the song. ‘I’ve forgotten it. And, somehow, I don’t want to forget it. It’s something I want always to remember.’ She moved her hands as if the rhythm might help her to remember all of it. Then she lay back in her chair. ‘I can’t remember.’ She began to cry.

‘Why are you crying?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know, I don’t know, but I can’t help it. I’m sad and I don’t know why, I cry and I don’t know why, but I’m crying.’

Her head was in her hands; her shoulders moved again and again.

‘You’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said.

She did not look up at him; she looked only at the empty desert and the very bright stars coming out now on the black sky, and far away there was a sound of wind rising and canal waters stirring cold in the long canals. She shut her eyes, trembling.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll be all right tomorrow.’

AUGUST 1999
The Summer Night

In the stone galleries the people were gathered in clusters and groups filtering up into shadows among the blue hills. A soft evening light shone over them from the stars and the luminous double moons of Mars. Beyond the marble amphitheatre, in darknesses and distances, lay little towns and villas; pools of silver water stood motionless and canals glittered from horizon to horizon. It was an evening in summer upon the placid and temperate planet Mars. Up and down green wine-canals, boats as delicate as bronze flowers drifted. In the long and endless dwellings that curved like tranquil snakes across the hills, lovers lay idly whispering in cool night beds. The last children ran in torchlit alleys, gold spiders in their hands throwing out films of web. Here or there a late supper was prepared in tables where lava bubbled silvery and hushed. In the amphitheatres of a hundred towns on the night side of Mars the brown Martian people with gold coin eyes were leisurely met to fix their attention upon stages where musicians made a serene music flow up like blossom scent on the still air.

Upon one stage a woman sang.

The audience stirred.

She stopped singing. She put her hand to her throat. She nodded to the musicians, and they began again.

The musicians played and she sang, and this time the audience sighed and sat forward, a few of the men stood up in surprise, and a winter chill moved through the amphitheatre. For it was an odd and a frightening and a strange song this woman sang. She tried to stop the words from coming out of her lips, but the words were these:

‘She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes …’

The singer clasped her hands to her mouth. She stood, bewildered.

‘What words are those?’ asked the musicians.

‘What song is that?’

‘What language is that!’

And when they blew again upon their golden horns the strange music came forth and passed slowly over the audience, which now talked aloud and stood up.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ the musicians asked each other.

‘What tune is that you played?’

‘What tune did you play?’

The woman wept and ran from the stage. And the audience moved out of the amphitheatre. And all around the nervous towns of Mars a similar thing had happened. A coldness had come, like white snow falling on the air.

In the black alleys, under the torches, the children sang:

‘—But when she got there, the cupboard was bare, And so her poor dog had none!’

‘Children!’ voices cried. ‘What was that rhyme? Where did you learn it?’

‘We just thought of it, all of a sudden. It’s just words we don’t understand.’

Doors slammed. The streets were deserted. Above the blue hills a green star rose.

All over the night side of Mars lovers awoke to listen to their loved ones who lay humming in the darkness.

‘What is that tune?’

And in a thousand villas, in the middle of the night, women awoke, screaming. They had to be soothed while the tears ran down their faces. There, there. Sleep. What’s wrong? A dream?’

‘Something terrible will happen in the morning.’

‘Nothing can happen, all is well with us.’

A hysterical sobbing. ‘It is coming nearer and nearer and nearer!’

‘Nothing can happen to us. What could? Sleep now. Sleep.’

It was quiet in the deep morning of Mars, as quiet as a cool and black well, with stars shining in the canal waters, and, breathing in every room, the children curled with their spiders in closed hands, the lovers arm in arm, the moons gone, the torches cold, the stone amphitheatres deserted.

The only sound, just before dawn, was a night watchman, far away down a lonely street, walking along in the darkness, humming a very strange song …

AUGUST 1999
The Earth Men

Whoever was knocking at the door didn’t want to stop.

Mrs Ttt threw the door open. ‘Well?’

‘You speak English!’ The man standing there was astounded.

‘I speak what I speak,’ she said.

‘It’s wonderful English!’ The man was in uniform. There were three men with him, in a great hurry, all smiling, all dirty.

‘What do you want?’ demanded Mrs Ttt.

‘You are a Martian!’ The man smiled. ‘The word is not familiar to you certainly. It’s an Earth expression.’ He nodded at his men. ‘We are from Earth. I’m Captain Williams. We’ve landed on Mars within the hour. Here we are, the Second Expedition! There was a First Expedition, but we don’t know what happened to it. But here we are, anyway. And you are the first Martian we’ve met!’

‘Martian?’ Her eyebrows went up.

‘What I mean to say is, you live on the fourth planet from the sun. Correct?’

‘Elementary,’ she snapped, eyeing them.

‘And we’ – he pressed his chubby pink hand to his chest – ‘we are from Earth. Right, men?’

‘Right, sir!’ A chorus.

‘This is the planet Tyrr,’ she said, ‘if you want to use the proper name.’

‘Tyrr, Tyrr.’ The captain laughed exhaustedly. ‘What a fine name! But, my good woman, how is it you speak such perfect English?’

‘I’m not speaking, I’m thinking,’ she said. ‘Telepathy! Good day!’ And she slammed the door.

A moment later there was that dreadful man knocking again.

She whipped the door open. ‘What now?’ she wondered.

The man was still there, trying to smile, looking bewildered. He put out his hands. ‘I don’t think you understand—’

‘What?’ she snapped.

The man gazed at her in surprise. ‘We’re from Earth!’

‘I haven’t time,’ she said. ‘I’ve a lot of cooking today and there’s cleaning and sewing and all. You evidently wish to see Mr Ttt; he’s upstairs in his study.’

‘Yes,’ said the Earth Man confusedly, blinking. ‘By all means, let us see Mr Ttt.’

‘He’s busy.’ She slammed the door again.

This time the knock on the door was most impertinently loud.

‘See here!’ cried the man when the door was thrust open again. He jumped in as if to surprise her. ‘This is no way to treat visitors!’

‘All over my clean floor!’ she cried. ‘Mud! Get out! If you come in my house, wash your boots first.’

The man looked in dismay at his muddy boots. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is no time for trivialities. I think,’ he said, ‘we should be celebrating.’ He looked at her for a long time as if looking might make her understand.

‘If you’ve made my crystal buns fall in the oven,’ she exclaimed, ‘I’ll hit you with a piece of wood!’ She peered into a little hot oven. She came back, red, steamy-faced. Her eyes were sharp yellow, her skin was soft brown, she was thin and quick as an insect. Her voice was metallic and sharp. ‘Wait here. I’ll see if I can let you have a moment with Mr Ttt. What was your business?’

The man swore luridly, as if she’d hit his hand with a hammer. ‘Tell him we’re from Earth and it’s never been done before!’

‘What hasn’t?’ She put her brown hand up. ‘Never mind. I’ll be back.’

The sound of her feet fluttered through the stone house.

Outside, the immense blue Martian sky was hot and still as warm deep sea-water. The Martian desert lay broiling like a prehistoric mud-pot, waves of heat rising and shimmering. There was a small rocket-ship reclining upon a hilltop nearby. Large footprints came from the rocket to the door of this stone house.

Now there was a sound of quarrelling voices upstairs. The men within the door stared at one another, shifting on their boots, twiddling their fingers, and holding on to their hip-belts. A man’s voice shouted upstairs. The woman’s voice replied. After fifteen minutes the Earth Men began walking in and out of the kitchen door, with nothing to do.

‘Cigarette?’ said one of the men.

Somebody got out a packet and they lit up. They puffed low streams of pale white smoke. They adjusted their uniforms, fixed their collars. The voices upstairs continued to mutter and chant. The leader of the men looked at his watch.

‘Twenty-five minutes,’ he said. ‘I wonder what they’re up to up there.’ He went to a window and looked out.

‘Hot day,’ said one of the men.

‘Yeah,’ said someone else in the slow warm time of early afternoon. The voices had faded to a murmur and were now silent. There was not a sound in the house. All the men could hear was their own breathing.

An hour of silence passed. ‘I hope we didn’t cause any trouble,’ said the captain. He went and peered into the living-room.

Mrs Ttt was there, watering some flowers that grew in the centre of the room.

‘I knew I had forgotten something,’ she said when she saw the captain. She walked out to the kitchen. ‘I’m sorry.’ She handed him a slip of paper. ‘Mr Ttt is much too busy.’ She turned to her cooking. ‘Anyway, it’s not Mr Ttt you want to see; it’s Mr Aaa. Take that paper over to the next farm, by the blue canal, and Mr Aaa’ll advise you about whatever it is you want to know.’

‘We don’t want to know anything,’ objected the captain, pouting out his thick lips. ‘We already know it.’

‘You have the paper, what more do you want?’ she asked him straight off. And she would say no more.

‘Well,’ said the captain, reluctant to go. He stood as if waiting for something. He looked like a child staring at an empty Christmas tree. ‘Well,’ he said again. ‘Come on, men.’

The four men stepped out into the hot, silent day.

Half an hour later, Mr Aaa, seated in his library sipping a bit of electric fire from a metal cup, heard the voices outside in the stone causeway. He leaned over the windowsill and gazed at the four uniformed men who squinted up at him.

‘Are you Mr Aaa?’ they called.

‘I am.’

‘Mr Ttt sent us to see you!’ shouted the captain.

‘Why did he do that?’ asked Mr Aaa.

‘He was busy!’

‘Well, that’s a shame,’ said Mr Aaa sarcastically. ‘Does he think I have nothing else to do but entertain people he’s too busy to bother with?’

‘That’s not the important thing, sir,’ shouted the captain.

‘Well, it is to me. I have much reading to do. Mr Ttt is inconsiderate. This is not the first time he has been this thoughtless of me. Stop waving your hands, sir, until I finish. And pay attention. People usually listen to me when I talk. And you’ll listen courteously or I won’t talk at all.’

Uneasily the four men in the court shifted and opened their mouths, and once the captain, the veins on his face bulging, showed a few little tears in his eyes.

‘Now,’ lectured Mr Aaa, ‘do you think it fair of Mr Ttt to be so ill-mannered?’

The four men gazed up through the heat. The captain said, ‘We’re from Earth!’

‘I think it very ungentlemanly of him,’ brooded Mr Aaa.

‘A rocket ship. We came in it. Over there!’

‘Not the first time. Ttt’s been unreasonable, you know.’

‘All the way from Earth.’

‘Why, for half a mind, I’d call him up and tell him off.’

‘Just the four of us; myself and these three men, my crew.’

‘I’ll call him up; yes, that’s what I’ll do!’

‘Earth. Rocket. Men. Trip. Space.’

‘Call him and give him a good lashing!’ cried Mr Aaa. He vanished like a puppet from a stage. For a minute there were angry voices back and forth over some weird mechanism or other. Below, the captain and his crew glanced longingly back at their pretty rocket ship lying on the hillside, so sweet and lovely and fine.

Mr Aaa jerked up in the window, wildly triumphant. ‘Challenged him to a duel, by the gods! A duel!’

‘Mr Aaa –’ the captain started all over again, quietly.

‘I’ll shoot him dead, do you hear!’

‘Mr Aaa, I’d like to tell you. We came sixty million miles.’

Mr Aaa regarded the captain for the first time. ‘Where’d you say you were from?’

The captain flashed a white smile. Aside to his men he whispered, ‘Now we’re getting some place!’ To Mr Aaa he called, ‘We travelled sixty million miles. From Earth!’

Mr Aaa yawned. ‘That’s only fifty million miles this time of year.’ He picked up a frightful-looking weapon. ‘Well, I have to go now. Just take that silly note, though I don’t know what good it’ll do you, and go over that hill into the little town of Iopr and tell Mr Iii all about it. He’s the man you want to see. Not Mr Ttt, he’s an idiot; I’m going to kill him. Not me, because you’re not in my line of work.’

‘Line of work, line of work!’ bleated the captain. ‘Do you have to be in a certain line of work to welcome Earth Men?’

‘Don’t be silly, everyone knows that!’ Mr Aaa rushed downstairs. ‘Good-bye!’ And down the causeway he raced, like a pair of wild calipers.

The four travellers stood shocked. Finally the captain said, ‘We’ll find someone yet who’ll listen to us.’

‘Maybe we could go out and come in again,’ said one of the men in a dreary voice. ‘Maybe we should take off and land again. Give them time to organize a party.’

‘That might be a good idea,’ murmured the tired captain.

The little town was full of people drifting in and out of doors, saying hello to one another, wearing gold masks and blue masks and crimson masks for pleasant variety, masks with silver lips and bronze eyebrows, masks that smiled or masks that frowned, according to the owners’ dispositions.

The four men, wet from their long walk, paused and asked a little girl where Mr Iii’s house was.

‘There,’ The child nodded her head.

The captain got eagerly, carefully down on one knee, looking into her sweet young face. ‘Little girl, I want to talk to you.’

He seated her on his knee and folded her small brown hands neatly in his own big ones, as if ready for a bedtime story which he was shaping in his mind slowly and with a great patient happiness in details.

‘Well, here’s how it is, little girl. Six months ago another rocket came to Mars. There was a man named York in it, and his assistant. Whatever happened to them, we don’t know. Maybe they crashed. They came in a rocket. So did we. You should see it! A big rocket! So we’re the Second Expedition, following up the First. And we came all the way from Earth …’

The little girl disengaged one hand without thinking about it, and clapped an expressionless golden mask over her face. Then she pulled forth a golden spider toy and dropped it to the ground while the captain talked on. The toy spider climbed back up to her knee obediently, while she speculated upon it coolly through the slits of her emotionless mask and the captain shook her gently and urged his story upon her.

‘We’re Earth Men,’ he said. ‘Do you believe me?’

‘Yes.’ The little girl peeped at the way she was wiggling her toes in the dust.

‘Fine.’ The captain pinched her arm, a little bit with joviality, a little bit with meanness to get her to look at him. ‘We built our own rocket ship. Do you believe that?’

The little girl dug in her nose with a finger. ‘Yes.’

‘And – take your finger out of your nose, little girl – I am the captain, and—’

‘Never before in history has anybody come across space in a big rocket ship,’ recited the little creature, eyes shut.

‘Wonderful! How did you know?’

‘Oh, telepathy.’ She wiped a casual finger on her knee.

‘Well, aren’t you just ever so excited? cried the captain. ‘Aren’t you glad?’

‘You just better go see Mr Iii right away.’ She dropped her toy to the ground. ‘Mr Iii will like talking to you.’ She ran off, with the toy spider scuttling obediently after her.

The captain squatted there looking after her with his hand out. His eyes were watery in his head. He looked at his empty hands. His mouth hung open. The other three men stood with their shadows under them. They spat on the stone street …

Mr Iii answered the door. He was on his way to a lecture, but he had a minute, if they would hurry inside and tell him what they desired …

‘A little attention,’ said the captain, red-eyed and tired. ‘We’re from Earth, we have a rocket, there are four of us, crew and captain, we’re exhausted, we’re hungry, we’d like a place to sleep. We’d like someone to give us the key to the city or something like that, and we’d like somebody to shake our hands and say “Hooray” and say “Congratulations, old man!” That about sums it up.’

Mr Iii was a tall, vaporous, thin man with thick blind blue crystals over his yellowish eyes. He bent over his desk and brooded upon some papers, glancing now and again with extreme penetration at his guests.

‘Well, I haven’t the forms with me here, I don’t think.’ He rummaged through the desk drawers. ‘Now where did I put the forms?’ He mused. ‘Somewhere. Somewhere. Oh, here we are! Now!’ He handed the papers over crisply. ‘You’ll have to sign these papers, of course.’

‘Do we have to go through all this rigmarole?’

Mr Iii gave him a thick glassy look. ‘You say you’re from Earth, don’t you? Well, then there’s nothing for it but you sign.’

The captain wrote his name. ‘Do you want my crew to sign also?’

Mr Iii looked at the captain, looked at the three others, and burst into a shout of derision. ‘Them sign! Ho! How marvellous! Them, oh, them sign!’ Tears sprang from his eyes. He slapped his knee and bent to let his laughter jerk out of his gaping mouth. He held himself up with the desk. ‘Them sign!’

The four men scowled. ‘What’s funny?’

‘Them sign!’ sighed Mr Iii, weak with hilarity. ‘So very funny. I’ll have to tell Mr Xxx about this!’ He examined the filled-out form, still laughing. ‘Everything seems to be in order.’ He nodded. ‘Even the agreement for euthanasia if final decision on such a step is necessary.’ He chuckled.

‘Agreement for what?’

‘Don’t talk. I have something for you. Here, Take this key.’

The captain flushed. ‘It’s a great honour.’

‘Not the key to the city, you fool!’ snapped Mr Iii. ‘Just a key to the House. Go down that corridor, unlock the big door, and go inside and shut the door tight. You can spend the night there. In the morning I’ll send Mr Xxx to see you.’

Dubiously the captain took the key in hand. He stood looking at the floor. His men did not move. They seemed to be emptied of all their blood and their rocket fever. They were drained dry.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ inquired Mr Iii. ‘What are you waiting for? What do you want?’ He came and peered up into the captain’s face, stooping. ‘Out with it, you!’

‘I don’t suppose you could even—’ suggested the captain. ‘I mean, that is, try to, or think about …’ He hesitated. ‘We’ve worked hard, we’ve come a long way, and maybe you could just shake our hands and say “Well done!” do you – think?’ His voice faded.

Mr Iii stuck out his hand stiffly. ‘Congratulations!’ He smiled a cold smile. ‘Congratulations.’ He turned away. ‘I must go now. Use that key.’

Without noticing them again, as if they had melted down through the floor, Mr Iii moved about the room packing a little manuscript case with papers. He was in the room another five minutes but never again addressed the solemn quartet that stood with heads down, their heavy legs sagging, the light dwindling from their eyes. When Mr Iii went out of the door he was busy looking at his fingernails.…

They straggled along the corridor in the dull, silent afternoon light. They came to a large burnished silver door, and the silver key opened it. They entered, shut the door, and turned.

They were in a vast sunlit hall. Men and women sat at tables and stood in conversing groups. At the sound of the door they regarded the four uniformed men.

One Martian stepped forward, bowing. ‘I am Mr Uuu,’ he said.

‘And I am Captain Jonathan Williams, of New York City, on Earth,’ said the captain without emphasis.

Immediately the hall exploded!

The rafters trembled with shouts and cries. The people, rushing forward, waved and shrieked happily, knocking down tables, swarming, rollicking, seizing the four Earth Men, lifting them swiftly to their shoulders. They charged about the hall six times, six times making a full and wonderful circuit of the room, jumping, bounding, singing.

The Earth Men were so stunned that they rode the toppling shoulders for a full minute before they began to laugh and shout at each other:

‘Hey! This is more like it!’

‘This is the life! Boy! Yay! Yow! Whoopee!’

They winked tremendously at each other. They flung up their hands to clap the air. ‘Hey!’

‘Hooray!’ said the crowd.

They set the Earth Men on a table. The shouting died.

The captain almost broke into tears. ‘Thank you. It’s good, it’s good.’

‘Tell us about yourselves,’ suggested Mr Uuu.

The captain cleared his throat.

The audience ohed and ahed as the captain talked. He introduced his crew; each made a small speech and was embarrassed by the thunderous applause.

Mr Uuu clapped the captain’s shoulder. ‘It’s good to see another man from Earth. I am from Earth also.’

‘How was that again?’

‘There are many of us here from Earth.’

‘You? From Earth?’ The captain stared. ‘But is that possible? Did you come by rocket? Has space travel been going on for centuries?’ His voice was disappointed. ‘What – what country are you from?’

‘Tuiereol. I came by the spirit of my body, years ago.’

‘Tuiereol.’ The captain mouthed the word. ‘I don’t know that country. What’s this about spirit of body?’

‘And Miss Rrr over here, she’s from Earth too, aren’t you, Miss Rrr?’

Miss Rrr nodded and laughed strangely.

‘And so is Mr Www and Mr Qqq and Mr Vvv!’

‘I’m from Jupiter,’ declared one man, preening himself.

‘I’m from Saturn,’ said another, eyes glinting slyly.

‘Jupiter, Saturn,’ murmured the captain, blinking.

It was very quiet now; the people stood around and sat at the tables, which were strangely empty for banquet tables. Their yellow eyes were glowing, and there were dark shadows under their cheekbones. The captain noticed for the first time that there were no windows; the light seemed to permeate the walls. There was only one door. The captain winced. ‘This is confusing. Where on Earth is this Tuiereol? Is it near America?’

‘What is America?’

‘You never heard of America! You say you’re from Earth and yet you don’t know!’

Mr Uuu drew himself up angrily. ‘Earth is a place of seas and nothing but seas. There is no land. I am from Earth, and know.’

‘Wait a minute.’ The captain sat back. ‘You look like a regular Martian. Yellow eyes. Brown skin.’

‘Earth is a place of all jungle,’ said Miss Rrr proudly. ‘I am from Orri, on Earth, a civilization built of silver!’

Now the captain turned his head from and then to Mr Uuu and then to Mr Www and Mr Zzz and Mr Nnn and Mr Hhh and Mr Bbb. He saw their yellow eyes waxing and waning in the light, focusing and unfocusing. He began to shiver. Finally he turned to his men and regarded them sombrely.

‘Do you realize what this is?’

‘What, sir?’

‘This is no celebration,’ replied the captain tiredly. ‘This is no banquet. These aren’t government representatives. This is no surprise party. Look at their eyes. Listen to them!’

Nobody breathed. There was only a soft white move of eyes in the close room.

‘Now I understand’ – the captain’s voice was far away – ‘why everyone gave us notes and passed us on, one from the other, until we met Mr Iii, who sent us down a corridor with a key to open a door and shut a door. And here we are …’

‘Where are we, sir?’

The captain exhaled. ‘In an insane asylum.’

It was night. The large hall lay quiet and dimly illuminated by hidden light sources in the transparent walls. The four Earth Men sat around a wooden table, their bleak heads bent over their whispers. On the floor, men and women lay huddled. There were little stirs in the dark corners, solitary men or women gesturing their hands. Every half-hour one of the captain’s men would try the silver door and return to the table. ‘Nothing doing, sir. We’re locked in proper.’

‘They think we’re really insane, sir?’

‘Quite. That’s why there was no hullabaloo to welcome us. They merely tolerated what, to them, must be a constantly recurring psychotic condition.’ He gestured at the dark sleeping shapes all about them. ‘Paranoids, every single one! What a welcome they gave us! For a moment there’ – a little fire rose and died in his eyes – ‘I thought we were getting our true reception. All the yelling and singing and speeches. Pretty nice, wasn’t it – while it lasted?’

‘How long will they keep us here, sir?’

‘Until we prove we’re not psychotics.’

‘That should be easy.’

‘I hope so.’

‘You don’t sound very certain, sir.’

‘I’m not. Look in that corner.’

A man squatted alone in darkness. Out of his mouth issued a blue flame which turned into the round shape of a small naked woman. It flourished on the air softly in vapours of cobalt light, whispering and sighing.

The captain nodded at another corner. A woman stood there, changing. First she was embedded in a crystal pillar, then she melted into a golden statue, finally a staff of polished cedar, and back to a woman.

All through the midnight hall people were juggling thin violent flames, shifting, changing, for night-time was the time of change and affliction.

‘Magicians, sorcerers,’ whispered one of the Earth Men.

‘No, hallucination. They pass their insanity over into us so that we see their hallucinations too. Telepathy. Auto-suggestion and telepathy.’

‘Is that what worries you, sir?’

‘Yes. If hallucinations can appear this “real” to us, to anyone, if hallucinations are catching and almost believable, it’s no wonder they mistook us for psychotics. If that man can produce little blue fire women and that woman there melt into a pillar, how natural if normal Martians think we produce our rocket ship with our minds’.

‘Oh,’ said his men in the shadows.

Around them, in the vast hall, flames leaped blue, flared, evaporated. Little demons of red sand ran between the teeth of sleeping men. Women became oily snakes. There was a smell of reptiles and animals.

In the morning everyone stood around looking fresh, happy, and normal. There were no flames or demons in the room. The captain and his men waited by the silver door, hoping it would open.

Mr Xxx arrived after about four hours. They had a suspicion that he had waited outside the door, peering in at them for at least three hours before he stepped in, beckoned, and led them to his small office.

He was a jovial, smiling man, if one could believe the mask he wore, for upon it was painted not one smile, but three. Behind it, his voice was the voice of a not so smiling psychologist. ‘What seems to be the trouble?’

‘You think we’re insane, and we’re not,’ said the captain.

‘Contrarily, I do not think all of you are insane.’ The psychologist pointed a little wand at the captain. ‘No. Just you, sir. The others are secondary hallucinations.’

The captain slapped his knee. ‘So that’s it! That’s why Mr Iii laughed when I suggested my men sign the papers too!’

‘Yes, Mr Iii told me.’ The psychologist laughed out of the carved, smiling mouth. ‘A good joke. Where was I? Secondary hallucinations, yes. Women come to me with snakes crawling from their ears. When I cure them, the snakes vanish.’

‘We’ll be glad to be cured. Go right ahead.’

Mr Xxx seemed surprised. ‘Unusual. Not many people want to be cured. The cure is drastic, you know.’

‘Cure ahead! I’m confident you’ll find we’re all sane.’

‘Let me check your papers to be sure they’re in order for a “cure”.’ He checked a file. ‘Yes. You know, such cases as yours need special “curing”. The people in the hall are simpler forms. But once you’ve gone this far, I must point out, with primary, secondary, auditory, olfactory, and labial hallucinations, as well as tactile and optical fantasies, it is pretty bad business. We have to resort to euthanasia.’

The captain leaped up with a roar. ‘Look here, we’ve stood quite enough! Test us, tap our knees, check our hearts, exercise us, ask questions!’

‘You are free to speak.’

The captain raved for an hour. The psychologist listened.

‘Incredible,’ he mused. ‘Most detailed dream fantasy I’ve ever heard.’

‘God damn it, we’ll show you the rocket ship!’ screamed the captain.

‘I’d like to see it. Can you manifest it in this room?’

‘Oh, certainly. It’s in that file of yours, under R.’

Mr Xxx peered seriously into his file. He went ‘Tsk’ and shut the file solemnly. ‘Why did you tell me to look? The rocket isn’t there.’

‘Of course not, you idiot! I was joking. Does an insane man joke?’

‘You find some odd senses of humour. Now, take me out to your rocket. I wish to see it.’

It was noon. The day was very hot when they reached the rocket.

‘So.’ The psychologist walked up to the ship and tapped it. It gonged softly. ‘May I go inside?’ he asked slyly.

‘You may.’

Mr Xxx stepped in and was gone for a long time.

‘Of all the silly, exasperating things.’ The captain chewed a cigar as he waited. ‘For two cents I’d go back home and tell people not to bother with Mars. What a suspicious bunch of louts.’

‘I gather that a good number of their population are insane, sir. That seems to be their main reason for doubting.’

‘Nevertheless, this is all so damned irritating.’

The psychologist emerged from the ship after half an hour of prowling, tapping, listening, smelling, tasting.

‘Now do you believe!’ shouted the captain, as if he were deaf.

The psychologist shut his eyes and scratched his nose. ‘This is the most incredible example of sensual hallucination and hypnotic suggestion I’ve ever encountered. I went through your “rocket”, as you call it.’ He tapped the hull. ‘I hear it. Auditory fantasy.’ He drew a breath. ‘I smell it. Olfactory hallucination, induced by sensual telepathy.’ He kissed the ship. ‘I taste it. Labial fantasy!’

He shook the captain’s hand. ‘May I congratulate you? You are a psychotic genius! You have done a most complete job! The task of projecting your psychotic image into the mind of another via telepathy and keeping the hallucinations from becoming sensually weaker is almost impossible. Those people in the House usually concentrate on visuals or, at the most, visuals and auditory fantasies combined. You have balanced the whole conglomeration! Your insanity is beautifully complete!’

‘My insanity.’ The captain was pale.

‘Yes, yes, what a lovely insanity. Metal, rubber, gravitizers, foods, clothing, fuel, weapons, ladders, nuts, bolts, spoons. Ten thousand separate items I checked on your vessel. Never have I seen such a complexity. There were even shadows under the bunks and under everything! Such concentration of will! And everything, no matter how or when tested, had a smell, a solidity, a taste, a sound! Let me embrace you!’

He stood back at last. ‘I’ll write this into my greatest monograph! I’ll speak of it at the Martian Academy next month! Look at you! Why, you’ve even changed your eye colour from yellow to blue, your skin to pink from brown. And those clothes, and your hands having five fingers instead of six! Biological metamorphosis through psychological imbalance! And your three friends—’

He took out a little gun. ‘Incurable, of course. You poor, wonderful man. You will be happier dead. Have you any last words?’

‘Stop, for God’s sake! Don’t shoot!’

‘You sad creature. I shall put you out of your misery which has driven you to imagine this rocket and these three men. It will be most engrossing to watch your friends and your rocket vanish once I have killed you. I will write a neat paper on the dissolvement of neurotic images from what I perceive here today.’

‘I’m from Earth! My name is Jonathan Williams, and these—’

‘Yes, I know,’ soothed Mr Xxx, and fired his gun.

The captain fell with a bullet in his heart. The other three men screamed.

Mr Xxx stared at them. ‘You continue to exist? This is superb! Hallucinations with time and spatial persistence!’ He pointed the gun at them. ‘Well, I’ll scare you into dissolving.’

‘No!’ cried the three men.

‘An auditory appeal, even with the patient dead,’ observed Mr Xxx as he shot the three men down.

They lay on the sand, intact, not moving.

He kicked them. Then he rapped on the ship.

‘It persists! They persist!’ He fired his gun again at the bodies. Then he stood back. The smiling mask dropped from his face.

Slowly the little psychologist’s face changed. His jaw sagged. The gun dropped from his fingers. His eyes were dull and vacant. He put his hands up and turned in a blind circle. He fumbled at the bodies, saliva filling his mouth.

‘Hallucinations,’ he mumbled frantically. ‘Taste. Sight. Smell. Sound. Feeling.’ He waved his hands. His eyes bulged. His mouth began to give off a faint froth.

‘Go away!’ he shouted to the bodies. ‘Go away!’ he screamed at the ship. He examined his trembling hands. ‘Contaminated,’ he whimpered wildly. ‘Carried over into me. Telepathy. Hypnosis. Now I’m insane. Now I’m contaminated. Hallucinations in all their sensual forms.’ He stopped and searched around with his numb hands for the gun. ‘Only one cure. Only one way to make them go away, vanish.’

A shot rang out. Mr Xxx fell.

The four bodies lay in the sun. Mr Xxx lay where he fell.

The rocket reclined on the little sunny hill and didn’t vanish.

When the town people found the rocket at sunset they wondered what it was. Nobody knew, so it was sold to a junkman and hauled off to be broken up for scrap metal.

That night it rained all night. The next day was fair and warm.

MARCH 2000
The Taxpayer

He wanted to go to Mars on the rocket. He went down to the rocketfield in the early morning and yelled in through wire fence at the men in uniform that he wanted to go to Mars. He told them he was a taxpayer, his name was Pritchard, and he had a right to go to Mars. Wasn’t he born right here in Ohio? Wasn’t he a good citizen? Then why couldn’t he go to Mars? He shook his fists at them and told them that he wanted to get away from Earth; anybody with any sense wanted to get away from Earth. There was going to be a big atomic war on Earth in about two years, and he didn’t want to be here when it happened. He and thousands of others like him, if they had any sense, would go to Mars. See if they wouldn’t! To get away from wars and censorship and statism and conscription and government control of this and that, of art and science! You could have Earth! He was offering his good right hand, his heart, his head, for the opportunity to go to Mars! What did you have to do, what did you have to sign, whom did you have to know, to get on the rocket?

They laughed out through the wire screen at him. He didn’t want to go to Mars, they said. Didn’t he know that the First and Second Expeditions had failed, had vanished; the men were probably dead?

But they couldn’t prove it, they didn’t know for sure, he said, clinging to the wire fence. Maybe it was a land of milk and honey up there, and Captain York and Captain Williams had just never bothered to come back. Now were they going to open the gate and let him in to board the Third Expeditionary Rocket, or was he going to have to kick it down?

They told him to shut up.

He saw the men walking out to the rocket.

‘Wait for me!’ he cried. ‘Don’t leave me here on this terrible world, I’ve got to get away; there’s going to be an atom war! Don’t leave me on Earth!’

They dragged him, struggling, away. They slammed the police wagon door and drove him off into the early morning, his face pressed to the rear window, and just before they sirened over a hill, he saw the red fire and heard the big sound and felt the huge tremor as the silver rocket shot up and left him behind on an ordinary Monday morning on the ordinary planet Earth.

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