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 gla.s.s 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 center of the quiet room. The gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s. "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. Nile arrive?"
"No."
"Wait a minute." He snapped his fingers disgustedly. "Why, I remember now now. He was supposed to visit us tomorrow tomorrow afternoon. How stupid of me." 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, 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 ca.n.a.l waters stirring cold in the long ca.n.a.ls. 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 cl.u.s.ters 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 amphitheater, in darkness and distances, lay little towns and villas; pools of silver water stood motionless and ca.n.a.ls glittered from horizon to horizon. It was an evening in summer upon the placid and temperate planet Mars. Up and down green wine ca.n.a.ls, 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 amphitheaters 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 amphitheater. 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 dasped her hands to her mouth. She stood, bewildered.
"What words are those?" asked the musicians.
"What song is that?"
"What language language is that!" is that!"
And when they blew again upon their golden horns the strange music came forth and pa.s.sed 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 you play?" play?"
The woman wept and ran from the stage, And the audience moved out of the amphitheater. 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: "--_and 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 thought of it, all of a sudden. It"s just words we don"t understand." 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! 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 ca.n.a.l 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 amphitheaters 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! English!" The man standing there was astounded.
"I speak what I speak," she said.
"It"s wonderful English! 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! Martian!" The man smiled. "The word is not familiar to you, certainly. It"s an Earth expression." He nodded at his then. "We are from Earth. I"m Captain Williams. We"ve landed on Mars within the hour. Here we are, the Second 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!" 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 fine name! But, my good woman, how is it you speak such perfect English?" 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! 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."