They waited.
By midnight the fire was extinguished. Earth was still there. There was a sigh, like an autumn wind, from the porches.
"We haven"t heard from Harry for a long time."
"He"s all right."
"We should send a message to Mother."
"She"s all right."
"_Is_ she?"
"Now, don"t worry."
"Will she be all right, do you think?"
"Of course, of course; now come to bed."
But n.o.body moved. Late dinners were carried out onto the night lawns and set upon collapsible tables, and they picked at these slowly until two o"clock and the light-radio message flashed from Earth. They could read the great Morse-code flashes which flickered like a distant firefly: AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT ATOMIZED IN PREMATURE.
EXPLOSION OF ATOMIC STOCKPILE. LOS ANGELES,.
LONDON BOMBED. WAR. COME HOME. COME HOME.
COME HOME.
They stood up from their tables.
COME HOME. COME HOME. COME HOME.
"Have you heard from your brother Ted this year?"
"You know. With mail rates five bucks a letter to Earth, I don"t write much."
COME HOME.
"I"ve been wondering about Jane; you remember Jane, my kid sister?"
COME HOME.
At three in the chilly morning the luggage-store proprietor glanced up. A lot of people were coming down the street.
"Stayed open late on purpose. What"ll it be, mister?"
By dawn the luggage was gone from his shelves.
December 2005: THE SILENT TOWNS.
There was a little white silent town on the edge of the dead Martian sea. The town was empty. No one moved in it. Lonely lights burned in the stores all day. The shop doors were wide, as if people had run off without using their keys. Magazines, brought from Earth on the silver rocket a month before, fluttered, untouched, burning brown, on wire racks fronting the silent drugstores.
The town was dead. Its beds were empty and cold. The only sound was the power hum of electric lines and dynamos, still alive, all by themselves. Water ran in forgotten bathtubs, poured out into living rooms, onto porches, and down through little garden plots to feed neglected flowers. In the dark theaters, gum under the many seats began to harden with tooth impressions still in it.
Across town was a rocket port. You could still smell the hard, scorched smell where the last rocket blasted off when it went back to Earth. If you dropped a dime in the telescope and pointed it at Earth, perhaps you could see the big war happening there. Perhaps you could see New York explode. Maybe London could be seen, covered with a new kind of fog. Perhaps then it might be understood why this small Martian town is abandoned. How quick was the evacuation? Walk in any store, bang the NO SALE key. Cash drawers jump out, all bright and jingly with coins. That war on Earth must be very bad ...
Along the empty avenues of this town, now whistling softly, kicking a tin can ahead of him in deepest concentration, came a tall, thin man. His eyes glowed with a dark, quiet look of loneliness. He moved his bony hands in his pockets, which were tinkling with new dimes. Occasionally he tossed a dime to the ground. He laughed temperately, doing this, and walked on, sprinkling bright dimes everywhere.
His name was Walter Gripp. He had a placer mine and a remote shack far up in the blue Martian hills and he walked to town once every two weeks to see if he could marry a quiet and intelligent woman. Over the years he had always returned to his shack, alone and disappointed. A week ago, arriving in town, he had found it this way!
That day he had been so surprised that he rushed to a delicatessen, flung wide a case, and ordered a triple-decker beef sandwich.
"Coming up!" he cried, a towel on his arm.
He flourished meats and bread baked the day before, dusted a table, invited himself to sit, and ate until he had to go find a soda fountain, where he ordered a bicarbonate. The druggist, being one Walter Gripp, was astoundingly polite and fizzed one right up for him!
He stuffed his jeans with money, all he could find. He loaded a boy"s wagon with ten-dollar bills and ran lickety-split through town. Reaching the suburbs, he suddenly realized how shamefully silly he was. He didn"t need money. He rode the ten-dollar bills back to where he"d found them, counted a dollar from his own wallet to pay for the sandwiches, dropped it in the delicatessen till, and added a quarter tip.
That night he enjoyed a hot Turkish bath, a succulent filet carpeted with delicate mushrooms, imported dry sherry, and strawberries in wine. He fitted himself for a new blue flannel suit, and a rich gray Homburg which balanced oddly atop his gaunt head. He slid money into a juke box which played "That Old Gang of Mine." He dropped nickels in twenty boxes all over town. The lonely streets and the night were full of the sad music of "That Old Gang of Mine" as he walked, tall and thin and alone, his new shoes clumping softly, his cold hands in his pockets.
But that was a week past. He slept in a good house on Mars Avenue, rose mornings at nine, bathed, and idled to town for ham and eggs. No morning pa.s.sed that he didn"t freeze a ton of meats, vegetables, and lemon cream pies, enough to last ten years, until the rockets came back from Earth, if they ever came.
Now, tonight, he drifted up and down, seeing the wax women in every colorful shop window, pink and beautiful. For the first time he knew how dead the town was. He drew a gla.s.s of beer and sobbed gently.
"Why," he said, "I"m all alone alone."
He entered the Elite Theater to show himself a film, to distract his mind from his isolation. The theater was hollow, empty, like a tomb with phantoms crawling gray and black on the vast screen. Shivering, he hurried from the haunted place.
Having decided to return home, he was striking down the middle of a side street, almost running, when he heard the phone.
He listened.
"Phone ringing in someone"s house."
He proceeded briskly.
"Someone should answer that phone," he mused.
He sat on a curb to pick a rock from his shoe, idly.
"Someone!" he screamed, leaping. "Me! Good lord, what"s wrong with me!" he shrieked. He whirled. Which house? That one!
He raced over the lawn, up the steps, into the house, down a dark hall.
He yanked up the receiver.
"h.e.l.lo!" he cried.
Buzzzzzzzzz.
"h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo!"
They had hung up.
"h.e.l.lo!" he shouted, and banged the phone. "You stupid idiot!" he cried to himself. "Sitting on that curb, you fool! Oh, you d.a.m.ned and awful fool!" He squeezed the phone. "Come on, ring again! Come on! on!"
He had never thought there might be others left on Mars. In the entire week he had seen no one. He had figured that all other towns were as empty as this one.
Now, staring at this terrible little black phone, he trembled. Interlocking dial systems connected every town on Mars. From which of thirty cities had the call come?
He didn"t know.
He waited. He wandered to the strange kitchen, thawed some iced huckleberries, ate them disconsolately.
"There wasn"t anyone on the other end of that call," he murmured. "Maybe a pole blew down somewhere and the phone rang by itself."
But hadn"t he heard a click, which meant someone had hung up far away?
He stood in the hall the rest of the night. "Not because of the phone," he told himself. "I just haven"t anything else to do."
He listened to his watch tick.
"She won"t phone back," he said. "She won"t ever ever call a number that didn"t answer. She"s probably dialing other houses in town right call a number that didn"t answer. She"s probably dialing other houses in town right now! now! And here I sit-Wait a minute!" He laughed. "Why do I keep saying "she"?" And here I sit-Wait a minute!" He laughed. "Why do I keep saying "she"?"
He blinked. "It could as easily be a "he," couldn"t it?"
His heart slowed. He felt very cold and hollow.
He wanted very much for it to be a "she."
He walked out of the house and stood in the center of the early, dim morning street.
He listened. Not a sound. No birds. No cars. Only his heart beating. Beat and pause and beat again. His face ached with strain. The wind blew gently, oh so gently, flapping his coat.
"Sh," he whispered. "_Listen_."
He swayed in a slow circle, turning his head from one silent house to another.
She"ll phone more and more numbers, he thought. It must be a woman. Why? Only a woman would call and call. A man wouldn"t. A man"s independent. Did I phone anyone? No! Never thought of it. It must be a woman. It has has to be, by G.o.d! to be, by G.o.d!
Listen.
Far away, under the stars, a phone rang.
He ran. He stopped to listen. The ringing, soft. He ran a few more steps. Louder. He raced down an alley. Louder still! He pa.s.sed six houses, six more. Much louder! He chose a house and its door was locked.
The phone rang inside.
"d.a.m.n you!" He jerked the doork.n.o.b.
The phone screamed.
He heaved a porch chair through a parlor window, leaped in after it.
Before he even touched the phone, it was silent.
He stalked through the house then and broke mirrors, tore down drapes, and kicked in the kitchen stove.
Finally, exhausted, he picked up the thin directory which listed every phone on Mars. Fifty thousand names.
He started with number one.
Amelia Ames. He dialed her number in New Chicago, one hundred miles over the dead sea.
No answer.
Number two lived in New New York, five thousand miles across the blue mountains.
No answer.
He called three, four, five, six, seven, eight, his fingers jerking, unable to grip the receiver.
A woman"s voice answered, "h.e.l.lo?"
Walter cried back at her, "h.e.l.lo, oh lord, h.e.l.lo!"
"This is a recording," recited the woman"s voice. "Miss Helen Arasumian is not home. Will you leave a message on the wire spool so she may call you when she returns? h.e.l.lo? This is a recording. Miss Arasumian is not home. Will you leave a message-"
He hung up.
He sat with his mouth twitching.
On second thought he redialed that number.
"When Miss Helen Arasumian comes home," he said, "tell her to go to h.e.l.l."
He phoned Mars Junction, New Boston, Arcadia, and Roosevelt City exchanges, theorizing that they would be logical places for persons to dial from; after that he contacted local city halls and other public inst.i.tutions in each town. He phoned the best hotels. Leave it to a woman to put herself up in luxury.
Suddenly he stopped, clapped his hands sharply together, and laughed. Of course! He checked the directory and dialed a long-distance call through to the biggest beauty parlor in New Texas City. If ever there was a place where a woman would putter around, patting mud packs on her face and sitting under a drier, it would be a velvet-soft, diamond-gem beauty parlor!
The phone rang. Someone at the other end lifted the receiver.