"For how long?" asked Robert.
"Maybe-your great-grandchildren will hear it again," said Dad. He just sat there, and the children were caught in the center of his awe and defeat and resignation and acceptance.
Finally he put the boat out into the ca.n.a.l again, and they continued in the direction in which they had originally started.
It was getting late. Already the sun was down the sky, and a series of dead cities lay ahead of them.
Dad talked very quietly and gently to his sons. Many times in the past he had been brisk, distant, removed from them, but now he patted them on the head with just a word and they felt it.
"Mike, pick a city."
"What, Dad?"
"Pick a city, Son. Any one of these cities we pa.s.s."
"All right," said Michael. "How do I pick?"
"Pick the one you like the most. You, too, Robert and Tim. Pick the city you like best."
"I want a city with Martians in it," said Michael.
"You"ll have that," said Dad. "I promise." His lips were for the children, but his eyes were for Mom.
They pa.s.sed six cities in twenty minutes. Dad didn"t say anything more about the explosions; he seemed much more interested in having fun with his sons, keeping them happy, than anything else.
Michael liked the first city they pa.s.sed, but this was vetoed because everyone doubted quick first judgments. The second city n.o.body liked. It was an Earth Man"s settlement, built of wood and already rotting into sawdust. Timothy liked the third city because it was large. The fourth and fifth were too small and the sixth brought acclaim from everyone, including Mother, who joined in the Gees, Goshes, and Look-at-thats!
There were fifty or sixty huge structures still standing, streets were dusty but paved, and you could see one or two old centrifugal fountains still pulsing wetly in the plazas. That was the only life-water leaping in the late sunlight.
"This is the city," said everybody.
Steering the boat to a wharf, Dad jumped out.
"Here we are. This is ours. This is where we live from now on!"
"From now on?" Michael was incredulous. He stood up, looking, and then turned to blink back at where the rocket used to be. "What about the rocket? What about Minnesota?"
"Here," said Dad.
He touched the small radio to Michael"s blond head. "Listen."
Michael listened.
"Nothing," he said.
"That"s right. Nothing. Nothing at all any more. No more Minneapolis, no more rockets, no more Earth."
Michael considered the lethal revelation and began to sob little dry sobs.
"Wait a moment," said Dad the next instant. "I"m giving you a lot more in exchange, Mike!"
"What?" Michael held off the tears, curious, but quite ready to continue in case Dad"s further revelation was as disconcerting as the original.
"I"m giving you this city, Mike. It"s yours."
"Mine?"
"For you and Robert and Timothy, all three of you, to own for yourselves."
Timothy bounded from the boat "Look, guys, all for us! us! All of All of that! that!" He was playing the game with Dad, playing it large and playing it well. Later, after it was all over and things had settled, he could go off by himself and cry for ten minutes. But now it was still a game, still a family outing, and the other kids must be kept playing.
Mike jumped out with Robert. They helped Mom.
"Be careful of your sister," said Dad, and n.o.body knew what he meant until later.
They hurried into the great pink-stoned city, whispering among themselves, because dead cities have a way of making you want to whisper, to watch the sun go down.
"In about five days," said Dad quietly, "I"ll go back down to where our rocket was and collect the food hidden in the ruins there and bring it here; and I"ll hunt for Bert Edwards and his wife and daughters there."
"Daughters?" asked Timothy. "How many?"
"Four."
"I can see that"ll cause trouble later." Mom nodded slowly.
"Girls." Michael made a face like an ancient Martian stone image. "Girls."
"Are they coming in a rocket too?"
"Yes. If they make it. Family rockets are made for travel to the Moon, not Mars. We were lucky we got through."
"Where did you get the rocket?" whispered Timothy, for the other boys were running ahead.
"I saved it. I saved it for twenty years, Tim. I had it hidden away, hoping I"d never have to use it. I suppose I should have given it to the government for the war, but I kept thinking about Mars ..."
"And a picnic!"
"Right. This is between you and me. When I saw everything was finishing on Earth, after I"d waited until the last moment, I packed us up. Bert Edwards had a ship hidden, too, but we decided it would be safer to take off separately, in case anyone tried to shoot us down."
"Why"d you blow up the rocket, Dad?"
"So we can"t go back, ever. And so if any of those evil men ever come to Mars they won"t know we"re here."
"Is that why you look up all the time?"
"Yes, it"s silly. They won"t follow us, ever. They haven"t anything to follow with. I"m being too careful, is all."
Michael came running back. "Is this really our our city, Dad?" city, Dad?"
"The whole darn planet belongs to us, kids. The whole darn planet."
They stood there, King of the Hill, Top of the Heap, Ruler of All They Surveyed, Unimpeachable Monarchs and Presidents, trying to understand what it meant to own a world and how big a world really was.
Night came quickly in the thin atmosphere, and Dad left them in the square by the pulsing fountain, went down to the boat, and came walking back carrying a stack of paper in his big hands.
He laid the papers in a clutter in an old courtyard and set them afire. To keep warm, they crouched around the blaze and laughed, and Timothy saw the little letters leap like frightened animals when the flames touched and engulfed them. The papers crinkled like an old man"s skin, and the cremation surrounded innumerable words: "GOVERNMENT BONDS; Business Graph, 1999; Religious Prejudice: An Essay; The Science of Logistics; Problems of the Pan-American Unity; Stock Report for July 3, 1998; The War Digest ... "
Dad had insisted on bringing these papers for this purpose. He sat there and fed them into the fire, one by one, with satisfaction, and told his children what it all meant.
"It"s time I told you a few things. I don"t suppose it was fair, keeping so much from you. I don"t know if you"ll understand, but I have to talk, even if only part of it gets over to you."
He dropped a leaf in the fire.
"I"m burning a way of life, just like that way of life is being burned clean of Earth right now. Forgive me if I talk like a politician. I am, after all, a former state governor, and I was honest and they hated me for it. Life on Earth never settled down to doing anything very good. Science ran too far ahead of us too quickly, and the people got lost in a mechanical wilderness, like children making over pretty things, gadgets, helicopters, rockets; emphasizing the wrong items, emphasizing machines instead of how to run the machines. Wars got bigger and bigger and finally killed Earth. That"s what the silent radio means. That"s what we ran away from.
"We were lucky. There aren"t any more rockets left. It"s time you knew this isn"t a fishing trip at all. I put off telling you. Earth is gone. Interplanetary travel won"t be back for centuries, maybe never. But that way of life proved itself wrong and strangled itself with its own hands. You"re young. I"ll tell you this again every day until it sinks in."
He paused to feed more papers to the fire.
"Now we"re alone. We and a handful of others who"ll land in a few days. Enough to start over. Enough to turn away from all that back on Earth and strike out on a new line-"
The fire leaped up to emphasize his talking. And then all the papers were gone except one. All the laws and beliefs of Earth were burnt into small hot ashes which soon would be carried off inawind.
Timothy looked at the last thing that Dad tossed in the fire. It was a map of the World, and it wrinkled and distorted itself hotly and went-flimpf-and was gone like a warm, black b.u.t.terfly. Timothy turned away.
"Now I"m going to show you the Martians," said Dad. "Come on, all of you. Here, Alice." He took her hand.
Michael was crying loudly, and Dad picked him up and carried him, and they walked down through the ruins toward the ca.n.a.l.
The ca.n.a.l. Where tomorrow or the next day their future wives would come up in a boat, small laughing girls now, with their father and mother.
The night came down around them, and there were stars. But Timothy couldn"t find Earth. It had already set. That was something to think about.
A night bird called among the ruins as they walked. Dad said, "Your mother and I will try to teach you. Perhaps we"ll fail. I hope not. We"ve had a good lot to see and learn from. We planned this trip years ago, before you were born. Even if there hadn"t been a war we would have come to Mars, I think, to live and form our own standard of living. It would have been another century before Mars would have been really poisoned by the Earth civilization. Now, of course-"
They reached the ca.n.a.l. It was long and straight and cool and wet and reflective in the night.
"I"ve always wanted to see a Martian," said Michael. "Where are they, Dad? You promised."
"There they are," said Dad, and he shifted Michael on his shoulder and pointed straight down.
The Martians were there. Timothy began to shiver.
The Martians were there-in the ca.n.a.l-reflected in the water. Timothy and Michael and Robert and Mom and Dad.
The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water ...
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
RAY BRADBURY was born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1920. He graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938. His formal education ended there, but he furthered it by himself-at night in the library and by day at his typewriter. He sold newspapers on Los Angeles street corners from 1938 to 1942, a modest beginning for a man whose name would one day be synonymous with the best in science fiction. Ray Bradbury sold his first science fiction short story in 1941, and his early reputation is based on stories published in the budding science fiction magazines of that time. His work was chosen for best American short story collections in 1946, 1948 and 1952. His awards include The O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award in 1954 and The Aviation-s.p.a.ce Writer"s a.s.sociation Award for best s.p.a.ce article in an American magazine in 1967. Mr. Bradbury has written for television, radio, the theater and film, and he has been published in every major American magazine. Editions of his novels and shorter fiction span several continents and languages, and he has gained worldwide acceptance for his work. His t.i.tles include The Martian Chronicles The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451 Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes Something Wicked This Way Comes, I Sing the Body Electric I Sing the Body Electric, The Golden Apples of the Sun The Golden Apples of the Sun, A Medicine for Melancholy A Medicine for Melancholy, The Ill.u.s.trated Man The Ill.u.s.trated Man, Long After Midnight Long After Midnight, The Stories of Ray Bradbury The Stories of Ray Bradbury, Dinosaur Tales Dinosaur Tales and and The Toynbee Convector The Toynbee Convector.