Edmond Hamilton - Whats It Like Out There

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I hadn't wanted to wear my uniform when I left the hos-

pital, but I didn't have any other clothes there and I was too

glad to get out to argue about it. But as soon as I got on the

local plane I was taking to Los Angeles, I was sorry I had

it on.

People gawked at me and began to whisper. "The stew-

ardess gave me a special big smile. She must have spoken to

the pilot, for he came back and shook hands, and said, "Well,

I guess a trip like this is sort of a comedown for you."

A little man came in, looked around for a seat, and took

the one beside me. He was a fussy, spectacled guy of fifty

or sixty, and he took a few minutes to get settled. Then he

looked at me, and stared at my uniform and at the little

brass button on it that said "TWO."

"Why," he said, "you're one of those Expedition Two

men!" And then, as though he'd only just figured it out,

"Why, you've been to Mars I"

"Yeah," I said. "I was there."

He beamed at me in a kind of wonder. I didn't like it, but

his curiosity was so friendly that I couldn't quite resent it.

"Tell me," he said, "what's it like out there?"

The plane was lifting* and I looked out at the Arizona

desert sliding by close underneath.

"Different," I said. "It's different."

The answer seemed to satisfy him completely. "I'll )ust

bet it is," he said. "Are you going home, Mr. . . ."

"Haddon. Sergeant Frank Haddon."

"You going home, Sergeant?"

"My home's back in Ohio," I told him. "I'm going in to

L.A. to look up some people before I go home."

"Well, that's fine. I hope you have a good time, Sergeant.

You deserve it. You boys did a great job out there. Why, I

read in the newspapers that after the U.N, sends out a cou-

ple more expeditions, we'll have cities out there, and regular

passenger lines, and all that."

"Look," I said, "that stuff is for the birds. You might as

well build cities down there in Mojave, and have them a lot

closer. There's only one reason for going to Mars now, and

that's uranium."

I could see he didn't quite believe me. "Oh, sure," he

said, "I know that's important too, the uranium we're all

using now for our power stationsbut that isn't all, is it?"

"It'll be all, for a long, long time," I said.

"But look, Sergeant, this newspaper article said . . ."

I didn't say anything more. By the time he'd finished tell-

ing about the newspaper article, we were coming down into

L.A. He pumped my hand when we got out of the plane.

"Have yourself a time. Sergeant! You sure rate it. I hear

a lot of chaps on Two didn't come back."

"Yeah," I said. "I heard that."

I was feeling shaky again by the time I got to down-

town L.A. I went in a bar and had a double bourbon and

it make me feel a little better.

I went out and found a cabby and asked him to drive me

out to San Gabriel. He was a fat man with a broad red face.

"Hop right in, buddy," he said. "Say, you're one of those

Mars guys, aren't you?"

I said, "That's right."

"Well, well," he said. "Tell me, how was it out there?"

"It was a pretty dull grind, in a way," I told him.

"I'll bet it was!" he said, as we started through traffic.

"Me, I was in the Army in World War Two, twenty years

ago. That's just what it was, a dull grind nine tenths of the

time. I guess it hasn't changed any."

"This wasn't any Army expedition," I explained. "It was a

United Nations one, not an Army onebut we had officers

and rules of discipline like the Army."

"Sure, it's the same thing," said the cabby. "You don't

need to tell me what it's like, buddy. Why, back there in

'forty-two, or was it 'forty-three?anyway, back there I re-

member that. . ."

I leaned back and watched Huntington Boulevard slide

past. The sun poured in on me and seemed very hot, and the

air seemed very thick and soupy. It hadn't been so bad up on

the Arizona plateau, but it was a little hard to breathe down

here.

The cabby wanted to know what address in San Gabriel.

I got the little packet of letters out of my pocket and found

the one that had "Martin Valinez" and a street address on

the back. I told the cabby and put the letters back into my

pocket.

I wished now that I'd never answered them.

But how could I keep from answering when Joe Valinez'

parents wrote to me at the hospital? And it was the same

with Jim's girl, and Walter's family. I'd had to write back,

and the first thing I knew I'd promised to come and see

them, and now if I went back to Ohio without doing it I'd

feel like a heel. Right now, I wished I'd decided to be a

heel.

The address was on the south side of San Gabriel, in a

section that still had a faintly Mexican tinge to it. There was

a little frame grocery store with a small house beside it, and

a picket fence around the yard of the house; very neat, but

a queerly homely place after all the slick California stucco.

I went into the little grocery, and a tall, dark man with

quiet eyes took a look at me and called a woman's name in

a low voice and then came around the counter and took my

hand.

"You're Sergeant Haddon," he said. "Yes. Of course.

We've been hoping you'd come."

His wife came in a hurry from the back. She looked a little

too old to be Joe's mother, for Joe had been just a kid; but

then she didn't look so old either, but just sort of worn.

She said to Valinez, "Please, a chair. Can't you see he's

tired? And just from the hospital."

I sat down and looked between them at a case of canned

peppers, and they asked me how I felt, and wouldn't I be

glad to get home, and they hoped all my family were well.

They were gentlefolk. They hadn't said a word about Joe,

just waited for me to say something. And I felt in a spot, for

I hadn't known Joe well, not jreally. He'd been moved into

our squad only a couple of weeks before take-off, and since

he'd been our first casualty, I'd never got to know him much.

I finally had to get it over with, and all I could think to say

was, "They wrote you in detail about Joe, didn't they?"

Valinez nodded gravely. "Yesthat he died from shock

within twenty-four hours after take-off. The letter was very

nice."

His wife nodded too. "Very nice," she murmured. She

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Edmond Hamilton - Whats It Like Out There

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