Bradbury, Ray - The Martian Chronicles

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The Martian Chronicles
Ray Bradbury
For my wife MARGUERITE with all my love
CHRONOLOGY:
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
February 2003: INTERIM
April 2003: THE MUSICIANS
June 2003: WAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR
2004-2005: THE NAMING OF NAMES
April 2005: USHER II
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
"It is good to renew one's wonder," said the philosopher.
"Space travel has again made children of us all."
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, 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 wintar
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 feet 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 color," 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 traveled 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 within the cup, and I'll not ask 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, toward 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 toward 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 flrebrands 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 gray 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, landed, and the tall man stepped out and
talked to me, telling me little jokes, laughing, and it was pleasant."
Mr. K touched a pillar. Founts of warm water leaped 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 toward 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. Nile!" She edged toward the door.
He caught her elbow and drew her steadily in. "Yes."
"But Pao - "
"Pan can wait, Ylla. We must entertain Nile."
"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. Nile 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. Nile 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 a 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. Nile is late, I'll be damned if I'll wait. I'm 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. Nile 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 vapors. 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. 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
thunderclap, a boil 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 toward 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 center 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. Nile 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, 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 amphitheater, in
darkness 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 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 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 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 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 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!" 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
then. "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 a 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 quarreling voices upstairs. The men within the door stared at one another, shifting on their boots,
twiddling their fingers, and holding onto 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 the kitchen door, with nothing to do.
"Cigarette?" said one of the men.
Somebody got out a pack and they lit up. They puffed slow 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 center 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 window sill 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. Ass 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 withpered, "Now we're getting someplace!" To Mr. Aaa he called, "We
traveled 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-by!" And down the causeway he raced, like a pair
of wild calipers.
The four travelers 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 golden 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 bed-time 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 his 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 marvelous!
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 honor."
"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 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 woman 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.
摘要：

TheMartianChroniclesRayBradburyFormywifeMARGUERITEwithallmyloveCHRONOLOGY:January1999:ROCKETSUMMERFebruary1999:YLLAAugust1999:THESUMMERNIGHTAugust1999:THEEARTHMENMarch2000:THETAXPAYERApril2000:THETHIRDEXPEDITIONJune2001:-ANDTHEMOONBESTILLASBRIGHTAugust2001:THESETTLERSDecember2001:THEGREENMORNINGFebr...

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