Bradbury, Ray - SSC 13 (24 page)

 
          
Finally
he put the boat out into the canal 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 pass.”

 
          
“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
passed 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 passed, but this was vetoed because everyone doubted
quick first judgments. The second city nobody 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!
All of
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 nobody 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
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 in a wind.

 
          
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 butterfly. 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 canal.

 
          
The
canal. 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 canal. 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 canal—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....