Bradbury, Ray - SSC 13 (30 page)

 
          
“You
know they have! Onions but not onions, carrots but not carrots. Taste: the same
but different. Smell: not like it used to be.” He felt his heart pounding, and
he was afraid. He dug his fingers into the earth. “Cora, what’s happening? What
is it? We’ve got to get away from this.” He ran across the garden. Each tree
felt his touch. “The roses. The roses. They’re turning green!”

 
          
And
they stood looking at the green roses.

 
          
And
two days later Dan came running. “Come see the cow. I was milking her and I saw
it. Come on!”

 
          
They
stood in the shed and looked at their one cow.

 
          
It
was growing a third horn.

 
          
And
the lawn in front of their house very quietly and slowly was coloring itself
like spring violets. Seed from Earth but growing up a soft purple.

 
          
“We
must get away,” said Bittering. “We’ll eat this stuff and then we’ll change—who
knows to what? I can’t let it happen. There’s only one thing to do. Burn this
food!”

 
          
“It’s
not poisoned.”

 
          
“But
it is. Subtly, very subtly. A little bit. A very little bit. We mustn’t touch
it.”

 
          
He
looked with dismay at their house. “Even the house. The wind’s done something
to it. The air’s burned it. The fog at night. The boards, all warped out of
shape. It’s not an Earthman’s house any more.”

 
          
“Oh,
your imagination!”

 
          
He
put on his coat and tie. “I’m going into town. We’ve got to do something now.
I’ll be back.”

 
          
“Wait,
Harry!” his wife cried.

 
          
But
he was gone.

 
          
In
town, on the shadowy step of the grocery store, the men sat with their hands on
their knees, conversing with great leisure and ease.

 
          
Mr.
Bittering wanted to fire a pistol in the air.

 
          
What
are you doing, you fools! he thought. Sitting here! You’ve heard the news—we’re
stranded on this planet. Well, move! Aren’t you frightened? Aren’t you afraid?
What are you going to do?

 
          
“Hello,
Harry,” said everyone.

 
          
“Look,”
he said to them. “You did hear the news, the other day, didn’t you?”

 
          
They
nodded and laughed. “Sure. Sure, Harry.”

 
          
“What
are you going to do about it?”

 
          
“Do,
Harry, do? What
can
we do?”

 
          
“Build
a rocket, that’s what!”

 
          
“A
rocket, Harry? To go back to all that trouble? Oh, Harry!”

 
          
“But
you
must
want to go back. Have you
noticed the peach blossoms, the onions, the grass?”

 
          
“Why,
yes, Harry, seems we did,” said one of the men.

 
          
“Doesn’t
it scare you?”

 
          
“Can’t
recall that it did much, Harry.”

 
          
“Idiots!”

 
          
“Now,
Harry.”

 
          
Bittering
wanted to cry. “You’ve got to work with me. If we stay here, we’ll all change.
The air. Don’t you smell it? Something in the air. A Martian virus, maybe; some
seed, or a pollen. Listen to me!”

 
          
They
stared at him.

 
          
“Sam,”
he said to one of them.

 
          
“Yes,
Harry?”

 
          
“Will
you help me build a rocket?”

 
          
“Harry,
I got a whole load of metal and some blueprints. You want to work in my metal
shop on a rocket, you’re welcome. I’ll sell you that metal for five hundred
dollars. You should be able to construct a right pretty rocket, if you work
alone, in about thirty years.”

 
          
Everyone
laughed.

 
          
“Don’t
laugh.”

 
          
Sam
looked at him with quiet good humor.

 
          
“Sam,”
Bittering said. “Your eyes—”

 
          
“What
about them, Harry?”

 
          
“Didn’t
they used to be gray?”

 
          
“Well
now, I don’t remember.”

 
          
“They
were, weren’t they?”

 
          
“Why
do you ask, Harry?”

 
          
“Because
now they’re kind of yellow-colored.”

 
          
“Is
that so, Harry?” Sam said, casually.

 
          
“And
you’re taller and thinner—”

 
          
“You
might be right, Harry.”

 
          
“Sam,
you shouldn’t have yellow eyes.”

 
          
“Harry,
what color eyes have
you
got?” Sam
said.

 
          
“My
eyes? They’re blue, of course.”

 
          
“Here
you are, Harry.” Sam handed him a pocket mirror. “Take a look at yourself.”

 
          
Mr.
Bittering hesitated, and then raised the mirror to his face. There were little,
very dim flecks of new gold captured in the blue of his eyes.

 
          
“Now
look what you’ve done,” said Sam a moment later. “You’ve broken my mirror.”

 
          
Harry
Bittering moved into the metal shop and began to build the rocket. Men stood in
the open door and talked and joked without raising their voices. Once in a
while they gave him a hand on lifting something. But mostly they just idled and
watched him with their yellowing eyes.

 
          
“It’s
suppertime, Harry,” they said.

 
          
His
wife appeared with his supper in a wicker basket.

 
          
“I
won’t touch it,” he said. “I’ll eat only food from our Deepfreeze. Food that
came from Earth. Nothing from our garden.”

 
          
His
wife stood watching him. “You can’t build a rocket.”

 
          
“I
worked in a shop once, when I was twenty. I know metal. Once I get it started,
the others will help,” he said, not looking at her, laying out the blueprints.

 
          
“Harry,
Harry,” she said, helplessly.

 
          
“We’ve
got to get away, Cora. We’ve
got
to!”

 
          
The
nights were full of wind that blew down the empty moonlit sea meadows past the
little white chess cities lying for their twelve-thousandth year in the
shallows. In the Earthmen’s settlement, the Bittering house shook with a
feeling of change.

 
          
Lying
abed, Mr. Bittering felt his bones shifted, shaped, melted like gold. His wife,
lying beside him, was dark from many sunny afternoons. Dark she was, and
golden-eyed, burnt almost black by the sun, sleeping, and the children metallic
in their beds, and the wind roaring forlorn and changing through the old peach
trees, the violet grass, shaking out green rose petals.

 
          
The
fear would not be stopped. It had his throat and heart. It dripped in a wetness
of the arm and the temple and the trembling palm.

 
          
A
green star rose in the east.

 
          
A
strange word emerged from Mr. Bittering’s lips.

 
          
“
Iorrt. Iorrt
.” He repeated it.

 
          
It
was a Martian word. He knew no Martian.

 
          
In
the middle of the night he arose and dialed a call through to Simpson, the
archaeologist.

 
          
“Simpson,
what does the word
Iorrt
mean?”

 
          
“Why
that’s the old Martian word for our planet Earth. Why?”

 
          
“No
special reason.”

 
          
The
telephone slipped from his hand.

 
          
“Hello,
hello, hello, hello,” it kept saying while he sat gazing out at the green star.
“Bittering? Harry, are you there?”

 
          
The
days were full of metal sound. He laid the frame of the rocket with the
reluctant help of three indifferent men. He grew very tired in an hour or so
and had to sit down.

 
          
“The
altitude,” laughed a man.

 
          
“Are
you
eating
, Harry?” asked another.

 
          
“I’m
eating,” he said, angrily.

 
          
“From
your Deepfreeze?”

 
          
“Yes!”

 
          
“You’re
getting thinner, Harry.”

 
          
“I’m
not!”

 
          
“And
taller.”

 
          
“Liar!”

 
          
His
wife took him aside a few days later. “Harry, I’ve used up all the food in the
Deepfreeze. There’s nothing left. I’ll have to make sandwiches using food grown
on Mars.”

 
          
He
sat down heavily.

 
          
“You
must eat,” she said. “You’re weak.”

 
          
“Yes,”
he said.

 
          
He
took a sandwich, opened it, looked at it, and began to nibble at it.

 
          
“And
take the rest of the day off,” she said. “It’s hot. The children want to swim
in the canals and hike. Please come along.”

 
          
“I
can’t waste time. This is a crisis!”

 
          
“Just
for an hour,” she urged. “A swim’ll do you good.”

 
          
He
rose, sweating. “All right, all right. Leave me alone. I’ll come.”

 
          
“Good
for you, Harry.”

 
          
The
sun was hot, the day quiet. There was only an immense staring burn upon the
land. They moved along the canal, the father, the mother, the racing children
in their swimsuits. They stopped and ate meat sandwiches. He saw their skin
baking brown. And he saw the yellow eyes of his wife and his children, their
eyes that were never yellow before. A few tremblings shook him, but were
carried off in waves of pleasant heat as he lay in the sun. He was too tired to
be afraid.