R Is for Rocket

"He doesn't know when he's well off," murmured Driscoll. "Can't we stop him, Captain?"

  "He practically owns the expedition. We don't have to help him, there's a clause in our contract that guarantees refusal to work under dangerous conditions. So . . . do unto this Picnic Ground as you would have it do unto you. No initial-cutting on the trees. Replace the turf on the greens. Clean up your banana peels after you."

  Now, below, in the ship there was an immense humming. From the storage port rolled the great shining Drill. Chatter-ton followed it, calling directions to its robot radio. "This way, here!"

  "The fool."

  "Now!" cried Chatterton.

  The Drill plunged its long screw-bore into the green grass.

  Chatterton waved up at the other men. "Watch this!"

  The sky trembled.

  The Drill stood in the center of a little sea of grass. For a moment it plunged away, bringing up moist corks of sod which it spat unceremoniously into a shaking analysis bin.

  Now the Drill gave a wrenched, metallic squeal like a monster interrupted at its feed. From the soil beneath it slow bluish liquids bubbled up.

  Chatterton shouted, "Get back, you fool!"

  The Drill lumbered in a prehistoric dance. It shrieked like a mighty train turning on a sharp curve, throwing out red sparks. It was sinking. The black slime gave under it in a dark convulsion.

  With a coughing sigh, a series of pants and churnings, the Drill sank into a black scum like an elephant shot and dying, trumpeting, like a mammoth at the end of an Age, vanishing limb by ponderous limb into the pit.

  "Fool, Fool," said Forester under his breath, fascinated with the scene. "You know what that is, Driscoll? It's tar. The fool machine hit a tar pit!"

  "Listen, listen!" cried Chatterton at the Drill, running about on the edge of the oily lake. "This way, over here!"

  But like the old tyrants of the earth, the dinosaurs with their tubed and screaming necks, the Drill was plunging and thrashing in the one lake from where there was no returning to bask on the firm and understandable shore.

  Chatterton turned to the other men far away. "Do something, someone!"

  The Drill was gone.

  The tar pit bubbled and gloated, sucking the hidden monster bones. The surface of the pool was silent. A huge bubble, the last, rose, expelled a scent of ancient petroleum, and fell apart.

  The men came down and stood on the edge of the little black sea.

  Chatterton stopped yelling.

  After a long minute of staring into the silent tar pool, Chatterton turned and looked at the hills, blindly, at the green rolling lawns. The distant trees were growing fruit now and dropping it, softly, to the ground.

  "I'll show it," he said quietly.

  "Take it easy, Chatterton."

  "I'll fix it," he said.

  "Sit down, have a drink."

  "I'll fix it good, I'll show it it can't do this to me."

  Chatterton started off back to the ship.

  "Wait a minute now," said Forester.

  Chatterton ran. "I know what to do, I know how to fix it!"

  "Stop him!" said Forester. He ran, then remembered he could fly. "The A-Bomb's on the ship, if he should get to that . . ."

  The other men had thought of that and were in the air. A small grove of trees stood between the rocket and Chatterton as he ran on the ground, forgetting that he could fly, or afraid to fly, or not allowed to fly, yelling. The crew headed for the rocket to wait for him, the captain with them. They arrived, formed a line, and shut the rocket port. The last they saw of Chatterton he was plunging through the edge of the tiny forest.

  The crew stood waiting.

  "That fool, that crazy guy."

  Chatterton didn't come out on the other side of the small woodland.

  "He's turned back, waiting for us to relax our guard."

  "Go bring him in," said Forester.

  Two men flew off.

  Now, softly, a great and gentle rain fell upon the green world.

  "The final touch," said Driscoll. "We'd never have to build houses here. Notice it's not raining on us. It's raining all around, ahead, behind us. What a world!"

  They stood dry in the middle of the blue, cool rain. The sun was setting. The moon, a large one the color of ice, rose over the freshened hills.

  "There's only one more thing this world needs."

  "Yes," said everyone, thoughtfully, slowly.

  "We'll have to go looking," said Driscoll. "It's logical. The wind flies us, the trees and streams feed us, everything is alive. Perhaps if we asked for companionship . . ."

  "I've thought a long time, today and other days," said Koestler. "We're all bachelors, been traveling for years, and tired of it. Wouldn't it be nice to settle down somewhere? Here, maybe. On Earth you sweat just to save enough to buy a house, pay taxes; the cities stink. Here, you won't even need a house, with this weather. If it gets monotonous you can ask for rain, clouds, snow, changes. You don't have to work here for anything."

  "It'd be boring. We'd go crazy."

  "No," Koestler said, smiling. "If life got too soft, all we'd have to do is repeat a few times what Chatterton said: 'Here there be tygers.' Listen!"

  Far away, wasn't there the faintest roar of a giant cat, hidden in the twilight forests?

  The men shivered.

  "A versatile world," said Koestler dryly. "A woman who'll do anything to please her guests, as long as we're kind to her. Chatterton wasn't kind."

  "Chatterton. What about him?"

  As if to answer this, someone cried from a distance. The two men who had flown off to find Chatterton were waving at the edge of the woods.

  Forester, Driscoll, and Koestler flew down alone.

  "What's up?"

  The men pointed into the forest. "Thought you'd want to see this, Captain. It's eerie." One of the men indicated a pathway. "Look here, sir."

  The marks of great claws stood on the path, fresh and clear.

  "And over here."

  A few drops of blood.

  A heavy smell of some feline animal hung in the air.

  "Chatterton?"

  "I don't think we'll ever find him, Captain."

  Faintly, faintly, moving away, now gone in the breathing silence of twilight, came the roar of a tiger.

  The men lay on the resilient grass by the rocket and the night was warm. "Reminds me of nights when I was a kid," said Driscoll. "My brother and I waited for the hottest night in July and then we slept on the Court House lawn, counting the stars, talking; it was a great night, the best night of the year, and now, when I think back on it, the best night of my life." Then he added, "Not counting tonight, of course."

  "I keep thinking about Chatterton," said Koestler.

  "Don't," said Forester. "We'll sleep a few hours and take off. We can't chance staying here another day. I don't mean the danger that got Chatterton. No. I mean, if we stayed on we'd get to liking this world too much. We'd never want to leave."

  A soft wind blew over them.

  "I don't want to leave now." Driscoll put his hands behind his head, lying quietly. "And it doesn't want us to leave."

  "If we go back to Earth and tell everyone what a lovely planet it is, what then, Captain? They'll come smashing in here and ruin it."

  "No," said Forester idly. "First, this planet wouldn't put up with a full-scale invasion. I don't know what it'd do, but it could probably think of some interesting things. Secondly, I like this planet too much; I respect it. We'll go back to Earth and lie about it. Say it's hostile. Which it would be to the average man, like Chatterton, jumping in here to hurt it. I guess we won't be lying after all."

  "Funny thing," said Koestler. "I'm not afraid. Chatterton vanishes, is killed most horr
ibly, perhaps, yet we lie here, no one runs, no one trembles. It's idiotic. Yet it's right. We trust it, and it trusts us."

  "Did you notice, after you drank just so much of the wine-water, you didn't want more? A world of moderation."

  They lay listening to something like the great heart of this earth beating slowly and warmly under their bodies.

  Forester thought, I'm thirsty.

  A drop of rain splashed on his lips.

  He laughed quietly.

  I'm lonely, he thought.

  Distantly, he heard soft, high voices.

  He turned his eyes in upon a vision. There was a group of hills from which flowed a clear river, and in the shallows of that river, sending up spray, their faces shimmering, were the beautiful women. They played like children on the shore. And it came to Forester to know about them and their life. They were nomads, roaming the face of this world as was their desire. There were no highways or cities, there were only hills and plains and winds to carry them like white feathers where they wished. As Forester shaped the questions, some invisible answerer whispered the answers. There were no men. These women, alone, produced their race. The men had vanished fifty thousand years ago. And where were these women now? A mile down from the green forest, a mile over on the wine stream by the six white stones, and a third mile to the large river. There, in the shallows, were the women who would make fine wives, and raise beautiful children.

  Forester opened his eyes. The other men were sitting up.

  "I had a dream."

  They had all dreamed.

  "A mile down from the green forest . . ."

  ". . . a mile over on the wine stream . . ."

  ". . . by the six white stones . . ." said Koestler.

  ". . . and a third mile to the large river," said Driscoll, sitting there.

  Nobody spoke again for a moment. They looked at the silver rocket standing there in the starlight.

  "Do we walk or fly, Captain?"

  Forester said nothing.

  Driscoll said, "Captain let's stay. Let's never go back to Earth. They'll never come and investigate to see what happened to us; they'll think we were destroyed here. What do you say?"

  Forester's face was perspiring. His tongue moved again and again on his lips. His hands twitched over his knees. The crew sat waiting.

  "It'd be nice," said the captain.

  "Sure."

  "But . . ." Forester sighed. "We've got our job to do. People invested in our ship. We owe it to them to go back."

  Forester got up. The men still sat on the ground, not listening to him.

  "It's such a fine, nice, wonderful night," said Koestler.

  They stared at the soft hills and the trees and the rivers running off to other horizons.

  "Let's get aboard ship," said Forester, with difficulty.

  "Captain . . ."

  "Get aboard," he said.

  The rocket rose into the sky. Looking back, Forester saw every valley and every tiny lake.

  "We should've stayed," said Koestler.

  "Yes, I know."

  "It's not too late to turn back."

  "I'm afraid it is." Forester made an adjustment on the port telescope. "Look now."

  Koestler looked.

  The face of the world was changed. Tigers, dinosaurs, mammoths appeared. Volcanoes erupted, cyclones and hurricanes tore over the hills in a welter and fury of weather.

  "Yes, she was a woman all right," said Forester. "Waiting for visitors for millions of years, preparing herself, making herself beautiful. She put on her best face for us. When Chatterton treated her badly, she warned him a few times, and then, when he tried to ruin her beauty, eliminated him. She wanted to be loved, like every woman, for herself, not for her wealth. So now, after she had offered us everything, we turn our backs. She's the woman scorned. She let us go, yes, but we can never come back. She'll be waiting for us with those . . ." He nodded to the tigers and the cyclones and the boiling seas.

  "Captain," said Koestler.

  "Yes."

  "It's a little late to tell you this. But just before we took off, I was in charge of the air lock. I let Driscoll slip away from the ship. He wanted to go. I couldn't refuse him. I'm responsible. He's back there now, on that planet."

  They both turned to the viewing port.

  After a long while, Forester said, "I'm glad. I'm glad one of us had enough sense to stay."

  "But he's dead by now!"

  "No, that display down there is for us, perhaps a visual hallucination. Underneath all the tigers and lions and hurricanes, Driscoll is quite safe and alive, because he's her only audience now. Oh, she'll spoil him rotten. He'll lead a wonderful life, he will, while we're slugging it out up and down the system looking for but never finding a planet quite like this again. No, we won't try to go back and 'rescue' Driscoll. I don't think 'she' would let us anyway. Full speed ahead, Koestler, make it full speed."

  The rocket leaped forward into greater accelerations.

  And just before the planet dwindled away in brightness and mist, Forester imagined that he could see Driscoll very clearly, walking away down from the green forest, whistling quietly, all of the fresh planet around him, a wine creek flowing for him, baked fish lolling in the hot springs, fruit ripening in the midnight trees, and distant forests and lakes waiting for him to happen by. Driscoll walked away across the endless green lawns near the six white stones, beyond the forest, to the edge of the large bright river. . . .

  THE STRAWBERRY WINDOW

  In his dream he was shutting the front door with its strawberry windows and lemon windows and windows like white clouds and windows like clear water in a country stream. Two dozen panes squared round the one big pane, colored of fruit wines and gelatins and cool water ices. He remembered his father holding him up as a child. "Look!" And through the green glass the world was emerald, moss, and summer mint. "Look!" The lilac pane made livid grapes of all the passers-by. And at last the strawberry glass perpetually bathed the town in roseate warmth, carpeted the world in pink sunrise, and made the cut lawn seem imported from some Persian rug bazaar. The strawberry window, best of all, cured people of their paleness, warmed the cold rain, and set the blowing, shifting February snows afire.

  "Yes, yes! There - !"

  He awoke.

  He heard his boys talking before he was fully out of his dream and he lay in the dark now, listening to the sad sound their talk made, like the wind blowing the white sea-bottoms into the blue hills, and then he remembered.

  We're on Mars, he thought.

  "What?" His wife cried out in her sleep.

  He hadn't realized he had spoken; he lay as still as he possibly could. But now, with a strange kind of numb reality, he saw his wife rise to haunt the room, her pale face staring through the small, high windows of their quonset hut at the clear but unfamiliar stars.

  "Carrie," he whispered.

  She did not hear.

  "Carrie," he whispered. "There's something I want to tell you. For a month now I've been wanting to say . . . tomorrow . . . tomorrow morning, there's going to be . . ."

  But his wife sat all to herself in the blue starlight and would not look at him.

  If only the sun stayed up, he thought, if only there was no night. For during the day he nailed the settlement town together, the boys were in school, and Carrie had cleaning, gardening, cooking to do. But when the sun was gone and their hands were empty of flowers or hammers and nails and arithmetics, their memories, like night birds, came home in the dark.

  His wife moved, a slight turn of her head.

  "Bob," she said at last, "I want to go home."

  "Carrie!"

  "This isn't home," she said.

  He saw that her eyes were wet and brimming. "Carrie, hold on awh
ile."

  "I've got no fingernails from holding on now!"

  As if she still moved in her sleep, she opened her bureau drawers and took out layers of handkerchiefs, shirts, underclothing, and put it all on top of the bureau, not seeing it, letting her fingers touch and bring it out and put it down. The routine was long familiar now. She would talk and put things out and stand quietly awhile, and then later put all the things away and come, dry-faced, back to bed and dreams. He was afraid that some night she would empty every drawer and reach for the few ancient suitcases against the wall.

  "Bob . . ." Her voice was not bitter, but soft, featureless, and as uncolored as the moonlight that showed what she was doing. "So many nights for six months I've talked this way; I'm ashamed. You work hard building houses in town. A man who works so hard shouldn't have to listen to a wife gone sad on him. But there's nothing to do but talk it out. It's the little things I miss most of all. I don't know - silly things. Our front-porch swing. The wicker rocking chair, summer nights. Looking at the people walk or ride by those evenings, back in Ohio. Our black upright piano, out of tune. My Swedish cut glass. Our parlor furniture - oh, it was like a herd of elephants, I know, and all of it old. And the Chinese hanging crystals that hit when the wind blew. And talking to neighbors there on the front porch, July nights. All those crazy, silly things . . . they're not important. But it seems those are things that come to mind around three in the morning. I'm sorry."

  "Don't be," he said. "Mars is a far place. It smells funny, looks funny, and feels funny. I think to myself nights too. We came from a nice town."

  "It was green," she said. "In the spring and summer. And yellow and red in the fall. And ours was a nice house; my, it was old, eighty-ninety years or so. Used to hear the house talking at night, whispering away. All the dry wood, the banisters, the front porch, the sills. Wherever you touched, it talked to you. Every room a different way. And when you had the whole house talking, it was a family around you in the dark, putting you to sleep. No other house, the kind they build nowadays, can be the same. A lot of people have got to go through and live in a house to make it mellow down all over. This place here, now, this hut, it doesn't know I'm in it, doesn't care if I live or die. It makes a noise like tin, and tin's cold. It's got no pores for the years to sink in. It's got no cellar for you to put things away for next year and the year after that. It's got no attic where you keep things from last year and all the other years before you were born. If we only had a little bit up here that was familiar, Bob, then we could make room for all that's strange. But when everything, every single thing is strange, then it takes forever to make things familiar."

  He nodded in the dark. "There's nothing you say that I haven't thought."

  She was looking at the moonlight where it lay upon the suitcases against the wall. He saw her move her hand down toward them.

  "Carrie!"

  "What?"

  He swung his legs out of bed. "Carrie, I've done a crazy lame-brain thing. All these months I heard you dreaming away, scared, and the boys at night and the wind, and Mars out there, the sea-bottoms and all, and . . ." He stopped and swallowed. "You got to understand what I did and why I did it. All the money we had in the bank a month ago, all the money we saved for ten years, I spent."