Bradbury, Ray - SSC 13 (31 page)

 
          
“Cora,
how long have your eyes been yellow?”

 
          
She
was bewildered. “Always, I guess.”

 
          
“They
didn’t change from brown in the last three months?”

 
          
She
bit her lips. “No. Why do you ask?”

 
          
“Never
mind.”

 
          
They
sat there.

 
          
“The
children’s eyes,” he said. “They’re yellow, too.”

 
          
“Sometimes
growing children’s eyes change color.”

 
          
“Maybe
we’re
children, too. At least to
Mars. That’s a thought.” He laughed. “Think I’ll swim.”

 
          
They
leaped into the canal water, and he let himself sink down and down to the
bottom like a golden statue and lie there in green silence. All was water-quiet
and deep, all was peace. He felt the steady, slow current drift him easily.

 
          
If
I lie here long enough, he thought, the water will work and eat away my flesh
until the bones show like coral. Just my skeleton left. And then the water can
build on that skeleton—green things, deep water things, red things, yellow
things. Change. Change. Slow, deep, silent change. And isn’t that what it is up
there?

 
          
He
saw the sky submerged above him, the sun made Martian by atmosphere and time
and space.

 
          
Up
there, a big river, he thought, a Martian river; all of us lying deep in it, in
our pebble houses, in our sunken boulder houses, like crayfish hidden, and the
water washing away our old bodies and lengthening the bones and—

 
          
He
let himself drift up through the soft light.

 
          
Dan
sat on the edge of the canal, regarding his father seriously.

 
          
“
Utha
,” he said.

 
          
“What?”
asked his father.

 
          
The
boy smiled. “You know.
Utha
’s the
Martian word for ‘father.’”

 
          
“Where
did you learn it?”

 
          
“I
don’t know. Around.
Utha!
”

 
          
“What
do you want?”

 
          
The
boy hesitated. “I—I want to change my name.”

 
          
“Change
it?”

 
          
“Yes.”

 
          
His
mother swam over. “What’s wrong with Dan for a name?”

 
          
Dan
fidgeted. “The other day you called Dan, Dan, Dan. I didn’t even hear. I said
to myself, That’s not my name. I’ve a new name I want to use.”

 
          
Mr.
Bittering held to the side of the canal, his body cold and his heart pounding
slowly. “What is this new name?”

 
          
“Linnl.
Isn’t that a good name? Can I use it? Can’t I, please?”

 
          
Mr.
Bittering put his hand to his head. He thought of the silly rocket, himself
working alone, himself alone even among his family, so alone.

 
          
He
heard his wife say, “Why not?”

 
          
He
heard himself say, “Yes, you can use it.”

 
          
“Yaaa!”
screamed the boy. “I’m Linnl, Linnl!”

 
          
Racing
down the meadowlands, he danced and shouted.

 
          
Mr.
Bittering looked at his wife. “Why did we do that?”

 
          
“I
don’t know,” she said. “It just seemed like a good idea.”

 
          
They
walked into the hills. They strolled on old mosaic paths, beside still pumping
fountains. The paths were covered with a thin film of cool water all summer
long. You kept your bare feet cool all the day, splashing as in a creek,
wading.

 
          
They
came to a small deserted Martian villa with a good view of the valley. It was
on top of a hill. Blue marble halls, large murals, a swimming pool. It was
refreshing in this hot summertime. The Martians hadn’t believed in large
cities.

 
          
“How
nice,” said Mrs. Bittering, “if we could move up here to this villa for the
summer.”

 
          
“Come
on,” he said. “We’re going back to town. There’s work to be done on the
rocket.”

 
          
But
as he worked that night, the thought of the cool blue marble villa entered his
mind. As the hours passed, the rocket seemed less important.

 
          
In
the flow of days and weeks, the rocket receded and dwindled. The old fever was
gone. It frightened him to think he had let it slip this way. But somehow the
heat, the air, the working conditions—

 
          
He
heard the men murmuring on the porch of his metal shop.

 
          
“Everyone’s
going. You heard?”

 
          
“All
going. That’s right.”

 
          
Bittering
came out. “Going where?” He saw a couple of trucks, loaded with children and
furniture, drive down the dusty street.

 
          
“Up
to the villas,” said the man.

 
          
“Yeah,
Harry. I’m going. So is Sam. Aren’t you Sam?”

 
          
“That’s
right, Harry. What about you?”

 
          
“I’ve
got work to do here.”

 
          
“Work!
You can finish that rocket in the autumn, when it’s cooler.”

 
          
He
took a breath. “I got the frame all set up.”

 
          
“In
the autumn is better.” Their voices were lazy in the heat.

 
          
“Got
to work,” he said.

 
          
“Autumn,”
they reasoned. And they sounded so sensible, so right.

 
          
“Autumn
would be best,” he thought. “Plenty of time, then.”

 
          
No!
cried part of himself, deep down, put away, locked tight, suffocating. No! No!

 
          
“In
the autumn,” he said.

 
          
“Come
on, Harry,” they all said.

 
          
“Yes,”
he said, feeling his flesh melt in the hot liquid air. “Yes, in the autumn.
I’ll begin work again then.”

 
          
“I
got a villa near the Tirra Canal,” said someone.

 
          
“You
mean the Roosevelt Canal, don’t you?”

 
          
“Tirra.
The old Martian name.”

 
          
“But
on the map—”

 
          
“Forget
the map. It’s Tirra now. Now I found a place in the Pillan Mountains—”

 
          
“You
mean the Rockefeller Range,” said Bittering.

 
          
“I
mean the Pillan Mountains,” said Sam.

 
          
“Yes,”
said Bittering, buried in the hot, swarming air. “The Pillan Mountains.”

 
          
Everyone
worked at loading the truck in the hot, still afternoon of the next day.

 
          
Laura,
Dan, and David carried packages. Or, as they preferred to be known, Ttil, Linnl,
and Werr carried packages.

 
          
The
furniture was abandoned in the little white cottage.

 
          
“It
looked just fine in Boston,” said the mother. “And here in the cottage. But up
at the villa? No. We’ll get it when we come back in the autumn.”

 
          
Bittering
himself was quiet.

 
          
“I’ve
some ideas on furniture for the villa,” he said after a time. “Big, lazy
furniture.”

 
          
“What
about your encyclopedia? You’re taking it along, surely?”

 
          
Mr.
Bittering glanced away. “I’ll come and get it next week.”

 
          
They
turned to their daughter. “What about your New York dresses?”

 
          
The
bewildered girl stared. “Why, I don’t want them any more.”

 
          
They
shut off the gas, the water, they locked the doors and walked away. Father
peered into the truck.

 
          
“Gosh,
we’re not taking much,” he said. “Considering all we brought to Mars, this is
only a handful!”

 
          
He
started the truck.

 
          
Looking
at the small white cottage for a long moment, he was filled with a desire to
rush to it, touch it, say good-bye to it, for he felt as if he were going away
on a long journey, leaving something to which he could never quite return,
never understand again.

 
          
Just
then Sam and his family drove by in another truck.

 
          
“Hi,
Bittering! Here we go!”

 
          
The
truck swung down the ancient highway out of town. There were sixty others
traveling in the same direction. The town filled with a silent, heavy dust from
their passage. The canal waters lay blue in the sun, and a quiet wind moved in
the strange trees.

 
          
“Good-bye,
town!” said Mr. Bittering.

 
          
“Good-bye,
good-bye,” said the family, waving to it.

 
          
They
did not look back again.

 
          
Summer
burned the canals dry. Summer moved like flame upon the meadows. In the empty
Earth settlement, the painted houses flaked and peeled. Rubber tires upon which
children had swung in back yards hung suspended like stopped clock pendulums in
the blazing air.

 
          
At
the metal shop, the rocket frame began to rust.

 
          
In
the quiet autumn Mr. Bittering stood, very dark now, very golden-eyed, upon the
slope above his villa, looking at the valley.

 
          
“It’s
time to go back,” said Cora.

 
          
“Yes,
but we’re not going,” he said quietly. “There’s nothing there any more.”

 
          
“Your
books,” she said. “Your fine clothes.”

 
          
“Your
llles
and your fine
ior uele rre
,” she said.

 
          
“The
town’s empty. No one’s going back,” he said. “There’s no reason to, none at
all.”

 
          
The
daughter wove tapestries and the sons played songs on ancient flutes and pipes,
their laughter echoing in the marble villa.