I, Mars
impossible idea, but suppose it came tonight, tomorrow, next week? and
landed on the other side of the planet, and used the phones to try to
call Barton, only to find the circuits dead? Yes, imagine!
Barton dropped his gun.
“A rocket won’t come,” he argued, softly, logically with himself. “I’m
old. It won’t come now. It’s too late.”
But suppose it came, and you never knew, he thought. No, you’ve got to
keep the lines open.
Brrrrinnnng.
* * * * *
He turned dully. His eyes were blinking and not seeing. He shuffled
back into the drugstore and fumbled with the receiver.
“Hello?” A strange voice.
“Please,” pleaded the old man, brokenly. “Don’t bother me.”
“Who’s this, who’s there? Who is it? Where are you?” cried the voice,
surprised.
“Wait a minute.” The old man staggered. “This is Emil Barton, who’s
that?”
“This is Captain Leonard Rockwell, Earth Rocket 48. Just arrived from
New York.”
“No, no, no.”
“Are you there, Mr. Barton?”
“No, no, it can’t be, it just can’t.”
“Where are you?”
“You’re lying, it’s false!” The old man had to lean against the booth
wall. His blue eyes were cold blind. “It’s you, Barton, making, making
fun of me, lying to me again!”
“This is Captain Rockwell, Rocket 48. Just landed in New Schenecty.
Where are you?”
“In Green Town,” he gasped. “That’s a thousand miles from you.”
“Look, Barton, can you come here?”
“What?”
“We’ve repairs on our rocket. Exhausted from the flight. Can you come
help?”
“Yes, yes.”
“We’re at the tarmac outside town. Can you rush by tomorrow?”
“Yes, but--”
“Well?”
The old man petted the phone, pitifully. “How’s Earth? How’s New York?
Is the war over? Who’s President now? What happened?”
“Plenty of time for gossip when you arrive.”
“Is everything fine?”
“Fine.”
“Thank God.” The old man listened to the far voice. “Are you sure
you’re Captain Rockwell?”
“Damn it, man!”
“I’m sorry!”
He hung up and ran.
They were here, after many years, unbelievable, his own, who would take
him back to Earth seas and skies and mountains.
He started the car. He would drive all night. Could he do it? What of
his heart--It would be worth a risk, to see people, to shake hands, to
hear them near you.
The car thundered in the hills.
That voice. Captain Rockwell. It couldn’t be himself, forty years ago.
He had never made a recording like that. Or had he? In one of his
depressive fits, in a spell of drunken cynicism, hadn’t he once made a
false tape of a false landing on Mars with a synthetic captain, an
imaginary crew? He jerked his grey head, savagely. No. He was a
suspicious fool. Now was no time to doubt. He must run under the moons
of Mars, hour on hour. What a party they would have!
The sun rose. He was immensely tired, full of thorns and brambles of
weakness, his heart plunging and aching, his fingers fumbling the
wheel, but the thing that pleased him most was the thought of one last
phone call: Hello, young Barton, this is old Barton. I’m leaving for
Earth today! Rescued! He chuckled weakly.
He drove into the shadowy limits of New Schenectady at sundown.
Stepping from his car he stood staring at the rocket tarmac, rubbing
his reddened eyes.
The rocket field was empty. No one ran to meet him. No one shook his
hand, shouted, or laughed.
He felt his heart roar into pain. He knew blackness and a sensation of
falling through the open sky. He stumbled toward an office.
Inside, six phones sat in a neat row.
He waited, gasping.
Finally:
Brrrrinnnng.
He lifted the heavy receiver.
A voice said, “I was wondering if you’d get there alive.”
The old man did not speak but stood with the phone in his hands.
The voice continued, “An elaborate joke. Captain Rockwell reporting for
duty, sir. Your orders, sir?”
“You,” groaned the old man.
“How’s your heart, old man?”
“No!”
“Hoped the trip would kill you. Had to eliminate you some way, so I
could live, if you call a transcription living.”
“I’m going out now,” replied the old man, “and blow it all up. I don’t
care. I’ll blow up everything until you’re all dead!”
“You haven’t the strength. Why do you think I had you travel so far, so
fast? This is your last trip!”
The old man felt his heart falter. He would never make the other towns.
The war was lost. He slid into a chair and made low sobbing, mournful
noises from his loose mouth. He glared at the five other, silent
phones. As if at a signal, they burst into silver chorus! A nest of
ugly birds screaming!
Automatic receivers popped up.
The office whirled. “Barton, Barton, Barton!!”
He throttled the phone in his hands, the voice, the youth, the time of
long ago. He mashed, choked it and still it laughed at him. He
throttled it. He beat it. He kicked at it. He hated it with hands and
mouth and blind, raging eye. He furled the hot wire like serpentine in
his fingers, ripped it into red bits which fell about his stumbling
feet.
He destroyed three other phones. There was a sudden silence.
And as if his body now discovered a thing which it had long kept
secret, it seemed to decay upon his tired bones. The flesh of his
eyelids fell away like flower petals. His mouth became a withered rose.
The lobes of his ears melting wax. He pushed his chest with his hands
and fell face down. He lay still. His breathing stopped. His heart
stopped.
After a long spell, the remaining two phones rang.
Twice. Three times.
A relay snapped somewhere. The two phone voices were connected, one to
the other.
“Hello, Barton?”
“Yes, Barton?”
“Aged twenty-four.”
“I’m twenty-six. We’re both young. What’s happened?”
“I don’t know. Listen.”
The silent room. The old man did not stir on the floor. The wind blew in
the broken window. The air was cool.
“Congratulate me, Barton, this is my twenty-sixth birthday!”
“Congratulations!”
Laughter drifted out the window into the dead city.
[Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the April, 1949 issue of
_Super Science Stories_ magazine.]