Bradbury, Ray - SSC 13 (17 page)

 
          
When
it was over, Captain Hart turned to the mayor and with strange eyes said:

 
          
“But
you must know where he went?”

 
          
“He
didn’t say where he was going,” replied the mayor.

 
          
“To
one of the other nearby worlds?” demanded the captain.

 
          
“I
don’t know.”

 
          
“You
must know.”

 
          
“Do
you see him?” asked the mayor, indicating the crowd.

 
          
The
captain looked. “No.”

 
          
“Then
he is probably gone,” said the mayor.

 
          
“Probably,
probably!” cried the captain weakly. “I’ve made a horrible mistake, and I want
to see him now. Why, it just came to me, this is a most unusual thing in
history. To be in on something like this. Why, the chances are one in billions
we’d arrived at one certain planet among millions of planets the day after
he
came! You must know where he’s gone!”

 
          
“Each
finds him in his own way,” replied the mayor gently.

 
          
“You’re
hiding him.” The captain’s face grew slowly ugly. Some of the old hardness
returned in stages. He began to stand up.

 
          
“No,”
said the mayor.

 
          
“You
know where he is then?” The captain’s fingers twitched at the leather holster
on his right side.

 
          
“I
couldn’t tell you where he is, exactly,” said the mayor.

 
          
“I
advise you to start talking,” and the captain took out a small steel gun.

 
          
“There’s
no way,” said the mayor, “to tell you anything.”

 
          
“Liar!”

 
          
An
expression of pity came into the mayor’s face as he looked at Hart.

 
          
“You’re
very tired,” he said. “You’ve traveled a long way and you belong to a tired
people who’ve been without faith a long time, and you want to believe so much
now that you’re interfering with yourself. You’ll only make it harder if you
kill. You’ll never find him that way.”

 
          
“Where’d
he go? He told you; you know. Come on, tell me!” The captain waved the gun.

 
          
The
mayor shook his head.

 
          
“Tell
me! Tell me!”

 
          
The
gun cracked once, twice. The mayor fell, his arm wounded.

 
          
Martin
leaped forward. “Captain!”

 
          
The
gun flashed at Martin. “Don’t interfere.”

 
          
On
the floor, holding his wounded arm, the mayor looked up. “Put down your gun.
You’re hurting yourself. You’ve never believed, and now that you think you
believe, you hurt people because of it.”

 
          
“I
don’t need you,” said Hart, standing over him. “If I missed him by one day
here, I’ll go on to another world. And another and another. I’ll miss him by
half a day on the next planet, maybe, and a quarter of a day on the third
planet, and two hours on the next, and an hour on the next, and half an hour on
the next, and a minute on the next. But after that, one day I’ll catch up with
him! Do you hear that?” He was shouting now, leaning wearily over the man on
the floor. He staggered with exhaustion. “Come along, Martin.” He let the gun
hang in his hand.

 
          
“No,”
said Martin. “I’m staying here.”

 
          
“You’re
a fool. Stay if you like. But I’m going on, with the others, as far as I can
go.”

 
          
The
mayor looked up at Martin. “I’ll be all right. Leave me. Others will tend my
wounds.”

 
          
“I’ll
be back,” said Martin. “I’ll walk as far as the rocket.”

 
          
They
walked with vicious speed through the city. One could see with what effort the
captain struggled to show all the old iron, to keep himself going. When he
reached the rocket he slapped the side of it with a trembling hand. He
holstered his gun. He looked at Martin.

 
          
“Well,
Martin?”

 
          
Martin
looked at him. “Well, Captain?”

 
          
The
captain’s eyes were on the sky. “Sure you won’t—come with—with me, eh?”

 
          
“No,
sir.”

 
          
“It’ll
be a great adventure, by God. I know I’ll find him.”

 
          
“You
are set on it now, aren’t you, sir?” asked Martin.

 
          
The
captain’s face quivered and his eyes closed. “Yes.”

 
          
“There’s
one thing I’d like to know.”

 
          
“What?”

 
          
“Sir,
when you find him—
if
you find him,”
asked Martin, “what will you ask of him?”

 
          
“Why—”
The captain faltered, opening his eyes. His hands clenched and unclenched. He
puzzled a moment and then broke into a strange smile. “Why, I’ll ask him for a
little—peace and quiet.” He touched the rocket. “It’s been a long time, a long,
long time since—since I relaxed.”

 
          
“Did
you ever just try, Captain?”

 
          
“I
don’t understand,” said Hart.

 
          
“Never
mind. So long, Captain?”

 
          
“Good-bye,
Mr. Martin.”

 
          
The
crew stood by the port. Out of their number only three were going on with Hart.
Seven others were remaining behind, they said, with Martin.

 
          
Captain
Hart surveyed them and uttered his verdict: “Fools!”

 
          
He,
last of all, climbed into the airlock, gave a brisk salute, and laughed sharply.
The door slammed.

 
          
The
rocket lifted into the sky on a pillar of fire.

 
          
Martin
watched it go far away and vanish.

 
          
At
the meadow’s edge the mayor, supported by several men, beckoned.

 
          
“He’s
gone,” said Martin, walking up.

 
          
“Yes,
poor man, he’s gone,” said the mayor. “And he’ll go on, planet after planet,
seeking and seeking, and always and always he will be an hour late, or a half
hour late, or ten minutes late, or a minute late. And finally he will miss out
by only a few seconds. And when he has visited three hundred worlds and is
seventy or eighty years old he will miss out by only a fraction of a second,
and then a smaller fraction of a second. And he will go on and on, thinking to
find that very thing which he left behind here, on this planet, in this city—”

 
          
Martin
looked steadily at the mayor.

 
          
The
mayor put out his hand. “Was there ever any doubt of it?” He beckoned to the
others and turned. “Come along now. We mustn’t keep him waiting.”

 
          
They
walked into the city.

 
          
A
wind blew the long years away past
their hot faces.

 
          
The
Time Machine stopped.

 
          
“Nineteen
hundred and twenty-eight,” said Janet. The two boys looked past her.

 
          
Mr.
Fields stirred. “Remember, you’re here to observe the behavior of these ancient
people. Be inquisitive, be intelligent, observe.”

 
          
“Yes,”
said the girl and the two boys in crisp khaki uniforms. They wore identical
haircuts, had identical wristwatches, sandals, and coloring of hair, eyes,
teeth, and skin, though they were not related.

 
          
“Shh!”
said Mr. Fields.

 
          
They
looked out at a little Illinois town in the spring of the year. A cool mist lay
on the early morning streets.

 
          
Far
down the street a small boy came running in the last light of the marble-cream
moon. Somewhere a great clock struck 5 A.M. far away. Leaving tennis-shoe
prints softly in the quiet lawns, the boy stepped near the invisible Time
Machine and cried up to a high dark house window.

 
          
The
house window opened. Another boy crept down the roof to the ground. The two
boys ran off with banana-filled mouths into the dark cold morning.

 
          
“Follow
them,” whispered Mr. Fields. “Study their life patterns. Quick!”

 
          
Janet
and William and Robert ran on the cold pavements of spring, visible now,
through the slumbering town, through a park. All about, lights flickered, doors
clicked, and other children rushed alone or in gasping pairs down a hill to
some gleaming blue tracks.

 
          
“Here
it comes!” The children milled about before dawn. Far down the shining tracks a
small light grew seconds later into steaming thunder.

 
          
“What
is it?” screamed Janet.

 
          
“A
train, silly, you’ve seen pictures of them!” shouted Robert.

 
          
And
as the Time Children watched, from the train stepped gigantic gray elephants,
steaming the pavements with their mighty waters, lifting question-mark nozzles
to the cold morning sky. Cumbrous wagons rolled from the long freight flats,
red and gold. Lions roared and paced in boxed darkness.

 
          
“Why—
this
must be a—circus!” Janet trembled.

 
          
“You
think so? Whatever happened to them?”

 
          
“Like
Christmas, I guess. Just vanished, long ago.”

 
          
Janet
looked around. “Oh, it’s awful, isn’t it.”

 
          
The
boys stood numbed. “It sure is.”

 
          
Men
shouted in the first faint gleam of dawn. Sleeping cars drew up, dazed faces
blinked out at the children. Horses clattered like a great fall of stones on
the pavement.

 
          
Mr.
Fields was suddenly behind the children. “Disgusting, barbaric, keeping animals
in cages. If I’d known this was here, I’d never let you come see. This is a
terrible ritual.”

 
          
“Oh,
yes.” But Janet’s eyes were puzzled. “And yet, you know, it’s like a nest of
maggots. I want to study it.”

 
          
“I
don’t know,” said Robert, his eyes darting, his fingers trembling. “It’s pretty
crazy. We might try writing a thesis on it if Mr. Fields says it’s all right …”

 
          
Mr.
Fields nodded. “I’m glad you’re digging in here, finding motives, studying this
horror. All right—we’ll see the circus this afternoon.”

 
          
“I
think I’m going to be sick,” said Janet.

 
          
The
Time Machine hummed.

 
          
“So
that was a circus,” said Janet, solemnly.

 
          
The
trombone circus died in their ears. The last thing they saw was candy-pink
trapeze people whirling while baking powder clowns shrieked and bounded.

 
          
“You
must admit psychovision’s better,” said Robert slowly.

 
          
“All
those nasty animal smells, the excitement.” Janet blinked. “That’s bad for
children, isn’t it? And those older people seated with the children. Mothers,
fathers, they called them. Oh, that
was
strange.”

 
          
Mr.
Fields put some marks in his class grading book.

 
          
Janet
shook her head numbly. “I want to see it all again. I’ve missed the motives
somewhere. I want to make that run across town again in the early morning. The
cold air on my face—the sidewalk under my feet—the circus train coming in. Was
it the air and the early hour that made the children get up and run to see the
train come in? I want to retrace the entire pattern. Why should they be
excited? I feel I’ve missed out on the answer.”

 
          
“They
all smiled so much,” said William.

 
          
“Manic-depressives,”
said Robert.

 
          
“What
are summer vacations? I heard them talk about it.” Janet looked at Mr. Fields.

 
          
“They
spent their summers racing about like idiots, beating each other up,” replied
Mr. Fields seriously.

 
          
“I’ll
take our State Engineered summers of work for children anytime,” said Robert,
looking at nothing, his voice faint.

 
          
The
Time Machine stopped again.

 
          
“The
Fourth of July,” announced Mr. Fields. “Nineteen hundred and twenty-eight. An
ancient holiday when people blew each other’s fingers off.”

 
          
They
stood before the same house on the same street but on a soft summer evening.
Fire wheels hissed, on front porches laughing children tossed things out that
went bang!

 
          
“Don’t
run!” cried Mr. Fields. “It’s not war, don’t be afraid!”

 
          
But
Janet’s and Robert’s and William’s faces were pink, now blue, now white with
fountains of soft fire.

 
          
“We’re
all right,” said Janet, standing very still.

 
          
“Happily,”
announced Mr. Fields, “they prohibited fireworks a century ago, did away with
the whole messy explosion.”

 
          
Children
did fairy dances, weaving their names and destinies on the dark summer air with
white sparklers.

 
          
“I’d
like to do that,” said Janet, softly. “Write my name on the air. See? I’d like
that.”

 
          
“What?”
Mr. Fields hadn’t been listening.

 
          
“Nothing,”
said Janet.

 
          
“Bang!”
whispered William and Robert, standing under the soft summer trees, in shadow,
watching, watching the red, white, and green fires on the beautiful summer
night lawns. “Bang!”

 
          
October.

 
          
The
Time Machine paused for the last time, an hour later in the month of burning
leaves. People bustled into dim houses carrying pumpkins and corn shocks.
Skeletons danced, bats flew, candles flamed, apples swung in empty doorways.

 
          
“Halloween,”
said Mr. Fields. “The acme of horror. This was the age of superstition, you
know. Later they banned the Grimm Brothers, ghosts, skeletons, and all that
claptrap. You children, thank God, were raised in an antiseptic world of no
shadows or ghosts. You had decent holidays like William C. Chatterton’s
Birthday, Work Day, and Machine Day.”

 
          
They
walked by the same house in the empty October night, peering in at the
triangle-eyed pumpkins, the masks leering in black attics and damp cellars.
Now, inside the house, some party children squatted telling stories, laughing!

 
          
“I
want to be inside with them,” said Janet at last.

 
          
“Sociologically,
of course,” said the boys.

 
          
“No,”
she said.

 
          
“What?”
asked Mr. Fields.

 
          
“No,
I just want to be inside, I just want to stay here, I want to see it all and be
here and never be anywhere else, I want firecrackers and pumpkins and circuses,
I want Christmases and Valentines and Fourths, like we’ve seen.”

 
          
“This
is getting out of hand …” Mr. Fields started to say.

 
          
But
suddenly Janet was gone. “Robert, William, come on!” She ran. The boys leaped
after her.

 
          
“Hold
on!” shouted Mr. Fields. “Robert! William, I’ve got you!” He seized the last
boy, but the other escaped. “Janet, Robert—come back here! You’ll never pass
into the seventh grade! You’ll fail, Janet, Bob—
Bob!
”

 
          
An
October wind blew wildly down the street, vanishing with the children off among
moaning trees.

 
          
William
twisted and kicked.

 
          
“No,
not you, too, William, you’re coming home with me. We’ll teach those other two
a lesson they won’t forget. So they want to stay in the past, do they?” Mr.
Fields shouted so everyone could hear. “All right, Janet, Bob, stay in this
horror, in this chaos! In a few weeks you’ll come sniveling back here to me.
But I’ll be gone! I’m leaving you here to go mad in this world!”

 
          
He
hurried William to the Time Machine. The boy was sobbing. “Don’t make me come
back here on any more Field Excursions ever again, please, Mr. Fields, please—”

 
          
“Shut
up!”

 
          
Almost
instantly the Time Machine whisked away toward the future, toward the
underground hive cities, the metal buildings, the metal flowers, the metal
lawns.

 
          
“Good-bye,
Janet, Bob!”

 
          
A
great cold October wind blew through the town like water. And when it had
ceased blowing it had carried all the children, whether invited or uninvited,
masked or unmasked, to the doors of houses which closed upon them. There was
not a running child anywhere in the night. The wind whined away in the bare
treetops.

 
          
And
inside the big house, in the candlelight, someone was pouring cold apple cider
all around, to everyone, no matter
who
they were.