LITMIR.BIZ

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you are and, Lord, what goes on?’

      ‘Mom’s waiting,’ said Edward Black, grinning.

      ‘Mom?’

      ‘And Dad too.’

      ‘Dad?’ The captain almost fell as if he had been hit by a mighty weapon. He walked stiffly and without co-ordination. ‘Mom and Dad alive? Where?’

      ‘At the old house on Oak Knoll Avenue.’

      ‘The old house.’ The captain stared in delighted amaze. ‘Did you hear that, Lustig, Hinkston?’

      Hinkston was gone. He had seen his own house down the street and was running for it. Lustig was laughing. ‘You see, Captain, what happened to everyone on the rocket? They couldn’t help themselves.’

      ‘Yes. Yes.’ The captain shut his eyes. ‘When I open my eyes you’ll be gone.’ He blinked. ‘You’re still there. God, Ed, but you look fine!’

      ‘Come on, lunch’s waiting. I told Mom.’

      Lustig said, ‘Sir, I’ll be with my grandfolks if you need me.’

      ‘What? Oh, fine, Lustig. Later, then.’

      Edward seized his arm and marched him. ‘There’s the house. Remember it?’

      ‘Hell! Bet I can beat you to the front porch!’

      They ran. The trees roared over Captain Black’s head; the earth roared under his feet. He saw the golden figure of Edward Black pull ahead of him in the amazing dream of reality. He saw the house rush forward, the screen door swing wide. ‘Beat you!’ cried Edward. ‘I’m an old man,’ panted the captain, ‘and you’re still young. But then, you always beat me, I remember!’

      In the doorway, Mom, pink, plump, and bright. Behind her, pepper-gray, Dad, his pipe in his hand.

      ‘Mom, Dad!’

      He ran up the steps like a child to meet them.

      It was a fine long afternoon. They finished a late lunch and they sat in the parlor and he told them all about his rocket and they nodded and smiled upon him and Mother was just the same and Dad bit the end off a cigar and lighted it thoughtfully in his old fashion. There was a big turkey dinner at night and time flowing on. When the drumsticks were sucked clean and lay brittle upon the plates, the captain leaned back and exhaled his deep satisfaction. Night was in all the trees and coloring the sky, and the lamps were halos of pink light in the gentle house. From all the other houses down the street came sounds of music, pianos playing, doors slamming.

      Mom put a record on the Victrola, and she and Captain John Black had a dance. She was wearing the same perfume he remembered from the summer when she and Dad had been killed in the train accident. She was very real in his arms as they danced lightly to the music. ‘It’s not every day,’ she said, ‘you get a second chance to live.’

      ‘I’ll wake in the morning,’ said the captain. ‘And I’ll be in my rocket, in space, and all this will be gone.’

      ‘No, don’t think that,’ she cried softly. ‘Don’t question. God’s good to us. Let’s be happy.’

      ‘Sorry, Mom.’

      The record ended in a circular hissing.

      ‘You’re tired. Son.’ Dad pointed with his pipe. ‘Your old bedroom’s waiting for you, brass bed and all.’

      ‘But I should report my men in.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Why? Well. I don’t know. No reason, I guess. No, none at all. They’re all eating or in bed. A good night’s sleep won’t hurt them.’

      ‘Good night. Son.’ Mom kissed his cheek. ‘It’s good to have you home.’

      ‘It’s good to be home.’

      He left the land of cigar smoke and perfume and books and gentle light and ascended the stairs, talking, talking with Edward. Edward pushed a door open, and there was the yellow brass bed and the old semaphore banners from college and a very musty raccoon coat which he stroked with muted affection. ‘It’s too much,’ said the captain. ‘I’m numb and I’m tired. Too much has happened today. I feel as if I’d been out in a pounding rain for forty-eight hours without an umbrella or a coat. I’m soaked to the skin with emotion.’

      Edward slapped wide the snowy linens and flounced the pillows. He slid the window up and let the night-blooming jasmine float in. There was moonlight and the sound of distant dancing and whispering.

      ‘So this is Mars,’ said the captain, undressing.

      ‘This is it.’ Edward undressed in idle, leisurely moves, drawing his shirt off over his head, revealing golden shoulders and the good muscular neck.

      The lights were out; they were in bed, side by side, as in the days how many decades ago? The captain lolled and was nourished by the scent of jasmine pushing the lace curtains in upon the dark air of the room. Among the trees, upon a lawn, someone had cranked up a portable phonograph and now it was playing softly, ‘Always.’

      The thought of Marilyn came to his mind.

      ‘Is Marilyn here?’

      His brother, lying straight out in the moonlight from the window, waited and then said, ‘Yes. She’s out of town. But she’ll be here in the morning.’

      The captain shut his eyes. ‘I want to see Marilyn very much.’

      The room was square and quiet except for their breathing.

      ‘Good night, Ed.’

      A pause. ‘Good night, John.’

      He lay peacefully, letting his thoughts float. For the first time the stress of the day was moved aside: he could think logically now. It had all been emotion. The bands playing, the familiar faces. But now …

      How? he wondered. How was all this made? And why? For what purpose? Out of the goodness of some divine intervention? Was God, then, really that thoughtful of his children? How and why and what for?

      He considered the various theories advanced in the first heat of the afternoon by Hinkston and Lustig. He let all kinds of new theories drop in lazy pebbles down through his mind, turning, throwing out dull flashes of light. Mom. Dad. Edward. Mars, Earth. Mars. Martians.

      Who had lived here a thousand years ago on Mars? Martians? Or had this always been the way it was today?

      Martians. He repeated the word idly, inwardly.

      He laughed out loud almost. He had the most ridiculous theory quite suddenly. It gave him a kind of chill. It was really nothing to consider, of course. Highly improbable. Silly, Forget it. Ridiculous.

      But, he thought, just suppose … Just suppose, now, that there were Martians living on Mars and they saw our ship coming and saw us inside our ship and hated us. Suppose, now, just for the hell of it, that they wanted to destroy us, as invaders, as unwanted ones, and they wanted to do it in a very clever way, so that we would be taken off guard. Well, what would the best weapon be that a Martian could use against Earth Men with atomic weapons?

      The answer was interesting. Telepathy, hypnosis, memory, and imagination.

      Suppose all of these houses aren’t real at all, this bed not real, but only figments of my own imagination, given substance by telepathy and hypnosis through the Martians, thought Captain John Black. Suppose these houses are really some other shape, a Martian shape, but, by playing on my desires and wants, these Martians have made this seem like my old home town, my old house, to lull me out of my suspicions. What better way to fool a man, using his own mother and father as bait?

      And this town, so old, from the year 1926, long before any of my men were born. From a year when I was six years old and there were records of Harry Lauder, and Maxfield Parrish paintings still hanging, and bead curtains,

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