Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 1 - Ray Bradbury

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in a few days. Enough to start over. Enough to turn away from all that back on Earth and strike out on a new line—’

      The fire leaped up to emphasize his talking. And then all the papers were gone except one. All the laws and beliefs of Earth were burnt into small hot ashes which soon would be carried off in a wind.

      Timothy looked at the last thing that Dad tossed in the fire. It was a map of the World, and it wrinkled and distorted itself hotly and went – flimpf – and was gone like a warm, black butterfly. Timothy turned away.

      ‘Now I’m going to show you the Martians,’ said Dad. ‘Come on, all of you. Here, Alice.’ He took her hand.

      Michael was crying loudly, and Dad picked him up and carried him, and they walked down through the ruins toward the canal.

      The canal. Where tomorrow or the next day their future wives would come up in a boat, small laughing girls now, with their father and mother.

      The night came down around them, and there were stars. But Timothy couldn’t find Earth. It had already set. That was something to think about.

      A night bird called among the ruins as they walked. Dad said. ‘Your mother and I will try to teach you. Perhaps we’ll fail. I hope not. We’ve had a good lot to see and learn from. We planned this trip years ago, before you were born. Even if there hadn’t been a war we would have come to Mars, I think, to live and form our own standard of living. It would have been another century before Mars would have been really poisoned by the Earth civilization. Now, of course—’

      They reached the canal. It was long and straight and cool and wet and reflective in the night.

      ‘I’ve always wanted to see a Martian,’ said Michael. ‘Where are they, Dad? You promised.’

      ‘There they are,’ said Dad, and he shifted Michael on his shoulder and pointed straight down.

      The Martians were there. Timothy began to shiver.

      The Martians were there – in the canal – reflected in the water. Timothy and Michael and Robert and Mom and Dad.

      The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water …

       The Fox and the Forest

      There were fireworks the very first night, things that you should be afraid of perhaps, for they might remind you of other more horrible things, but these were beautiful, rockets that ascended into the ancient soft air of Mexico and shook the stars apart in blue and white fragments. Everything was good and sweet, the air was that blend of the dead and the living, of the rains and the dusts, of the incense from the church, and the brass smell of the tuba on the bandstand which pulsed out vast rhythms of ‘La Paloma.’ The church doors were thrown wide and it seemed as if a giant yellow constellation had fallen from the October sky and lay breathing fire upon the church walls; a million candles sent their color and fumes about. Newer and better fireworks scurried like tight-rope walking comets across the cool-tiled square, banged against adobe café walls, then rushed on hot wires to bash the high church tower, in which boys naked feet alone could be seen kicking and re-kicking, clanging and tilting and re-tilting the monster bells into monstrous music. A flaming bull blundered about the plaza chasing laughing men and screaming children.

      ‘The year is 1938,’ said William Travis, standing by his wife on the edge of the yelling crowd, smiling. ‘A good year.’

      The bull rushed upon them. Ducking, the couple ran, with fire balls pelting them, past the music and riot, the church, the band, under the stars, clutching each other, laughing. The bull passed, carried lightly on the shoulders of a charging Mexican, a framework of bamboo and sulphurous gunpowder.

      ‘I’ve never enjoyed myself so much in my life.’ Susan Travis had stopped for her breath.

      ‘It’s amazing,’ said William.

      ‘It will go on, won’t it?’

      ‘All night.’

      ‘No, I mean our trip.’

      He frowned and patted his breast pocket. ‘I’ve enough traveler’s checks for a lifetime. Enjoy yourself. Forget it. They’ll never find us.’

      ‘Never?’

      ‘Never.’

      Now someone was setting off giant crackers, hurling them from the great bell-tolling tower of the church in a sputter of smoke, while the crowd below fell back under the threat and the crackers exploded in wonderful concussions among their dancing feet and flailing bodies. A wondrous smell of frying tortillas hung all about, and in the cafés men sat at tables looking out, mugs of beer in their brown hands.

      The bull was dead. The fire was out of the bamboo tubes and he was expended. The laborer lifted the framework from his shoulders. Little boys clustered to touch the magnificent paper-mâché head, the real horns.

      ‘Let’s examine the bull,’ said William.

      As they walked past the café entrance Susan saw the man looking out at them, a white man in a salt-white suit, with a blue tie and blue shirt, and a thin, sunburned face. His hair was blond and straight and his eyes were blue, and he watched them as they walked.

      She would never have noticed him if it had not been for the bottles at his immaculate elbow; a fat bottle of crème de menthe, a clear bottle of vermouth, a flagon of cognac, and seven other bottles of assorted liqueurs, and, at his finger tips, ten small half-filled glasses from which, without taking his eyes off the street, he sipped, occasionally squinting, pressing his thin mouth shut upon the savor. In his free hand a thin Havana cigar smoked, and on a chair stood twenty cartons of Turkish cigarettes, six boxes of cigars, and some packaged colognes.

      ‘Bill—’ whispered Susan.

      ‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘He’s nobody.’

      ‘I saw him in the plaza this morning.’

      ‘Don’t look back, keep walking. Examine the papier-mâché bull here. That’s it, ask questions.’

      ‘Do you think he’s from the Searchers?’

      ‘They couldn’t follow us!’

      ‘They might!’

      ‘What a nice bull,’ said William to the man who owned it.

      ‘He couldn’t have followed us back through two hundred years, could he?’

      ‘Watch yourself, for God’s sake,’ said William.

      She swayed. He crushed her elbow tightly, steering her away.

      ‘Don’t faint.’ He smiled, to make it look good. ‘You’ll be all right. Let’s go right in that café, drink in front of him, so if he is what we think he is, he won’t suspect.’

      ‘No. I couldn’t.’

      ‘We’ve got to. Come on now. And so I said to David, that’s ridiculous!’ This last in a loud voice as they went up the café steps.

      We are here, thought Susan. Who are we? Where are we going? What do we fear? Start at the beginning, she told herself, holding to her sanity, as she felt the adobe floor underfoot.

      My name is Ann Kristen; my husband’s name is Roger. We were born in the year A.D. 2155. And we lived in a world that was evil. A world that was like a great black ship pulling away from the shore of sanity and civilization, roaring its black horn in the night, taking two billion people with it, whether they wanted to go or not, to death, to fall over the edge of the earth and the sea into radioactive flame and madness.

      They walked into the café. The man was staring at them.

      A phone rang.

      The phone startled Susan. She remembered

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