“Do neither, then, until we know what we’re up against.”
“Up against?” Lustig broke in.
“Against nothing, Captain.
It’s a good, quiet green town, a lot like the old-fashioned one I was born in.
I like the looks of it.”
“When were you born, Lustig?”
“Nineteen-fifty, sir.”
“And you, Hinkston?”
“Nineteen fifty-five, sir.
Grinnell, Iowa.
And this looks like home to me.”
“Hinkston, Lustig, I could be either of your fathers. I’m just eighty years old.
Born in 1920 in Illinois, and through the grace of God and a science that, in the last fifty years, knows how to make some old men young again, here I am on Mars, not any more tired than the rest of you, but infinitely more suspicious.
This town out here looks very peaceful and cool, and so much like Green Bluff, Illinois, that it frightens me.
It’s too much like Green Bluff.”
He turned to the radioman.
“Radio Earth.
Tell them we’ve landed.
That’s all.
Tell them we’ll radio a full report tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Black looked out the rocket port with his face that should have been the face of a man eighty but seemed like the face of a man in his fortieth year.
“Tell you what we’ll do, Lustig; you and I and Hinkston’ll look the town over.
The other men’ll stay aboard.
If anything happens they can get the hell out.
A loss of three men’s better than a whole ship.
If something bad happens, our crew can warn the next rocket.
That’s Captain Wilder’s rocket, I think, due to be ready to take off next Christmas. if there’s something hostile about Mars we certainly want the next rocket to be well armed.”
“So are we.
We’ve got a regular arsenal with us.”
“Tell the men to stand by the guns then.
Come on, Lustig, Hinkston.”
The three men walked together down through the levels of the ship.
It was a beautiful spring day.
A robin sat on a blossoming apple tree and sang continuously.
Showers of petal snow sifted down when the wind touched the green branches, and the blossom scent drifted upon the air.
Somewhere in the town someone was playing the piano and the music came and went, came and went, softly, drowsily.
The song was
“Beautiful Dreamer.”
Somewhere else a phonograph, scratchy and faded, was hissing out a record of
“Roamin’ in the Gloamin’,” sung by Harry Lauder.
The three men stood outside the ship.
They sucked and gasped at the thin, thin air and moved slowly so as not to tire themselves.
Now the phonograph record being played was:
“Oh, give me a June night
The moonlight and you…”
Lustig began to tremble. Samuel Hinkston did likewise.
The sky was serene and quiet, and somewhere a stream of water ran through the cool caverns and tree shadings of a ravine.
Somewhere a horse and wagon trotted and rolled by, bumping.
“Sir,” said Samuel Hinkston, “it must be, it has to be, that rocket travel to Mars began in the years before the first World War!”