“No.”
Now Tomas laughed.
“You’re blind!”
“I see very well.
You are the one who does not see.”
“But you see the new town, don’t you?”
“I see nothing but an ocean, and water at low tide.”
“Mister, that water’s been evaporated for forty centuries.”
“Ah, now, now, that is enough.”
“It’s true, I tell you.”
The Martian grew very serious.
“Tell me again.
You do not see the city the way I describe it?
The pillars very white, the boats very slender, the festival lights — oh, I see them clearly!
And listen!
I can hear them singing.
It’s no space away at all.”
Tomas listened and shook his head.
“No.”
“And I, on the other hand,” said the Martian, “cannot see what you describe.
Well.”
Again.they were cold. An ice was in their flesh.
“Can it be… ?”
“What?”
“You say «from the sky»?”
“Earth.”
“Earth, a name, nothing,” said the Martian.
“But… as I came up the pass an hour ago…” He touched the back of his neck.
“I felt…”
“Cold?”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Cold again.
Oddly. There was a thing to the light, to the hills, the road,” said the Martian.
“I felt the strangeness, the road, the light, and for a moment I felt as if I were the last man alive on this world…”
“So did I!” said Tomas, and it was like talking to an old and dear friend, confiding, growing warm with the topic.
The Martian closed his eyes and opened them again.
“This can only mean one thing.
It has to do with Time.
Yes.
You are a figment of the Past!”
“No, you are from the Past,” said the Earth Man, having had time to think of it now.
“You are so certain.
How can you prove who is from the Past, who from the Future?
What year is it?”
“Two thousand and one!”
“What does that mean to me?”
Tomas considered and shrugged.
“Nothing.”
“It is as if I told you that it is the year 4462853 S.E.C.