Bradbury, Ray - SSC 11 (3 page)

 
          
 
"Learn what? That most of the things
we've taught in the past on Earth don't fit out there on Mars or Venus or
wherever in hell Vittorini would push us? Drive Adam and Eve out of some new
Garden, on Jupiter, with our very own rocket fires? Or worse, find there's no
Eden
,
no Adam, no Eve, no damned Apple nor Serpent, no
Fall
,
no Original Sin, no Annunciation, no Birth, no Son, you go on with the list, no
nothing at all!
on
one blasted world tailing another?
Is that what we must
learn.
Pastor?"

 
          
 
"If need be, yes," said Pastor
Sheldon. "It's the Lord's space and the Lord's worlds in space, Father. We
must not try to take our cathedrals with us, when all we need is an overnight
case. The Church can be packed m a box no larger than is needed for the
articles of the Mass, as much as these hands can carry. Allow Father Vittorini
this, the people of the southern climes learned long ago to build in wax which
melts and takes its shape in harmony with the motion and need of man. William,
William, if you insist on building in hard ice, it will shatter when we break
the sound barrier or melt and leave you nothing in the fire of the rocket
blast**

 
          
 
“That," said Father Brian, "is a
hard thing to learn at fifty years, Pastor."

 
          
 
"But learn, I know you will," said
the pastor, touching his shoulder. "I set you a task: to make peace with the
Italian priest. Find some way tonight for a meeting of minds. Sweat at it.
Father. And, first off, since our library is meager, hunt for and find the
space encyclical, so we'll know what we're yelling about."

 
          
 
A moment later the pastor was gone.

 
          
 
Father Brian listened to the dying sound of
those swift feet—as if a white ball were flying high in the sweet blue air and
the pastor were hurrying in for a fine volley.

 
          
 
"Irish but not Irish," he said.
"Almost but not quite Italian. And now what are we, Patrick?"

 
          
 
"I begin to wonder," was the reply.

 
          
 
And they went away to a larger library wherein
might be hid the grander thoughts of a Pope on a bigger space.

 
          
 
A long while after supper that night, in fact
almost at bedtime, Father Kelly, sent on his mission, moved about the rectory
tapping on doors and whispering.

 
          
 
Shortly before ten o'clock. Father Vittorini
came down the stairs and gasped with surprise.

 
          
 
Father Brian, at the unused fireplace, warming
himself at the small gas heater which stood on the hearth, did not turn for a
moment.

 
          
 
A space had been cleared and the brute
television set moved forward into a circle of four chairs, amongst which stood
two small taborettes on which stood two bottles and four glasses. Father Brian
had done it all, allowing Kelly to do nothing. Now he turned, for Kelly and
Pastor Sheldon were arriving.

 
          
 
The pastor stood in the entryway and surveyed
the room. "Splendid." He paused and added, "I think. Let me see
now . . ." He read the label on one bottle. "Father Vittorini is to
sit here."

 
          
 
"By the Irish Moss?” asked Vittorini.

 
          
 
“The same," said Father Brian.

 
          
 
Vittorini, much pleased, sat.

 
          
 
"And the rest of us will sit by the
Lachryma Christi, I take it?" said the pastor.

 
          
 
"An Italian drink, Pastor."

 
          
 
"I think I've heard of it," said the
pastor, and sat.

 
          
 
"Here." Father Brian hurried over
and, without looking at Vittorini, poured his glass a good way up with the
Moss. "An Irish transfusion."

 
          
 
"Allow me." Vittorini nodded his
thanks and arose, in turn, to pour the others' drinks. "The tears of
Christ and the sunlight of Italy," he said. "And now, before we
drink, I have something to say."

 
          
 
The others waited, looking at him.

 
          
 
“The papal encyclical on space travel,"
he said at last, "does not exist."

 
          
 
"We discovered that," said Kelly,
"a few hours ago."

 
          
 
"Forgive me, Fathers," said
Vittorini. "I am like the fisherman on the bank who, seeing fish, throws
out more bait. I suspected, all along, there was no encyclical. But every time
it was brought up, about town, I heard so many priests from Dublin deny it
existed, I came to think it must! They would not go check the item, for they
feared it existed. I would not, in my pride, do research, for I feared it did
not exist. So Roman pride or Cork pride, it's all the same. I shall go on
retreat soon and be silent for a week. Pastor, and do penance."

 
          
 
"Good, Father, good." Pastor Sheldon
rose. "Now I've a small announcement. A new priest arrives here next
month. I've thought long on it. The man is Italian, born and raised in
Montreal."

 
          
 
Vittorini closed one eye and tried to picture
this man to
himself
.

 
          
 
"If the Church must be all things to all
people," said the pastor, "I am intrigued with the thought of hot
blood raised in a cold climate, as this new Italian was, even as I find it
fascinating to consider myself, cold blood raised in California, We've needed
another Italian here to shake things up, and this Latin looks to be the sort
will shake even Father Vittorini. Now will someone offer a toast?"

           
 
"May I, Pastor?” Father Vittorini rose
again, smiling gently, his eyes darkly aglow, looking at this one and now that
of the three. He raised his glass. "Somewhere did Blake not speak of the
Machineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, then intimidate
those Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy men and women, such as
are we all? And thus happily sent forth, at our best, with good grace and fine
wit, on cklm noons, in fair climes, are we not God's Machineries of Joy?*'

 
          
 
"If Blake said that," said Father
Brian, "I take it all back. He never lived in Dublin!"

 
          
 
All laughed together.

 
          
 
Vittorini drank the Irish Moss and was duly
speechless.

 
          
 
The others drank the Italian wine and grew mellow,
and in his mellowness Father Brian cried softly, "Vittorini, now, will
you, unholy as it is, tune on the ghost?"

 
          
 
"Channel Nine?"

 
          
 
“Nine it is!"

 
          
 
And while Vittorini dialed the knobs Father
Brian mused over his drink, "Did Blake really say that?"

 
          
 
“The fact is. Father," said Vittorini,
bent to the phantoms coming and going on the screen, "he might have, if
he'd lived today. I wrote it down myself tonight."

 
          
 
All watched the Italian with some awe. Then
the TV gave a hum and came clear, showing a rocket, a long way off, getting
ready.

 
          
 
“The machineries of joy," said Father
Brian. “Is that one of them you're tuning in? And is that another sitting
there, the rocket on its stand?"

 
          
 
"It could be, tonight," murmured
Vittorini. "If the thing goes up, and a man in it, all around the worid,
and him still alive, and us with him, though we just sit here. That would be
joyful indeed."

 
          
 
The rocket was getting ready, and Father Brian
shut his eyes for a moment Forgive me, Jesus, he thought, forgive an old man
his prides, and forgive Vittorini his spites, and help me to understand what I
see here tonight, and let me stay awake if need be, in good humor, until dawn,
and let the thing go well, going up and coming down, and think of the man in
that contraption, Jesus, think of and be with him. And help me, God, when the
summer is young, for, sure as fate on Fourth of July evening there will be
Vittorini and the kids from around the block, on the rectory lawn, lighting
skyrockets. All of them there watching the sky, like the mom of the Redemption,
and help me, O Lord, to be as those children before the great night of time and
void where you abide. And help me to walk forward, Lord, to light the next
rocket Independence Night, and stand with the Latin father, my face suffused
with that same look of the delighted child in the face of the burning glories
you put near our hand and bid us savor. He opened his eyes.

 
          
 
Voices from far Canaveral were crying in a
wind of time. Strange phantom powers loomed upon the screen. He was drinking
the last of the wine when someone touched his elbow gently.

 
          
 
"Father," said Vittorini, near.
"Fasten your seat belt."

 
          
 
"I will," said Father Brian. "I
will. And many thanks."

 
          
 
He sat back in his chair. He closed his eyes.
He waited for the thunder. He waited for the fire. He waited for the concussion
and the voice that would teach a silly, a strange, a wild and miraculous thing:
How to count back, ever backward ... to zero.

 
          
 
I live in a well. I live like smoke in the
well. Like vapor in a stone throat. I don't move. I don't do anything but wait.
Overhead I see the cold stars of night and morning, and I see the sun. And
sometimes I sing old songs of this world when it was young. How can I tell you
what I am when I don't know? I cannot. I am simply waiting. I am mist and
moonlight and memory. I am sad and I am old. Sometimes I fall like rain into
the well. Spider webs are startled into forming where my rain falls fast, on
the water surface. I wait in cool silence and there will be a day when I no
longer wait.

 
          
 
Now it is morning. I hear a great thunder. I
smell fire from a distance. I hear a metal crashing. I wait. I listen.

 
          
 
Voices. Far away.

 
          
 
"All right!"

 
          
 
One voice. An alien voice. An alien tongue I
cannot know. No word is familiar. I listen.

 
          
 
"Send the men out!"

 
          
 
A crunching in crystal sands.

 
          
 
"Mars! So this is it!"

 
          
 
"Where's the flag?"

 
          
 
"Here, sir."

 
          
 
"Good, good."

 
          
 
The sun is high in the blue sky and its golden
rays fill the well and I hang like a flower pollen, invisible and misting in
the warm Ught.

 
          
 
Voices.

 
          
 
"In the name of the Government of Earth,
I proclaim this to be the Martian Territory, to be equally divided among the
member nations."

 
          
 
What are they saying? I turn in the sun, like
a wheel, invisible and lazy, golden and tireless.

 
          
 
"What's over here?"

           
 
"A well"

 
          
 
"No!"

 
          
 
"Come on. Yes!"

 
          
 
The approach of warmth. Three objects bend
over the well mouth, and my coolness rises to the objects.

 
          
 
"Great!"

 
          
 
'Think it's good water?"

 
          
 
"We'll see."

 
          
 
"Someone get a lab test bottle and a
dropline."

 
          
 
"I will!"

 
          
 
A sound of running. The return.

 
          
 
"Here we are."

 
          
 
I wait.

 
          
 
"Let it down. Easy."

 
          
 
Glass shines, above, coming down on a slow
line.

 
          
 
The water ripples softly as the glass touches
and fills. I rise in the warm air toward the well mouth.

 
          
 
"Here we are. You want to test this
water, Regent?"

 
          
 
"Let's have it."

 
          
 
"What a beautiful well. Look at that
construction. How old you think it is?"

 
          
 
"God knows. When we landed in that other
town yesterday Smith said there hasn't been life on Mars in ten thousand
years."

 
          
 
"Imagine."

 
          
 
"How is it. Regent? The water."

 
          
 
"Pure as silver. Have a glass."

 
          
 
The sound of water in the hot sunlight. Now I
hover like a dust, a cinnamon, upon the soft wind.

 
          
 
"What's the matter, Jones?"

 
          
 
"I don't know. Got a terrible headache.
All of a sudden."

 
          
 
"Did you drink the water yet?"

 
          
 
"No, I haven't. It's not that, I was just
bending over the well and all of a sudden my head split. I feel better
now."

 
          
 
Now I know who I am.

 
          
 
My name is Stephen Leonard Jones and I am
twenty-five years old and I have just come in a rocket from a planet called
Earth and I am standing with my good friends Regent and Shaw by an old well on
the planet Mars.

 
          
 
I look down at my golden fingers, tan and
strong. I look at my long legs and at my silver uniform and at my friends.

 
          
 
"What's wrong, Jones?" they say.

 
          
 
"Nothing," I say, looking at them.
"Nothing at all."

           
 
The food is good It has been ten thousand
years since food. It touches the tongue in a fine way and the wine with the
food is warming. I listen to the sound of voices. I make words that I do not
understand but somehow understand. I test the air.

 
          
 
"What's the matter, Jones?”

 
          
 
I tilt this head of mine and rest my hands
holding the silver utensils of eating. I feel everything.

 
          
 
"What do you mean?" this voice, this
new thing of mine, says.

 
          
 
"You keep breathing funny. Coughing,”
says the- other man.

 
          
 
I pronounce exactly. "Maybe a little cold
coming on.”

 
          
 
"Check with the doc later."

 
          
 
I nod my head and it is good to nod. It is
good to do several things after ten thousand years. It is good to breathe the
air and it is good to feel the sun in the flesh deep and going deeper and it is
good to feel the structure of ivory, the fine skeleton hidden in the warming
flesh, and it is good to hear sounds much clearer and more immediate than they
were in the stone deepness of a well. I sit enchanted.

 
          
 
"Come out of it, Jones. Snap to it We got
to move!"

 
          
 
“Yes,” I say, hypnotized with the way the word
forms like water on the tongue and falls with slow beauty out into the air.

 
          
 
I walk and it is good walking. I stand high
and it is a long way to the ground when I look down from my eyes and my head.
It is like living on a fine cliff and being happy there.

 
          
 
Regent stands by the stone well, looking down.
The others have gone murmuring to the silver ship from which they came.

 
          
 
I feel the fingers of my hand and the smile of
my mouth.

 
          
 
"It is deep," I say.

 
          
 
"Yes."

 
          
 
"It is called a Soul Well.”

 
          
 
Regent raises his head and looks at me.
"How do you know that?"

 
          
 
"Doesn't it look like one?"

 
          
 
"I never heard of a Soul Well.*'

 
          
 
"A place where waiting things, things
that once had flesh, wait and wait," I say, touching his arm.

 
          
 
The sand is fire and the ship is silver fire
in the hotness of the day and the heat is good to feel. The sound of my feet in
the hard sand. I listen. The sound of the wind and the sun burning the valleys.
I smell the smell of the rocket boiling in the noon. I stand below the port.

 
          
 
"Where's Regent?" someone says.

 
          
 
"I saw him by the well," I reply.

 
          
 
One of them runs toward the well. I am
beginning to tremble. A fine shivering tremble, hidden deep, but becoming very
strong. And for the first time I hear it, as if it too were hidden in a well. A
voice calling deep within me, tiny and afraid. And the voice cries. Let me go,
let me go, and there is a feeling as if something is trying to get free, a
pounding of labyrinthine doors, a rushing down dark corridors and up passages,
echoing and screaming.

 
          
 
"Regent's in the well!"

 
          
 
The men are running, all five of them. I run
with them but now I am sick and the trembling is violent.

 
          
 
"He must have fallen. Jones, you were
here with him. Did you see? Jones? Well, speak up, man."

 
          
 
"What's wrong, Jones?"

 
          
 
I fall to my knees, the trembling is so bad.

 
          
 
"He's sick. Here, help me with him."

 
          
 
“The sun."

 
          
 
"No, not the sun," I murmur.

 
          
 
They stretch me out and the seizures come and
go like earthquakes and the deep hidden voice in me cries. This is Jones, this
is me, thafs not him, that's not him, don't believe him, let me out, let me
out! And I look up at the bent figures and my eyelids flicker. They touch my
wrists.

 
          
 
"His heart is acting up."

 
          
 
I close my eyes. The screaming stops. The
shivering ceases.

 
          
 
I rise, as in a cool well, released.

 
          
 
"He's dead," says someone.

 
          
 
"Jones is dead."

 
          
 
"From what?"

 
          
 
"Shock, it looks like."

 
          
 
"What kind of shock?" I say, and my
name is Sessions and my lips move crisply, and I am the captain of these men. I
stand among them and I am looking down at a body which lies cooling on the
sands. I clap both hands to my head.

 
          
 
"Captain!"

 
          
 
"It's nothing," I say, crying out.
"Just a headache. I'll be all right. There. There," I whisper.
"It's all right now."

           
 
“We'd better get out of the sun, sir."

 
          
 
"Yes," I say, looking down at Jones.
“We should never have come. Mars doesn't want us."

 
          
 
We carry the body back to the rocket with us,
and a new voice is calling deep in me to be let out

 
          
 
Help, help. Far down in the moist
earthen-works of the body. Help, help! in red fathoms, echoing and pleading.

 
          
 
The trembling starts much sooner this time.
The control is less steady.

 
          
 
"Captain, you’d better get in out of the
sun, you don't look too well, sir."