Bradbury Stories (41 page)

“Stop it, stop it, you fool!” Saul shouted at himself. He pressed his forehead with his hands. “This can't be!”

“It is,” said Leonard Mark.

The New York towers faded. Mars returned. Saul stood on the empty sea bottom, staring limply at the young newcomer.

“You,” he said, putting his hand out to Leonard Mark. “You did it. You did it with your mind.”

“Yes,” said Leonard Mark.

Silently they stood facing each other. Finally, trembling, Saul seized the other exile's hand and wrung it again and again, saying, “Oh, but I'm glad you're here. You can't know how glad I am!”

They drank their rich brown coffee from the tin cups.

It was high noon. They had been talking all through the warm morning time.

“And this ability of yours?” said Saul over his cup, looking steadily at the young Leonard Mark.

“It's just something I was born with,” said Mark, looking into his drink. “My mother was in the blowup of London back in '57. I was born ten months later. I don't know what you'd call my ability. Telepathy and thought transference, I suppose. I used to have an act, I traveled all around the world. Leonard Mark, the mental marvel, they said on the billboards. I was pretty well off. Most people thought I was a charlatan. You know what people think of theatrical folks. Only I knew I was really genuine, but I didn't let anybody know. It was safer not to let it get around too much. Oh, a few of my close friends knew about my
real
ability. I had a lot of talents that will come in handy now that I'm here on Mars.”

“You sure scared the hell out of me,” said Saul, his cup rigid in his hand. “When New York came right up out of the ground that way, I thought I was insane.”

“It's a form of hypnotism which affects all of the sensual organs at once—eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin—all of them. What would you like to be doing now most of all?”

Saul put down his cup. He tried to hold his hands very steady. He wet his lips. “I'd like to be in a little creek I used to swim in in Mellin Town, Illinois, when I was a kid. I'd like to be stark-naked and swimming.”

“Well,” said Leonard Mark and moved his head ever so little.

Saul fell back on the sand, his eyes shut.

Leonard Mark sat watching him.

Saul lay on the sand. From time to time his hands moved, twitched excitedly. His mouth spasmed open; sounds issued from his tightening and relaxing throat.

Saul began to make slow movements of his arms, out and back, out and back, gasping with his head to one side, his arms going and coming slowly on the warm air, stirring the yellow sand under him, his body turning slowly over.

Leonard Mark quietly finished his coffee. While he drank he kept his eyes on the moving, whispering Saul lying there on the dead sea bottom.

“All right,” said Leonard Mark.

Saul sat up, rubbing his face.

After a moment he told Leonard Mark, “I saw the creek. I ran along the bank and I took off my clothes,” he said breathlessly, his smile incredulous. “And I
dived in
and swam around!”

“I'm pleased,” said Leonard Mark.

“Here!” Saul reached into his pocket and drew forth his last bar of chocolate. “This is for you.”

“What's this?” Leonard Mark looked at the gift. “Chocolate? Nonsense, I'm not doing this for pay. I'm doing it because it makes you happy. Put that thing back in your pocket before I turn it into a rattlesnake and it bites you.”

“Thank you, thank you!” Saul put it away. “You don't know how good that water was.” He fetched the coffeepot. “More?”

Pouring the coffee, Saul shut his eyes a moment.

I've got Socrates here, he thought; Socrates and Plato, and Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. This man, by his talk, is a genius. By his talent, he's incredible! Think of the long, easy days and the cool nights of talk we'll have. It won't be a bad year at all. Not half.

He spilled the coffee.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing.” Saul himself was confused, startled.

We'll be in Greece, he thought. In Athens. We'll be in Rome, if we want, when we study the Roman writers. We'll stand in the Parthenon and the Acropolis. It won't be just talk, but it'll be a place to be, besides. This man can do it. He has the power to do it. When we talk the plays of Racine, he can make a stage and players and all of it for me. By Christ, this is better than life ever was! How much better to be sick and here than well on Earth without these abilities! How many people have ever seen a Greek drama played in a Greek amphitheater in the year 31
B.C.?

And if I ask, quietly and earnestly, will this man take on the aspect of Schopenhauer and Darwin and Bergson and all the other thoughtful men of the ages . . .? Yes, why not? To sit and talk with Nietzsche in person, with Plato himself . . .!

There was only one thing wrong. Saul felt himself swaying.

The other men. The other sick ones along the bottom of this dead sea.

In the distance men were moving, walking toward them. They had seen the rocket flash, land, dislodge a passenger. Now they were coming, slowly, painfully, to greet the new arrival.

Saul was cold. “Look,” he said. “Mark, I think we'd better head for the mountains.”

“Why?”

“See those men coming? Some of them are insane.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Isolation and all make them that way?”

“Yes, that's it. We'd better get going.”

“They don't look very dangerous. They move slowly.”

“You'd be surprised.”

Mark looked at Saul. “You're trembling. Why's that?”

“There's no time to talk,” said Saul, getting up swiftly. “Come on. Don't you realize what'll happen once they discover your talent? They'll fight over you. They'll kill each other—kill you—for the right to own you.”

“Oh, but I don't belong to anybody,” said Leonard Mark. He looked at Saul. “No. Not even you.”

Saul jerked his head. “I didn't even think of that.”

“Didn't you now?” Mark laughed.

“We haven't time to argue,” answered Saul, eyes blinking, cheeks blazing. “Come on!”

“I don't want to. I'm going to sit right here until those men show up. You're a little too possessive. My life's my own.”

Saul felt an ugliness in himself. His face began to twist. “You
heard
what I said.”

“How very quickly you changed from a friend to an enemy,” observed Mark.

Saul hit at him. It was a neat quick blow, coming down.

Mark ducked aside, laughing. “No, you don't!”

They were in the center of Times Square. Cars roared, hooting, upon them. Buildings plunged up, hot, into the blue air.

“It's a lie!” cried Saul, staggering under the visual impact. “For God's sake, don't, Mark! The men are coming. You'll be killed!”

Mark sat there on the pavement, laughing at his joke. “Let them come. I can fool them all!”

New York distracted Saul. It was meant to distract—meant to keep his attention with its unholy beauty, after so many months away from it. Instead of attacking Mark he could only stand, drinking in the alien but familiar scene.

He shut his eyes. “No.” And fell forward, dragging Mark with him. Horns screamed in his ears. Brakes hissed and caught violently. He smashed at Mark's chin.

Silence.

Mark lay on the sea bottom.

Taking the unconscious man in his arms, Saul began to run, heavily.

New York was gone. There was only the wide soundlessness of the dead sea. The men were closing in around him. He headed for the hills with his precious cargo, with New York and green country and fresh springs and old friends held in his arms. He fell once and struggled up. He did not stop running.

Night filled the cave. The wind wandered in and out, tugging at the small fire, scattering ashes.

Mark opened his eyes. He was tied with ropes and leaning against the dry wall of the cave, facing the fire.

Saul put another stick on the fire, glancing now and again with a catlike nervousness at the cave entrance.

“You're a fool.”

Saul started.

“Yes,” said Mark, “you're a fool. They'll find us. If they have to hunt for six months they'll find us. They saw New York, at a distance, like a mirage. And us in the center of it. It's too much to think they won't be curious and follow our trail.”

“I'll move on with you then,” said Saul, staring into the fire.

“And they'll come after.”

“Shut up!”

Mark smiled. “Is that the way to speak to your wife?”

“You heard me!”

“Oh, a fine marriage this is—your greed and my mental ability. What do you want to see now? Shall I show you a few more of your childhood scenes?”

Saul felt the sweat coming out on his brow. He didn't know if the man was joking or not. “Yes,” he said.

“All right,” said Mark, “watch!”

Flame gushed out of the rocks. Sulfur choked him. Pits of brimstone exploded, concussions rocked the cave. Heaving up, Saul coughed and blundered, burned, withered by hell!

Hell went away. The cave returned.

Mark was laughing.

Saul stood over him. “You,” he said coldly, bending down.

“What else do you expect?” cried Mark. “To be tied up, toted off, made the intellectual bride of a man insane with loneliness—do you think I enjoy this?”

“I'll untie you if you promise not to run away.”

“I couldn't promise that. I'm a free agent. I don't belong to anybody.”

Saul got down on his knees. “But you've
got
to belong, do you hear? You've
got
to belong. I can't let you go away!”

“My dear fellow, the more you say things like that, the more remote I am. If you'd had any sense and done things intelligently, we'd have been friends. I'd have been glad to do you these little hypnotic favors. After all, they're no trouble for me to conjure up. Fun, really. But you've botched it. You wanted me all to yourself. You were afraid the others would take me away from you. Oh, how mistaken you were. I have enough power to keep them all happy. You could have shared me, like a community kitchen. I'd have felt quite like a god among children, being kind, doing favors, in return for which you might bring me little gifts, special tidbits of food.”

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry!” Saul cried. “But I know those men too well.”

“Are you any different? Hardly! Go out and see if they're coming. I thought I heard a noise.”

Saul ran. In the cave entrance he cupped his hands, peering down into the night-filled gully. Dim shapes stirred. Was it only the wind blowing the roving clumps of weeds? He began to tremble a fine, aching tremble.

“I don't see anything.” He came back into an empty cave.

He stared at the fireplace. “Mark!”

Mark was gone.

There was nothing but the cave, filled with boulders, stones, pebbles, the lonely fire flickering, the wind sighing. And Saul standing there, incredulous and numb.

“Mark! Mark! Come back!”

The man had worked free of his bonds, slowly, carefully, and using the ruse of imagining he heard other men approaching, had gone—where?

The cave was deep, but ended in a blank wall. And Mark could not have slipped past him into the night. How then?

Saul stepped around the fire. He drew his knife and approached a large boulder that stood against the cave wall. Smiling, he pressed the knife against the boulder. Smiling, he tapped the knife there. Then he drew his knife back to plunge it into the boulder.

“Stop!” shouted Mark.

The boulder vanished. Mark was there.

Saul suspended his knife. The fire played on his cheeks. His eyes were quite insane.

“It didn't work,” he whispered. He reached down and put his hands on Mark's throat and closed his fingers. Mark said nothing, but moved uneasily in the grip, his eyes ironic, telling things to Saul that Saul knew.

If you kill me, the eyes said, where will all your dreams be? If you kill me, where will all the streams and brook trout be? Kill me, kill Plato, kill Aristotle, kill Einstein; yes, kill all of us! Go ahead, strangle me. I dare you.

Saul's fingers released the throat.

Shadows moved into the cave mouth.

Both men turned their heads.

The other men were there. Five of them, haggard with travel, panting, waiting in the outer rim of light.

“Good evening,” called Mark, laughing. “Come in, come in, gentlemen!”

By dawn the arguments and ferocities still continued. Mark sat among the glaring men, rubbing his wrists, newly released from his bonds. He created a mahogany-paneled conference hall and a marble table at which they all sat, ridiculously bearded, evil-smelling, sweating and greedy men, eyes bent upon their treasure.

“The way to settle it,” said Mark at last, “is for each of you to have certain hours of certain days for appointments with me. I'll treat you all equally. I'll be city property, free to come and go. That's fair enough. As for Saul here, he's on probation. When he's proved he can be a civil person once more, I'll give him a treatment or two. Until that time, I'll have nothing more to do with him.”

The other exiles grinned at Saul.

“I'm sorry,” Saul said. “I didn't know what I was doing. I'm all right now.”

“We'll see,” said Mark. “Let's give ourselves a month, shall we?”

The other men grinned at Saul.

Saul said nothing. He sat staring at the floor of the cave.

“Let's see now,” said Mark. “On Mondays it's your day, Smith.”

Smith nodded.

“On Tuesdays I'll take Peter there, for an hour or so.”

Peter nodded.

“On Wednesdays I'll finish up with Johnson, Holtzman, and Jim, here.”

The last three men looked at each other.