The Best Science Fiction of 1949

by Everett F. Bleiler

  progress at the same rate and evolve in the same way, Hinkston?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so, sir.”

  Captain Black stood by the port. “Look out there. The geraniums. A specialized plant. That specific variety has only been known on Earth for fifty years. Think of the thousands of years of time it takes to evolve plants. Then tell me if it is logical that the Martians should have: one, leaded glass windows; two, cupolas; three, porch swings; four, an instrument that looks like, a piano and probably is a piano; and, five, if you look closely, if a Martian composer would have published a piece of music titled, strangely enough, Beautiful Ohio. All of which means that we have an Ohio River here on Mars!”

  “It is quite strange, sir.”

  “Strange, hell, it’s absolutely impossible, and I suspect the whole bloody shooting setup.

  Something’s wrong here, and I’m not leaving the ship until I know what it is.”

  “Oh, sir,” said Lustig.

  “Dammit,” said Samuel Hinkston. “Sir, I want to investigate this at first hand. It may be that there

  are similar patterns of thought, movement, civilization on every planet in our system. We may be on the threshold of the great psychological and metaphysical discovery In our time, sir, don’t you think?”

  “I’m willing to wait a moment,” said Captain John Black.

  “It may be, sir, that we are looking upon a phenomenon that, for the first time, would absolutely prove the existence of a God, sir.”

  “There are many people who are of good faith without such proof, Mr. Hinkston.”

  “I’m one myself, sir. But certainly a thing like this, out there,” said Hinkston, “could not occur without divine intervention, sir. It fills me with such terror and elation. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, sir.”

  “Do neither,. then, until we know what we’re up against.”

  “Up against, sir?” inquired Lustig. “I see that we’re up against nothing. It’s a good quiet, green town, much like the one I was born in, and I like the looks of It.”

  “When were you born, Lustig?”

  “In 1910, sir.”

  “That makes you fifty years old, now, doesn’t it?”

  “This being 1960, yes, sir.”

  “And you, Hinkston?”

  “1920, sir. In Illinois. And this looks swell to me, sir.”

  “This couldn’t be Heaven,” said the captain, ironically. “Though, I must admit, it looks peaceful and

  cool, and pretty much like Green Bluff, where I was born, in 1915.”

  He looked at the chemist. “The air’s all right, is it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  ‘Well, then, tell you what we’ll do. Lustig, you and Hinkston and I will fetch ourselves out to look

  this town over. The other 14 men will stay aboard ship. If anything untoward happens, lift the Ship and get the hell out, do you hear what I say, Craner?”

  “Yes, sir. The hell out we’ll go, sir. Leaving you?”,

  “A loss of three men’s better than a whole ship. If something bad happens get back to Earth and warn the next Rocket, that’s Lingle’s Rocket, I think, which will be completed and ready to take off some time around next Christmas, what he has to meet up with. If there’s something hostile about Mars we certainly want the next expedition to be well armed.”

  “So are we, sir. We’ve got a regular arsenal with us.”

  “Tell the men to stand by the guns, then, as Lustig and Hinkston and I go out.”

  “Right, sir.”

  “Come along, 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 apple tree, and the blossom smell drifted upon the air. Somewhere in the town, somebody 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 Lapder.

  The three men stood outside the ship. The port closed behind them. At every window, a face pressed, looking out. The large metal guns pointed this way and that, ready.

  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.

  Hinkston’s voice was so feeble and uneven that the captain had to ask him to repeat what he had said. “I said, sir, that I think I have solved this, all of this, sir!”

  “And what is the solution, Hinkston?”

  The soft wind blew. 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, it must be, it has to be, this is the only solution! Rocket travel began to Mars in the years before the first World War, sir!” S

  The captain stared at his archaeologist. “No!”

  “But, yes, sir! You must admit, look at all of this! How else explain it, the houses, the lawns, the iron deer, the flowers, the pianos, the music!”

  “Hinkston, Hinkston, oh,” and the captain put his hand to his face, shaking his head, his hand shaking now, his lips blue.

  “Sir, listen to me.” Hinkston took his elbow persuasively and looked up into the captain’s face, pleading. “Say that there were some people in the year 1905, perhaps, who hated wars and wanted to get away from Earth and they got together, some scientists, in secret, and built a rocket and came out here to Mars.”

  “No, no, Hinkston.”

  “Why not? The world was a different place in 1905, they could have kept it a secret much more easily.”

  “But the work, Hinkston, the work of building a complex thing like a rocket, oh, no, no.” The captain looked at his shoes, looked at his hands, looked at the houses, and then at Hinkston.

  “And they came up here, and naturally the houses they built were similar to Earth houses because

  they brought the cultural architecture with them, and here it is!”

  “And they’ve lived here all these years?” said the captain.

  “In peace and quiet, sir, yes. Maybe they made a few trips, to bring enough people here for one

  small town, and then stopped, for fear of being discovered. That’s why the town seems so old-fashioned. I don’t see a thing, myself, that is older than the year 1927, do you?”

  “No, frankly, I don’t, Hinkston.”

  “These are our people, sir. This is an American city; it’s definitely not European!”

  “That—that’s right, too, Hinkston.”

  “Or maybe, just maybe, sir, rocket travel is older than we think. Perhaps it started in some part of the world hundreds of years ago, was discovered and kept secret by a small number of men, and they came to Mars, with only occasional visits to Earth over the centuries.”

  “You make it sound almost reasonable.”

  “It is, sir. It has to be. We have the proof here before us, all we have to do now, is find some people

  and verify it!”

  “You’re right there, of course. We can’t just stand here and talk. Did you bring your gun?”

  “Yes, but we won’t need it.”

  “We’ll see about it. Come along, we’ll ring that doorbell and see if anyone is home.”

  Their boots were deadened of all sound in the thick green grass. it smelled from a fresh mowing. In spite of himself, Captain John Black felt a great peace come over him. It had been thirty years since he had been in a small’ town, and the buzzing of spring bees on the air lulled and quieted him, and the fresh look of things was a balm to the soul.

  Hollow echoes sounded from under the boards as they walked across the porch and stood before the screen door. Inside, they could see a bead curtain hung across the hall
entry, and a crystal chandelier and a Maxfield Parrish painting framed on one wall over a comfortable Morris, Chair. The house smelled old, and of the attic, and infinitely comfortable. You could hear the tinkle of ice rattling in a lemonade pitcher. In a distant kitchen, because of the day, someone was preparing a soft lemon pie.

  Captain John Black rang the bell.

  Footsteps, dainty and thin, came along the hail and a kind-faced lady of some forty years, dressed in

  the sort of dress you might expect in the year 1909, peered out at them.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Beg your pardon,” said Captain Black, uncertainly.

  “But we’re looking for, that is, could you help us, I mean.” He stopped. She looked out at him with

  dark wondering eyes.

  “If you’re selling something,” she said, “I’m much too busy and I haven’t time.” She turned to go.

  “No, wait!,” he cried bewilderedly. “What town is this?”

  She looked him up and down as if he were crazy.

  “What do you mean, what town is it? How could you be in a town and not know what town it was?”

  The captain looked as if he wanted to go sit under a shady apple tree. “I beg your pardon,” he said,

  “But we’re strangers here. We’re from Earth, and we want to know how this town got here and you got here.”

  “Are you census takers?” she asked.

  “No,” be said.

  “What do you want then?” she demanded.

  “Well,” said the captain.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “How long has this town been here?” he wondered.

  “It was built in 1868,” she snapped at them. “Is this a game?”

  “No, not a game,” cried the captain. “Oh, God,” he said. “Look here. We’re from Earth!”

  “From where?” she said.

  “From Earth!” he said.

  “Where’s that?” she said.

  “From Earth,” he cried.

  “Out of the ground, do you mean?”

  “No, from the planet Earth!” he almost shouted.

  “Here,” he insisted, “come out on the porch and I’ll show you.”

  “No,” she said, “I won’t come out there, you are all evidently quite mad from the sun.”

  Lustig and Hinkston stood behind the captain. Hinkston now spoke up. “Mrs.,” he said. ‘We came in a flying ship across space, among the stars. We came from the third planet from the sun, Earth, to this planet, which is Mars. Now do you understand, Mrs.?”

  “Mad from the sun,” she said, taking hold of the door. “Go away now, before I call my husband who’s upstairs taking a nap, and he’ll beat you all with his fists.”

  “But—” said Hinkston. “This is Mars, is it not?”

  “This,” explained the woman, as if she were addressing a child, “is Green Lake, Wisconsin, on the continent of America, surrounded by the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, on a place called the world, or sometimes, the Earth. Go away now. Good-bye!”

  She slammed the door.

  The three men stood before the door with their hands up in the air toward it, as if pleading with her

  to open it once more.

  They looked at one another.

  “Let’s knock the door down,” said Lustig.

  “We can’t,” sighed the captain.

  “Why not?”

  “She didn’t do anything bad, did she? We’re the strangers here. This is private property. Good God,

  Hinkston!” He went and sat down on the porchstep.

  “What, sir?”

  Did it ever strike you, that maybe we got ourselves, somehow, some way, fouled up. And, by

  accident, came back and landed on Earth!”

  “Oh, sir, oh, sir, oh oh, sir.” And Hinkston sat down numbly and thought about it.

  Lustig stood up in the sunlight. “How could we have done that?”

  “I don’t know, just let me think.”

  Hinkston said, “But we checked every mile of the way, and we saw Mars and our chronometers said so many miles gone, and we went past the moon and out into space and here we are, on Mars. I’m sure we’re on Mars, sir.”

  Lustig said, “But, suppose that, by accident, in space, in time, or something, we landed on a planet in space, in another time. Suppose this is Earth, thirty or fifty years ago? Maybe we got lost in the dimensions, do you think?”

  “Oh, go away, Lustig.”

  “Are the men in the ship keeping an eye on us, Hinkston?”

  “At their guns, sir.”

  Lustig went to the door, rang the bell. When the door opened again, he asked, “What year is this?”

  “1926, of, course!” cried the woman, furiously, and slammed the door again.

  “Did you bear that?” Lustig ran back to them, wildly, “She said 1926! We - have gone back in time.

  This is Earth!”

  Lustig sat down and the three men let the wonder and terror of the thought afflict them. Their hands stirred fitfully on their knees. The wind blew, nodding the locks of hair on their heads.

  The captain stood up, brushing off his pants. “I never thought it would be like this. It scares the hell out of me. How can a thing like this happen?”

  “Will anybody in the whole town believe us?” wondered Hinkston. “Are we playing around with something dangerous? Time, I mean. Shouldn’t we just take off and go home?”

  “No. We’ll try another house.”

  They walked three houses down to a little white cottage under an oak tree. “I like to be as logical as I can get,” said the captain, He nodded at the town. “How does this sound to you, Hinkston? Suppose, as you said originally, that rocket travel occurred years ago. And when the Earth people had lived here a number of years they began to get homesick for Earth. First a mild neurosis about it, then a full-fledged psychosis. Then, threatened insanity. What would you do, as a psychiatrist, if faced with such a problem?”

  Hinkston thought. “Well, I think I’d re-arrange the civilization on Mars so it resembled Earth more and more each day. If there was any way of reproducing every plant, every road and every lake, and even an ocean, I would do so. Then I would, by some vast crowd hypnosis, theoretically anyway, convince everyone in a town this size that this really was Earth, not Mars at all.”

  “Good enough, Hinkston. I think we’re on the right track now. That woman in that house back there, just thinks she’s living on Earth. It protects her sanity. She and all the others in this town are the patients of the greatest experiment in migration and hypnosis you will ever lay your eyes on in your life.”

  “That’s it, sir!” cried Lustig.

  “Well,” the captain sighed. “Now we’re getting somewhere. I feel better. It all sounds a bit more logical now. This talk about time and going back and forth and traveling in time turns my stomach upside down. But, this way—” He actually smiled for the first time in a month. “Well. It looks as if we’ll be fairly welcome here.”

  “Or, will we, sir?” said Lustig. “After all, like the Pilgrims, these people came here to escape Earth. Maybe they won’t be too happy to see us, sir Maybe they’ll try to drive us out or kill us?”

  “We have superior weapons if that should happen. Anyway, all we can do is try. This next house now. Up we go.”

  But they had hardly crossed the lawn when Lustig stopped and looked off across the town, down the quiet, dreaming afternoon street. “Sir,” he said.

  “What is it, Lustig?” asked the captain.

  “Oh, sir, sir, what I see, what I do see now before me, oh, oh—” said Lustig, and he began to cry. His fingers came up, twisting and trembling, and his face was all wonder and joy and incredulity. He sounded as if any moment he might go quite insane with happiness. He looked down the street and he began to run, stumbling awkwardly, falling, picking himself up, and running on. “Oh, God, God, thank you, God! Thank you!”

  “Don’t let him get away!�
�� The captain broke into a run.

  Now Lustig was running at full speed, shouting. He turned into a yard half way down the little shady side street and leaped up upon the porch of a large green house with an iron rooster on the roof.

  He was beating upon the door, shouting and hollering and crying when Hinkston and the captain ran up and stood in the yard.

  The door opened. Lustig yanked the screen wide and in a high wail of discovery and happiness, cried out, “Grandma! Grandpa!”

  Two old people stood in the doorway, their faces lighting up.

  “Albert!” Their voices piped and they rushed out to embrace and pat him on the back and move around him, “Albert, oh, Albert, it’s been so many years! How you’ve grown, boy, how big you ate, boy, oh, Albert boy, how are you!”

  “Grandma, Grandpa!” sobbed Albert Lustig. “Good to see you! You look fine, fine! Oh, fine.” He held them, turned them, kissed them, hugged them, cried on them, held them out again, blinked at the little old people. The, sun was in the sky, the wind blew, the grass was green, the screen door stood open.

  “Come in, lad, come in, there’s lemonade for you, fresh, lots of it!”

  “Grandma, Grandpa, good to see you! I’ve got friends down here! Here!” Lustig turned and waved wildly at the captain and Hinkston, who, all during the adventure on the porch, had stood in the shade of a tree, holding onto each other. “Captain, captain, come up, come up, I want you to meet my grandfolks!”

  “Howdy,” said the folks. “Any friend of Albert’s is ours, too! Don’t stand there with your mouths open! Come on!”

  In the living room of the old house it was cool and a grandfather clock ticked high and long and bronzed in one corner. There were soft pillows on large couches and walls filled with books and a rug cut in a thick rose pattern and antimacassars pinned to furniture, and lemonade in the hand, sweating, and cool on the thirsty tongue. “Here’s to our health.” Grandma tipped her glass to her porcelain teeth.

  “How long you been here, Grandma?” said Lustig.

  “A good many years,” she said, tartly. “Ever since we died.”

  “Ever since you what?” asked Captain John Black, putting his drink down.