In his toil, Guthrie often lost some of his bitterness, regaining temporarily his old enthusiasm and wonder. Many strange and yet curiously-familiar devices were uncovered—a steam turbine; a lathe; a brightly-glazed piece of pottery, worth a fortune on Earth; a photograph in color, found preserved in a sealed cylinder. It pictured a steel-blue sky, placid water gleaming, a great red-leaved tree, a glass roof, a crystal tower; a platform on which a ship meant for space, crouched, its weapons streamlined into its ugly black hull. The Mars of millions of years ago, that was—the Mars that had fought the neighboring planet, Five, and had blown it to bits, to produce the scattered fragments of the Asteroids—its own dominant species, skeletally represented only by the spiral bone of a helical rib-cage, dying in the same conflict.
Sometimes Guthrie would get into a conversation with one or another of the leading citizens of South Search—Lineway, Schmidt, or Corson, to mention a few. Once, Corson, who was long and lean and nearing fifty, said: “We’ve learned a lot here in the south this summer, Guthrie. Soon we’ll go to the north polar regions again, to another springtime, and to our still frosted-in town there, to have another summer—we hope as good as this one. You see, on Mars, we migrate like birds, with the seasons. I hope you’ll be with us, Guthrie...”
Guthrie mouthed his thanks, wishing that he was like these older specialists—devoted solidly to their studies, without inner conflict. But by now he was sure that he would not go with them. He was strongly tempted to rocket back to Earth, straight into the teeth of inevitable consequences. Mars was still in his blood, but here only half of him was ever satisfied. On Earth there was a potential few months of normalcy—comfort, civilization, old friends... Maybe that was better than a lifetime, here...
5
BUT HIS choice had already gone in another direction; Guthrie would stay on Mars. That was more sensible, even though the people here were set apart from him by their freedom to come and go. It was best not to be reminded so much of that. He had that liking for solitude, too—it was that other side of him. He might return to his ship and fly north, alone. He might even stay here in the south, while the gathering hoarfrost and the awful cold hemmed him in. He had extensive supplies—he knew his way around by now; he was as independent as a wandering bear. Time would not be without satisfactions. But deep within him he felt the flaunting recklessness, which seemed half to reach—subconsciously—for an end of things. That annoyed him; yet, maybe it was as it should be. Space and Mars had given him life. To lose it again to the winter or to the deserts of this strange, fading planet, could seem poetic. Guthrie laughed to himself, deriding this thought. Yet it remained, like a weariness, balanced by star-shot dark and quiet, fingered with hoar-frost and the Martian Aurora. Was it Mars-madness, like poor Landron’s?
Already an hour of night had lengthened to two, from which this region of the south emerged again to the sun, its crumpled plants bearded with white. And already the Howlers were blowing—signs of winter on Mars. The Howlers were hollow spore-pods of certain growths; after the spores were scattered, the frigid wind blew through the empty shells and made an eerie whistling.
Guthrie continued to see Marion Tandran around—in the mess-hall or rec-building, or elsewhere. Among only three hundred people, it was hard to keep away from each other.
“Are you still here, Mr. Guthrie?” she once snapped. Her tone was a mockery which said “You big ape!” clearer than words.
“It seems so, Miss Poison,” he growled, and walked away.
But often he found himself thinking about her or watching her, and regretting deeply that things were not different. He was doing that once in the rec-building, when she came over to him with a new timid smile on her face, and said: “You were right, Guthrie; I’m licked. There’s too much Earth in my bones, in spite of the soaring dreams. I’m like the other punks that come and go. If folks were all like me, space would stay empty of people. When the ship leaves for Earth the day after tomorrow, with Landron and the other crackups on it, I’ll be aboard. Here’s my ticket...”
She waved a large envelope. In her humility and defeat, she still had sweetness, now—a humor, and a certain dignity.
Guthrie looked at her in earnestness and wonder for a long moment, before he said, “I’ve been a grouch, but I’ll miss you. Still it’s best—you’re being smart. Home is quite a place... Care to take a walk—sort of hunt for a special mood?” He pressed her gloved hand as a friend. He thought of kissing her, but what good was that? All around, he felt pretty futile.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s walk.”
THEY WERE a mile out of town when the setting sun touched the horizon. The whole scene looked tawny. For a moment there was a flurry of fine snow, as a cirrus cloud, low-lying and yellowed with dust, moved overhead.
As the sun was about to dip, Marion said: “People get trapped by the way they feel. Mars is beautiful, but it’s a hellhole of loneliness and difference, too. It grinds at your nerves—though it ought to be all right. People can win a living from its soil, while they study and add to human knowledge. Of course it’s inconvenient to wear air-helmets outside all the time, but you should get used to that—like wearing overcoats at home in winter. And next year they’ll have swimming-pools, even, in both the north and south towns. Oh, darn—why haven’t I ever been able to feel right, here—though I’ve been fascinated? Something is lacking. What would a person who had to stay here, do?”
Guthrie scowled into the quick star-flecked dusk. “I’m trying to imagine,” he replied. His throat felt a big tight; it seemed to him that Marion Tandran represented the last human gentleness that he would ever know. The last and the best.
“Now is somehow special and final, Guthrie,” she said. “It needs to be celebrated by some small gesture. I have what I call a house of my own; they’ve given me that. We could have coffee, there. It could even be dinner... I haven’t started packing, yet...”
They walked back slowly, under the stars. Beyond her private airlock, seated in a chair made of rough Martian stalks, his eyes wandered as he waited for Marion to bring coffee. And it was as though he imagined some special blend of feelings. There was a mat of varicolored fibre on the floor, and curtains of the same local material over the small, double-glazed windows. She must have made these things herself. There was a table of packing boxes. From atop a rack which held a few books, a real cat peered down at Guthrie inquisitively, purring. A little brown Martian animal, fuzzy like a great caterpillar but far more active and intelligent, twittered musically, and made its rotary cage spin. A tall stalk, rooted in a red-glazed jar millions of years old, reached for the ceiling. A clock ticked softly.
Just for that moment, it seemed that this was not a transient hour of goodbye, but a lifetime of contented permanence. Even the muted wailing of the Howlers seemed to match the rest of the mood perfectly. The harsh, murky future seemed laid aside.
When Marion came with the coffee, he said with a puzzled and rueful grin, “It’s here. In this room.”
“What’s here?” she demanded.
“Enough of the warmth of Earth to make me satisfied with Mars,” he said half-jokingly. “My two conflicting sides coming to terms. Home to relax in, wherever I am—here, or farther away, even. So it could be—like having the universe. And aren’t other people much the same as me? So isn’t it like the whole human race being at home, even among the farthest stars? This I didn’t expect to find. I wonder how many know?”
Guthrie still grinned, only partly serious.
Marion Tandran studied him. “I’m glad you like my quarters,” she said at last. “When I go, you can have them.”
He was startled by the quick swirl of his thoughts. “But that’s no good at all!” he protested. “Not the same thing; the spirit would be out of it, with you gone!”
HE SAW HOW her face lighted, and he wished desperately that this much hadn’t slipped out of him—because he wanted to be kind. “Look, Marion Tandran,” he protested. “You’r
e tops to me—and I’m cussed enough not to want to advertize my physical infirmities. But I’m not on Mars just for science or fun; I can’t leave, so I’m no good to you...”
She studied him again. “Don’t tell me, Guthrie,” she said at last. “I heard the whole story yesterday, from a friend of mine who is a nurse at the hospital. Coming out here alone and sick—for a purpose. I don’t think anybody ever showed more courage. And I wanted to stay on Mars. But doing that would have to mean finding a way to make peace with it—feeling at home, here. Like with lots of people, home means a person to me. All right—to strangers I don’t care to show too much of my inner thoughts, either. But I can stand it. Now, for heaven’s sake—don’t say anything just for the sake of being gallant!”
Jay Guthrie got slowly to his feet. His face stayed almost stern as he came toward her. “Don’t worry, Marion— I won’t— I don’t have to. I just ask you again, to be sure. Otherwise, I love you; I want you to marry me. I think I always knew we were alike, groping in the same direction...”
He held her hand in his, and now he drew her to him. Two neglected cups of coffee steamed and gave off their aroma on the table.
Outside, the frigid wind made the Howlers whistle. At last Marion chuckled against Guthrie’s shoulder. “Good-bye ticket to Terra,” she said. “And I guess we won’t get to fly north with the others—to another spring. At least not during the first month.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Oh, there’s a rustic local custom, started, they say, a Martian year ago, when the Springers, Armand and Gladys, got hitched out here. Somebody has to watch the town through the winter—see that the machines and everything stay in order. A. different pair of people—usually men, of course—takes over and is relieved each month. But newlyweds, if there are any, are supposed to get the first turn.”
Jay Guthrie laughed long and contentedly. Then he reached for the cooling coffee and said, “A toast to the custom...”
THEY WERE married a day after the Earth-rocket departed. Several days later, Guthrie was flown out by helicopter to bring his own ship to town. Other craft were readied and provisioned to fly the people from South Search to North Search. And the final mail rocket to arrive this year at the former place, glided, spitting flame, to the frost-whitened landing stage. It was Professor Carson who happened to bring the mail to the Guthrie’s airlock.
“It’s a little early to receive congratulations by mail, Jay,” he laughed.
Guthrie read Charlie Bonner’s letter first. It wasn’t typed; it was written in a big, square hand: “So you’re stranded on Mars—for now, Jay... I’m terribly sorry; but much has come out of your success. Aside from your part, we have a ship with a very low-accelerating speed, suitable to transport the very sick. It’s gentle—it takes a full hour to reach orbital velocity—about five miles per second. And out there, to circle the Earth like a little moon, we’re building a hospital—to treat cases like your own, and others—away from all gravity! We’ve named the method after you—because it’s yours... for your being unable to leave Mars, could you possibly endure it for three—at most, five—years? I know it’s an awful sentence, but a means will surely be found to build up those weak cardiac muscles... Then you can come back...”
Just then Marion called, “Shall we say goodbye to our friends, Jay? They’re about to take off for the north...”
IN A LITTLE while the Guthries were alone again, in their house. The sun had set, almost for the final time till the distant Martian spring. Meteors, and the low-hanging Martian aurora flamed. The Howlers whistled and the hoarfrost thickened in the awful cold. But in that small house, banked with soil and warmed by atomic heat, it was snug. Lights burned softly, the air-system whispered. The cat was curled up on the rug.
Jay Guthrie read Charlie Bonner’s letter, again, while Marion looked over his shoulder. “Proud?” she asked.
“Guess I am,” he chuckled. “I used to feel useless, and that was bad.”
“In a month we’ll be in the north—with the spring, again,” she said. “And I suppose that, in five years, a vacation on Earth will seem fine...”
“I guess so,” he mused absently.
He thought of the Martian machines he could tinker with here in the museum. And of the carvings and fossils and specimens of preserved plant life that had to be catalogued. And he thought of the bleak, magnificent solitude—with home around him. Marion and he were both of the same studious turn of mind. They both loved the strangeness of Mars, and together they were at home with it. They would have been at home anywhere. That was like a special triumph of man’s gradual conquest of space.
He squeezed Marion’s hand. “For my part, Honey,” he laughed, “we could stay here in the south all winter.”
And just then, neither of them seemed to care, either way, about the promised freedom in five years.
The End
***********************************
The Gentle Anger,
by Raymond Z. Gallun
Astro-Adventures #5 Oct. 1988
Short Story - 6041 words
Mark and I were born to fury. Ma used to say that we began clubbing each other with our rattles, like young Neanderthals, when we were twins in our crib.
I guess Ma wanted life to be as dainty as the lace she crocheted for her frontroom curtains. Maybe she never realized its impossibility, though she had reason enough. She had the house and garden work of the farm. She had Pa—a big, lusty, sullen man. She had no daughter; just the pair of freckled hellions that was Mark and me. And she had her brother, Uncle Henry, the wildest of the lot in a way, though he was far, far off. But other worlds were almost beyond her conception.
Poor Ma. Perhaps she needed that lacy dream of peace in pure defense: tea in the afternoon, like a lady. Robins singing in cherry trees. Sunshine, dew, gentle rain. Steady, even work. No car wrecks, fights, wars, storms, or fantastic novelty. Generations going on and on, without much change. Young folks loving, marrying, having babies. Old folks dying quietly in bed. No violent past; no uncertain, magnificent future. Everything always real civilized. She had some of all that, too, of course. But it always broke...
I could tell you about mischief that was our fault. Busted windows. The gory spectacle of a fifteen-year-old tough who lived down the road, and who finally tried to push the Harvey twins around, when we were scarcely eight. We pelted his head with rocks. Then we beat him.
When she found out, I thought Ma would whale us good. But she didn't. She was a little woman—little and tired. And then she just looked sick and sad. That was worse; though some realistic people would say that we had done right...
"Boys," she said. "There must have been a better way."
We were ashamed. "Ma, we’re sorry—Chet and me are sorry as the dickens," Mark pleaded.
She forced a smile again, so we felt better. The sunshine over green, orderly farmland looked idyllic once more. The violence was lost. For a little while the drumbeats of barbarian adventure, reaching into space, now, to colonize the planets, faded a little in our savage blood.
But Ma's illusion that at last the Earth was—or should be—a cultured place, kept getting hurt; and sometimes it was Nature at Large that was at fault, and not the primal urges inside my brother and me.
Take the night of wind and storm when lightning struck the big oak in our front yard. Lord, what a crash! The sound alone went through me as through jelly, leaving me for seconds paralyzed. And there was a smell in the air as if somebody had opened and closed the fire-door of some unnamed but still intriguing Hades. Yeah—ozone that smell was.
Ma came running to our bed, her arms enveloping us protectingly.
"We didn't throw that lightning bolt, Ma!" Mark denied. "And—shucks—we're all right. I'm not even scared. It's only Chet that is."
Yes—I was trembling, I knew. Mark not scared? Nuts! By the light that Ma had turned on, he was fairly green!
"Scared, hunh—yuh dope!" I yelled. "Look at
yourself!" And I took a poke at him, which he ducked. Then Ma had to drag us apart; and she shook us, and said in a thick voice:
"Can't you even behave at a time like this?"
She pulled down the shade so that we couldn't see that the whole sky was turning red. A mile away the MacFedtridge barn was burning in the rain and the wind. "At that we don't have to look, boys," she said.
Maybe she'd always been acting kind of like an ostrich. Her eyes looked sort of wild and puzzled. But in her own way she did have courage.
We helped Pa cut up that big, splintered oak, which had just missed falling on the house. Just looking at it, broken, with great sheared surfaces of golden wood showing, was like a savage symphony or an epic poem. It was sad and magnificent. It was like the barbarous forces in the Earth and the sky. It was a little like holding a handful of stars, while knowing at the same time that that was impossible—that they were big and hot beyond imagining. It was like knowing that far beyond the sky there were weird red deserts, and ruins left by beings extinct for millions of years, and elsewhere, jungles and swamp-mists, or seas of cold methane and ammonia gases, and the shapes of things unimaginable even in dreams...
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