Bradbury, Ray - SSC 13 (23 page)

 
          
“Hugh?”
His wife was touching his arm now. “Mushrooms, even big ones, can’t think. They
can’t move. They don’t have arms and legs. How could they run a mail-order
service and ‘take over’ the world? Come on, now. Let’s look at your terrible
fiends and monsters!”

 
          
She
pulled him toward the door. Inside, she headed for the cellar, but he stopped,
shaking his head, a foolish smile shaping itself somehow to his mouth. “No, no,
I know what we’ll find. You win. The whole thing’s silly. Roger will be back
next week and we’ll all get drunk together. Go on up to bed now and I’ll drink
a glass of warm milk and be with you in a minute … well, a couple of minutes …”

 
          
“That’s
better!” She kissed him on both cheeks, squeezed him, and went away up the
stairs.

 
          
In
the kitchen, he took out a glass, opened the refrigerator, and was pouring the
milk when he stopped suddenly.

 
          
Near
the front of the top shelf was a small yellow dish. It was not the dish that
held his attention, however. It was what lay in the dish.

 
          
The
fresh-cut mushrooms.

 
          
He
must have stood there for half a minute, his breath frosting the refrigerated
air, before he reached out, took hold of the dish, sniffed it, felt the
mushrooms, then at last, carrying the dish, went out into the hall. He looked
up the stairs, hearing Cynthia moving about in the bedroom, and was about to
call up to her, “Cynthia, did you put
these
in the refrigerator!?”

 
          
Then
he stopped. He knew her answer. She had not.

 
          
He
put the dish of mushrooms on the newel at the bottom of the stairs and stood
looking at them. He imagined himself, in bed later, looking at the walls, the
open windows, watching the moonlight sift patterns on the ceiling. He heard
himself saying, Cynthia? And her answering, yes? And him saying, there
is
a way for mushrooms to grow arms and
legs … What? she would say, silly, silly man, what? And he would gather courage
against her hilarious reaction and go on, what if a man wandered through the
swamp, picked the mushrooms, and
ate
them…?

 
          
No
response from Cynthia.

 
          
Once
inside the man, would the mushrooms spread through his blood, take over every
cell, and change the man from a man to a—Martian? Given this theory, would the
mushroom
need
its own arms and legs?
No, not when it could borrow people, live inside and become them. Roger ate
mushrooms given him by his son. Roger became “something else.” He kidnaped
himself. And in one last flash of sanity, of being “himself,” he telegraphed
us, warning us not to accept the special delivery mushrooms. The “Roger” that
telephoned later was no longer Roger but a captive of what he had eaten!
Doesn’t that figure, Cynthia? Doesn’t it, doesn’t it?

 
          
No,
said the imagined Cynthia, no, it doesn’t figure, no, no, no …

 
          
There
was the faintest whisper, rustle, stir from the cellar. Taking his eyes from
the bowl, Fortnum walked to the cellar door and put his ear to it.

 
          
“Tom?”

 
          
No
answer.

 
          
“Tom,
are you down there?”

 
          
No
answer.

 
          
“Tom?”

 
          
After
a long while, Tom’s voice came up from below.

 
          
“Yes,
Dad?”

 
          
“It’s
after midnight,” said Fortnum, fighting to keep his voice from going high.
“What are you doing down there?”

 
          
No
answer.

 
          
“I
said—”

 
          
“Tending
to my crop,” said the boy at last, his voice cold and faint.

 
          
“Well,
get up out of there! You hear me?!”

 
          
Silence.

 
          
“Tom?
Listen! Did you put some mushrooms in the refrigerator tonight? If so, why?”

 
          
Ten
seconds must have ticked by before the boy replied from below. “For you and Mom
to eat, of course.”

 
          
Fortnum
heard his heart moving swiftly, and had to take three deep breaths before he
could go on.

 
          
“Tom?
You didn’t … that is … you haven’t by any chance eaten some of the mushrooms
yourself, have you?”

 
          
“Funny
you ask that,” said Tom. “Yes. Tonight. On a sandwich after supper. Why?”

 
          
Fortnum
held to the doorknob. Now it was his turn not to answer. He felt his knees
beginning to melt and he fought the whole silly senseless fool thing. No
reason, he tried to say, but his lips wouldn’t move.

 
          
“Dad?”
called Tom softly from the cellar. “Come on down.” Another pause. “I want you
to see the harvest.”

 
          
Fortnum
felt the knob slip in his sweaty hand. The knob rattled. He gasped.

 
          
“Dad?”
called Tom softly.

 
          
Fortnum
opened the door.

 
          
The
cellar was completely black below.

 
          
He
stretched his hand in toward the light switch. As if sensing this intrusion,
from somewhere Tom said:

 
          
“Don’t.
Light’s bad for the mushrooms.”

 
          
Fortnum
took his hand off the switch.

 
          
He
swallowed. He looked back at the stair leading up to his wife. I suppose, he
thought, I should go say good-by to Cynthia. But why should I think that! Why
should I think that at
all?
No
reason, is there?

 
          
None.

 
          
“Tom?”
he said, affecting a jaunty air. “Ready or not, here I come!”

 
          
And
stepping down in darkness, he shut the door.

 
          
S
omehow the idea was brought up by Mom
that perhaps the whole family would enjoy a fishing trip. But they weren’t
Mom’s words; Timothy knew that. They were Dad’s words, and Mom used them for
him somehow.

 
          
Dad
shuffled his feet in a clutter of Martian pebbles and agreed. So immediately
there was a tumult and a shouting, and very quickly the camp was tucked into
capsules and containers, Mom slipped into traveling jumpers and blouse, Dad
stuffed his pipe full with trembling hands, his eyes on the Martian sky, and
the three boys piled yelling into the motorboat, none of them really keeping an
eye on Mom and Dad, except Timothy.

 
          
Dad
pushed a stud. The water boat sent a humming sound up into the sky. The water
shook back and the boat nosed ahead, and the family cried, “Hurrah!”

 
          
Timothy
sat in the back of the boat with Dad, his small fingers atop Dad’s hairy ones,
watching the canal twist, leaving the crumbled place behind where they had
landed in their small family rocket all the way from Earth. He remembered the
night before they left Earth, the hustling and hurrying, the rocket that Dad
had found somewhere, somehow, and the talk of a vacation on Mars. A long way to
go for a vacation, but Timothy said nothing because of his younger brothers.
They came to Mars and now, first thing, or so they said, they were going
fishing.

 
          
Dad
had a funny look in his eyes as the boat went up-canal. A look that Timothy
couldn’t figure. It was made of strong light and maybe a sort of relief. It
made the deep wrinkles laugh instead of worry or cry.

 
          
So
there went the cooling rocket, around a bend, gone.

 
          
“How
far are we going?” Robert splashed his hand. It looked like a small crab
jumping in the violet water.

 
          
Dad
exhaled. “A million years.”

 
          
“Gee,”
said Robert.

 
          
“Look,
kids.” Mother pointed one soft long arm. “There’s a dead city.”

 
          
They
looked with fervent anticipation, and the dead city lay dead for them alone,
drowsing in a hot silence of summer made on Mars by a Martian weatherman.

 
          
And
Dad looked as if he was pleased that it was dead.

 
          
It
was a futile spread of pink rocks sleeping on a rise of sand, a few tumbled
pillars, one lonely shrine, and then the sweep of sand again. Nothing else for
miles. A white desert around the canal and a blue desert over it.

 
          
Just
then a bird flew up. Like a stone thrown across a blue pond, hitting, falling
deep, and vanishing.

 
          
Dad
got a frightened look when he saw it. “I thought it was a rocket.”

 
          
Timothy
looked at the deep ocean sky, trying to see Earth and the war and the ruined
cities and the men killing each other since the day he was born. But he saw
nothing. The war was as removed and far off as two flies battling to the death
in the arch of a great high and silent cathedral. And just as senseless.

 
          
William
Thomas wiped his forehead and felt the touch of his son’s hand on his arm, like
a young tarantula, thrilled. He beamed at his son. “How goes it, Timmy?”

 
          
“Fine,
Dad.”

 
          
Timothy
hadn’t quite figured out what was ticking inside the vast adult mechanism
beside him. The man with the immense hawk nose, sunburned, peeling—and the hot
blue eyes like agate marbles you play with after school in summer back on
Earth, and the long thick columnar legs in the loose riding breeches.

 
          
“What
are you looking at so hard, Dad?”

 
          
“I
was looking for Earthian logic, common sense, good government, peace, and responsibility.”

 
          
“All
that up there?”

 
          
“No.
I didn’t find it. It’s not there any more. Maybe it’ll never be there again.
Maybe we fooled ourselves that it was ever there.”

 
          
“Huh?”

 
          
“See
the fish,” said Dad, pointing.

 
          
There
rose a soprano clamor from all three boys as they rocked the boat in arching
their tender necks to see. They
oohed
and
aahed
. A silver ring fish floated
by them, undulating, and closing like an iris, instantly, around food
particles, to assimilate them.

 
          
Dad
looked at it. His voice was deep and quiet.

 
          
“Just
like war. War swims along, sees food, contracts. A moment later—Earth is gone.”

 
          
“William,”
said Mom.

 
          
“Sorry,”
said Dad.

 
          
They
sat still and felt the canal water rush, cool, swift, and glassy. The only
sound was the motor hum, the glide of water, the sun expanding the air.

 
          
“When
do we see the Martians?” cried Michael.

 
          
“Quite
soon, perhaps,” said Father. “Maybe tonight.”

 
          
“Oh,
but the Martians are a dead race now,” said Mom.

 
          
“No,
they’re not. I’ll show you some Martians, all right,” Dad said presently.

 
          
Timothy
scowled at that but said nothing. Everything was odd now. Vacations and fishing
and looks between people.

 
          
The
other boys were already engaged making shelves of their small hands and peering
under them toward the seven-foot stone banks of the canal, watching for
Martians.

 
          
“What
do they look like?” demanded Michael.

 
          
“You’ll
know them when you see them.” Dad sort of laughed, and Timothy saw a pulse
beating time in his cheek.

 
          
Mother
was slender and soft, with a woven plait of spun-gold hair over her head in a
tiara, and eyes the color of the deep cool canal water where it ran in shadow,
almost purple, with flecks of amber caught in it. You could see her thoughts
swimming around in her eyes, like fish—some bright, some dark, some fast,
quick, some slow and easy, and sometimes, like when she looked up where Earth
was, being nothing but color and nothing else. She sat in the boat’s prow, one
hand resting on the side lip, the other on the lap of her dark blue breeches,
and a line of sun-burned soft neck showing where her blouse opened like a white
flower.

 
          
She
kept looking ahead to see what was there, and, not being able to see it clearly
enough, she looked backward toward her husband, and through his eyes, reflected
then, she saw what was ahead; and since he added part of himself to this
reflection, a determined firmness, her face relaxed and she accepted it and she
turned back, knowing suddenly what to look for.

 
          
Timothy
looked too. But all he saw was a straight pencil line of canal going violet
through a wide shallow valley penned by low, eroded hills, and on until it fell
over the sky’s edge. And this canal went on and on, through cities that would
have rattled like beetles in a dry skull if you shook them. A hundred or two
hundred cities dreaming hot summer-day dreams and cool summer-night dreams …

 
          
They
had come millions of miles for this outing—to fish. But there had been a gun on
the rocket. This was a vacation. But why all the food, more than enough to last
them years and years, left hidden back there near the rocket? Vacation. Just
behind the veil of the vacation was not a soft face of laughter, but something
hard and bony and perhaps terrifying. Timothy could not lift the veil, and the
two other boys were busy being ten and eight years old, respectively.

 
          
“No
Martians yet. Nuts.” Robert put his V-shaped chin on his hands and glared at
the canal.

 
          
Dad
had brought an atomic radio along, strapped to his wrist. It functioned on an
old-fashioned principle: you held it against the bones near your ear and it
vibrated singing or talking to you. Dad listened to it now. His face looked
like one of those fallen Martian cities, caved in, sucked dry, almost dead.

 
          
Then
he gave it to Mom to listen. Her lips dropped open.

 
          
“What—”
Timothy started to question, but never finished what he wished to say.

 
          
For
at that moment there were two titanic, marrow-jolting explosions that grew upon
themselves, followed by a half-dozen minor concussions.

 
          
Jerking
his head up, Dad notched the boat speed higher immediately. The boat leaped and
jounced and spanked. This shook Robert out of his funk and elicited yelps of
frightened but ecstatic joy from Michael, who clung to Mom’s legs and watched
the water pour by his nose in a wet torrent.

 
          
Dad
swerved the boat, cut speed, and ducked the craft into a little branch canal
and under an ancient, crumbling stone wharf that smelled of crab flesh. The
boat rammed the wharf hard enough to throw them all forward, but no one was
hurt, and Dad was already twisted to see if the ripples on the canal were
enough to map their route into hiding. Water lines went across, lapped the
stones, and rippled back to meet each other, settling, to be dappled by the
sun. It all went away.

 
          
Dad
listened. So did everybody.

 
          
Dad’s
breathing echoed like fists beating against the cold wet wharf stones. In the
shadow, Mom’s cat eyes just watched Father for some clue to what next.

 
          
Dad
relaxed and blew out a breath, laughing at himself.

 
          
“The
rocket, of course. I’m getting jumpy. The rocket.”

 
          
Michael
said, “What happened, Dad, what happened?”

 
          
“Oh,
we just blew up our rocket, is all,” said Timothy, trying to sound
matter-of-fact. “I’ve heard rockets blown up before. Ours just blew.”

 
          
“Why
did we blow up our rocket?” asked Michael. “Huh, Dad?”

 
          
“It’s
part of the game, silly!” said Timothy.

 
          
“A
game!” Michael and Robert loved the word.

 
          
“Dad
fixed it so it would blow up and no one’d know where we landed or went! In case
they ever came looking, see?”

 
          
“Oh
boy, a secret!”

 
          
“Scared
by my own rocket,” admitted Dad to Mom. “I
am
nervous. It’s silly to think there’ll ever be any more rockets. Except
one
, perhaps, if Edwards and his wife
get through with
their
ship.”

 
          
He
put his tiny radio to his ear again. After two minutes he dropped his hand as
you would drop a rag.

 
          
“It’s
over at last,” he said to Mom. “The radio just went off the atomic beam. Every
other world station’s gone. They dwindled down to a couple in the last few
years. Now the air’s completely silent. It’ll probably remain silent.”

 
          
“For
how long?” asked Robert.

 
          
“Maybe—your
great-grandchildren will hear it again,” said Dad. He just sat there, and the
children were caught in the center of his awe and defeat and resignation and
acceptance.