Where'd you say you were from?" The captain flashed a white smile. Aside to his men he withpered, "_Now_ we're getting someplace!" To Mr. Aaa he called, "We traveled sixty million miles. From Earth!" Mr. Aaa yawned. "That's only _fifty_ million miles this time of year." He picked up a frightful-looking weapon. "Well, I have to go now. Just take that silly note, though I don't know what good it'll do you, and go over that hill into the little town of Iopr and tell Mr. Iii all about it. _He's_ the man you want to see. Not Mr. Ttt, he's an idiot; I'm going to kill him. Not me, because you're not in my line of work." "Line of work, line of work!" bleated the captain. "Do you have to be in a certain line of work to welcome Earth men!" "Don't be silly, everyone knows _that!_" Mr. Aaa rushed downstairs. "Good-by!" And down the causeway he raced, like a pair of wild calipers. The four travelers stood shocked. Finally the captain said, "We'll find someone yet who'll listen to us." "Maybe we could go out and come in again," said one of the men in a dreary voice. "Maybe we should take off and land again. Give them time to organize a party." "That might be a good idea," murmured the tired captain. The little town was full of people drifting in and out of doors, saying hello to one another, wearing golden masks and blue masks and crimson masks for pleasant variety, masks with silver lips and bronze eyebrows, masks that smiled or masks that frowned, according to the owners' dispositions. The four men, wet from their long walk, paused and asked a little girl where Mr. Iii's house was. "There." The child nodded her head. The captain got eagerly, carefully down on one knee, looking into her sweet young face. "Little girl, I want to talk to you." He seated her on his knee and folded her small brown hands neatly in his own big ones, as if ready for a bed-time story which he was shaping in his mind slowly and with a great patient happiness in details. "Well, here's how it is, little girl. Six months ago another rocket came to Mars. There was a man named York in it, and his assistant. Whatever happened to them, we don't know. Maybe they crashed. They came in a rocket. So did we. You should see it! A _big_ rocket! So we're the _Second_ Expedition, following up the First! And we came all the way from Earth. . . ." The little girl disengaged one hand without thinking about it, and clapped an expressionless golden mask over her face, Then she pulled forth a golden spider toy and dropped it to the ground while the captain talked on. The toy spider climbed back up to her knee obediently, while she speculated upon it coolly through the slits of her emotionless mask and the captain shook her gently and urged his story upon her. "We're Earth Men," he said. "Do you believe me?" "Yes." The little girl peeped at the way she was wiggling her toes in the dust. "Fine." The captain pinched her arm, a little bit with joviality, a little bit with meanness to get her to look at him. "We built our own rocket ship. Do you believe _that?_" The little girl dug in her nose with a finger. "Yes." "And--take your finger out of your nose, little girl--_I_ am the captain, and--" "Never before in history has anybody come across space in a big rocket ship," recited the little creature, eyes shut. "Wonderful! How did you know?" "Oh, telepathy." She wiped a casual finger on her knee. "Well, aren't you just _ever_ so excited?" cried the captain. "Aren't you glad?" "You just better go see Mr. Iii right away." She dropped her toy to the ground. "Mr. Iii will like talking to you." She ran off, with the toy spider scuttling obediently after her. The captain squatted there looking after her with his hand out. His eyes were watery in his head. He looked at his empty hands. His mouth hung open: The other three men stood with their shadows under them. They spat on the stone street. . . . Mr. Iii answered his door. He was on his way to a lecture, but he had a minute, if they would hurry inside and tell him what they desired. . . . "A little attention," said the captain, red-eyed and tired. "We're from Earth, we have a rocket, there are four of us, crew and captain, we're exhausted, we're hungry, we'd like a place to sleep. We'd like someone to give us the key to the city or something like that, and we'd like somebody to shake our hands and say 'Hooray' and say 'Congratulations, old man!' That about sums it up." Mr. Iii was a tall, vaporous, thin man with thick blind blue crystals over his yellowish eyes. He bent over his desk and brooded upon some papers, glancing now and again with extreme penetration at his guests. "Well, I haven't the forms with me here, I don't _think_." He rummaged through the desk drawers. "Now, where _did_ I put the forms?" He mused. "Somewhere. Somewhere. Oh, _here_ we are! Now!" He handed the papers over crisply. "You'll have to sign these papers, of course." "Do we have to go through all this rigmarole?" Mr. Iii gave him a thick glassy look. "You say you're from Earth, don't you? Well, then there's nothing for it but you sign." The captain wrote his name. "Do you want my crew to sign also?" Mr. Iii looked at the captain, looked at the three others, and burst into a shout of derision. "_Them_ sign! Ho! How marvelous! Them, oh, _them_ sign!" Tears sprang from his eyes. He slapped his knee and bent to let his laughter jerk out of his gaping mouth. He held himself up with the desk. "_Them_ sign!" The four men scowled. "What's funny?" "Them sign!" sighed Mr. Iii, weak with hilarity. "So very funny. I'll have to tell Mr. Xxx about this!" He examined the filled-out form, still laughing. "Everything seems to be in order." He nodded. "Even the agreement for euthanasia if final decision on such a step is necessary." He chuckled. "Agreement for _what?_" "Don't talk. I have something for you. Here. Take this key." The captain flushed. "It's a great honor." "Not the key to the city, you fool!" snapped Mr. Iii. "Just a key to the House. Go down that corridor, unlock the big door, and go inside and shut the door tight. You can spend the night there. In the morning I'll send Mr. Xxx to see you." Dubiously the captain took the key in hand. He stood looking at the floor. His men did not move. They seemed to be emptied of all their blood and their rocket fever. They were drained dry. "What is it? What's wrong?" inquired Mr. Iii. "What are you waiting for? What do you want?" He came and peered up into the captain's face, stooping. "Out with it, you!" "I don't suppose you could even--" suggested the captain. "I mean, that is, try to, or think about . . ." He hesitated. "We've worked hard, we've come a long way, and maybe you could just shake our hands and say 'Well done!' do you--think?" His voice faded. Mr. Iii stuck out his hand stiffly. "Congratulations!" He smiled a cold smile. "Congratulations." He turned away. "I must go now. Use that key." Without noticing them again, as if they had melted down through the floor, Mr. Iii moved about the room packing a little manuscript case with papers. He was in the room another five minutes but never again addressed the solemn quartet that stood with heads down, their heavy legs sagging, the light dwindling from their eyes. When Mr. Iii went out the door he was busy looking at his fingernails. . . . They straggled along the corridor in the dull, silent afternoon light. They came to a large burnished silver door, and the silver key opened it. They entered, shut the door, and turned. They were in a vast sunlit hall. Men and woman sat at tables and stood in conversing groups. At the sound of the door they regarded the four uniformed men. One Martian stepped forward, bowing. "I am Mr. Uuu," he said. "And I am Captain Jonathan Williams, of New York City, on Earth," said the captain without emphasis. Immediately the hall exploded! The rafters trembled with shouts and cries. The people, rushing forward, waved and shrieked happily, knocking down tables, swarming, rollicking, seizing the four Earth Men, lifting them swiftly to their shoulders. They charged about the hall six times, six times making a full and wonderful circuit of the room, jumping, bounding, singing. The Earth Men were so stunned that they rode the toppling shoulders for a full minute before they began to laugh and shout at each other: "Hey! This is more _like_ it!" "This is the life! Boy! Yay! Yow! Whoopee!" They winked tremendously at each other. They flung up their hands to clap the air. "Hey!" "Hooray!" said the crowd. They set the Earth Men on a table. The shouting died. The captain almost broke into tears. "Thank you. It's good, it's good." "Tell us about yourselves," suggested Mr. Uuu. The captain cleared his throat. The audience ohed and ahed as the captain talked. He introduced his crew; each made a small speech and was embarrassed by the thunderous applause. Mr. Uuu dapped the captain's shoulder, "It's good to see another man from Earth. I am from Earth also." "How was that again?" "There are many of us here from Earth." "You? From Earth?" The captain stared. "But is that possible? Did you come by rocket? Has space travel been going on for centuries?" His voice was disappointed. "What--what country are you from?" "Tuiereol. I came by the spirit of my body, years ago." "Tuiereol." The captain mouthed the word. "I don't know that country. What's this about spirit of body?" "And Miss Rrr over here, she's from Earth, too, _aren't_ you, Miss Rrr?" Miss Rrr nodded and laughed strangely. "And so is Mr. Www and Mr. Qqq and Mr. Vvv!" "I'm from Jupiter," declared one man, preening himself. "I'm from Saturn," said another, eyes glinting slyly. "Jupiter, Saturn," murmured the captain, blinking. It was very quiet now; the people stood around and sat at the tables which were strangely empty for banquet tables. Their yellow eyes were glowing, and there were dark shadows under their cheekbones. The captain noticed for the first time that there were no windows; the light seemed to permeate the walls. There was only one door. The captain winced. "This is confusing. Where on Earth is this Tuiereol? Is it near America?" "What is America?" "You never heard of America! You say you're from Earth and yet you don't know!" Mr. Uuu drew himself up angrily. "Earth is a place of seas and nothing but seas. There is no land. I am from Earth, and know." "Wait a minute." The captain sat back. "You look like a regular Martian. Yellow eyes. Brown skin." "Earth is a place of all _jungle_," said Miss Rrr proudly. "I'm from Orri, on Earth, a civilization built of silver!" Now the captain turned his head from and then to Mr. Uuu and then to Mr. Www and Mr. Zzz and Mr. Nnn and Mr. Hhh and Mr. Bbb. He saw their yellow eyes waxing and waning in the light, focusing and unfocusing. He began to shiver. Finally he turned to his men and regarded them somberly. "Do you realize what this is?" "What, sir?" "This is no celebration," replied the captain tiredly. "This is no banquet. These aren't government representatives. This is no surprise party. Look at their eyes. Listen to them!" Nobody breathed. There was only a soft white move of eyes in the close room. "Now I understand"--the captain's voice was far away-- "why everyone gave us notes and passed us on, one from the other, until we met Mr. Iii, who sent us down a corridor with a key to open a door and shut a door. And here we are . . ." "Where are we, sir?" The captain exhaled. "In an insane asylum." It was night. The large hall lay quiet and dimly illuminated by hidden light sources in the transparent walls. The four Earth Men sat around a wooden table, their bleak heads bent over their whispers. On the floors, men and women lay huddled. There were little stirs in the dark corners, solitary men or women gesturing their hands. Every half-hour one of the captain's men would try the silver door and return to the table. "Nothing doing, sir. We're locked in proper." "They think we're really insane, sir?" "Quite. That's why there was no hullabaloo to welcome us. They merely tolerated what, to them, must be a constantly recurring psychotic condition." He gestured at the dark sleeping shapes all about them. "Paranoids, every single one! What a welcome they gave us! For a moment there"--a little fire rose and died in his eyes--"I thought we were getting our true reception. All the yelling and singing and speeches. Pretty nice, wasn't it--while it lasted?" "How long will they keep us here, sir?" "Until we prove we're not psychotics." "That should be easy." "I _hope_ so." "You don't sound very certain, sir." "I'm not. Look in that corner." A man squatted alone in darkness. Out of his mouth issued a blue flame which turned into the round shape of a small naked woman. It flourished on the air softly in vapors of cobalt light, whispering and sighing. The captain nodded at another corner. A woman stood there, changing. First she was embedded in a crystal pillar, then she melted into a golden statue, finally a staff of polished cedar, and back to a woman. All through the midnight hall people were juggling thin violet flames, shifting, changing, for nighttime was the time of change and affliction. "Magicians, sorcerers," whispered one of the Earth Men. "No, hallucination. They pass their insanity over into us so that we see their hallucinations too. Telepathy. Autosuggestion and telepathy." "Is that what worries you, sir?" "Yes. If hallucinations can appear this 'real' to us, to anyone, if hallucinations are catching and almost believable, it's no wonder they mistook us for psychotics. If that man can produce little blue fire women and that woman there melt into a pillar, how natural if normal Martians think _we_ produce our rocket ship with _our_ minds." "Oh," said his men in the shadows. Around them, in the vast hall, flames leaped blue, flared, evaporated. Little demons of red sand ran between the teeth of sleeping men. Women became oily snakes. There was a smell of reptiles and animals. In the morning everyone stood around looking fresh, happy, and normal. There were no flames or demons in the room. The captain and his men waited by the silver door, hoping it would open. Mr. Xxx arrived after about four hours. They had a suspicion that he had waited outside the door, peering in at them for at least three hours before he stepped in, beckoned, and led them to his small office. He was a jovial, smiling man, if one could believe the mask he wore, for upon it was painted not one smile, but three. Behind it, his voice was the voice of a not so smiling psychologist. "What seems to be the trouble?" "You think we're insane, and we're not," said the captain. "Contrarily, I do not think _all_ of you are insane." The psychologist pointed a little wand at the captain. "No. Just _you_, sir. The others are secondary hallucinations." The captain slapped his knee, "So _that's_ it! That's why Mr. Iii laughed when I suggested my men sign the papers too!" "Yes, Mr. Iii told me." The psychologist laughed out of the carved, smiling mouth. "A good joke. Where was I? Secondary hallucinations, yes. Women come to me with snakes crawling from their ears. When I cure them, the snakes vanish." "We'll be glad to be cured. Go right ahead." Mr. Xxx seemed surprised. "Unusual. Not many people want to be cured. The cure is drastic, you know." "Cure ahead! I'm confident you'll find we're all sane." "Let me check your papers to be sure they're in order for a 'cure.'" He checked a file. "Yes. You know, such cases as yours need special 'curing.' The people in that hall are simpler forms. But once you've gone this far, I must point out, with primary, secondary, auditory, olfactory, and labial hallucinations, as well as tactile and optical fantasies, it is pretty bad business. We have to resort to euthanasia." The captain leaped up with a roar. "Look here, we've stood quite enough! Test us, tap our knees, check our hearts, exercise us, ask questions!" "You are free to speak." The captain raved for an hour. The psychologist listened. "Incredible," he mused. "Most detailed dream fantasy I've ever heard." "God damn it, we'll show you the rocket ship!" screamed the captain. "I'd like to see it. Can you manifest it in this room?" "Oh, certainly. It's in that file of yours, under R." Mr. Xxx peered seriously into his file. He went "Tsk" and shut the file solemnly. "Why did you tell me to look? The rocket isn't there." "Of course not, you idiot! I was joking. Does an insane man joke?" "You find some odd senses of humor. Now, take me out to your rocket. I wish to see it." It was noon. The day was very hot when they reached the rocket. "So." The psychologist walked up to the ship and tapped it. It gonged softly. "May I go inside?" he asked slyly. "You may." Mr. Xxx stepped in and was gone for a long time. "Of all the silly, exasperating things." The captain chewed a cigar as he waited. "For two cents I'd go back home and tell people not to bother with Mars. What a suspicious bunch of louts." "I gather that a good number of their population are insane, sir. That seems to be their main reason for doubting." "Nevertheless, this is all so damned irritating." The psychologist emerged from the ship after half an hour of prowling, tapping, listening, smelling, tasting. "_Now_ do you believe!" shouted the captain, as if he were deaf. The psychologist shut his eyes and scratched his nose. "This is the most incredible example of sensual hallucination and hypnotic suggestion I've ever encountered. I went through your 'rocket,' as you call it." He tapped the hull. "I hear it. Auditory fantasy." He drew a breath. "I smell it. Olfactory hallucination, induced by sensual telepathy." He kissed the ship. "I taste it. Labial fantasy!" He shook the captain's hand. "May I congratulate you? You are a psychotic genius! You have done a most complete job! The task of projecting your psychotic image life into the mind of another via telepathy and keeping the hallucinations from becoming sensually weaker is almost impossible. Those people in the House usually concentrate on visuals or, at the most, visuals and auditory fantasies combined. You have balanced the whole conglomeration! Your insanity is beautifully complete!" "My insanity." The captain was pale. "Yes, yes, what a lovely insanity. Metal, rubber, gravitizers, foods, clothing, fuel, weapons, ladders, nuts, bolts, spoons. Ten thousand separate items I checked on your vessel. Never have I seen such a complexity. There were even shadows under the bunks and under _everything!_ Such concentration of will! And everything, no matter how or when tested, had a smell, a solidity, a taste, a sound! Let me embrace you!" He stood back at last. "I'll write this into my greatest monograph! I'll speak of it at the Martian Academy next month! _Look_ at you! Why, you've even changed your eye color from yellow to blue, your skin to pink from brown. And those clothes, and your hands having five fingers instead of six! Biological metamorphosis through psychological imbalance! And your three friends.--" He took out a little gun. "Incurable, of course. You poor, wonderful man. You will be happier dead. Have you any last words?" "Stop, for God's sake! Don't shoot!" "You sad creature. I shall put you out of this misery which has driven you to imagine this rocket and these three men. It will be most engrossing to watch your friends and your rocket vanish once I have killed you. I will write a neat paper on the dissolvement of neurotic images from what I perceive here today." "I'm from Earth! My name is Jonathan Williams, and these--" "Yes, I know," soothed Mr. Xxx, and fired his gun. The captain fell with a bullet in his heart. The other three men screamed. Mr. Xxx stared at them. "You continue to exist? This is superb! Hallucinations with time and spatial persistence!" He pointed the gun at them. "Well, I'll scare you into dissolving." "No!" cried the three men, "An auditory appeal, even with the patient dead," observed Mr. Xxx as he shot the three men down. They lay on the sand, intact, not moving. He kicked them. Then he rapped on the ship. "_It_ persists! _They_ persist!" He fired his gun again and again at the bodies. Then he stood back. The smiling mask dropped from his face. Slowly the little psychologist's face changed. His jaw sagged. The gun dropped from his fingers. His eyes were dull and vacant He put his hands up and turned in a blind cirde. He fumbled at the bodies, saliva filling his mouth. "Hallucinations," he mumbled frantically. "Taste. Sight. Smell. Sound. Feeling." He waved his hands. His eyes bulged. His mouth began to give off a faint froth. "Go away!" he shouted at the bodies. "Go away!" he screamed at the ship. He examined his trembling hands. "Contaminated," he whispered wildly. "Carried over into me. Telepathy. Hypnosis. Now _I'm_ insane, Now _I'm_ contaminated. Hallucinations in all their sensual forms." He stopped and searched around with his numb hands for the gun. "Only one cure. Only one way to make them go away, vanish." A shot rang out, Mr. Xxx fell. The four bodies lay in the sun. Mr. Xxx lay where he fell. The rocket reclined on the little sunny hill and didn't vanish. When the town people found the rocket at sunset they wondered what it was. Nobody knew, so it was sold to a junkman and hauled off to be broken up for scrap metal. That night it rained all night. The next day was fair and warm. March 2000: THE TAXPAYER He wanted to go to Mars on the rocket. He went down to the rocket field in the early morning and yelled in through the wire fence at the men in uniform that he wanted to go to Mars, He told them he was a taxpayer, his name was Pritchard, and he had a right to go to Mars. Wasn't he born right here in Ohio? Wasn't he a good citizen? Then why couldn't _he_ go to Mars? He shook his fists at them and told them that he wanted to get away from Earth; anybody with any sense wanted to get away from Earth. There was going to be a big atomic war on Earth in about two years, and he didn't want to be here when it happened. He and thousands of others like him, if they had any sense, would go to Mars. See if they wouldn't! To get away from wars and censorship and statism and conscription and government control of this and that, of art and science! You could have Earth! He was offering his good right hand, his heart, his head, for the opportunity to go to Mars! What did you have to do, what did you have to sign, whom did you have to know, to get on the rocket? They laughed out through the wire screen at him. He didn't want to go to Mars, they said. Didn't he know that the First and Second Expeditions had failed, had vanished; the men were probably dead? But they couldn't prove it, they didn't know for sure, he said, clinging to the wire fence. Maybe it was a land of milk and honey up there, and Captain York and Captain Williams had just never bothered to come back. Now were they going to open the gate and let him in to board the Third Expeditionary Rocket, or was he going to have to kick it down? They told him to shut up. He saw the men walking out to the rocket. Wait for me! he cried. Don't leave me here on this terrible world, I've got to get away; there's going to be an atom war! Don't leave me on Earth! They dragged him, struggling, away. They slammed the policewagon door and drove him off into the early morning, his face pressed to the rear window, and just before they sirened over a hill, he saw the red fire and heard the big sound and felt the huge tremor as the silver rocket shot up and left him behind on an ordinary Monday morning on the ordinary planet Earth. April 2000: THE THIRD EXPEDITION The ship came down from space. It came from the stars and the black velocities, and the shining movements, and the silent gulfs of space. It was a new ship; it had fire in its body and men in its metal cells, and it moved with a clean silence, fiery and warm. In it were seventeen men, induding a captain. The crowd at the Ohio field had shouted and waved their hands up into the sunlight, and the rocket had bloomed out great flowers of heat and color and run away into space on the _third_ voyage to Mars! Now it was decelerating with metal efficiency in the upper Martian atmospheres. It was still a thing of beauty and strength. It had moved in the midnight waters of space like a pale sea leviathan; it had passed the ancient moon and thrown itself onward into one nothingness following another. The men within it had been battered, thrown about, sickened, made well again, each in his turn. One man had died, but now the remaining sixteen, with their eyes clear in their heads and their faces pressed to the thick glass ports, watched Mars swing up under them. "Mars!" cried Navigator Lustig. "Good old Mars!" said Samuel Hinkston, archaeologist. "Well," said Captain John Black. The rocket landed on a lawn of green grass. Outside, upon this lawn, stood an iron deer. Further up on the green stood a tall brown Victorian house, quiet in the sunlight, all covered with scrolls and rococo, its windows made of blue and pink and yellow and green colored glass. Upon the porch were hairy geraniums and an old swing which was hooked into the porch ceiling and which now swung back and forth, back and forth, in a little breeze. At the summit of the house was a cupola with diamond leaded-glass windows and a dunce-cap roof! Through the front window you could see a piece of music titled "Beautiful Ohio" sitting on the music rest. Around the rocket in four directions spread the little town, green and motionless in the Martian spring. There were white houses and red brick ones, and tall elm trees blowing in the wind, and tall maples and horse chestnuts. And church steeples with golden bells silent in them. The rocket men looked out and saw this. Then they looked at one another and then they looked out again. They held to each other's elbows, suddenly unable to breathe, it seemed, Their faces grew pale. "I'll be damned," whispered Lustig, rubbing his face with his numb fingers. "I'll be damned." "It just can't be," said Samuel Hinkston. "Lord," said Captain John Black. There was a call from the chemist. "Sir, the atmosphere is thin for breathing. But there's enough oxygen. It's safe." "Then we'll go out," said Lustig. "Hold on," said Captain John Black. "How do we know what this is?" "It's a small town with thin but breathable air in it, sir." "And it's a small town the like of Earth towns," said Hinkston, the archaeologist "Incredible. It can't be, but it _is_." Captain John Black looked at him idly. "Do you think that the civilizations of two planets can 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 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 through this telescopic lens here, is it logical that 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 on Mars!" "Captain Williams, of course!" cried Hinkston, "What?" "Captain Williams and his crew of three men! Or Nathaniel York and his partner. That would explain it!" "That would explain absolutely nothing. As far as we've been able to figure, the York expedition exploded the day it reached Mars, killing York and his partner. As for Williams and his three men, their ship exploded the second day after their arrival. At least the pulsations from their radios ceased at that time, so we figure that if the men were alive after that they'd have contacted us. And anyway, the York expedition was only a year ago, while Captain Williams and his men landed here some time during last August. Theorizing that they are still alive, could they, even with the help of a brilliant Martian race, have built such a town as this and _aged_ it in so short a time? Look at that town out there; why, it's been standing here for the last seventy years. Look at the wood on the porch newel; look at the trees, a century old, all of them! No, this isn't York's work or Williams'. It's something else. I don't like it. And I'm not leaving the ship until I know what it is." "For that matter," said Lustig, nodding, "Williams and his men, as well as York, landed on the _opposite_ side of Mars. We were very careful to land on _this_ side." "An excellent point. Just in case a hostile local tribe of Martians killed off York and Williams, we have instructions to land in a further region, to forestall a recurrence of such a disaster. So here we are, as far as we know, in a land that Williams and York never saw." "Damn it," said Hinkston, "I want to get out into this town, sir, with your permission. It may be there are similar thought patterns, civilization graphs on every planet in our sun system. We may be on the threshold of the greatest psychological and metaphysical discovery of our age!" "I'm willing to wait a moment," said Captain John Black. "It may be, sir, that we're looking upon a phenomenon that, for the first time, would absolutely prove the existence of God, sir." "There are many people who are of good faith without such proof, Mr. Hinkston." "I'm one myself, sir. But certainly a town like this could not occur without divine intervention. The _detail_. It fills me with such feelings that I don't know whether to laugh or cry." "Do neither, then, until we know what we're up against." "Up against?" Lustig broke in. "Against nothing, Captain. It's a good, quiet green town, a lot like the old-fashioned one I was born in. I like the looks of it." "When were you born, Lustig?" "Nineteen-fifty, sir." "And you, Hinkston?" "Nineteen fifty-five, sir. Grinnell, Iowa. And this looks like home to me." "Hinkston, Lustig, I could be either of your fathers. I'm just eighty years old. Born in 1920 in Illinois, and through the grace of God and a science that, in the last fifty years, knows how to make _some_ old men young again, here I am on Mars, not any more tired than the rest of you, but infinitely more suspicious. This town out here looks very peaceful and cool, and so much like Green Bluff, Illinois, that it frightens me. It's too _much_ like Green Bluff." He turned to the radioman. "Radio Earth. Tell them we've landed. That's all. Tell them we'll radio a full report tomorrow." "Yes, sir." Captain Black looked out the rocket port with his face that should have been the face of a man eighty but seemed like the face of a man in his fortieth year. "Tell you what we'll do, Lustig; you and I and Hinkston'll look the town over. The other men'll stay aboard. If anything happens they can get the hell out. A loss of three men's better than a whole ship. If something bad happens, our crew can warn the next rocket. That's Captain Wilder's rocket, I think, due to be ready to take off next Christmas. if there's something hostile about Mars we certainly want the next rocket to be well armed." "So are we. We've got a regular arsenal with us." "Tell the men to stand by the guns then. Come on, 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 green branches, and the blossom scent drifted upon the air. Somewhere in the town someone 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 Lauder. The three men stood outside the ship. They sucked and gasped at the thin, thin air and moved slowly so as not to tire themselves. 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. 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," said Samuel Hinkston, "it must be, it _has_ to be, that rocket travel to Mars began in the years before the first World War!" "No." "How else can you explain these houses, the iron deer, the pianos, the music?" Hinkston took the captain's elbow persuasively and looked into the captain's face. "Say that there were people in the year 1905 who hated war and got together with some scientists in secret and built a rocket and came out here to Mars--" "No, no, Hinkston." "Why not? The world was a different world in 1905; they could have kept it a secret much more easily." "But a complex thing like a rocket, no, you couldn't keep it secret." "And they came up here to live, and naturally the houses they built were similar to Earth houses because they brought the culture with them." "And they've lived here all these years?" said the captain. "In peace and quiet, yes. Maybe they made a few trips, enough to bring enough people here for one small town, and then stopped for fear of being discovered. That's why this town seems so old-fashioned. I don't see a thing, myself, older than the year 1927, do you? Or maybe, sir, rocket travel is older than we think. Perhaps it started in some part of the world centuries ago and was kept secret by the small number of men who came to Mars with only occasional visits to Earth over the centuries." "You make it sound almost reasonable." "It has to be. We've the proof here before us; all we have to do is find some people and verify it." 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. They set foot upon the porch. Hollow echoes sounded from under the boards as they walked to 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 in a lemonade pitcher. In a distant kitchen, because of the heat of the day, someone was preparing a cold lunch. Someone was humming under her breath, high and sweet. Captain John Black rang the bell. Footsteps, dainty and thin, came along the hall, and a kind-faced lady of some forty years, dressed in a 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--" He stopped. She looked out at him with dark, wondering eyes. "If you're selling something--" she began. "No, wait!" he cried. "What town is this?" She looked him up and down. "What do you mean, what town is it? How could you be in a town and not know the name?" The captain looked as if he wanted to go sit under a shady apple tree. "We're strangers here. We want to know how this town got here and how you got here." "Are you census takers?" "No." "Everyone knows," she said, "this town was built in 1868. Is this a game?" "No, not a game!" cried the captain. "We're from Earth." "Out of the _ground_, do you mean?" she wondered. "No, we came from the third planet, Earth, in a ship. And we've landed here on the fourth planet, Mars--" "This," explained the woman, as if she were addressing a child, "is Green Bluff, Illinois, on the continent of America, surrounded by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, on a place called the world, or, sometimes, the Earth. Go away now. Goodby." She trotted down the hall, running her fingers through the beaded curtains. The three men looked at one another. "Let's knock the screen door in," said Lustig. "We can't do that. This is private property.