Bradbury Stories 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales Part 80

Musingly, Drew dropped his hand. "Okay. Go ahead."

They ran together. . . .

Fresh footsteps, fresh and deep and delicately defined. Footsteps that rushed, swirled, pelted on before them, coming and going, alone, across the dry sea bottom. Glance at the wrist watch. Five minutes, then. Hurry. Rush. Run. Drew panted, laughing. Ridiculous. Silly. Two men plunging forward. Really, if it weren't such a lonely, serious thing, he would sit down and laugh until he cried. Two supposedly intelligent men, two Robinson Crusoes racing after a feminine and as yet invisible girl Friday! Ha!

"What's funny?" shouted Smith, far ahead.

"Nothing. Watch the time. Oxygen gives out, you know."

"We've plenty."

"Watch it, though!"

Did she realize when she came by here, thought Drew amusedly, putting her footfalls so delicately into the earth, that by so doing, so innocently laying her gentle small feet, she would cause a crisis among men? No. Totally unaware. Totally.

He must run anyway and keep up with that insane Smith. Silly, silly. And yet-not so silly.

As Drew ran, a warmness filled his head. After all, it would be swell to sit by the fire tonight beside a beautiful woman, holding her hand, kissing her and touching her.

"What if she's blue?"

Smith turned as he ran. "What?"

"What if her skin's blue? Like the hills? What then?"

"Blast you, Drew!"

"Ha!" Drew shouted his laugh and they pelted into an old river draw and along a ca.n.a.l, both lying empty in the seasonless time.

The footprints moved delicately on and on to the foothills. They had to stop when they reached the climb.

"Dibs," said Drew, eyes sharp and yellow.

"What?"

"I said 'Dibs on her.' That means I get to speak to her first. Remember when we were kids? We said 'Dibs.' Okay. I just said 'Dibs.' That makes it official."

Smith was not smiling.

"What's wrong, Smith? 'Fraid of compet.i.tion?" said Drew.

Smith did not speak.

"I've got quite a profile," Drew pointed out. "Also, I'm four inches taller."

Smith looked coldly at him. His eyes were still.

"Yes, sir, compet.i.tion," Drew went on. "Tell you what, Smith-if she's got a friend, I'll let you have the friend."

"Shut up," said Smith glaring at him.

Drew stopped smiling and stood back. "Look here, Smith, you better take it slow. You're getting all het up. I don't like to see you this way. Everything's been fine until now."

"I'll act anyway I please. You just keep out of my business. After all, I found the footprints!"

"Say that again."

"Well, you found them, maybe, but it was my idea to follow them up!"

"Was it?" Drew said slowly.

"You know it was."

"Do I?"

"Holy Pete, a year in s.p.a.ce, no company, nothing, traveling, and now when something like this happens, someone human-"

"Someone feminine."

Smith c.o.c.ked his fist. Drew caught it, twisted it, slapped Smith's face.

"Wake up!" he shouted into the blank face. "Wake up!" He seized Smith's s.h.i.+rt front. He shook him like a kid. "Listen, listen, you fool! Maybe she's somebody else's woman. Think of that. Where there's a Martian woman, there's going to be a Martian man, you chump."

"Let go of me!"

"Think of it, you idiot, that's all." Drew gave Smith a shove. Smith toppled, almost fell, reached for his gun, thought better of it, shoved it back.

But Drew had seen the gesture. He looked at Smith. "So it's come to that, has it? You really are in a bad way, aren't you? The old cave man himself."

"Shut up!" Smith started to walk on, climbing. "You don't understand."

"No, I've been nowhere the last year. I've been home with Anna every night. I've been warm and safe in New York. You went on the trip all by your lonely little self!" Drew snorted violently and swore. "You sure are an egocentric little squirt!"

They climbed a hill of sand and were among other hills where the footprints led them. They found an abandoned fireplace, charred sticks of wood, a small metal tin which had once, from its arrangement, contained oxygen to feed the fire. They looked new.

"She can't be much farther on." Smith was ready to drop, but still he ran. He slugged his feet into the sand and gasped.

I wonder what she's like, thought Drew, moving in his thoughts, freely, wonderingly. I wonder if she's tall and slender or small and very thin. I wonder what color eyes, what color hair she has? I wonder what her voice is like? Sweet, high? Or soft and very low?

I wonder a lot of things. So does Smith. Smith's wondering, too, now. Listen to him wonder and gasp and run and wonder some more. This isn't any good. It'll lead us to something bad, I know. Why do we go on? A silly question. We go on, of course, because we're only human, no more, no less.

I just hope, he thought, that she doesn't have snakes for hair.

"A cave!"

They had come to the side of a small mountain, into which a cave went back through darkness. The footprints vanished within.

Smith s.n.a.t.c.hed forth his electric torch and sent the beam inside, flas.h.i.+ng it swiftly about, grinning with apprehension. He moved forward cautiously, his breath rasping in the earphones.

"It won't be long now," said Drew.

Smith didn't look at him.

They walked together, elbows b.u.mping. Every time Drew tried to draw ahead, Smith grunted and increased his pace; his face angry with color.

The tunnel twisted, but the footprints still appeared as they flicked the torch beam down.

Suddenly they came out into an immense cave. Across it, by a campfire which had gone out, a figure lay.

"There she is!" shouted Smith. "There she is!"

"Dibs," whispered Drew quietly.

Smith turned, the gun was in his hand. "Get out," he said.

"What?" Drew blinked at the gun.

"You heard what I said, get out!"

"Now, wait a minute-"

"Get back to the s.h.i.+p, wait for me there!"

"If you think you're going to-"

"I'll count to ten, if you haven't moved by then, I'll burn you where you stand-"

"You're crazy!"

"One, two, three, better start moving."

"Listen to me, Smith, for Heaven's sake!"

"Four, five, six, I warned you-ah!"

The gun went off.

The bullet struck Drew in the hip, whirling him about to fall face down, crying out with pain. He lay in darkness.

"I didn't mean it, Drew, I didn't!" Smith cried. "It went off; my finger, my hand, nervous; I didn't mean it!" A figure bent down in the blazing light, turned him over. "I'l fix you up, I'm sorry. I'll get her to help us. Just a second!"

The pain in his side, Drew lay watching as the torch turned and Smith rushed loudly across the long cave toward the sleeping figure by the black fire. He heard Smith call out once or twice, saw him approach and bend down to the figure, touch it.

For a long time, Drew waited.

Smith turned the figure over.

From a distance, Drew heard Smith say, "She's dead."

"What!" called Drew. With fumbling hands he was taking out a small kit of medicine. He broke open a vial of white powder which he swallowed. The pain in his side stopped instantly. Now he went about bandaging the wound. It was bad enough, but not too bad. In the middle distance he saw Smith standing all alone, his torch senselessly in his numb hand, looking down at the woman's figure.

Smith came back and sat down and looked at nothing.

"She's-she's been dead a long long time."

"But the footprints? What about them?"

"This world, of course, this world. We didn't stop to think. We just ran. I just ran. Like a fool. This world, I didn't think until now. Now I know."

"What is it?"

"There's no wind, nothing. No seasons, no rain, no storms, no nothing. Ten thousand years ago, in a dying world, that woman there walked across the sands, alone. Maybe the last one alive. With a few oxygen tins to keep her going. Something happened to the planet. The atmosphere drained off into s.p.a.ce. No wind, no oxygen, no seasons. And her walking alone." Smith shaped it in his mind before telling it quietly to Drew, not looking at him. "And she came to this cave and lay down and died."

"Ten thousand years ago?"

"Ten thousand years. And she's been here ever since. Perfect. Lying here, waiting for us to come and make fools of ourselves. A cosmic joke. Ah, yes! Very funny."

"But the footprints?"

"No wind. No rain. The footprints look just as fresh as the day she made them, naturally. Everything looks new and fresh. Even her. Except there's something about her. Just by seeing her you know she's been dead a long long while. I don't know what it is."

His voice faded away.

Suddenly he remembered Drew. "My gun. You. Can I help?"

"I got it all dressed. It was an accident. Let's put it that way."

"Does it hurt?"

"No."

"You won't try and kill me for this?"

"Shut your mouth. Your finger slipped."

"It did-it really did! I'm sorry."

"I know it did. Shut up." Drew finished packing the wound. "Give me a hand now, we've got to get back to the s.h.i.+p." Smith helped him grunt to his feet and stand swaying. "Now walk me over so I can take a look at Miss Mars, ten thousand B.C. After all that running and this trouble I ought to get a look at her, anyway."

Smith helped him slowly over to stand above the sprawling form. "Looks like she's only sleeping," said Smith. "But she's dead, awful dead. Isn't she pretty?"

She looks just like Anna, thought Drew, with a sense of shock. Anna sleeping there, ready to wake and smile and say h.e.l.lo.

"She looks just like Marguerite," Smith said.

Drew's mouth twitched. "Marguerite?" He hesitated. "Yes. Y-yes, I guess she does." He shook his head. "All depends on how you look at it. I was just thinking myself-"

"What?"