Saul walked off.
Along the shores of the dead sea, like so many emptied bottles flung up by some long-gone wave, were the huddled bodies of sleeping men. Saul could see them all down the curve of the empty sea. One, two, three—all of them sleeping alone, most of them worse off than he, each with his little cache of food, each grown into himself, because social converse was weakening and sleep was good.
At first there had been a few nights around mutual campfires. And they had all talked about Earth. That was the only thing they talked about. Earth and the way the waters ran in town creeks and what homemade strawberry pie tasted like and how New York looked in the early morning coming over on the Jersey ferry in the salt wind.
I want Earth, thought Saul. I want it so bad it hurts. I want something I can never have again. And they all want it and it hurts them not to have it. More than food or a woman or anything, I just want Earth. This sickness puts women away forever; they’re not things to be wanted. But Earth, yes. That’s a thing for the mind and not the weak body.
The bright metal flashed on the sky.
Saul looked up.
The bright metal flashed again.
A minute later the rocket landed on the sea bottom. A valve opened, a man stepped out, carrying his luggage with him. Two other men, in protective germicide suits, accompanied him, bringing out vast cases of food, setting up a tent for him.
Another minute and the rocket returned to the sky. The exile stood alone.
Saul began to run. He hadn’t run in weeks, and it was very tiring, but he ran and yelled.
“Hello, hello!”
The young man looked Saul up and down when he arrived.
“Hello. So this is Mars. My name’s Leonard Mark.”
“I’m Saul Williams.”
They shook hands. Leonard Mark was very young—only eighteen; very blond, pink-faced, blue-eyed and fresh in spite of his illness.
“How are things in New York?” said Saul.
“Like this,” said Leonard Mark. And he looked at Saul.
New York grew up out of the desert, made of stone and filled with March winds. Neons exploded in electric color. Yellow taxis glided in a still night. Bridges rose and tugs chanted in the midnight harbors. Curtains rose on spangled musicals.
Saul put his hands to his head, violently.
“Hold on, hold on!” he cried. “What’s happening to me? What’s wrong with me? I’m going crazy!”
Leaves sprouted from trees in Central Park, green and new. On the pathway Saul strolled along, smelling the air.
“Stop it, stop it, you fool!” Saul shouted at himself. He pressed his forehead with his hands. “This can’t be!”
“It is,” said Leonard Mark.
The New York towers faded. Mars returned. Saul stood on the empty sea bottom, staring limply at the young newcomer.
“You,” he said, putting his hand out to Leonard Mark. “You did it. You did it with your mind.”
“Yes,” said Leonard Mark.
Silently they stood facing each other. Finally, trembling, Saul seized the other exile’s hand and wrung it again and again, saying, “Oh, but I’m glad you’re here. You can’t know how glad I am!”
They drank their rich brown coffee from the tin cups.
It was high noon. They had been talking all through the warm morning time.
“And this ability of yours?” said Saul over his cup, looking steadily at the young Leonard Mark.
“It’s just something I was born with,” said Mark, looking into his drink. “My mother was in the blowup of London back in ’57. I was born ten months later. I don’t know what you’d call my ability. Telepathy and thought transference, I suppose. I used to have an act, I traveled all around the world. Leonard Mark, the mental marvel, they said on the billboards. I was pretty well off. Most people thought I was a charlatan. You know what people think of theatrical folks. Only I knew I was really genuine, but I didn’t let anybody know. It was safer not to let it get around too much. Oh, a few of my close friends knew about my real ability. I had a lot of talents that will come in handy now that I’m here on Mars.”
“You sure scared the hell out of me,” said Saul, his cup rigid in his hand. “When New York came right up out of the ground that way, I thought I was insane.”
“It’s a form of hypnotism which affects all of the sensual organs at once—eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin—all of them. What would you like to be doing now most of all?”
Saul put down his cup. He tried to hold his hands very steady. He wet his lips. “I’d like to be in a little creek I used to swim in in Mellin Town, Illinois, when I was a kid. I’d like to be stark-naked and swimming.”
“Well,” said Leonard Mark and moved his head ever so little.
Saul fell back on the sand, his eyes shut.
Leonard Mark sat watching him.
Saul lay on the sand. From time to time his hands moved, twitched excitedly. His mouth spasmed open; sounds issued from his tightening and relaxing throat.
Saul began to make slow movements of his arms, out and back, out and back, gasping with his head to one side, his arms going and coming slowly on the warm air, stirring the yellow sand under him, his body turning slowly over.
Leonard Mark quietly finished his coffee. While he drank he kept his eyes on the moving, whispering Saul lying there on the dead sea bottom.
“All right,” said Leonard Mark.
Saul sat up, rubbing his face.
After a moment he told Leonard Mark, “I saw the creek. I ran along the bank and I took off my clothes,” he said breathlessly, his smile incredulous. “And I dived in and swam around!”
“I’m pleased,” said Leonard Mark.
“Here!” Saul reached into his pocket and drew forth his last bar of chocolate. “This is for you.”
“What’s this?” Leonard Mark looked at the gift. “Chocolate? Nonsense, I’m not doing this for pay. I’m doing it because it makes you happy. Put that thing back in your pocket before I turn it into a rattlesnake and it bites you.”
“Thank you, thank you!” Saul put it away. “You don’t know how good that water was.” He fetched the coffeepot. “More?”
Pouring the coffee, Saul shut his eyes a moment.
I’ve got Socrates here, he thought; Socrates and Plato, and Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. This man, by his talk, is a genius. By his talent, he’s incredible! Think of the long, easy days and the cool nights of talk we’ll have. It won’t be a bad year at all. Not half.
He spilled the coffee.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Saul himself was confused, startled.
We’ll be in Greece, he thought. In Athens. We’ll be in Rome, if we want, when we study the Roman writers. We’ll stand in the Parthenon and the Acropolis. It won’t be just talk, but it’ll be a place to be, besides. This man can do it. He has the power to do it. When we talk the plays of Racine, he can make a stage and players and all of it for me. By Christ, this is better than life ever was! How much better to be sick and here than well on Earth without these abilities! How many people have ever seen a Greek drama played in a Greek amphitheater in the year 31 B.C.?
And if I ask, quietly and earnestly, will this man take on the aspect of Schopenhauer and Darwin and Bergson and all the other thoughtful men of the ages . . .? Yes, why not? To sit and talk with Nietzsche in person, with Plato himself . . .!
There was only one thing wrong. Saul felt himself swaying.
The other men. The other sick ones along the bottom of this dead sea.
In the distance men were moving, walking toward them. They had seen the rocket flash, land, dislodge a passenger. Now they were coming, slowly, painfully, to greet the new arrival.
Saul was cold. “Look,” he said. “Mark, I think we’d better head for the mountains.”
“Why?”
“See those men coming? Some of them are insane.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Isolation and all make them that way?”
“Yes, that’s it. We’d better get going.”
“They don’t look very dangerous. They move slowly.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Mark looked at Saul. “You’re trembling. Why’s that?”
“There’s no time to talk,” said Saul, getting up swiftly. “Come on. Don’t you realize what’ll happen once they discover your talent? They’ll fight over you. They’ll kill each other—kill you—for the right to own you.”
“Oh, but I don’t belong to anybody,” said Leonard Mark. He looked at Saul. “No. Not even you.”
Saul jerked his head. “I didn’t even think of that.”
“Didn’t you now?” Mark laughed.
“We haven’t time to argue,” answered Saul, eyes blinking, cheeks blazing. “Come on!”
“I don’t want to. I’m going to sit right here until those men show up. You’re a little too possessive. My life’s my own.”
Saul felt an ugliness in himself. His face began to twist. “You heard what I said.”
“How very quickly you changed from a friend to an enemy,” observed Mark.
Saul hit at him. It was a neat quick blow, coming down.
Mark ducked aside, laughing. “No, you don’t!”
They were in the center of Times Square. Cars roared, hooting, upon them. Buildings plunged up, hot, into the blue air.
“It’s a lie!”
