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he paused they never did to me |
oh bartley did you write to me |
alexander slipped his arm about her |
i think i have felt that you were coming |
he bent his face over her hair |
and i she whispered i felt that you were feeling that |
but when i came i thought i had been mistaken |
i've been up in canada with my bridge and i arranged not to come to new york until after you had gone |
then when your manager added two more weeks i was already committed |
i'm going to do what you asked me to do when you were in london |
only i'll do it more completely |
then you don't know what you're talking about |
yes i know very well |
alexander flushed angrily |
i don't know what i ought to say but i don't believe you'd be happy truly i don't aren't you trying to frighten me |
the last two days of the voyage bartley found almost intolerable |
emerging at euston at half past three o'clock in the afternoon alexander had his luggage sent to the savoy and drove at once to bedford square |
she blushed and smiled and fumbled his card in her confusion before she ran upstairs |
the room was empty when he entered |
a coal fire was crackling in the grate and the lamps were lit for it was already beginning to grow dark outside |
she called his name on the threshold but in her swift flight across the room she felt a change in him and caught herself up so deftly that he could not tell just when she did it |
she merely brushed his cheek with her lips and put a hand lightly and joyously on either shoulder |
i never dreamed it would be you bartley |
when did you come bartley and how did it happen you haven't spoken a word |
she looked at his heavy shoulders and big determined head thrust forward like a catapult in leash |
i'll do anything you wish me to bartley she said tremulously |
he pulled up a window as if the air were heavy |
hilda watched him from her corner trembling and scarcely breathing dark shadows growing about her eyes |
it it hasn't always made you miserable has it |
always but it's worse now |
it's unbearable it tortures me every minute |
i am not a man who can live two lives he went on feverishly each life spoils the other |
i get nothing but misery out of either |
there is this deception between me and everything |
at that word deception spoken with such self contempt the color flashed back into hilda's face as suddenly as if she had been struck by a whiplash |
she bit her lip and looked down at her hands which were clasped tightly in front of her |
could you could you sit down and talk about it quietly bartley as if i were a friend and not some one who had to be defied |
he dropped back heavily into his chair by the fire |
i have thought about it until i am worn out |
after the very first |
hilda's face quivered but she whispered yes i think it must have been |
she pressed his hand gently in gratitude weren't you happy then at all |
something of their troubling sweetness came back to alexander too |
presently it stole back to his coat sleeve |
yes hilda i know that he said simply |
i understand bartley i was wrong |
she listened intently but she heard nothing but the creaking of his chair |
you want me to say it she whispered |
bartley leaned his head in his hands and spoke through his teeth |
it's got to be a clean break hilda |
oh bartley what am i to do |
you ask me to stay away from you because you want me |
i will ask the least imaginable but i must have something |
hilda sat on the arm of it and put her hands lightly on his shoulders |
you see loving some one as i love you makes the whole world different |
and then you came back not caring very much but it made no difference |
she slid to the floor beside him as if she were too tired to sit up any longer |
don't cry don't cry he whispered |
they also found a martian calendar the year had been divided into ten more or less equal months and one of them had been doma |
bill chandler the zoologist had been going deeper and deeper into the old sea bottom of syrtis |
that took the center of interest away from archaeology and started a new burst of activity |
the civilian specialists in other fields and the space force people who had been holding tape lines and making sketches and snapping cameras were all flying to lower syrtis to find out how much oxygen there was and what kind of life it supported |
they had four or five species of what might loosely be called birds and something that could easily be classed as a reptile and a carnivorous mammal the size of a cat with birdlike claws and a herbivore almost identical with the piglike thing in the big darfhulva mural and another like a gazelle with a single horn in t... |
the daily newscasts from terra showed a corresponding shift in interest at home |
tony's found the martians |
it was locked from the inside and we had to burn it down with a torch that's where they are |
gloria standish who had dropped in for lunch was on the mezzanine fairly screaming into a radiophone extension dozen and a half of them |
well of course they're dead what a question |
martha remembered the closed door on the first survey they hadn't attempted opening it |
now it was burned away at both sides and lay still hot along the edges on the floor of the big office room in front |
a floodlight was on in the room inside and lattimer was going around looking at things while a space force officer stood by the door |
mass suicide that's what it was notice what's in the corners |
yes charcoal |
so they just came in here and lit the charcoal and sat drinking together till they all fell asleep |
the terran public wanted to hear about martians and if live martians couldn't be found a room full of dead ones was the next best thing |
tony lattimer the discoverer was beginning to cash in on his attentions to gloria and his ingratiation with sid he was always either making voice and image talks for telecast or listening to the news from the home planet |
without question he had become overnight the most widely known archaeologist in history |
not that i'm interested in all this for myself he disclaimed after listening to the telecast from terra two days after his discovery |
bring it to the public attention dramatize it |
so i believe i shall go back at least for a while and see what i can do |
lectures |
the organization of a society of martian archaeology with anthony lattimer ph d the logical candidate for the chair |
i'll be glad to try sir he replied |
inside a secret rocket telemetering device was mounted on its test stand |
this isn't part of your testing routine is it |
another engineer rushed toward the door to see what was happening outside |
electronic equipment cascaded from the wall shelves and a heavy duty chain hoist came loose from its overhead track plunging to the floor with a terrifying crash |
an instant later it crashed over pinning mark faber beneath it |
bud threw up his arms to protect himself but too late |
for minutes no one stirred among the wreckage |
then tom who had been stunned by some falling debris raised himself to a sitting position |
tom's eyes focused in horror on the wreckage enveloped by still billowing dust |
the sky was visible through several gaping holes in the roof which was sagging dangerously on its supporting trusses |
the young inventor had just noticed his friend lying pinned beneath a heavy beam nearby |
his friend's eyelids flickered |
we'd better not try to move him tom decided we'll get an ambulance |
they picked their way through the wreckage and emerged on a scene of frightful destruction |
let's see about getting help for mister faber |
and the only truck we had available was in that burning shed the superintendent added bitterly |
anyhow we want to help got a job for us |
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