Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 1. Ray Bradbury
said Melton. ‘This is ad lib, understand. But this man and wife are faced with a terrible war, super-plus hydrogen bombs, censorship, death in that year, and – here’s the gimmick – they escape into the Past, followed by a man who they think is evil, but who is only trying to show them what their duty is.’
William dropped his glass to the floor.
Mr Melton continued: ‘And this couple take refuge with a group of film people whom they learn to trust. Safety in numbers, they say to themselves.’
Susan felt herself slip down into a chair. Everyone was watching the director. He took a little sip of champagne. ‘Ah, that’s fine. Well, this man and woman, it seems, don’t realize how important they are to the Future. The man, especially, is the keystone to a new bomb metal. So the Searchers, let’s call them, spare no trouble or expense to find, capture, and take home the man and wife, once they get them totally alone, in a hotel room, where no one can see. Strategy. The Searchers work alone, or in groups of eight. One trick or another will do it. Don’t you think it would make a wonderful film, Susan? Don’t you, Bill?’ He finished his drink.
Susan sat with her eyes straight ahead of her.
‘Have a drink?’ said Mr Melton.
William’s gun was out and fired three times, and one of the men fell, and the others ran forward. Susan screamed. A hand was clamped to her mouth. Now the gun was on the floor and William was struggling, held.
Mr Melton said, ‘Please,’ standing there where he had stood, blood showing on his fingers. ‘Let’s not make matters worse.’
Someone pounded on the hall door.
‘Let me in!’
‘The manager,’ said Mr Melton dryly. He jerked his head. ‘Everyone, let’s move!’
‘Let me in! I’ll call the police!’
Susan and William looked at each other quickly, and then at the door.
‘The manager wishes to come in,’ said Mr Melton. ‘Quick!’
A camera was carried forward. From it shot a blue light which encompassed the room instantly. It widened out and the people of the party vanished, one by one.
‘Quickly!’
Outside the window, in the instant before she vanished, Susan saw the green land and the purple and yellow and blue and crimson walls and the cobbles flowing down like a river, a man upon a burro riding into the warm hills, a boy drinking Orange Crush, she could feel the sweet liquid in her throat, a man standing under a cool plaza tree with a guitar, she could feel her hand upon the strings, and, far away, the sea, the blue and tender sea, she could feel it roll her over and take her in.
And then she was gone. Her husband was gone.
The door burst wide open. The manager and his staff rushed in.
The room was empty.
‘But they were just here! I saw them come in, and now – gone!’ cried the manager. ‘The windows are covered with iron grating. They couldn’t get out that way!’
In the late afternoon the priest was summoned and they opened the room again and aired it out, and had him sprinkle holy water through each corner and give it his blessing.
‘What shall we do with these?’ asked the charwoman.
She pointed to the closet, where there were 67 bottles of Chartreuse, cognac, crème de cacao, absinthe, vermouth, tequila, 106 cartons of Turkish cigarettes, and 198 yellow boxes of fifty-cent pure Havana-filler cigars …
The first concussion cut the rocket up the side with a giant can opener. The men were thrown into space like a dozen wriggling silverfish. They were scattered into a dark sea; and the ship, in a million pieces, went on, a meteor swarm seeking a lost sun.
‘Barkley, Barkley, where are you?’
The sound of voices calling like lost children on a cold night.
‘Woode, Woode!’
‘Captain!’
‘Hollis, Hollis, this is Stone.’
‘Stone, this is Hollis. Where are you?’
‘I don’t know. How can I? Which way is up? I’m falling. Good God, I’m falling.’
They fell. They fell as pebbles fall down wells. They were scattered as jackstones are scattered from a gigantic throw. And now instead of men there were only voices – all kinds of voices, disembodied and impassioned, in varying degrees of terror and resignation.
‘We’re going away from each other.’
This was true, Hollis, swinging head over heels, knew this was true. He knew it with a vague acceptance. They were parting to go their separate ways, and nothing could bring them back. They were wearing their sealed-tight space suits with the glass tubes over their pale faces, but they hadn’t had time to lock on their force units. With them they could be small lifeboats in space, saving themselves, saving others, collecting together, finding each other until they were an island of men with some plan. But without the force units snapped to their shoulders they were meteors, senseless, each going to a separate and irrevocable fate.
A period of perhaps ten minutes elapsed while the first terror died and a metallic calm took its place. Space began to weave its strange voices in and out, on a great dark loom, crossing, recrossing, making a final pattern.
‘Stone to Hollis. How long can we talk by phone?’
‘It depends on how fast you’re going your way and I’m going mine.’
‘An hour, I make it.’
‘That should do it,’ said Hollis, abstracted and quiet.
‘What happened?’ asked Hollis a minute later.
‘The rocket blew up, that’s all. Rockets do blow up.’
‘Which way are you going?’
‘It looks like I’ll hit the Moon.’
‘It’s Earth for me. Back to old Mother Earth at ten thousand miles per hour. I’ll burn like a match.’ Hollis thought of it with a queer abstraction of mind. He seemed to be removed from his body, watching it fall down and down through space, as objective as he had been in regard to the first falling snowflakes of a winter season long gone.
The others were silent, thinking of the destiny that had brought them to this, falling, falling, and nothing they could do to change it. Even the captain was quiet, for there was no command or plan he knew that could put things back together again.
‘Oh, it’s a long way down. Oh, it’s a long way down, a long, long, long way down,’ said a voice. ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, it’s a long way down.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Stimson, I think. Stimson, is that you?’
‘It’s a long, long way and I don’t like it. Oh. God. I don’t like it.’
‘Stimson, this is Hollis. Stimson, you hear me?’
A pause while they fell separate from one another.
‘Stimson?’
‘Yes.’ He replied at last.
‘Stimson, take it easy; we’re all in the same fix.’
‘I don’t want to be here. I want to be somewhere else.’
‘There’s a chance we’ll be found.’
‘I