“I’m getting out,” she said.
“I haven’t the slightest idea how much farther to go, or why,” said Michael shrugging. “It’s all the same. Dirt and hills and mountains and sun and dust. It’s really not much different from being out in space. We live in the car just like in a space ship. We’ve enough concentrated supplies to last for a year. How far do we go? Why? When?”
They stepped upon the Earth and felt the warmth of the sun and strolled toward the top of the hill.
“The air smells clean,” he said.
“The ground feels good. I think I’ll take off my shoes.” She did. “Take off your boots, Michael. Try it.”
Wearily he pulled off his boots, stood in his bare feet. “It takes me back.”
“Yes,” she said and began walking toward the hilltop.
He followed, his boots slung around his neck. “There was a road somewhere, with the dust between my toes. Or was it a dream?”
“I guess when the past is old enough,” she said, “it becomes a dream.”
He watched her footprints in the dust. “God, listen to the quiet.”
“I can’t seem to remember so much quiet around me. There’s always been the sound of a space ship, or the pumps back in the cities.”
He did not answer but continued to watch her footsteps and to feel the dust squishing up between his toes. Then suddenly:
“Mary!”
She stopped, whirling around.
He was staring down at her feet.
She followed his gaze.
“It’s grass!” He bent down. “Three blades.”
She knelt beside him. They touched the green blades.
“They’re new,” he said.
They stared, like religious devotees concentrating upon some sacred object.
He rose, pulling her up with him. They hurried to the top of the hill and stood very still, looking down into a valley. There were tiny patches of green and little trees sprouting, and here and there, a pale flower. The green was in a cluster, in the center of the valley and there was a tiny glint of sunlight in its center.
“Oh!”
Her hand found his.
They ran down the gentle slope, feeling the patches of green touch their feet, smelling a new freshness in the air. And coming to the little spring, they stood beside it and watched the crystal water that trickled along the valley floor and lost itself around a bend. They saw a furry, little animal scurry away and heard the twitter of a bird and saw it resting on a slim, bending branch. They heard the buzz of a bee, saw it light on a pale flower at their feet and work at the sweetness inside.
Mary knelt down and drank from the spring.
“It’s so cool. It must come from deep down.”
“It does,” he said. There were tears in his eyes and a tightness in his throat. “From deep down.”
“We can live here, Michael!”
Slowly he looked all around until his sight stopped at the bottom of a hill. “We’ll build our house just beyond those rocks. We’ll dig and plant and you’ll have the child.”
“Yes!” she said. “Oh yes!”
“And the ones back in the city will know the Earth again. Sometime we’ll lead them back here and show them the Earth is coming alive.” He paused. “By following what we had to do for ourselves, we’ve found a way to save them.”
They remained kneeling in the silence beside the pool for a long time. They felt the sun on their backs and looked into the clean depth of the water deeply aware of the new life breathing all around them and of themselves absorbing it, and at the same time giving back to it the life that was their own.
There was only this quiet and breathing and warmth until Michael stood and picked up a rock and walked toward the base of the hill where he had decided to build the house.
UNIFORM OF A MAN
By Dave Dryfoos
Illustrated by Rudolph Palais
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction March 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
After rescue, revenge was uppermost in Chet Barfield’s mind; the hideous, bestial Agvars had to be taught a lesson they’d never forget. His rescuers seemed to disagree, however—until Chet learned his lesson too!
In the village clearing, under the diffuse red sun of Hedlot, Chet Barfield listened intently. Mostly he heard the villagers, the Agvars, noisy with the disregard for sound that comes of defective hearing.
But above their clamor was another note. No… Yes! There it was again—the swish-roar-scream of a spaceship!
Chet’s heart lifted to the altitude of that ship. Rescue! Rescue was at hand for him, after three years as a prisoner.
Thought of it momentarily overcame the passivity that years of starvation had made his habit. He even forgot himself enough to walk erect a few steps, staring skyward—heavenward!—within cupped hands.
But the dense hardwood chain on his ankle brought him up short. When it tightened, he remembered, and slouched to all fours again, moving with the gorilla-like gait of the Agvars toward the unshaded post he was chained to.
He’d been observed. Pawfulls of dirt stung his bent and whip-scarred back, and a treble chorus stung his ears and nerves. The village boys were chanting derisively. Chet had never been able to learn the language, but the tone of voice was unmistakable.
He huddled against the post, knees to chin, hands clasped around his matted hair, awaiting the inevitable sticks and slops. He heard the children’s voices fade as they scattered throughout the village of haphazard lean-tos in search of especially sickening things to throw. For a few minutes, then, he’d have a breather. But not for long—they wouldn’t forget….
No. But the fellows hadn’t forgotten him, either. He could stand this for a day or two more. A week or a month, even. It didn’t matter. This would end—soon.
His turn would come! He’d make these devils suffer as he had suffered. He swore it!
He was glad he’d stayed alive for this. It had been a fight to live, a struggle he’d often thought futile while he made it. Learning to eat whatever he could get, training himself to breathe the local atmosphere in the special rhythm its composition required, accepting degradations too cruel for a captive animal, avoiding the resistance that would have brought merciful murder…. All that, yet it felt strange, now, to be so glad he was alive.
He heard the children returning, and crouched lower. A few clots of garbage spattered against the post—teasers, to make him angry, so he’d turn to howl his rage, and offer his face as a target.
Good memories, these little beasts had. It was almost a year since he’d last done that….
Well, he had a memory, too. And while they pelted him—from fairly close range, now, with sharp rocks among the wads of filth—he could take refuge in the memory of those last glorious days on Earth.
Remembrance was itself a change brought by the roaring ship; usually he moped in a vegetative daze. But now he recalled how he’d looked in the tight white uniform: six feet of well-fed muscle accentuated by the garment’s lines, the blue stars on each lapel just matching his eyes, the peak of his cap harmonizing with the straight line of his jaw.
He remembered how he’d sounded, speaking words of nonchalant and unfelt modesty in the soft Southern voice the girls had liked so well. He could have had his pick of girls. He’d been a picked man himself.