Tonight Ry, the leader (as nearly as the Martian word can be translated), and Khee, his administrative assistant and closest friend, sat and meditated together until the time was near. Then they drank a toast to the future—in a beverage based on menthol, which had the same effect on Martians as alcohol on Earthmen—and climbed to the roof of the building in which they had been sitting. They watched toward the north, where the rocket should land. The stars shone brilliantly and unwinkingly through the atmosphere.
In Observatory No. 1 on Earth’s moon, Rog Everett, his eye at the eyepiece of the spotter scope, said triumphantly, “Thar she blew, Willie. And now, as soon as the films are developed, we’ll know the score on that old planet Mars.” He straightened up—there’d be no more to see now—and he and Willie Sanger shook hands solemnly. It was an historical occasion.
“Hope it didn’t kill anybody. Any Martians, that is. Rog, did it hit dead center in Syrtis Major?”
“Near as matters. I’d say it was maybe a thousand miles off, to the south. And that’s damn close on a fifty-million-mile shot. Willie, do you really think there are any Martians?”
Willie thought a second and then said, “No.”
He was right.
Imagine
Imagine ghosts, gods, and devils.
Imagine hells and heavens, cities floating in the sky and cities sunken in the sea. Unicorns and centaurs. Witches, warlocks, djinns, and banshees.
Angels and harpies. Charms and incantations. Elementals, familiars, demons.
Easy to imagine, all of those things: mankind has been imagining them for thousands of years. Imagine spaceships and the future.
Easy to imagine; the future is really coming and there’ll be spaceships in it. Is there then anything that’s hard to imagine?
Of course there is.
Imagine a piece of matter and yourself inside it, yourself aware, thinking and therefore knowing you exist, able to move that piece of matter that you’re in, to make it sleep or wake, make love or walk uphill.
Imagine a universe—infinite or not, as you wish to picture it—with a billion, billion, billion suns in it. Imagine a blob of mud whirling madly around one of those suns.
Imagine yourself standing on that blob of mud, whirling with it, whirling through time and space to an unknown destination. Imagine!
It Didn’t Happen
Although there was no way in which he could have known it, Lorenz Kane had been riding for a fall ever since the time he ran over the girl on the bicycle. The fall itself could have happened anywhere, any time; it happened to happen backstage at a burlesque theater on an evening in late September.
For the third evening within a week he had watched the act of Queenie Quinn, the show’s star stripper, an act well worth watching, indeed. Clad only in blue light and three tiny bits of strategically placed ribbon, Queenie, a tall blond built along the lines of a brick whatsit, had just completed her last stint for the evening and had vanished into the wings, when Kane made up his mind that a private viewing of Queenie’s act, in his bachelor apartment, not only would be more pleasurable than a public viewing but would indubitably lead to even greater pleasures. And since the finale number, in which Queenie, as the star, was not required to appear, was just starting, now would be the best time to talk to her with a view toward obtaining a private viewing.
He left the theater and strolled down the alley to the stage door entrance. A five-dollar bill got him past the doorman without difficulty and a minute later he had found and was knocking upon a dressing room door decorated with a gold star.
A voice called out, “Yeah?”
He knew better than to try to push a proposition through a closed door, and he knew his way around back-stage well enough to know the one question that would cause her to assume that he was someone connected with show business who had a legitimate reason for wanting to see her.
“Are you decent?” he asked.
“’Sta minute,” she called back, and then, in just a minute, “Okay.”
He entered and found her standing facing him, in a bright red wrapper that beautifully set off her blue eyes and blond hair. He bowed and introduced himself, then began to explain the details of the proposition he wished to offer.
He was prepared for initial reluctance or even refusal and ready to become persuasive even, if necessary, to the extent of four figures, which would certainly be more than her weekly take—possibly more than her monthly take—in a burlesque house as small as this one. But instead of listening reasonably, she was suddenly screaming at him like a virago, which was insulting enough, but then she made the very serious mistake of taking a step forward and slapping him across the face. Hard. It hurt.
He lost his temper, retreated a step, took out his revolver and shot her in the heart.
Then he left the theater and took a taxi home to his apartment. He had a few drinks to soothe his understandably ruffled nerves and went to bed. He was sleeping soundly when, at a little after midnight, the police came and arrested him for murder. He couldn’t understand it.
Mortimer Mearson, who was possibly if not certainly the best criminal attorney in the city, returned to the clubhouse the next morning after an early round of golf and found waiting for him a message requesting him to call Judge Amanda Hayes at his earliest convenience. He called her at once.
“Good morning, Your Honor,” he said. “Something gives?”
“Something gives, Morty. But if you’re free the rest of the morning and can drop around to my chambers, you’ll save me going into it over the telephone.”
“I’ll be with you within an hour,” he told her. And he was.
“Good morning again, Your Judgeship,” he said. “Now please take a deep breath and tell me just what it is that gives.”
“A case for you, if you want it. Succinctly, a man was arrested for murder last night. He refuses to make a statement, any statement, until he has consulted an attorney, and he doesn’t have one. Says he’s never been in any legal trouble before and doesn’t even know any attorneys. Asked the chief to recommend one, and the chief passes the buck to me on said recommendation.”
Mearson sighed. “Another free case. Well, I suppose it’s about time I took one again. Are you appointing me?”
“Down, boy,” said Judge Hayes. “Not a free case at all. The gentleman in question isn’t rich, but he’s reasonably well-heeled. A fairly well-known young man about town, bon vivant, what have you, well able to afford any fee you wish to charge him, within reason. Not that your fee will probably be within reason, but that’s between you and him, if he accepts you to represent him.”
“And does this paragon of virtue—most obviously innocent and maligned—have a name?”
“He does, and you will be familiar with it if you read the columnists. Lorenz Kane.”
“The name registers. Most obviously innocent. Uh—I didn’t see the morning papers. Whom is he alleged to have killed? And do you know any of the details?”
“It’s going to be a toughie, Morty boy,” the judge said. “I don’t think there’s a prayer of a chance for him other than an insanity plea. The victim was a Queenie Quinn—a stage name and no doubt a more valid one will come to light—who was a stripper at the Majestic. Star of the show there. A number of people saw Kane in the audience during her last number and saw him leave right after it during the final number. The doorman identifies him and admits having—ah—admitted him. The doorman knew him by sight and that’s what led the police to him. He passed the doorman again on his way out a few minutes later. Meanwhile several people heard a shot. And a few minutes after the end of the show, Miss Quinn was found dead, shot to death, in her dressing room.”