"Look, Mom," he said breathlessly. "It’s almost five o’clock at home. Douwie will be coming up to the barn to be fed. Gosh, do you suppose old Pete will remember about her?"
His mother smiled at him reassuringly. "Of course he will, silly. Don’t forget he was the one who caught and tamed her for you."
Tommy gulped as he thought of Douwie. Scarcely as tall as himself; the big, rounded, mouselike ears, and the flat, cloven pads that could carry her so swiftly over the sandy Martian flatlands. One of the last dwindling herds of native Martian douwies, burden-carriers of a vanished race, she had been Tommy’s particular pride and joy for the last three years.
Behind him, Tommy heard his mother murmur under her breath, "Tom ... the watch; could we?"
And his Dad regretfully, "It’s a pretty expensive toy for a youngster, Helen. And even a rabbara raiser’s bank account has limits."
"Of course, dear; it was silly of me." Helen smiled a little ruefully. "And if Mr. Krumbein has your watch ready, we must go. Bee and some of her friends are coming over, and it’s only a few hours ‘till you ... leave."
Big Tom squeezed her elbow gently, understandingly, as she blinked back quick tears. Trailing after them, Tommy saw the little by-play and his heart ached. The guilt-complex building up in him grew and deepened.
He knew he had only to say, "Look, I don’t mind staying. Aunt Bee and I will get along swell," and everything would be all right again. Then the terror of this new and complex world—as it would be without a familiar face—swept over him and kept him silent.
His overwrought feelings expressed themselves in a nervously rebelling stomach, culminating in a disgraceful moment over the nearest gutter. The rest of the afternoon he spent in bed recuperating.
In the living room Aunt Bee spoke her mind in her usual, high-pitched voice.
"It’s disgraceful, Helen. A boy his age.... None of the Bentons ever had nerves."
His mother’s reply was inaudible, but on the heels of his father’s deeper tones, Aunt Bee’s voice rose in rasping indignation.
"Well! I never! And from my own brother, too. From now on don’t come to me for help with your spoiled brat. Good-bye!"
The door slammed indignantly, his mother chuckled, and there was a spontaneous burst of laughter. Tommy relaxed and lay back happily. Anyway, that was the last of Aunt Bee!
*
The next hour or two passed in a flurry of ringing phones, people coming and going, and last-minute words and reminders. Then suddenly it was time to leave. Dad burst in for a last quick hug and a promise to send him pictures of Douwie and her foal, due next month; Mother dropped a hasty kiss on his hair and promised to hurry back from the Spaceport. Then Tommy was alone, with a large, painful lump where his heart ought to be.
The only activity was the almost noiseless buzzing as the hotel android ran the cleaner over the living room. Presently even that ceased, and Tommy lay relaxed and inert, sleepily watching the curtains blow in and out at the open window. Thirty stories above the street the noises were pleasantly muffled and remote, and his senses drifted aimlessly to and fro on the tides of half-sleep.
Drowsily his mind wandered from the hotel’s android servants ... to the strictly utilitarian mechanical monstrosity at home, known affectionately as "Old John" ... to the android showroom where they had seen the one that Dad said looked like Mother....
He jolted suddenly, sickeningly awake. Suppose, his mind whispered treacherously, suppose that Dad had ordered one to take Mom’s place ... not on Mars, but here while she returned to Mars with him. Suppose that instead of Mom he discovered one of those Things ... or even worse, suppose he went on from day to day not even knowing....
It was a bad five minutes; he was wet with perspiration when he lay back on his pillows, a shaky smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He had a secret defense against the Terror. He giggled a little at the thought of what Aunt Bee would say if she knew.
And what had brought him back from the edge of hysteria was the triumphant knowledge that with the abnormally acute hearing bred in the thin atmosphere of Mars, no robot ever created could hide from him the infinitesimal ticking of the electronic relays that gave it life. Secure at last, his overstrung nerves relaxed and he slid gratefully over the edge of sleep.
He woke abruptly, groping after some vaguely remembered sound. A soft clicking of heels down the hall.... Of course, his mother back from the Spaceport! Now she would be stopping at his door to see if he were asleep. He lay silently; through his eyelashes he could see her outlined in the soft light from the hall. She was coming in to see if he was tucked in. In a moment he would jump up and startle her with a hug, as she leaned over him. In a moment....
Screaming desperately, he was out of bed, backing heedlessly across the room. He was still screaming as the low sill of the open window caught him behind the knees and toppled him thirty stories to the street.
Alone in the silent room, Helen Benton stood dazed, staring blindly at the empty window.
Tommy’s parting gift from his father slid from her hand and lay on the carpet, still ticking gently.
It was 9:23 on Mars.
Gorgono and Slith
by Ray Bradbury
"Let us, by all means, be lucid," said Gorgono to Slith. Slith fluttered his reptile tongue and turned his morbid eyes to me. "Yes," he said, "let us, certainly be lucid, Bradbury. From now on use a contents page in Futuria Fantasia." And he spanked his tail slickly on my typewriter.
I don’t mind Slith so much, he’s only a little anachronistic reptile, a descendent of happier days in dinosaurial dawndom. I never feared Slith. But Gorgono!
Gorgono pierced me with his slanting green, clear eyes, heavy-lidded, extending one claw and attempting to keep it from shaking while his pointed ears stood up straight. A moment before he had been hunting fleas in the fertile hair that clothed his muscular limbs, but now he was serious; so very serious it frightened me.
And when the thunder-voiced, evil-eyed, shaggy haired and monstrous Gorgono reclined on the shelf over my head, saliva drooling with silent precision from his pendulous lips, and gave orders I hastened to obey them. Gorgono was the voice of the critics—the ogre of opinion, the harsh guttural commandment of style and fashion. And now Gorgono had grumbled, "Number your pages from now on, MISTER Bradbury or else YOUR number’ll be up. Why, Gad, man, the last issue of Futuria Fantasia I didn’t know if I was coming or going, the way you heiroglyphed the sheets. And I might add, you’re going to use even margins from here on in."
"Okay, okay, okay," I said, slinking with flushed visage behind my stencils. "But from now on Futuria Fantasia will be ten cents straight an issue. Ten cents straight."
"Agreed," snapped Gorgono, "if you are neater. But you must be new, neotiric, different." Then I flashed them the newly processed cover done by Bok. "Gods!" bellowed Gorgono. "That is stupendous! A fine beginning, mortal, a very fine beginning!" Slith agreed by pounding vigorously on the table with his scaly rump.
"And wait until you read Monroe’s yarn," I jubilantly exclaimed. "It’s not science-fiction, but it’s