"I don't want you to," she pleaded.
"Why do you not want me to?" he asked puzzledly. "Somebody must."
But how could she say it? How could she discuss it at all? She walked
beside him, dumbly. They went down the ramp to where the aircabs were
loading. An Earthling company had put in all the air transport here;
the Martians themselves had never bothered to develop anything more
advanced than the _eshbrug_, a lumbering, three-wheeled, sun-powered
vehicle.
"We shall take the airbus," Gregrill said.
"Oh, do we have to?" she asked.
"How else can we go?"
"Can't we get an _eshbrug_?"
He looked at her wonderingly. "To travel three times as long? I am
aware that you are tired--"
"I'm tired of a lot of things," she blurted. "I'm tired of all the
smooth, cynical, streamlined--Right now, I'd rather walk the whole way
than step into an Earthling airbus."
He gave an uncertain laugh. "I am not sure that I understand your
meaning."
"I'll explain it some time."
But how could she ever? He thought Earthlings were all such noble,
shining, gifted creatures. How could she tell him of the rot at the
heart of so many of them?
"Come on," she insisted desperately. "Let's find an _eshbrug_."
* * * * *
The driver let them out at Gregrill's road. Gregrill shouldered the
trunk, and they walked down past the irregular row of red, sunbaked,
dome-shaped houses, each with its big tank in the rear for catching
Mars' meager rainfall. Joyce felt a quickening, a surge of warmth,
when she saw them and the quiet, open-faced people in their doorways,
smiling their shy welcomes. She was coming home.
She was coming home....
Gregrill's mother and father were waiting just inside their door. They
opened their arms; they hardly said a word. Joyce ran to them, folded
them against her. She didn't mind the tears.
She let them lead her into the main room, let them seat her, put
pillows around her. She sat there bathing in their tenderness, their
simple good-heartedness.
Couldn't everybody see it? Why couldn't her father know it? These were
the best people in the Universe!
Dinner was an Earthling meal. Joyce had been looking forward to a dish
of _mrila_, the Martian rice, and _krulevak_, the white fruit that
tasted like luscious chicken meat. But Gregrill's parents had obviously
felt that their humble foods were too mean for her exalted taste and
they had gone to the expense of bringing in vegetables and meats from
the Earthling import shop in Memnonia.
Joyce hid her disappointment. She had an impulse to say, "Please,
please don't mimic our Earthling ways. Stay the way you are. Don't
spoil anything. Don't lose what you have."
After dinner, Gregrill took her for a walk. Joyce had her thermosuit
on now. The Sun was setting, and the startling cold of the Martian
night was coming in fast. Gregrill changed his fiber vest for a sleeved
jacket, though of the same light material. It was incredible how little
protection these people needed against the cold. But, of course,
they'd adapted to it.
They walked along the edge of the gorge that cut through the stunted
forest half a mile from Gregrill's home. The rough sides of the gorge
rose sheer and splendid, a marvel of glittering color--red, orange,
yellow, brown. Far down on the rocky bed, a shallow stream flowed
sluggishly to the south.
Soon, as summer came on, the stream would quickly deepen. From the
northern ice fields, a torrent of blue water would come rushing
down the gorges, and the heavy rains would come, and the red ground
underfoot would turn to a miraculous green, and the _mrila_ would
sprout up like a rug of green velvet across the wide fields and the
terraced hills.
If she could only stay here, if they could only build their lives here
with these simple, good-hearted people....
But she knew it couldn't be. Gregrill would be wasted here. Earth,
despite all its hatefulness for her, was the only place where his
genius would have a chance to unfold and display its potentialities.
"It is time that we go back?" Gregrill asked. "You are cold?"
Suddenly, helplessly, Joyce began to laugh.
"What is it?" Gregrill said, confused by the sudden laughter.
"The funny stiff way you talk!" She laughed on and on. She couldn't
stop.
"I am sorry," he said, turning aside, his face full of hurt.
"Oh, no!" She caught his arm. "Don't misunderstand. I love the
way you talk. I want you always to talk the way you do now. Don't
change--please don't ever change. I love you just as you are."
* * * * *
Gregrill got his visa five days later. It was a complicated affair.
Joyce had to sign half a dozen affidavits at the Earthling consulate,
all certifying in one way or another that she intended to marry
Gregrill as soon as they reached Earth, and that she guaranteed he
wouldn't become a public charge. It was practically the only way a
Martian had of getting to Earth.
It infuriated her, this stupid legislation by which Earth denied itself
everything these people could contribute to its culture. A few years
ago, the Earthling government had admitted several thousand Martians to
fill the pressing shortage of menial labor, and had permitted Venusians
to take jobs as room stewards and waiters on the spaceships; and by
that trivial concession, it had felt it was fulfilling its obligations
to the Interplanetary Union.
When would it learn what its narrow prejudices were costing? Would
it have to wait till someone like Gregrill stepped forward and
demonstrated all the richness it was missing?
The formal good-bys had been said. The neighbors had held a party for
them. It had been in a clearing behind the houses, out in the clean,
lemon-yellow sunlight. They had eaten roasted _trork_, the crustacean
delicacy from the northern gorges, and _mrila_ made into candied
patties. Gregrill's mother and father had danced the grave, stately
farewell dance. And now, on their final evening on Mars, Joyce and
Gregrill were taking their last walk along the deep, echoing gorge.
She had just been watching him finish his packing, and the pain of
it still sat in her throat. He had included his college books--every
one of his texts and notebooks--packing them in so reverently, so
pathetically confident that all he had to do was follow his classroom
precepts, and recognition and success would come tumbling into his
hands....
"I hope that your parents will like me as well as my parents like you,"
Gregrill said.
"Oh, yes," Joyce assured him hoarsely.
"Perhaps they will not be pleased that you marry a Martian."
"No, Greg, no. They'll--" But she couldn't carry it on.
He turned to face her; he looked at her hard. He was starting to speak,
to ask the obvious questions, but she flung herself against him.
"Greg! Let's get married here! Let's get married before we leave."
He held her away from him so he could look at her. "But you had wished
to be married on Earth," he said bewilderedly.
"I know, but I've changed my mind. I want it here, now. Oh, Greg, I'm
afraid...."
His big russet eyes narrowed, his high-winged nostrils flared, scenting
danger. "You are afraid of what?" he asked quietly.
"I don't know, Greg. I--I'm just afraid something will happen,
something will go wrong, I don't know what." She couldn't look him in
the eyes. "Let's get married here, in the morning, before we leave.
Then we'll be married.
"Nothing can go wrong."
"Will not your parents be angered that you--"
"No, no, Greg. It'll be all right. This is the best way, believe me."
"I believe you," he said gravely.
And it caught her again, his small-boy solemnity. She was caught in a
burst of helpless laughter. "Oh, Greg, I love you!"
* * * * *
They were married by a Martian priest in a small red-draped temple in
Memnonia, not far from the spaceport. The ceremony was without words,
like all religious rites on Mars. The tall, round-bodied priest, a
huge cylinder of a man in heavy ritual fiber robes, stood facing them,
his hands stiff against his sides, his eyes closed, his heavy features
motionless.
Joyce closed her eyes, too. She strained to hear, feel, sense something
of what was passing between the priest and Gregrill. Surely, if she
strained hard enough, she would catch some echo, some aura. But the air
defied her; she was deaf, blind, insensate; she was cut off irrevocably
from this higher level of communication. Perhaps their children....
"He is saying the words now," Gregrill whispered in her ear. "You
two together ... comfort each other ... against the darkness and the
drought ... through the long dry misery of winter ... when the water
is locked and nothing grows ... till the glad day of rain and running
streams ... you two together ... comfort each other...."
"Say yes, my darling," Gregrill told her.
"Yes, yes! Oh, yes!"
They were outside, striding exultantly through the sunshine, the light
wind tossing their hair, and the words kept singing to her: "Through
the long dry misery of winter ... till the glad day of rain...."
Oh, yes, Greg! Yes!
When they reached the spaceship, their bags had already been taken to
their stateroom, unpacked, the clothing arranged in the dressers--the
meticulous work of the Venusian stewards. Even the bedcovers were
turned down, her nightgown laid out.
"Greg," she said in a rush of embarrassment, "let's go out and watch
the ... watch how we take off."
"You go, and I shall join you soon," he said. "I must wash and anoint
myself as a bridegroom."
Joyce went down the corridor into the observation rotunda. The huge
semicircular window was cluttered with jabbering passengers. She
squeezed in among them, but she stayed only a moment. She pushed
her way back out and went to a table near the head of the corridor,
and waited restlessly for him. Midway down the corridor, a Venusian
steward, a scrawny little gray-skinned, long-beaked fellow, was running
a cleaning machine over the floor. She smiled at him, but he turned his
face shyly away.
And then Gregrill came, moving up the corridor with his lithe,
magnificent grace.
His wet hair glistened.
"Greg, you look wonderful!" she cried, instantly aware of how foolish
she sounded.
He speeded his steps. He didn't see the cleaning hose in his path. The
Venusian moved quickly to pull it aside, but it caught Gregrill's foot.
He stumbled, caught himself on the corridor rail. Swiftly he turned,
his arm swung out, his forearm slammed against the jaw of the little
Venusian, sending him crashing down against his cleaning machine.
Gregrill looked down at him a moment. Then he turned, gave Joyce a
broad smile and walked to her table.
"Greg." Her throat was dry. "Why did you do that? He didn't mean it."
"It is his duty to avoid such accidents," Gregrill said.
"But look, he's still lying there. Let's go help him."
"Leave him there," he said. "He is only a Venusian."
"Only a--?"
"Venusian." His lips curled. "They are the scum of the Solar System."
The tremor that went through her was lost in the thrust of the jets as
the ship took off.
"They are not even fit for cleaning floors," Gregrill said. He suddenly
smiled. "Do you not see the change I have made?" He gestured at his
head.
Through tear-blinded eyes, she saw his glossy waves of hair. The
antennae were gone!
"It hurt only a little," he said. "I could not wait until I had them
off. I have been ashamed of them for so long."