Short Fiction - Ray Bradbury (short story to read .TXT) 📗

expansion over an era of three centuries. Then ask them if they think any business man could wait even five minutes.”

Captain Greenwald scowled. “All I want to do is prove it can be done. After I come back down, if I can help in any way to control the Rocket, I’m your man, Stanley. After I prove it’s possible, I don’t care what in hell happens.⁠ ⁠…”

Stanley slid into his ’copter, waved morosely at the captain. The crowd shouted, waved its fists at him over the barrier. He sat watching their distorted, sullen faces. They detested him. The Rocket balloon man, the Rocket soap man, the tourists detested him.

What was more, when his son Tommy found out, Tommy would hate him, too.

He took his time, heading home. He let the green hills slide under. He set the automatic pilot and sank back into the sponge-softness, suspended in a humming, blissful dream. Music played. Cigarettes and whiskey were in reach if he desired them. Soft music. He could lapse back into the dreaming tide, dissolve worry, smoke, drink, chortle, luxuriously, sleep, forget, pull a shell of synthetic, hypnotizing objects in about himself.

And wake ten years from today with his wife disintegrating swiftly in his arms. And one day see his son’s skull shattered against a plastic wall.

And his own heart whirled and burst by some vast atom power of a starship passing Earth far out in space!

He dumped the whiskey over the side, followed it with the cigarettes. Finally, he clicked off the soft music.

There was his home. His eyes kindled. It lay out upon a green meadow, far from the villages and towns, salt-white and surrounded by tapered sycamores. As he watched, lowering his ’copter, he saw the blonde streak across the lawn; that was his daughter, Alyce. Somewhere else on the premises his son gamboled. Neither of them feared the dark.

Angrily, Stanley poured on full speed. The landscape jerked and vanished behind him. He wanted to be alone. He couldn’t face them, yet. Speed was the answer. Wind whistled, roared, rushed by the hurtling ’copter. He rammed it on. Color rose in his cheeks.

There was music in the garden as he parked his ’copter in the fine blue plastic garage. Oh, beautiful garage, he thought, you contribute to my peacefulness. Oh, wonderful garage, in moments of torment, I think of you, and I am glad I own you.

Like hell.

In the kitchen, Althea was whipping food with mechanisms. Her mother sat with one withered ear to the latest audio drama. They glanced up, pleased.

“Darling, so early!” she cried, kissing him. “How’s the Rocket?” piped mother-in-law. “My, I bet you’re proud!”

Stanley said nothing.

“Just imagine.” The old woman’s eyes glowed like little bulbs. “Soon we’ll breakfast in New York and supper on Mars!”

Stanley watched her for a long moment, then turned hopefully to Althea. “What do you think?”

She sensed a trap. “Well, it would be different, wouldn’t it, vacationing our summers on Venus, winters on Mars⁠—wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, good Lord,” he groaned. He shut his eyes and pounded the table, softly. “Good Lord.”

“Now, what’s wrong. What did I say?” demanded Althea, bewildered.

He told them about his order preventing the flight.

Althea stared at him. Mother reached and snapped off the audio. “What did you say, young man?”

He repeated it.

Into the waiting silence came a distant “psssheeew!” rushing in from the dining room, flinging the kitchen door wide, his son ran in, waving a bright red Rocket in one grimy fist. “Psssheeew! I’m a Rocket! Gangway! Hi, Dad!” He swung the ship in a quick arc. “Gonna be a pilot when I’m sixteen! Hey.” He stopped. “What’s everybody standing around for?” He looked at Grandma. “Grammy?” He looked at his mother. “Mom?” And finally at his father. “Dad⁠ ⁠… ?” His hands sank slowly. He read the look in his father’s eyes. “Oh, gosh.”

By three o’clock that afternoon, he had showered and dressed in clean clothes. The house was very silent. Althea came and sat down in the living room and looked at him with hurt, stricken eyes.

He thought of quoting a few figures at her. Five million people killed in auto accidents since the year 1920. Fifty thousand people killed every year, now, in ’copters and jet-planes. But it wasn’t in the figures, it was in a feeling he had to make her feel. Maybe he could illustrate it to her. He picked up the hand-audio, dialed a number. “Hello, Smitty?”

The voice on the other end said, clearly, “Oh, Mr. Stanley?”

“Smitty, you’re a good average man, a pleasant neighbor, a fine farmer. I’d like your opinion. Smitty, if you knew a war was coming, would you help prevent it?”

Althea was watching and listening.

Smitty said, “Hell, yes. Sure.”

“Thanks, Smitty. One more thing. What’s your opinion of the Rocket?”

“Greatest thing in history. Say, I heard you were going to⁠—”

Stanley did not want to get involved. He hurriedly excused himself and hung up. He looked directly at his wife. “Did you notice the separation of means from end? Smitty thinks two things. He thinks he can prevent war; that’s one. He thinks the Rocket is a great thing; that’s number two. But they don’t match, unfortunately.

“The Rocket isn’t a means to happiness the way it’ll be used. It’s the wrong means. And with a wrong means you invariably wind up with a wrong end. A criminal seeks wealth. Does he get it? Temporarily. In the end, he suffers. All because he took the wrong means.” Stanley held his hands out, uselessly. “How can I make you understand.”

Tears were in her eyes. “I understand nothing, and don’t need to understand! Your job, they’ll take it away from you and fly the Rocket anyway!”

“I’ll work on the legislation again, then!”

“And perhaps be killed? No, please, Will.”

Killed. He looked at his watch. Exactly three.

He answered the audio when it buzzed. “Stanley talking.”

“Stanley, this is Cross, at Cal-Tech.”

“Cross! Good Lord, it’s good to hear you!”

“I just heard the new-flash,” said Cross. He had the same clipped, exact voice he’d had years ago, Stanley realized. “You’re