The Hills of Home | Page 2

very faint. Above him, the great vault of the sky was changing from pink to gray to dusty blue. A bright star was breaking through the curtain of fading light. He knew it was Venus, the Evening Star. But let it be Earth, he thought. And instead of white, let it be the color of an emerald.
He paused in midstream, letting the warm water riffle around his feet. Looking up at the green beacon of his home planet, he thought: I've left all that behind me. It was never really what I wanted. Mars is where I belong. With my friends, Tars Tarkas the great Green Jeddak, and Carter, the Warlord, and all the beautiful brave people.
* * * * *
The phonograph sang with Vallee's voice: "Cradle me where southern skies can watch me with a million eyes----"
Kimmy's eyes narrowed and he waded stealthily across the sacred river. That would be Matai Shang, the Father of Holy Therns--spreading his arms to the sunset and standing safely on his high balcony in the Golden Cliffs while the Plant Men gathered to attack the poor pilgrims Iss had brought to this cursed valley.
"Sing me to sleep, lullaby of the leaves"--the phonograph sang. Kimmy stepped cautiously ashore and moved into the cover of a clump of willows. The sky was darkening fast. Other stars were shining through. There wasn't much time left.
* * * * *
Kimball stood now in the bright glare of the briefing shack, a strange figure in blood-colored plastic. The representatives of the press had been handed the mimeographed releases by the PRO and now they sat in silence, studying the red figure of the man who was to ride the rocket.
They were thinking: Why him? Out of all the scores of applicants--because there are always applicants for a sure-death job--and all the qualified pilots, why this one?
The Public Relations Officer was speaking now, reading from the mimeoed release as though these civilians couldn't be trusted to get the sparse information given them straight without his help, given grudgingly and without expression.
Kimball listened, only half aware of what was being said. He watched the faces of the men sitting on the rows of folding chairs, saw their eyes like wounds, red from the early morning hour and the murmuring reception of the night before in the Officers' Club. They are wondering how I feel, he was thinking. And asking themselves why I want to go.
On the dais nearby, listening to the PRO, but watching Kimball, sat Steinhart, the team analyst. Kimball returned his steady gaze thinking: They start out burning with desire to cure the human mind and end with the shadow of the images. The words become the fact, the therapy the aim. What could Steinhart know of longing? No, he thought, I'm not being fair. Steinhart was only doing his job.
The big clock on the back wall of the briefing shack said three fifty-five. Zero minus one hour and five minutes.
Kimball looked around the room at the pale faces, the open mouths. What have I to do with you now, he thought?
* * * * *
Outside, the winter night lay cold and still over the Base. Floodlights spilled brilliance over the dunes and the scrubby earth, high fences casting laced shadows across the burning white expanses of ferroconcrete.
As they filed out of the briefing shack, Steinhart climbed into the command car with Kimball. Chance or design? Kimball wondered. The others, he noticed, were leaving both of them alone.
"We haven't gotten on too well, have we, Colonel?" Steinhart observed in a quiet voice.
Kimball thought: He's pale skinned and very blond. What is it that he reminds me of? Shouldn't there be a diadem on his forehead? He smiled vaguely into the rumbling night. That's what it was. Odd that he should have forgotten. How many rocket pilots, he wondered, were weaned on Burroughs' books? And how many remembered now that the Thern priests all wore yellow wings and a circlet of gold with some fantastic jewel on their forehead?
"We've done as well as could be expected," he said.
Steinhart reached for a cigaret and then stopped, remembering that Kimball had had to give them up because of the flight. Kimball caught the movement and half-smiled.
"I didn't try to kill the assignment for you, Kim," the psych said.
"It doesn't matter now."
"No, I suppose not."
"You just didn't think I was the man for the job."
"Your record is good all the way. You know that," Steinhart said. "It's just some of the things----"
Kimball said: "I talked too much."
"You had to."
"You wouldn't think my secret life was so dangerous, would you," the Colonel said smiling.
"You were married, Kim. What happened?"
"More therapy?"
"I'd like to know. This is for me."
* * * * *
Kimball shrugged. "It didn't work. She was a fine girl--but she finally told