CHAPTER 5
THE RETURN
We did not sight the vehicle the next night; it had seemingly passed beyond range of my instrument. With the myrdoscope we hoped to catch it, but could not. The night following was overcast with clouds. But we remained awake; Dr. Gryce seemed to feel that his sons might be returning. It was pathetic to me, observing him quietly slipping away from us at intervals to wander among the wreckage of his garden, gazing anxiously upward.
A week and still they had not come. What Dr. Gryce said to my Director I do not know; but he told me the Director was satisfied to have me remain away until my present business was finished. I had determined as much for myself. Not all the Directors in the Service could have taken me away from here, with Brett and Martt unheard from.
Like a beacon day and night we made sure that our aural ray was flashing its beam. But would Brett see it?
Another week. Still no sign. Doubts, fears, terrors assailed us. Were we watching, waiting futilely for what would never come? The thought was in my mind—and I knew it was in the minds of Dr. Gryce and Frannie—but never once did we voice it. Had Brett and Martt, perhaps, returned to our Past? With mechanism impaired, had they landed here in what we now called the Past—landed to find a wilderness of roaming savages? Or to find this little Space we now called a house and garden, a barren icy waste with men no more than beasts upon it? Or landed here in our Future? Ourselves dead, gone and forgotten? A great city here on this spot, perchance, with strange people and strange ways and nothing remaining of the loved ones they sought? Or were they lost and wandering in Space? Out there among myriad starry Universes hopeless to find our infinitesimal Solar System? Or lost perhaps in Time, wandering through the eons searching for the little centuries, years, days that identified their goal?
Or, again, perhaps they had safely reached that outer realm? Perhaps, once there, something had happened to prevent their return? In what we now called the Present, perhaps they were out there, transfixed, just as to our vision that strange girl and her strange assailants were transfixed—stricken of motion, with a passing of Time to us insensible. Transfixed out there now, to take no more than a few breaths, to move a hand, no more, during all the span of our own tiny lives?
II
I was sitting early one evening near the monight hour, alone with Frannie in the observation room. Dr. Gryce, in the room adjoining, had fallen asleep, worn by repressed anxiety and his now almost day and night vigil. We were talking in half-whispers; and abruptly Frannie voiced the fear that possessed us all.
"Oh, Frank, can't you see them? Please, you must! Oh, I'm afraid they're never coming back. Never—coming back."
It sounded so horrible. "Hush, Frannie. You mustn't say things like that." I put my arm around her, and suddenly like a child she flung herself to me; sobbed, and clung to me.
"Hush, Frannie. Don't cry—please don't cry. I'll look again. I might see them now. I'll try to."
I drew away from her; went back to my instrument. I had in mind to try the myrdoscope, but all our efforts with it during the two weeks past had been unavailing. It was a calm, clear evening. A broadly crescent moon was falling into the west. Mars was well above the eastern horizon; through the electro-telescope I looked that way. My circular field was empty. Frannie was checking her sobs, interested with hope renewed.
"Don't you see them, Frank?"
"No—not yet—Yes! I see them! Frannie, I see them!"
From visually above the red planet, out of nothingness a huge shape suddenly materialized. It had not been there an instant before; it seemed for the space of a thought, a transparent ghost of the vehicle; solidifying until even before I had told Frannie, I was aware that I saw it there. The vehicle unmistakable.
"They've come, Frannie! I see them! Call your father. Dr. Gryce! They've come! They're safe!"
How my heart leaped to be able to say it! Frannie was calling; and Dr. Gryce, no more than half awake, repeating, "They've come? They're in sight? They're safe?"
This gentle old man, how full of thankfulness his heart must have been! He came stumbling into the room. "Where are they, Frank? You can see them, lad?"
I could see them indeed—plainly, for abruptly I realized that they were no farther than just beyond the earth's atmosphere. And I could see also the conventional vane flying at horizontal above the vehicle's tower to denote that all was well within. They had come. They were safe.
They landed in the garden. Like a wafting feather the vehicle floated down under Brett's skilled guidance. It was of a size seemingly identical with the one it had upon departure, but evidence of its trip was everywhere visible. Its gleaming milk-white color was dulled. Its sides were pitted and scarred—the metal burned. A lower corner seemed fused into a shapeless lump.
The door slid open as we crowded forward. My heart was pounding. A sudden, irrelevant thought leaped to me—a thought, hope, that they might have brought back with them that strangely beautiful girl they had gone to rescue. A thought abruptly, fiercely poignant—yet with it a consciousness of its whimsicality that I—Frank Elgon—who loved Frannie Gryce, should be possessed of such incongruous desire.
The door was open. Brett and Martt—queerly garbed to seem almost strangers—were crowding there, with no one else behind them. But already I had forgotten the girl. Frannie's glad cries of welcome rang out; and Dr. Gryce's tremulous greeting; and I heard my own voice, strangely calm, "Well! Brett—Martt—you got back safely, didn't you? I'm so glad—we're all so glad!"