"If this ghost ever speaks," said Lapp, "he is going to tell us of wonders in the past and the future, and of things in the Universe as yet undreamed of. I just hope some of you are lucky enough to be here when he decides the time is ripe to tell us all he can."

"The time is ripe," said Rumfoord hollowly.

"The time is rotten-ripe," said Winston Niles Rumfoord.

"The war that ends so gloriously today was glorious only for the saints who lost it. Those saints were Earth-lings like yourselves. They went to Mars, mounted their hopeless attacks, and died gladly, in order that Earthlings might at last become one people- joyful, fraternal, and proud.

"Their wish, when they died," said Rumfoord, "was not for paradise for themselves, but that the brotherhood of mankind on Earth might be enduring.

"To that end, devoutly to be wished," said Rumfoord, "I bring you word of a new religion that can be received enthusiastically in every corner of every Earthling heart.

"National borders," said Rumfoord, "will disappear.

"The l.u.s.t for war," said Rumfoord, "will die.

"All envy, all fear, all hate will die," said Rumfoord.

"The name of the new religion," said Rumfoord, "is The Church of G.o.d the Utterly Indifferent.

"The flag of that church will be blue and gold," said Rumfoord. "These words will be written on that flag in gold letters on a blue field: Take Care of the People, and G.o.d Almighty Will Take Care of Himself Take Care of the People, and G.o.d Almighty Will Take Care of Himself.

"The two chief teachings of this religion are these," said Rumfoord: "Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please G.o.d Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of G.o.d.

"Why should you believe in this religion, rather than any other?" said Rumfoord. "You should believe in it because I, as head of this religion, can work miracles, and the head of no other religion can. What miracles can I work? I can work the miracle of predicting, with absolute accuracy, the things that the future will bring."

Rumfoord thereupon predicted fifty future events in great detail.

These predictions were carefully recorded by those present.

Needless to say, they all came true eventually- came true in great detail.

"The teachings of this religion will seem subtle and confusing at first," said Rumfoord. "But they will become beautiful and crystal clear as time goes by.

"As a presently confusing beginning," said Rumfoord, "I shall tell you a parable: "Once upon a time, luck arranged things so that a baby named Malachi Constant was born the richest child on Earth. On the same day, luck arranged things so that a blind grandmother stepped on a rollerskate at the head of a flight of cement stairs, a policeman's horse stepped on an organ-grinder's monkey, and a paroled bank robber found a postage stamp worth nine hundred dollars in the bottom of a trunk in his attic. I ask you- is luck the hand of G.o.d?"

Rumfoord held up an index finger that was as translucent as a Limoges teacup. "During my next visit with you, fellow-believers," he said. "I shall tell you a parable about people who do things that they think G.o.d Almighty wants done. In the meanwhile, you would do well, for background on this parable, to read everything that you can lay your hands on about the Spanish Inquisition.

"The next time I come to you," said Rumfoord, "I shall bring you a Bible, revised so as to be meaningful in modern times. And I shall bring you a short history of Mars, a true history of the saints who died in order that the world might be united as the Brotherhood of Man. This history will break the heart of every human being who has a heart that can be broken."

Rumfoord and his dog dematerialized abruptly.

On the s.p.a.ce ship out of Mars and bound for Mercury, on the s.p.a.ce ship carrying Unk and Boaz, the automatic pilot-navigator decreed that it be day in the cabin again.

It was the dawn following the night in which Unk had told Boaz that the thing in Boaz's pocket couldn't hurt anybody any more.

Unk was asleep on his bunk in a sitting position. His Mauser rifle, loaded and c.o.c.ked, lay across his knees.

Boaz was not asleep. He was lying on his bunk across the cabin from Unk. Boaz had not slept a wink. He could now, if he wanted to, disarm and kill Unk easily.

But Boaz had decided that he needed a buddy far more than he needed a means of making people do exactly what he wanted them to. During the night, he had become very unsure of what he wanted people to do, anyway.

Not to be lonely, not to be scared- Boaz had decided that those were the important things in life. A real buddy could help more than anything.

The cabin was filled with a strange, rustling, coughing sound. It was laughter. It was Boaz's laughter. What made it so strange was that Boaz had never laughed in that particular way before- had never laughed before at the things he was laughing at now.

He was laughing at the ferocious mess he was in- at the way he had pretended all his army life that he had understood everything that was going on, and that everything that was going on was just fine.

He was laughing at the dumb way he had let himself be used- by G.o.d knows who for G.o.d knows what.

"Holy smokes, buddy," he said out loud, "what we doing way out here in s.p.a.ce? What we doing in these here clothes? Who's steering this fool thing? How come we climbed into this tin can? How come we got to shoot somebody when we get to where we're going? How come he got to try and shoot us? How come?" said Boaz. "Buddy," he said, "you tell me how come?"

Unk woke up, swung the muzzle of his Mauser around to Boaz.

Boaz went right on laughing. He took the control box out of his pocket, and he threw it on the floor. "I don't want it, buddy," he said. "That's O.K. you went and tore its insides out. I don't want it."

And then he yelled, "I don't want none none of this c.r.a.p!" of this c.r.a.p!"

Chapter 8.

In A Hollywood Night Club HARMONIUM- The only known form of life on the planet Mercury. The harmonium is a cave-dweller. A more gracious creature would be hard to imagine.

- A Child's Cyclopedia of Wonders and Things to Do. A Child's Cyclopedia of Wonders and Things to Do.

The planet Mercury sings like a crystal goblet.

It sings all the time.

One side of Mercury faces the Sun. That side has always faced the Sun. That side is a sea of white-hot dust.

The other side faces the nothingness of s.p.a.ce eternal. That side has always faced the nothingness of s.p.a.ce eternal. That side is a forest of giant blue-white crystals, aching cold.

It is the tension between the hot hemisphere of day-without-end and the cold hemisphere of nightwith-out-end that makes Mercury sing.

Mercury has no atmosphere, so the song it sings is for the sense of touch.

The song is a slow one. Mercury will hold a single note in the song for as long as an Earthling millennium. There are those who think that the song was quick, wild, and brilliant once- excruciatingly various. Possibly so.

There are creatures in the deep caves of Mercury.

The song their planet sings is important to them, for the creatures are nourished by vibrations. They feed on mechanical energy.

The creatures cling to the singing walls of their caves.

In that way, they eat the song of Mercury.

The caves of Mercury are cozily warm in their depths.

The walls of the caves in their depths are phosph.o.r.escent. They give off a jonquil-yellow light.

The creatures in the caves are translucent. When they cling to the walls, light from the phosph.o.r.escent walls comes right through them. The yellow light from the walls, however, is turned, when pa.s.sed through the bodies of the creatures, to a vivid aquamarine.

Nature is a wonderful thing.

The creatures in the caves look very much like small and spineless kites. They are diamond-shaped, a foot high and eight inches wide when fully mature.

They have no more thickness than the skin of a toy balloon.

Each creature has four feeble suction cups- one at each of its corners. These cups enable it to creep, something like a measuring worm, and to cling, and to feel out the places where the song of Mercury is best.

Having found a place that promises a good meal, the creatures lay themselves against the wall like wet wallpaper.

There is no need for a circulatory system in the creatures. They are so thin that life-giving vibrations can make all their cells tingle without intermediaries.

The creatures do not excrete.

The creatures reproduce by flaking. The young, when shed by a parent, are indistinguishable from dandruff.

There is only one s.e.x.

Every creature simply sheds flakes of his own kind, and his own kind is like everybody else's kind.

There is no childhood as such. Flakes begin flaking three Earthling hours after they themselves have been shed.

They do not reach maturity, then deteriorate and die. They reach maturity and stay in full bloom, so to speak, for as long as Mercury cares to sing.

There is no way in which one creature can harm another, and no motive for one's harming another.

Hunger, envy, ambition, fear, indignation, religion, and s.e.xual l.u.s.t are irrelevant and unknown.

The creatures have only one sense: touch.

They have weak powers of telepathy. The messages they are capable of transmitting and receiving are almost as monotonous as the song of Mercury. They have only two possible messages. The first is an automatic response to the second, and the second is an automatic reponse to the first.

The first is, "Here I am, here I am, here I am "Here I am, here I am, here I am."

The second is, "So glad you are, so glad you are, so glad you are "So glad you are, so glad you are, so glad you are."

There is one last characteristic of the creatures that has not been explained on utilitarian grounds: the creaturesseem to like to arrange themselves in striking patterns on the phosph.o.r.escent walls.

Though blind and indifferent to anyone's watching, they often arrange themselves so as to present a regular and dazzling pattern of jonquil-yellow and vivid aquamarine diamonds. The yellow comes from the bare cave walls. The aquamarine is the light of the walls filtered through the bodies of the creatures.

Because of their love for music and their willingness to deploy themselves in the service of beauty, the creatures are given a lovely name by Earthlings.

They are called harmoniums harmoniums.

Unk and Boaz came in for a landing on the dark side of Mercury, seventy-nine Earthling days out of Mars. They did not know that the planet on which they were landing was Mercury.

They thought the Sun was terrifyingly large- But that didn't keep them from thinking that they were landing on Earth.

They blacked out during the period of sharp deceleration. Now they were regaining consciousness- were being treated to a cruel and lovely illusion.

It seemed to Unk and Boaz that their ship was settling slowly among skysc.r.a.pers over which searchlights played.

"They aren't shooting," said Boaz. "Either the war's over, or it ain't begun."

The merry beams of light they saw were not from searchlights. The beams came from tall crystals on the borderline between the light and dark hemispheres of Mercury. Those crystals were catching beams from thesun, were bending them prismatically, playing them over the dark side. Other crystals on the dark side caught the beams and pa.s.sed them on.

It was easy to believe that the searchlights were playing over a sophisticated civilization indeed. It was easy to mistake the dense forest of giant blue-white crystals for skysc.r.a.pers, stupendous and beautiful.

Unk, standing at a porthole, wept quietly. He was weeping for love, for family, for friendship, for truth, for civilization. The things he wept for were all abstractions, since his memory could furnish few faces or artifacts with which his imagination might fashion a pa.s.sion play. Names rattled in his head like dry bones. Stony Stevenson, a friend... Bee, a wife... Chrono, a son... Unk, a father... Stony Stevenson, a friend... Bee, a wife... Chrono, a son... Unk, a father...

The name Malachi Constant Malachi Constant came to him, and he didn't know what to do with it. came to him, and he didn't know what to do with it.

Unk lapsed into a blank reverie, a blank respect for the splendid people and the splendid lives that had produced the majestic buildings that the searchlights swept. Here, surely, faceless families and faceless friends and nameless hopes could flourish like- An apt image for flourishing eluded Unk.

He imagined a remarkable fountain, a cone described by descending bowls of increasing diameters. It wouldn't do. The fountain was bone dry, filled with the ruins of birds' nests. Unk's fingertips tingled, as though abraded by a climb up the dry bowls.

The image wouldn't do.

Unk imagined again the three beautiful girls who had beckoned him to come down the oily bore of his Mauser rifle.

"Man!" said Boaz, "everbody asleep- but not for long!" He cooed, and his eyes flashed. "When old Boaz and old Unk hits town," he said, "everbody going to wake up and stay woke up for weeks on end!"

The ship was being controlled skillfully by its pilot-navigator. The equipment was talking nervously to itself- cycling, whirring, clicking, buzzing. It was sensing and avoiding hazards to the sides, seeking an ideal landing place below.

The designers of the pilot-navigator had purposely obsessed the equipment with one idea- and that idea was to seek shelter for the precious troops and materiel it was supposed to be carrying. The pilot-navigator was to set the precious troops and materiel down in the deepest hole it could find. The a.s.sumption was that the landing would be in the face of hostile fire.

Twenty Earthling minutes later, the pilot-navigator was stil talking to itself- finding as much to talk about as ever.

And the ship was still falling, and falling fast.

The seeming searchlights and skysc.r.a.pers outside were no longer to be seen. There was only inky blackness.

Inside the ship, there was silence of a hardly lighter shade. Unk and Boaz sensed what was happening to them- found what was happening unspeakable.

They sensed correctly that they were being buried alive.

The ship lurched suddenly, throwing Boaz and Unk to the floor.

The violence brought violent relief.

"Home at last," yelled Boaz. "Welcome home!"