Bradbury, Ray - SSC 11 Read Online Free PDF Page A

dead."
                   "From what?"
                   "Shock, it looks like."
                   "What kind of shock?" I say, and my
name is Sessions and my lips move crisply, and I am the captain of these men. I
stand among them and I am looking down at a body which lies cooling on the
sands. I clap both hands to my head.
                   "Captain!"
                   "It's nothing," I say, crying out.
"Just a headache. I'll be all right. There. There," I whisper.
"It's all right now."
                  “We'd better get out of the sun, sir."
                   "Yes," I say, looking down at Jones.
“We should never have come. Mars doesn't want us."
                   We carry the body back to the rocket with us,
and a new voice is calling deep in me to be let out
                   Help, help. Far down in the moist
earthen-works of the body. Help, help! in red fathoms, echoing and pleading.
                   The trembling starts much sooner this time.
The control is less steady.
                   "Captain, you’d better get in out of the
sun, you don't look too well, sir."
                   “Yes," I say. “Help," I say.
                   “What, sir?"
                   "I didn't say anything."
                   "You said 'Help,' sir."
                   "Did I, Matthews, did I?"
                   The body is laid out in the shadow of the
rocket and the voice screams in the deep underwater catacombs of bone and
crimson tide. My hands jerk. My mouth splits and is parched. My nostrils fasten
wide. My eyes roll. Help, help, oh help, don't, don't, let me out, don't,
don't,
                   "Don't," I say.
                   "What, sir?"
                   “Never mind," I say. "I’ve got to
get free,” I say. I clap my hand to my mouth.
                   "How's that, sir?" cries Matthews.
                   "Get inside, all of you, go back to
Earth!" I shout
                   A gun is in my hand. I lift it
                   "Don't, sir!"
                   An explosion. Shadows run. The screaming is
cut off. There is a whistling sound of falling through space.
                   After ten thousand years, how good to die. How
good to feel the sudden coolness, the relaxation. How good to be like a hand
within a glove that stretches out and grows wonderfully cold in the hot sand.
Oh, the quiet and the loveliness of gathering, darkening death. But one cannot
linger on.
                   A crack, a snap.
                   "Good God, he's killed himself!" I
cry, and open my eyes and there is the captain lying against the rocket, his
skull split by a bullet, his eyes wide, his tongue protruding between his white
teeth. Blood runs from his head. I bend to him and touch him. “The fool,"
I say. "Why did he do that?"
                  The men are horrified. They stand over the two
dead men and turn their heads to see the Martian sands and the distant well
where Regent lies lolling in deep waters. A croaking comes out of their dry
lips, a whimpering, a childish protest against this awful dream.
                   The men turn to me.
                   After a long while, one of them says,
"That makes you captain, Matthews."
                   "I know," I say slowly.
                   "Only six of us left."
                   "Good God, it happened so quick!"
                   "I don't want to stay here, let's get out!"
                   The men clamor. I go to them and touch them
now, with a confidence which almost sings in me. "Listen," I say, and
touch their elbows or their arms or their hands.
                   We all fall silent.
                   We are one.