Martian Time Slip

Jack, standing by her, holding her hand, said. "For what? I didn't do anything for you."

"Yes, I think so." The thing seated there nodded to the Bleekmen, and they pushed it and its machinery closer to Jack and straightened it so that it faced him directly. "In my opinion..."It lapsed into silence and then it resumed, more loudly, now. "You tried to communicate with me, many years ago. I appreciate that."

"It wasn't long ago," Jack said. "Have you forgotten? You came back to us; it was just today. This is your distant past, when you were a boy."

She said to her husband, "_Who is it?_"

"Manfred."

Putting her hands to her face she covered her eyes; she could not bear to look any longer.

"Did you escape AM-WEB?" Jack asked it.

"Yesss," it hissed, with a gleeful tremor. "I am with my friends." It pointed to the Bleekmen who surrounded it.

"Jack," Silvia said, "take me out of here--please, I can't stand it." She clung to him, and he then led her from the Steiner house, out once more into the evening darkness.

Both Leo and David met them, agitated and frightened. "Say, son," Leo said, "what happened? What was that woman screaming about?"

Jack said, "It's all over. Everything's O.K." To Silvia he said, "She must have run outside. She didn't understand, at first."

Shivering, Silvia said, "I don't understand either and I don't want to; don't try to explain it to me." She returned to the stove, turning down the burners, looking into pots to see what had burned.

"Don't worry," Jack said, patting her.

She tried to smile.

"It probably won't happen again," Jack said. "But even if it does--"

"Thanks," she said. "I thought when I first saw him that it was his father, Norbert Steiner; that's what frightened me so.',

"We'll have to get a flashlight and hunt around for Erna Steiner," Jack said. "We want to be sure she's all right."

"Yes," she said. "You and Leo go and do that while I finish here; I have to stay with the dinner or it'll be spoiled."

The two men, with a flashlight, left the house. David stayed with her, helping her set the table. Where will you be? she wondered as she watched her son. When you're old like that, all hacked away and replaced by machinery... . Will you be like that, too?

We are better off not being able to look ahead, she said to herself. Thank God we can't see.

"I wish I could have gone out," David was complaining. "Why can't you tell me what it was that made Mrs. Steiner yell like that?"

Silvia said, "Maybe someday."

But not now, she said to herself. It is too soon, for any of us.

Dinner was ready now, and she went out automatically onto the porch to call Jack and Leo, knowing even as she did so that they would not come; they were far too busy, they had too much to do. But she called them anyhow, because it was her job.

In the darkness of the Martian night her husband and father-in-law searched for Erna Steiner; their light flashed here and there, and their voices could be heard, businesslike and competent and patient.