Turn Left at Thursday (1961) SSC Read online

  Joan cast one glance at the plane. Already Tavares's crew was beginning to unload crates of supplies. Already the tied sacks of skitterbugs, feebly stirring in the light that filtered through the burlap, were being trundled out on wheelbarrows to be loaded into the plane for return to

  - where? No one had ever said. Back to Earth, perhaps. Perhaps not.

  The glass windscreens of the tri-motor's battered old nose glittered opaquely.

  Joan glanced at them and then away--there was nothing there; she never could see inside the cockpit; no one ever had. Behind those glittering windshields were, undoubtedly, the pilot and co-pilot--for surely Griswold was no aviator, not with that tic and those eyes. But she had never seen the pilots, not even when she herself was part of the plane's cargo, coming here. And she didn't expect to see them now.

  But something was nagging at her.

  She looked again, and her eye was caught by old Dom Tavares, who should have been helping to load the plane, and who instead was standing in a queerly tense attitude, staring at the open door.

  Joan tried to peer past the door, but it was hard to see from the bright sun outside into the black shadows within. There was Griswold, and there was the Probation Officer, surely--at least there were two shadows. And the taller, fatter shadow was handing something to the lean, bent one--

  something that looked like a rag, or an old garment; they were talking about it.

  Joan hesitated, wondered if it was worth thinking about.

  But there were the newcomers--new faces, when all the old faces were worn so familiar.

  And Tavares was, it was perfectly true, getting a little odd in his ways anyhow. Everyone knew that.

  She turned, dismissing whatever it was that disturbed Tavares, and hurried after the newcomers as they were shepherded into the recreation room.

  By day, the 'Liveliest Night Spot on Mars' was even less attractive than by night.

  The night before had been a big one; the signs of it were all over the room, overturned chairs, spilled drinks, the grime of a couple of dozen men in town. No one had taken the time to tidy up--that was done later, usually in the waning heat of the afternoon--and the new arrivals stared around them with revulsion in their eyes.

  'They're very young,' someone whispered to Joan. She nodded. One of the women was middle-aged, but the one with the child was just into her twenties. And of the men, one was little more than a boy.

  He was a blond-haired youngster, his eyes violet and innocent, his face far from the time of shaving. What, Joan wondered, had brought him here? For that matter, what was the crime of the dowdy-looking, plump little woman who was staring around in such panic?

  The colonists were all over the new women--particularly Wakulla, gallant with an ape's clumsy politeness. 'A chair!' he bawled. 'A chair for the lady!' And he wrenched one from Joan's hand. 'I'll take the calf to get the heifer,' he whispered hoarsely, with an exaggerated wink, and slid the chair clattering to the girl with the child. The girl only stared at him fearfully.

  Joan tried to stay back and give the newcomers room.

  She had a vivid sense of what they must be feeling; she remembered; she could read their eyes and know what they must bethinking:

  The strangeness of their surroundings.

  The sudden shock. (For it was always a shock, everyone agreed on it; one minute you were going about your business, a minute later you woke up somewhere else. A strange somewhere, and removed in time--in a white-walled room, with a couple of tense and worried-looking doctors and nurses around you, with television scanner lenses in the walls ... and, very quickly, a tense and worried-looking man in uniform coming in to talk to you, to tell you that you had become a criminal, in a life that was now wiped out of your mind, and that you were on Mars, headed for a penal colony.

  Shock? It was a wonder that it didn't prove fatal. And perhaps for some it had; they had no way of knowing.)

  But more than these things--after that first shock wore off and you had become reconciled to the fact that your whole life had somehow been perverted into that of a criminal--after you had been bundled, blindfolded, into that rattling old three-motored plane and flown for windowless hours across the unseen Martian deserts--then you arrived.

  And that was bad.

  For there was always the uneasy, shamefaced question in the crowd: Does this one know who I am? And that other one--why is he grinning like that? Does he know what I did? And what did he himself do, to be in this place?

  Nobody ever got it.

  But the early days were worst of all, before the pain became an accustomed one.

  The heat was beating in on them. The woman with the child, half afraid, half contemptuous of Wakulla's gallantry, leaned white-faced against the back of her chair. The little girl, a thumb in her mouth and the other hand clutching her mother's skirt beside her, watched silently.

  The boy was talking--his name was Tommy and he had told them he was seventeen years old. 'That's what they tell me,' he said, with a painful effort to be adult and sure of himself. His voice was a soft high mumble, hardly the voice of even a seventeen-year-old. 'But--I don't remember that.

  Really, I don't. The last thing I remember, I was twelve!'

  Twelve! Joan made a faint sound; almost she patted him on the head, though he was taller than she. Twelve! What sort of criminal could have hatched at twelve? Even at seventeen, the thing was ridiculous! But somewhere, this child had lost five years.

  She tried to explain it to him: 'You must have done something, Tommy. Maybe you got involved with the wrong bunch at school--who knows? But somehow, you went wrong. That's why they send people here, you know. It's the new law. Instead of putting someone in jail and keeping them there--that would be a waste, you see, and cruel--they wipe out the part of the minds that has the criminal pattern in it. They go back erasing memory, until they come to a part that is clean and unaffected, not only before the crime was committed but before, even, the first seed of the crime was planted. That's why none of us know what it was we did. It's been taken away from us. We've been given a second chance. We should be grateful.'

  But should they? It was the old question; she cast it off.

  'Then,' she said, 'after they're cleaned out our memories and taken us back to the right path, they send us up here. To Mars. This is a colony where we can try to get reoriented and--' She hesitated. And what? 'And go back to normal life,' she finished strongly, though there was still the relentless reminder of her memory that no one had ever gone back. 'It isn't so bad, Tommy,' she promised.

  He didn't look convinced.

  Someone was calling her name: 'Joan! Joan, come here, please!'

  It was old man Tavares. He was standing in the door, his face blenched a muddy mottled colour in spite of the dark the sun had given it.

  She turned and hurried to him. Heat-stroke, she thought at once. It was far from uncommon, especially when a man as old as Tavares had to work in the blinding sun helping to lift boxes and bales.

  But he caught her feverishly by the hand and drew her outside into the sunwashed street.

  'Joan,' he whispered raggedly, terror peeping out of his eyes. 'Joan, can you borrow a jeep?'

  'Why--I suppose so. But--'

  'Take me to Hardee,' he begged. His lined old face was quivering with senile worry and fear; his dry, hot hand was crushing hers. 'Quickly! It will take hours for us to drive there. And we may not have hours, because they can fly in the plane! Quickly, for his sake and your own!'

  Joan said reasonably: 'Now hold on, Dom. You're excited. Sit down for a minute.' She tried to lead him back into the recreation room. She'd seen the signs coming on, she reproached herself, when he behaved so queerly at the plane; she should have done something about it at the time.

  Poor old man! 'Come on, Dom,' she coaxed. 'I'll get you a nice cool drink of water and-'

  'Quickly!' He planted his feet firmly, surprisingly strong, and halted her. His eyes were terrified; they flicked past her, out to
wards the plane.

  'You don't understand, Joan! The Probation Officer, he has told Griswold about the stranger Hardee found. It is a terrible thing, do you not realize?'

  'Stranger?' she repeated.

  'The dead man, Joan! I saw them with the coverall, and then I knew.

  So I came close and listened and, yes, he was telling Griswold. And Griswold was frantic! Of course. Hurry, Joan!'

  Doubtfully, she said: 'Well, let's see. You want to go out to Hardee's place? Wakulla's not far from here. I suppose I can persuade him to take us out, though he's got that new woman on his mind. It's a bad time of day, but--'

  'Hurry!'

  The panic in his voice finally reached her. All right, she thought, why not? She could handle Wakulla--even in the face of the constant threat of a boiled-out motor and trouble, the natural risk you took in driving across the sand by summer daylight. But Tavares gave her no choice.

  Still she protested, half-resisting: 'Can't it wait until night, Dom? Surely it can't be as serious as all that. After all, what's so dangerous about a stranger? I suppose he's merely a man who got lost in the desert--at most, perhaps he escaped from another prison camp, somewhere else on Mars, but certainly that doesn't--'

  'Mars!' Tavares hissed in a terrible whisper. Convulsively he squeezed her arm. 'Joan, do you not understand? All these years--and you still think that this is Mars?'

  • • • •

  4

  Hardee woke groggily to the sound of the boy's voice calling: 'Daddy!

  Somebody's coming!'

  It was only about noon.

  Hardee swung himself out of bed, half asleep, his eyes aching. He stumbled over to the window and pushed back the shutters.

  Fierce light beat in. He blinked, dazzled. The sun was directly overhead. The boy had been right; there was a jeep coming, still a long way off, but he could hear the faint whine and echo of its motor as the driver shifted gears, coaxing it around the worst of the bumps, trying to keep it from overheating. Someone driving at this time of day!

  It must be an urgent errand, he thought, and began to clamber into his clothes. He couldn't make out who was in it, in the blinding light; but by the time he was into his shirt and pants and ready to come downstairs, he could hear voices. Tavares and Joan Bunnell--and his son, crying out to greet them.

  'Aunt Joan!' Chuck was babbling excitedly--it was a great day for him when there were visitors. 'Look at what Daddy got me, Aunt Joan! A tractor.

  And see, I can make a farm with Alice and Alfie--see? This is my tractor, and Alice and Alfie are the cows!' Alice and Alfie were his pet skitterbugs Hardee had captured them with the regular bag; but they were undersized, not of legal limit to bring in, so he had given them to the boy to play with for lack of a kitten or a pup.

  Hardee nodded without speaking and started down the stairs. The child was pushing the quiescent skitterbugs around on the floor with the tractor, whooping with joy. In the filtered, screened-down light that came inside the prefab, they had just enough energy to try to creep out of its way.

  Joan stared up at Hardee, began to speak, then caught herself. She took the boy's arm lightly. 'Chuck,' she said, 'listen to me. We have to talk to your father. Go outside and play, please.'

  He stood up, his eyes wide and disturbed. 'Oh, let me stay, Aunt Joan! My tractor's-'

  'Please, Chuck.'

  He looked up at his father, hesitated, and started towards the door.

  Then he paused, looking at Wakulla and Tavares; even in his child's mind, he knew that it was not usual to see them there.

  With a child's response, an incantation against evil, he summoned up politeness: 'Hello, Mr. Tavares. Hello, Mr. Wakulla.' He hesitated, then remembered one more cantrip. 'Don't worry, Daddy,' he piped. 'I'll be careful to stay in the shade.'

  Joan Bunnell, torn, said:

  'There isn't any shade. I tell you what.' She glanced at Wakulla. 'You'd better play in Mr. Wakulla's jeep. Make believe you're driving it all by yourself.'

  'Whee!' The boy shouted gleefully. He dropped tractor and skitterbugs, flung the door open and leaped out into the sand.

  Sunlight flared in.

  One of the bugs--it was impossible to tell which; only the boy could tell them apart--lay squarely in the path of the sun's rays. There was a sudden crinkling snap of sparking energy as the light it fed on struck it like a released spring, the little spidery metal thing spun around, leaped out the door and was gone.

  It was like a meteorite flung up into space, so quick and glittering.

  Hardee closed the door behind it and turned to face the others.

  'What's the matter?' he demanded.

  Old man Tavares sank into a chair. 'That stranger,' he croaked. 'The Probation Officer told Griswold about him, and now there will be trouble.

  For there is a lie here, Hardee. This is not the sort of place we are told it is.

  It is not on Mars; we are not criminals. And there must be a reason for this lie. What reason? I do not know, but whoever is telling the lie will protect it.'

  He leaned forward. 'It may cost your life to protect it, Hardee! Others have died, and I think for the same reason--you are in danger, and, with you, all of us because of the fact that you told us!'

  Hardee shook his head. He was still more than half drowsy. The world had not yet come into focus he was drugged from heat and sleep and none of this was making sense.

  He said thickly: 'What the hell are you talking about, Tavares?'

  'I am talking about death!' said the old man. And then he stopped, and there was sudden fear on his face. 'Listen!'

  Outside, a noise. An engine. No--more than one.

  'Someone coming?' guessed Hardee. 'A jeep?'

  'It is death that is coming,' sobbed Tavares. 'That's no jeep, Hardee.

  It is the plane, coming for you!'

  They ran to the door and flung it open.

  It came from the east, like a faint angry snarl of bees, the sound of the Ford tri-motor's three labouring engines.

  'There it is!' cried the girl. 'Look, over the dunes!'

  Sunlight glinted off a wing. It was the plane, all right, hardly five hundred feet up. It was heading off to one side, more in the direction of Wakulla's hut than Hardee's; clearly whoever was flying it was unfamiliar with the exact locations of the prefabs.

  But clearly also, it would not take long to straighten them out.

  'Come on!' said Hardee, and flung out the door. Whatever it was that Tavares was talking about, something of the old man's panic and desperation had reached him. 'We'll have to hide! Wakulla, you know the old mining shack? Let's go!'

  Hardee caught his son up and raced for his own jeep, leaving the others to follow in Wakulla's.

  The heat was murderous. Before they had gone a hundred yards, the radiator needle was climbing; in a hundred more, it was pressing perilously against the backstop. But Hardee couldn't wait to baby the motor now, not when the plane had begun to wheel around towards them. Already it might be too late; it was quite possible that the plane had spotted them. But it was at least a chance that the plane had not. A desert drenched in a vertical sun is not easy to scan, and there was a lot of it.

  Next to him, on the seat, the little boy looked up wonderingly at his father, and was silent.

  'It's all right, Chucky,' Hardee said, the automatic lie coming to his lips.

  It wasn't all right. There was nothing all right There was nothing all right about it.

  But it satisfied the boy. He squirmed around and knelt backward on the seat, peering out the rear mirror. 'They're catching up, Daddy!' he yelped cheerfully. 'Step on it! We'll beat them!'

  Even through heat and worry and overpowering weariness, Hardee had enough left to feel fondness and pride for his child.

  At the abandoned old mine site, Hardee spun the jeep in towards the shed. He parked it under the overhang of the dangling board sign marked Joe's Last Chance No. 1, crowding over as far as he could to make room for the other
. In a moment, Wakulla drove up beside him and squeezed in.

  Climbing out, they stared at the hostile bright sky. 'Stay under the shed!' Hardee said. 'If they've seen us--'

  But apparently the plane had not.

  They could see it clearly, dropping down over the dunes. It picked out Hardee's prefab, banked and swung around it twice; then levelled off, headed out across the desert, banked again, came in and landed bruisingly on the uneven sand.

  It was a rotten landing, but as good as could be expected for drifted sand. A tyre might have blown or a wheel collapsed, but did not. The plane was lucky and the hidden fugitives were not; they would not be saved by a crash that would destroy their pursuers.

  The plane stopped perhaps a quarter of a mile from the prefab but well out of their sight. The motors died.

  They waited.

  'Now what?' demanded Wakulla angrily. He had been dragged away from a woman, and made to drive bouncingly across the hot sand with a hangover, and there was talk he hardly understood of danger that was never quite clear, and he was irritable.

  Hardee climbed to the top of the old shed wordlessly. He stretched tall and peered towards his home.

  'Can't see,' he called down to the others. 'I can't even see the house.

  I wonder what they're doing.'

  'Come down,' said old man Tavares in a tired voice.

  He sat on the sand with his back against the weathered boards, his eyes half closing, but not with drowsiness. The heat was very great, especially for a man near seventy, and especially for a man who had lived with outrageous fear for four years and now found his fears exploding in his face.

  'Doing?' Tavares repeated wearily. 'I shall tell you what they are doing. They are searching.' His voice was hardly louder than a whisper, in the perfect quiet of the hot desert air. 'They see that your jeep is not there, but they search your house. They observe that you are not in it. It takes very little time to do this; there is not much to search.'

  'Right,' said Hardee roughly, dropping to the sand beside him. 'Then what will they do next?'

  Old man Tavares opened his eyes. He looked out across the sand.