_Dip the pen of a Frank Belknap Long into a bottle of ink and the result is always bound to be a scintillating piece of brilliant imaginative science fiction. And he's done it again in the tortured story of Sally. _

 the calm man

 _by . .. Frank Belknap Long_

 Sally watched the molten gold glow in the sky. Then knew she would not see her son and her husband ever again on Earth. 

Sally Anders had never really thought of herself as a wallflower. A girlcould be shy, couldn't she, and still be pretty enough to attract andhold men?

Only this morning she had drawn an admiring look from the milkman and awolf cry from Jimmy on the corner, with his newspapers and shiny newbike. What if the milkman was crowding sixty and wore thick-lensedglasses? What if Jimmy was only seventeen?

A male was a male, and a glance was a glance. Why, if I just primp alittle more, Sally told herself, I'll be irresistible. 

Hair ribbons and perfume, a mirror tilted at just the right angle, aninvitation to a party on the dresser--what more did a girl need?

"Dinner, Sally!" came echoing up from the kitchen. "Do you want to belate, child?"

Sally had no intention of being late. Tonight she'd see him across acrowded room and her heart would skip a beat. He'd look at her andsmile, and come straight toward her with his shoulders squared. 

There was always one night in a girl's life that stands above all othernights. One night when the moon shone bright and clear and the clock onthe wall went _tick tock, tick tock, tick tock_. One night when eachtick said, "You're beautiful! Really beautiful!"

Giving her hair a final pat Sally smiled at herself in the mirror. 

In the bathroom the water was still running and the perfumed bath soapstill spread its aromatic sweet odor through the room. Sally went intothe bathroom and turned off the tap before going downstairs to thekitchen. 

"My girl looks radiant tonight!" Uncle Ben said, smiling at her over hiscorned beef and cabbage. 

Sally blushed and lowered her eyes. 

"Ben, you're making her nervous, " Sally's mother said, laughing. 

Sally looked up and met her uncle's stare, her eyes defiant. "I'm notbad-looking whatever you may think, " she said. 

"Oh, now, Sally, " Uncle Ben protested. "No sense in getting on a highhorse. Tonight you may find a man who just won't be able to resist you. "

"Maybe I will and maybe I won't, " Sally said. "You'd be surprised if Idid, wouldn't you?"

It was Uncle Ben's turn to lower his eyes. 

"I'll tell the world you've inherited your mother's looks, Sally, " hesaid. "But a man has to pride himself on something. My defects ofcharacter are pretty bad. But no one has ever accused me of dishonesty. "

Sally folded her napkin and rose stiffly from the table. 

"Good night, Uncle, " she said. 

When Sally arrived at the party every foot of floor space was taken upby dancing couples and the reception room was so crowded that, as eachnew guest was announced, a little ripple of displeasure went through themen in midnight blue and the women in Nile green and lavender. 

For a moment Sally did not move, just stood staring at the dancingcouples, half-hidden by one of the potted palms that framed the sides ofthe long room. 

Moonlight silvered her hair and touched her white throat and arms with acaress so gentle that simply by closing her eyes she could fancy herselfalready in his arms. 

Moonlight from tall windows flooding down, turning the dancing guestsinto pirouetting ghosts in diaphanous blue and green, scarlet and gold. 

_Close your eyes, Sally, close them tight! Now open them! That's it . .. Slowly, slowly . .. _

He came out of nothingness into the light and was right beside hersuddenly. 

He was tall, but not too tall. His face was tanned mahogany brown, andhis eyes were clear and very bright. And he stood there looking at hersteadily until her mouth opened and a little gasp flew out. 

He took her into his arms without a word and they started to dance . .. 

They were still dancing when he asked her to be his wife. 

"You'll marry me, of course, " he said. "We haven't too much time. Theyears go by so swiftly, like great white birds at sea. "

They were very close when he asked her, but he made no attempt to kissher. They went right on dancing and while he waited for her answer hetalked about the moon . .. 

"When the lights go out and the music stops the moon will remain, " hesaid. "It raises tides on the Earth, it inflames the minds and hearts ofmen. There are cyclic rhythms which would set a stone to dreaming anddesiring on such a night as this. "

He stopped dancing abruptly and looked at her with calm assurance. 

"You _will_ marry me, won't you?" he asked. "Allowing for a reasonablemargin of error I seriously doubt if I could be happy with any of theseother women. I was attracted to you the instant I saw you. "

A girl who has never been asked before, who has drawn only one lone wolfcry from a newsboy could hardly be expected to resist such an offer. 

_Don't resist, Sally. He's strong and tall and extremely good-looking. He knows what he wants and makes up his mind quickly. Surely a man soresolute must make enough money to support a wife. _

"Yes, " Sally breathed, snuggling close to him. "Oh, yes!"

She paused a moment, then said, "You may kiss me now if you wish, mydarling. "

He straightened and frowned a little, and looked away quickly. "That canwait, " he said. 

 * * * * *

They were married a week later and went to live on an elm-shaded streetjust five blocks from where Sally was born. The cottage was small, whiteand attractively decorated inside and out. But Sally changed thecurtains, as all women must, and bought some new furniture on theinstallment plan. 

The neighbors were friendly folk who knew her husband as Mr. James Rand, an energetic young insurance broker who would certainly carve a widerswath for himself in his chosen profession now that he had so charming awife. 

Ten months later the first baby came. 

Lying beneath cool white sheets in the hospital Sally looked at theother women and felt so deliriously happy she wanted to cry. It was abeautiful baby and it cuddled close to her heart, its smallness amiracle in itself. 

The other husbands came in and sat beside their wives, holding on tightto their happiness. There were flowers and smiles, whispers thatexplored bright new worlds of tenderness and rejoicing. 

Out in the corridor the husbands congratulated one another and came insmelling of cigar smoke. 

"Have a cigar! That's right. Eight pounds at birth. That's unusual, isn't it? Brightest kid you ever saw. Knew his old man right off. "

He was beside her suddenly, standing straight and still in shadows. 

"Oh, darling, " she whispered. "Why did you wait? It's been three wholedays. "

"Three days?" he asked, leaning forward to stare down at his son. "Really! It didn't seem that long. "

"Where were you? You didn't even phone!"

"Sometimes it's difficult to phone, " he said slowly, as if measuring hiswords. "You have given me a son. That pleases me very much. "

A coldness touched her heart and a despair took hold of her. "It pleasesyou! Is that all you can say? You stand there looking at me as if I werea--a patient . .. "

"A patient?" His expression grew quizzical. "Just what do you mean, Sally?"

"You said you were pleased. If a patient is ill her doctor hopes thatshe will get well. He is pleased when she does. If a woman has a baby adoctor will say, 'I'm so pleased. The baby is doing fine. You don't haveto worry about him. I've put him on the scales and he's a bouncing, healthy boy. '"

"Medicine is a sane and wise profession, " Sally's husband said. "When Ilook at my son that is exactly what I would say to the mother of my son. He is healthy and strong. You have pleased me, Sally. "

He bent as he spoke and picked Sally's son up. He held the infant in thecrook of his arm, smiling down at it. 

"A healthy male child, " he said. "His hair will come in thick and black. Soon he will speak, will know that I am his father. "

He ran his palm over the baby's smooth head, opened its mouth gentlywith his forefinger and looked inside. 

Sally rose on one elbow, her tormented eyes searching his face. 

"He's your child, your son!" she sobbed. "A woman has a child and herhusband comes and puts his arms around her. He holds her close. If theylove each other they are so happy, so very happy, they break down andcry. "

"I am too pleased to do anything so fantastic, Sally, " he said. "When achild is born no tears should be shed by its parents. I have examinedthe child and I am pleased with it. Does not that content you?"

"No, it doesn't!" Sally almost shrieked. "Why do you stare at your ownson as if you'd never seen a baby before? He isn't a mechanical toy. He's our own darling, adorable little baby. _Our child!_ How can you beso _inhumanly_ calm?"

He frowned, put the baby down. 

"There is a time for love-making and a time for parenthood, " he said. "Parenthood is a serious responsibility. That is where medicine comesin, surgery. If a child is not perfect there are emergency measureswhich can be taken to correct the defect. "

Sally's mouth went suddenly dry. "Perfect! What do you mean, Jim? Isthere something _wrong_ with Tommy?"

"I don't think so, " her husband said. "His grasp is firm and strong. Hehas good hearing and his eyesight appears to be all that could bedesired. Did you notice how his eyes followed me every moment?"

"I wasn't looking at his eyes!" Sally whispered, her voice tight withalarm. "Why are you trying to frighten me, Jim? If Tommy wasn't anormal, healthy baby do you imagine for one instant they would haveplaced him in my arms?"

"That is a very sound observation, " Sally's husband said. "Truth istruth, but to alarm you at a time like this would be unnecessarilycruel. "

"Where does that put you?"

"I simply spoke my mind as the child's father. I had to speak as I didbecause of my natural concern for the health of our child. Do you wantme to stay and talk to you, Sally?"

Sally shook her head. "No, Jim. I won't let you torture me any more. "

Sally drew the baby into her arms again and held it tightly. "I'llscream if you stay!" she warned. "I'll become hysterical unless youleave. "

"Very well, " her husband said. "I'll come back tomorrow. "

He bent as he spoke and kissed her on the forehead. His lips were icecold. 

For eight years Sally sat across the table from her husband atbreakfast, her eyes fixed upon a nothingness on the green-blue wall athis back. Calm he remained even while eating. The eggs she placed beforehim he cracked methodically with a knife and consumed behind a tiltednewspaper, taking now an assured sip of coffee, now a measured glance atthe clock. 

The presence of his young son bothered him not at all. Tommy could bequiet or noisy, in trouble at school, or with an _A_ for good conducttucked with his report card in his soiled leather zipper jacket. It wasalways: "Eat slowly, my son. Never gulp your food. Be sure to takeplenty of exercise today. Stay in the sun as much as possible. "

Often Sally wanted to shriek: "Be a father to him! A real father! Getdown on the floor and play with him. Shoot marbles with him, spin one ofhis tops. Remember the toy locomotive you gave him for Christmas after Igot hysterical and screamed at you? Remember the beautiful little train?Get it out of the closet and wreck it accidentally. He'll warm up to youthen. He'll be broken-hearted, but he'll feel close to you, then you'llknow what it means to have a son!"

Often Sally wanted to fly at him, beat with her fists on his chest. Butshe never did. 

_You can't warm a stone by slapping it, Sally. You'd only bruiseyourself. A stone is neither cruel nor tender. You've married a man ofstone, Sally. _

He hasn't missed a day at the office in eight years. She'd never visitedthe office but he was always there to answer when she phoned. "I'm verybusy, Sally. What did you say? You've bought a new hat? I'm sure it willlook well on you, Sally. What did you say? Tommy got into a fight with anew boy in the neighborhood? You must take better care of him, Sally. "

There are patterns in every marriage. When once the mold has set, a fewstrange behavior patterns must be accepted as a matter of course. 

"I'll drop in at the office tomorrow, darling!" Sally had promised rightafter the breakfast pattern had become firmly established. The desire tosee where her husband worked had been from the start a strong, brightflame in her. But he asked her to wait a while before visiting hisoffice. 

A strong will can dampen the brightest flame, and when months passed andhe kept saying 'no, ' Sally found herself agreeing with her husband'ssuggestion that the visit be put off indefinitely. 

Snuff a candle and it stays snuffed. A marriage pattern once establishedrequires a very special kind of re-kindling. Sally's husband refused tosupply the needed spark. 

Whenever Sally had an impulse to turn her steps in the direction of theoffice a voice deep in her mind seemed to whisper: "No sense in it, Sally. Stay away. He's been mean and spiteful about it all these years. Don't give in to him now by going. "

Besides, Tommy took up so much of her time. A growing boy was always aproblem and Tommy seemed to have a special gift for getting into thingsbecause he was so active. And he went through his clothes, wore out hisshoes almost faster than she could replace them. 

Right now Tommy was playing in the yard. Sally's eyes came to a focusupon him, crouching by a hole in the fence which kindly old Mrs. Wallingford had erected as a protection against the pryinginquisitiveness of an eight-year-old determined to make life miserablefor her. 

A thrice-widowed neighbor of seventy without a spiteful hair in her headcould put up with a boy who rollicked and yelled perhaps. But peep-holespying was another matter. 

Sally muttered: "Enough of that!" and started for the kitchen door. Justas she reached it the telephone rang. 

Sally went quickly to the phone and lifted the receiver. The instant shepressed it to her ear she recognized her husband's voice--or thought shedid. 

"Sally, come to the office!" came the voice, speaking in a hoarsewhisper. "Hurry--or it will be too late! Hurry, Sally!"

Sally turned with a startled gasp, looked out through the kitchen windowat the autumn leaves blowing crisp and dry across the lawn. As shelooked the scattered leaves whirled into a flurry around Tommy, thenlifted and went spinning over the fence and out of sight. 

The dread in her heart gave way to a sudden, bleak despair. As sheturned from the phone something within her withered, became as dead asthe drifting leaves with their dark autumnal mottlings. 

She did not even pause to call Tommy in from the yard. She rushedupstairs, then down again, gathering up her hat, gloves and purse, making sure she had enough change to pay for the taxi. 

The ride to the office was a nightmare . .. Tall buildings swept past, facades of granite as gray as the leaden skies of mid-winter, beehivesof commerce where men and women brushed shoulders without touchinghands. 

Autumnal leaves blowing, and the gray buildings sweeping past. DespiteTommy, despite everything there was no shining vision to warm Sally fromwithin. A cottage must be lived in to become a home and Sally had neverreally had a home. 

One-night stand! It wasn't an expression she'd have used by choice, butit came unbidden into her mind. If you live for nine years with a manwho can't relax and be human, who can't be warm and loving you'll begineventually to feel you might as well live alone. Each day had been likea lonely sentinel outpost in a desert waste for Sally. 

She thought about Tommy . .. Tommy wasn't in the least like his fatherwhen he came racing home from school, hair tousled, books dangling froma strap. Tommy would raid the pantry with unthinking zest, invite otherboys in to look at the Westerns on TV, and trade black eyes for marbleswith a healthy pugnacity. 

Up to a point Tommy _was_ normal, _was_ healthy. 

But she had seen mirrored in Tommy's pale blue eyes the same abnormalcalmness that was always in his father's, and the look of derisivewithdrawal which made him seem always to be staring down at her from aheight. And it filled her with terror to see that Tommy's mood couldchange as abruptly and terrifyingly cold . .. 

Tommy, her son. Tommy, no longer boisterous and eager, but sitting in acorner with his legs drawn up, a faraway look in his eyes. Tommy seemingto look right through her, into space. Tommy and Jim exchanging silentunderstanding glances. Tommy roaming through the cottage, staring at histoys with frowning disapproval. Tommy drawing back when she tried totouch him. 

_Tommy, Tommy, come back to me!_ How often she had cried out in herheart when that coldness came between them. 

Tommy drawing strange figures on the floor with a piece of coloredchalk, then erasing them quickly before she could see them, refusing tolet her enter his secret child's world. 

Tommy picking up the cat and stroking its fur mechanically, while hestared out through the kitchen window at rusty blackbirds on thewing . .. 

"This is the address you gave me, lady. Sixty-seven Vine Street, " thecab driver was saying. 

Sally shivered, remembering her husband's voice on the phone, remembering where she was . .. "_Come to the office, Sally! Hurry, hurry--or it will be too late!_"

Too late for what? Too late to recapture a happiness she had neverpossessed?

"This is it, lady!" the cab driver insisted. "Do you want me to wait?"

"No, " Sally said, fumbling for her change purse. She descended from thetaxi, paid the driver and hurried across the pavement to the big officebuilding with its mirroring frontage of plate glass and black onyxtiles. 

The firm's name was on the directory board in the lobby, white on blackin beautifully embossed lettering. White for hope, and black fordespair, mourning . .. 

The elevator opened and closed and Sally was whisked up eight storiesbehind a man in a checkered suit. 

"Eighth floor!" Sally whispered, in sudden alarm. The elevator jolted toan abrupt halt and the operator swung about to glare at her. 

"You should have told me when you got on, Miss!" he complained. 

"Sorry, " Sally muttered, stumbling out into the corridor. How horribleit must be to go to business every day, she thought wildly. To sit in anoffice, to thumb through papers, to bark orders, to be a machine. 

Sally stood very still for an instant, startled, feeling her sanitythreatened by the very absurdity of the thought. People who worked inoffices could turn for escape to a cottage in the sunset's glow, whenthey were set free by the moving hands of a clock. There could be afierce joy at the thought of deliverance, at the prospect of going homeat five o'clock. 

But for Sally was the brightness, the deliverance withheld. The corridorwas wide and deserted and the black tiles with their gold borders seemedto converge upon her, hemming her into a cool magnificence asstructurally somber as the architectural embellishments of a costlymausoleum. 

She found the office with her surface mind, working at cross-purposeswith the confusion and swiftly mounting dread which made her footstepsfalter, her mouth go dry. 

_Steady, Sally! Here's the office, here's the door. Turn the knob andget it over with . .. _

Sally opened the door and stepped into a small, deserted reception room. Beyond the reception desk was a gate, and beyond the gate a largecentral office branched off into several smaller offices. 

Sally paused only an instant. It seemed quite natural to her that abusiness office should be deserted so late in the afternoon. 

She crossed the reception room to the gate, passed through it, utterdesperation giving her courage. 

Something within her whispered that she had only to walk across thecentral office, open the first door she came to to find her husband . .. 

The first door combined privacy with easy accessibility. The instant sheopened the door she knew that she had been right to trust her instincts. This was his office . .. 

He was sitting at a desk by the window, a patch of sunset sky visibleover his right shoulder. His elbows rested on the desk and his handswere tightly locked as if he had just stopped wringing them. 

He was looking straight at her, his eyes wide and staring. 

"Jim!" Sally breathed. "Jim, what's wrong?"

He did not answer, did not move or attempt to greet her in any way. There was no color at all in his face. His lips were parted, his whiteteeth gleamed. And he was more stiffly controlled than usual--a controlso intense that for once Sally felt more alarm than bitterness. 

There was a rising terror in her now. And a slowly dawning horror. Thesunlight streamed in, gleaming redly on his hair, his shoulders. Heseemed to be the center of a flaming red ball . .. 

_He sent for you, Sally. Why doesn't he get up and speak to you, if onlyto pour salt on the wounds you've borne for eight long years?_

_Poor Sally! You wanted a strong, protective, old-fashioned husband. What have you got instead?_

Sally went up to the desk and looked steadily into eyes so calm andblank that they seemed like the eyes of a child lost in some dreamywonderland barred forever to adult understanding. 

For an instant her terror ebbed and she felt almost reassured. Then shemade the mistake of bending more closely above him, brushing his rightelbow with her sleeve. 

 * * * * *

That single light woman's touch unsettled him. He started to fall, sideways and very fast. Topple a dead weight and it crashes with aswiftness no opposing force can counter-balance. 

It did Sally no good to clutch frantically at his arm as he fell, to tugand jerk at the slackening folds of his suit. The heaviness of hisdescending bulk dragged him down and away from her, the awful inertia oflifeless flesh. 

He thudded to the floor and rolled over on his back, seeming to shrinkas Sally widened her eyes upon him. He lay in a grotesque sprawl at herfeet, his jaw hanging open on the gaping black orifice of his mouth . .. 

Sally might have screamed and gone right on screaming--if she had been adifferent kind of woman. On seeing her husband lying dead her impulsemight have been to throw herself down beside him, give way to her griefin a wild fit of sobbing. 

But where there was no grief there could be no sobbing . .. 

One thing only she did before she left. She unloosed the collar of theunmoving form on the floor and looked for the small brown mole she didnot really expect to find. The mole she knew to be on her husband'sshoulder, high up on the left side. 

She had noticed things that made her doubt her sanity; she needed to seethe little black mole to reassure her . .. 

She had noticed the difference in the hair-line, the strange slant ofthe eyebrows, the crinkly texture of the skin where it should have beensmooth . .. 

Something was wrong . .. Horribly, weirdly wrong . .. 

Even the hands of the sprawled form seemed larger and hairier than thehands of her husband. Nevertheless it was important to be sure . .. 

The absence of the mole clinched it. 

Sally crouched beside the body, carefully readjusting the collar. Thenshe got up and walked out of the office. 

Some homecomings are joyful, others cruel. Sitting in the taxi, clenching and unclenching her hands, Sally had no plan that could becalled a plan, no hope that was more than a dim flickering in a vastwasteland, bleak and unexplored. 

But it was strange how one light burning brightly in a cottage windowcould make even a wasteland seem small, could shrink and diminish ituntil it became no more than a patch of darkness that anyone withcourage might cross. 

The light was in Tommy's room and there was a whispering behind thedoor. Sally could hear the whispering as she tiptoed upstairs, could seethe light streaming out into the hall. 

She paused for an instant at the head of the stairs, listening. Therewere two voices in the room, and they were talking back and forth. 

Sally tiptoed down the hall, stood with wildly beating heart justoutside the door. 

"She knows now, Tommy, " the deepest of the two voices said. "We are veryclose, your mother and I. She knows now that I sent her to the office tofind my 'stand in. ' Oh, it's an amusing term, Tommy--an Earth term we'dhardly use on Mars. But it's a term your mother would understand. "

A pause, then the voice went on, "You see, my son, it has taken me eightyears to repair the ship. And in eight years a man can wither up and dieby inches if he does not have a growing son to go adventuring with himin the end. "

"Adventuring, father?"

"You have read a good many Earth books, my son, written especially forboys. _Treasure Island_, _Robinson Crusoe_, _Twenty Thousand LeaguesUnder The Sea_. What paltry books they are! But in them there is alittle of the fire, a little of the glow of _our_ world. "

"No, father. I started them but I threw them away for I did not likethem. "

"As you and I must throw away all Earth things, my son. I tried to bekind to your mother, to be a good husband as husbands go on Earth. Buthow could I feel proud and strong and reckless by her side? How could Ishare her paltry joys and sorrows, chirp with delight as a sparrow mightchirp hopping about in the grass? Can an eagle pretend to be a sparrow?Can the thunder muffle its voice when two white-crested clouds collidein the shining depths of the night sky?"

"You tried, father. You did your best. "

"Yes, my son, I did try. But if I had attempted to feign emotions I didnot feel your mother would have seen through the pretense. She wouldthen have turned from me completely. Without her I could not have hadyou, my son. "

"And now, father, what will we do?"

"Now the ship has been repaired and is waiting for us. Every day foreight years I went to the hill and worked on the ship. It was badlywrecked, my son, but now my patience has been rewarded, and everydamaged astronavigation instrument has been replaced. "

"You never went to the office, father? You never went at all?"

"No, my son. My stand-in worked at the office in my place. I instilledin your mother's mind an intense dislike and fear of the office to keepher from ever coming face to face with the stand-in. She might havenoticed the difference. But I had to have a stand-in, as a safeguard. Your mother _might_ have gone to the office despite the mental block. "

"She's gone now, father. Why did you send for her?"

"To avoid what she would call a scene, my son. That I could not endure. I had the stand-in summon her on the office telephone, then I withdrewall vitality from it. She will find it quite lifeless. But it does notmatter now. When she returns we will be gone. "

"Was constructing the stand-in difficult, father?"

"Not for me, my son. On Mars we have many androids, each constructed toperform a specific task. Some are ingenious beyond belief--or would seemso to Earthmen. "

There was a pause, then the weaker of the two voices said, "I will missmy mother. She tried to make me happy. She tried very hard. "

"You must be brave and strong, my son. We are eagles, you and I. Yourmother is a sparrow, gentle and dun-colored. I shall always remember herwith tenderness. You want to go with me, don't you?"

"Yes, father. Oh, yes!"

"Then come, my son. We must hurry. Your mother will be returning anyminute now. "

Sally stood motionless, listening to the voices like a spectator sittingbefore a television screen. A spectator can see as well as hear, andSally could visualize her son's pale, eager face so clearly there was noneed for her to move forward into the room. 

She could not move. And nothing on Earth could have wrenched a torturedcry from her. Grief and shock may paralyze the mind and will, butSally's will was not paralyzed. 

It was as if the thread of her life had been cut, with only one lightleft burning. Tommy was that light. He would never change. He would gofrom her forever. But he would always be her son. 

The door of Tommy's room opened and Tommy and his father came out intothe hall. Sally stepped back into shadows and watched them walk quicklydown the hall to the stairs, their voices low, hushed. She heard themdescend the stairs, their footsteps dwindle, die away into silence . .. 

_You'll see a light, Sally, a great glow lighting up the sky. The shipmust be very beautiful. For eight years he labored over it, restoring itwith all the shining gifts of skill and feeling at his command. He wascalm toward you, but not toward the ship, Sally--the ship which willtake him back to Mars!_

How is it on Mars, she wondered. My son, Tommy, will become a strong, proud adventurer daring the farthest planet of the farthest star?

You can't stop a boy from adventuring. Surprise him at his books andyou'll see tropical seas in his eyes, a pearly nautilus, Hong Kong andValparaiso resplendent in the dawn. 

_There is no strength quite like the strength of a mother, Sally. Endureit, be brave . .. _

Sally was at the window when it came. A dazzling burst of radiance, starting from the horizon's rim and spreading across the entire sky. Itlit up the cottage and flickered over the lawn, turning rooftops tomolten gold and gilding the long line of rolling hills which hemmed inthe town. 

Brighter it grew and brighter, gilding for a moment even Sally's bowedhead and her image mirrored on the pane. Then, abruptly, it was gone . .. 

Transcriber's Note:

 This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ May 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. Copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.