It was the head of something that looked like an ostrich, only it must have been bigger than an elephant. Also there was a collar and a blue polka-dot bow tie around the thin neck of the critter, and it wore a hat. The hat was bright yellow and had a long purple feather. The thing looked at us a minute, winked quizzically, and then pulled its head back.
None of us said anything for a minute and then I took a deep breath. “That,” I said, “tears it, right down the middle. Planet, I dub thee Nothing Sirius.”
I bent down and hit the neck of the champagne bottle against the clay and it just dented the clay and wouldn’t break. I looked around for a rock to hit it on. There wasn’t any rock.
I took out a corkscrew from my pocket and opened the bottle instead. We all had a drink except Johnny, who took only a token sip because he doesn’t drink or smoke. Me, I had a good long one. Then I poured a brief libation on the ground and recorked the bottle; I had a hunch that I might need it more than the planet did. There was lots of whiskey in the ship and some Martian green-brew but no more champagne. I said, “Well, here we go.”
I caught Johnny’s eye and he said, “Do you think it wise, in view of the fact that there are—uh—inhabitants?”
“Inhabitants? ”
I said. “Johnny, whatever that thing that stuck its head over the hill was, it wasn’t an inhabitant. And if it pops up again, I’ll conk it over the head with this bottle.”
But just the same, before we started out, I went inside the Chitterling and got a couple more heatojectors. I stuck one in my belt and gave Ellen the other; she’s a better shot than I am. Ma couldn’t hit the side of an administration building with a spraygun, so I didn’t give her one.
We started off, and sort of by mutual consent, we went the other direction from where we’d seen the whatever-it-was. The hills all looked alike for a while and as soon as we were over the first one, we were out of sight of the Chitterling. But I noticed Johnny studying a wrist-compass every couple of minutes, and I knew he’d know the way home.
Nothing happened for three hills and then Ma said, “Look,” and we looked.
About twenty yards to our left there was a purple bush. There was a buzzing sound coming from it. We went a little closer and saw that the buzzing came from a lot of things that were flying around the bush. They looked like birds until you looked a second time and then you saw that their wings weren’t moving. But they zoomed up and down and around just the same. I tried to look at their heads, but where the heads ought to be there was only a blur. A circular blur.
“They got propellers,” Ma said. “Like old-fashioned airplanes used to have.”
It did look that way.
I looked at Johnny and he looked at me and we started over toward the bush. But the birds, or whatever, flew away quick, the minute we started toward them. They skimmed off low to the ground and were out of sight in a minute.
We started off again, none of us saying anything, and Ellen came up and walked alongside me. We were just far enough ahead to be out of earshot, and she said, “Pop—”
And didn’t go on with it, so I answered, “What, kid?”
“Nothing,” she replied sorrowful-like. “Skip it.”
So of course I knew what she wanted to talk about, but I couldn’t think of anything to say except to cuss out Mars Polytech and that wouldn’t have done any good. Mars Polytech is just too good for its own good and so are its ramrods or graduates. After a dozen years or so outside, though, some of them manage to unbend and limber up.
But Johnny hadn’t been out that long, by ten years or so. The chance to pilot the Chitterling had been a break for him, of course, as his first job. A few years with us and he’d be qualified to skipper something bigger. He’d qualify a lot faster than if he’d had to start in as a minor officer on a bigger ship.
The only trouble was that he was too good-looking, and didn’t know it. He didn’t know anything they hadn’t taught him at Polytech and all they’d taught him was math and astrogation and how to salute, and they hadn’t taught him how not to.
“Ellen,” I started to say, “don’t—”
“Yes, Pop?”
“Uh—nothing. Skip it.” I hadn’t started to say that at all, but suddenly she grinned at me and I grinned back and it was just like we’d talked the whole thing over. True, we hadn’t got anywhere, but then we wouldn’t have got anywhere if we had, if you know what I mean.
So just then we came to the top of a small rise, and we stopped because just ahead of us was the blank end of a paved street.
An ordinary everyday plastipaved street just like you’d see in any city on Earth, with curb and sidewalks and gutters and the painted traffic line down the middle. Only it ran out to nowhere, where we stood, and from there at least until it went over the top of the next rise, and there wasn’t a house or a vehicle or a creature in sight.
I looked at Ellen and she looked at me and then we both looked at Ma and Johnny Lane, who had just caught up with us. I said, “What is it, Johnny?”
“It seems to be a street, sir.”
He caught the look I was giving him and flushed a little. He bent over and examined the paving closely and when he straightened up his eyes were even more surprised.
I queried, “Well, what is it? Caramel icing?”
“It’s Permaplast, sir. We aren’t the discoverers of this planet because that stuff’s a trademarked Earth product.”
“Urn,” I mumbled. “Couldn’t the natives here have discovered the same process? The same ingredients might be available.”
“Yes, sir. But the blocks are trademarked, if you’ll look closely.”
“Couldn’t the natives have—” Then I shut up because I saw how silly that was. But it’s tough to think your party has discovered a new planet and then have Earth-trademarked bricks on the first street you come to. “But what’s a street doing here at all?” I wanted to know.
“There’s only one way to find out,” said Ma sensibly. “And that’s to follow it. So what are we standing here for?”
So we pushed on, with much better footing now, and on the next rise we saw a building. A two-story red brick with a sign that read “Bon-Ton Restaurant” in Old English script lettering.
I said, “I’ll be a—” But Ma clapped her hand over my mouth before I could finish, which was maybe just as well, for what I’d been going to say had been quite inadequate. There was the building only a hundred yards ahead, facing us at a sharp turn in the street.
I started walking faster and I got there first by a few paces. I opened the door and started to walk in. Then I stopped cold on the doorstep, because there wasn’t any “in” to that building. It was a false front, like a cinema set, and all you could see through the door was more of those rolling greenish hills.
I stepped back and looked up at the “Bon-Ton Restaurant” sign, and the others walked up and looked through the doorway, which I’d left open. We just stood there until Ma got impatient and said, “Well, what are you going to do?”
“What do you want me to do?” I wanted to know. “Go in and order a lobster dinner? With champagne?—Hey, I forgot.”
The champagne bottle was still in my jacket pocket and I took it out and passed it first to Ma and then to Ellen, and then I finished most of what was left; I must have drunk it too fast because the bubbles tickled my nose and made me sneeze.
I felt ready for anything, though, and I took another walk through the doorway of the building that wasn’t there. Maybe, I figured, I could see some indication of how recently it had been put up, or something. There wasn’t any indication that I could see. The inside, or rather the back of the front, was smooth and plain like a sheet of glass. It looked like a synthetic of some sort.