"Oh, yes. Time is like this mural. Let me show you: Aim your light at the left-hand corner of the picture. See the sun and its planets forming out of cosmic dust? Now move the beam toward the right. Slowly.... Slowly! Notice how Martian oceans form and living things crawl out of them. "Now continue. There you see the winged Martians with their cities that long have crumbled to dust. Next, water grows scarce and canals are built. Here all but a few of us have lost our wings. "Here we colonize Earth ... to our eternal regret. Finally, you see us abandon Mars rather than risk another test of strength with you pushing troglodytes." "I-I don't understand," she whispered, strangely moved. "That searchlight beam represents the living present. Where it shines, life pulses briefly on a vast mural that is painted across time, from its beginning to its end. Martians manipulate the light of the present as we please, living when we please, so long as we please." "How dreadful.... Wonderful, I mean." She gazed at him worshipfully. "And you can do this for humans too?" "For short periods, yes. But stop fluttering your lovely eyelashes at me. Punished you are going to be. If you can suggest nothing better than my plan, I'll go back to it and take the consequences. Otherwise I'll be the laughing stock of my friends." "And you couldn't stand that, could you, poor boy?" She patted his hand before he snatched it away. "How is this, then, for an alternative? Tonight, when I couldn't sleep, I got to thinking that there could be no more fitting punishment for tourists than to be forced to live, for years and years, in a plush hotel at Atlantic City, Las Vegas ... or Dawningsburgh. Think how miserable they would become if they had to take the same tours over and over with the same guides; stuff themselves on the same meals; dance to the same orchestras with the same new friends. Can you hold your time spotlight still here for, say, ten years?" "Of course," Mura crowed as he swept her into his downy arms and danced her about among the robot perches. "A wonderful idea. You're a genius. Even the others may come back, now, to watch humans squirm, yawn--and perhaps learn to respect their elders. How can I repay you?" * * * * * "Let me go back to New York," she said, feeling like a traitor. "That wouldn't be fair. You're a tourist. You came here to prove to yourself that, as your Bible puts it, 'a living dog is better than a dead lion.' You must learn your lessons along with others." "I suppose you're right." She felt cleaner now, even though the prospect of a decade at Dawningsburgh, with The Quest unfinished, appalled her. To be forty-one and still single when she returned to Earth! Two tears trickled down her freckled nose. "That's better," the Pitaret sang happily. "You're already beginning to understand the meaning of our ancient ceremonial. Give me ten years and I'll make a real Martian of you!"