“I’ve made a thousand Bartons, tapes, sensitive to all questions, my voice, in one thousand Martian towns. An army of Bartons over Mars, while I wait for the rockets to return.” “You fool,” the old man shook his head, wearily. “You waited sixty years. You grew old waiting, always alone. And now you’ve become me and you’re still alone in the empty cities.” “Don’t expect my sympathy. You’re like a stranger, off in another country. I can’t be sad. I’m alive when I make these tapes. And you’re alive when you hear them. Both of us, to the other, incomprehensible. Neither can warn the other, even though both respond, one to the other, one automatically, the other warmly and humanly. I’m human now. You’re human later. It’s insane. I can’t cry, because not knowing the future I can only be optimistic. These hidden tapes can only react to a certain number of stimuli from you. Can you ask a dead man to weep?” “Stop it!” cried the old man, for his heart was sickening in him. He felt the familiar great seizures of pain. Nausea moved through him, and blackness. “Stop it! Oh God, but you were heartless. Go away!” “Were, old man? I am. As long as the tapes glide on, as long as secret spindles and hidden electronic eyes read and select and convert words to send to you, I’ll be young, cruel, blunt. I’ll go on being young and cruel long after you’re dead. Goodby.” “Wait!” cried the old man. Click. * * * * * Barton sat holding the silent phone a long while. His heart gave him intense pain. What insanity it had been. In youth’s flush, how silly, how inspired, those first secluded years, fixing the telephonic brains, the tapes, the circuits, scheduling calls on time relays: Brrrrinnnng! “Morning, Barton. This is Barton. Seven o’clock. Rise and shine!” Brrrrinnnng! “Barton? Barton calling. You’re to go to Mars Town at noon. Install a telephonic brain. Thought I’d remind you.” “Thanks.” Brrrrinnnng! “Barton? Barton. Have lunch with me? The Rocket Inn?” “Right.” “See you. So long!” Brrrrinnnng! “That you, B.? Thought I’d cheer you. Firm chin, and all that. The rescue rocket might come tomorrow, to save you.” “Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.” Click. But forty years had burned into smoke. Barton had muted the insidious phones and their clever, clever repartee. He had sealed them into silences. They were to call him only after he was eighty, if he still lived. And now today, the phones ringing, and the past breathing in his ear, sighing, whispering, murmuring, and remembering. Brrrrinnnng! He let it ring. “I don’t have to answer it,” he thought. Brrrrinnnng! “There’s no one there at all,” he thought. Brrrrinnnng! “It’s like talking to yourself,” he thought. “But different. Oh God, how different.” He felt his hands crawl unconsciously toward the phone. Click.