“Hello, old Barton, this is young Barton. One year older, though. I’m twenty-one today. In the last year I’ve put voice brains in two hundred towns on Mars, I’ve populated it with arrogant Bartons!” “Yes.” The old man remembered those days six decades ago, those nights of rushing over blue hills and into iron valleys of Mars, with a truckful of machinery, whistling, happy. Another telephone, another relay. Something to do. Something clever and wonderful and sad. Hidden voices. Hidden, hidden. In those young days when death was not death, time was not time, old age a faint echo from the long blue cavern of years ahead. That young idiot, that sadistic fool, never thinking to reap the harvest so sown. “Last night,” said Barton, aged twenty-one, “I sat alone in a movie theater in an empty town. I played an old Laurel and Hardy. Laughed so much. God, how I laughed.” “Yes.” “I got an idea today. I recorded my voice one thousand times on one tape. Broadcast from the town, it sounds like a thousand people living there. A comforting noise, the noise of a crowd. I fixed it so doors slam in town, children sing, music boxes play, all by clockworks. If I don’t look out the window, if I just listen, it’s all right. But if I look, it spoils the illusion. There’s only one solution. I’ll populate the town with robots. I guess I’m getting lonely.” The old man said, “Yes. That was your first sign.” “What?” “The first time you admitted you were lonely.” “I’ve experimented with smells. As I walk down the deserted streets, the smells of bacon and eggs, ham steak, fillets, soups, come from the houses. All done with hidden machines. Clever?” “Fantasy. Madness.” “Self-protection, old man.” “I’m tired.” Abruptly, the old man hung up. It was too much. The past pouring over him, drowning him.... Swaying, he moved down the tower stairs to the streets of the town. The town was dark. No longer did red neons burn, music play, or cooking smells linger. Long ago he had abandoned the grim fantasy of the mechanical lie. Listen! Are those footsteps? Smell! Isn’t that strawberry pie! No, he had stopped it all. What had he done with the robots? His mind puzzled. Oh, yes.... He moved to the dark canal where the stars shone in the quivering waters. Underwater, in row after fish-like row, rusting, were the robot populations of Mars he had constructed over the years, and, in a wild realization of his own insane inadequacy, had commanded to march, one two three four! into the canal deeps, plunging, bubbling like sunken bottles. He had killed them and shown no remorse. * * * * * Brrrrinnnng. Faintly a phone rang in a lightless cottage. He walked on. The phone ceased.