Chapter II

I was sitting early one evening near the monight hour, alone with Frannie in the observation room. Dr. Gryce, in the room adjoining, had fallen asleep, worn by repressed anxiety and his now almost day and night vigil. We were talking in half-whispers; and abruptly Frannie voiced the fear that possessed us all.

"Oh, Frank, can't you see them? Please, you must! Oh, I'm afraid they're never coming back. Never--coming back."

It sounded so horrible. "Hush, Frannie. You mustn't say things like that." I put my arm around her, and suddenly like a child she flung herself to me; sobbed, and clung to me.

"Hush, Frannie. Don't cry--please don't cry. I'll look again. I might see them now. I'll try to."

I drew away from her; went back to my instrument. I had in mind to try the myrdoscope, but all our efforts with it during the two weeks past had been unavailing. It was a calm, clear evening. A broadly crescent moon was falling into the west. Mars was well above the eastern horizon; through the electro-telescope I looked that way. My circular field was empty. Frannie was checking her sobs, interested with hope renewed.

"Don't you see them, Frank?"

"No--not yet--_Yes_! I see them! Frannie, I see them!"

From visually above the red planet, out of nothingness a huge shape suddenly materialized. It had not been there an instant before; it seemed for the space of a thought, a transparent ghost of the vehicle; solidifying until even before I had told Frannie, I was aware that I saw it there. The vehicle unmistakable.

"They've come, Frannie! I see them! Call your father. Dr. Gryce! They've come! They're safe!"

How my heart leaped to be able to say it! Frannie was calling; and Dr. Gryce, no more than half awake, repeating, "They've come? They're in sight? They're safe?"

This gentle old man, how full of thankfulness his heart must have been! He came stumbling into the room. "Where are they, Frank? You can see them, lad?"

I could see them indeed--plainly, for abruptly I realized that they were no farther than just beyond the earth's atmosphere. And I could see also the conventional vane flying at horizontal above the vehicle's tower to denote that all was well within. They had come. They were safe.

They landed in the garden. Like a wafting feather the vehicle floated down under Brett's skilled guidance. It was of a size seemingly identical with the one it had upon departure, but evidence of its trip was everywhere visible. Its gleaming milk-white color was dulled. Its sides were pitted and scarred--the metal burned. A lower corner seemed fused into a shapeless lump.

The door slid open as we crowded forward. My heart was pounding. A sudden, irrelevant thought leaped to me--a thought, hope, that they might have brought back with them that strangely beautiful girl they had gone to rescue. A thought abruptly, fiercely poignant--yet with it a consciousness of its whimsicality that I--Frank Elgon--who loved Frannie Gryce, should be possessed of such incongruous desire.

The door was open. Brett and Martt--queerly garbed to seem almost strangers--were crowding there, with no one else behind them. But already I had forgotten the girl. Frannie's glad cries of welcome rang out; and Dr. Gryce's tremulous greeting; and I heard my own voice, strangely calm, "Well! Brett--Martt--you got back safely, didn't you? I'm so glad--we're all so glad!"

_CHAPTER 6_

THE FLIGHT INTO TIME, SIZE AND SPACE

They seemed not tired, but undoubtedly they were hungry, famished; and before they would say a word of those strange things we knew they had to tell, they made us feed them. "Regular food," as Martt laughingly called it. "By the code! We've eaten for months weird things supposed to be edible. My digestion is ruined."

Months! They had been gone two weeks and two days into a realm where those little sixteen days were no more than a tiny fraction of a second! Yet they spoke of months! It was very strange.

"Frannie! _Don't_ ask me that again." Martt affectionately tweaked her chin. "We found her, I tell you. Wait till we've had supper--you'll hear."

They ate with the relish of those long deprived of accustomed food; and as we sat with them, forbearing to ask the eager questions flooding us, again I had that impression of the strangeness which had come to them. It was not only their manner of dress, though that of itself was extraordinary. They wore shirts of a colored cloth with a high rolling collar in front, low and open in back. Short trousers that were queerly wide and flapping at the knee, stockings that seemed of a soft gray leather and long-pointed shoes of a material I could not name. Over the shirt a short jacket, wide-shouldered and with sleeves that puffed and flared; and a skirt to it at the waist which rolled upward. Their hats--which Frannie rescued from the vehicle--were solidly wooden of aspect, with low circular crowns and triangular stiff brims.

The garb seemed grotesque; yet they took it so as a matter of course when once we ceased our comments--and they were so easy in it, so unconscious of it--that abruptly I realized it was my own viewpoint that held the strangeness. Between them, also, there was a difference of aspect--a rationality to their characters. The colors of their garments materially differed. Brett's clothes were more sober--less vivid, less extreme. His shirt was a somber brown; Martt's was a glaring green. Martt's jacket had additional bangles fastened to its cloth, it rolled higher in the skirt; tassels depended from his elbows longer than those Brett wore. His jacket sleeves were fuller; his trousers flared more, and were a more brilliant hue. But I will say that when after a time I became in a measure accustomed to his looks, Martt was very handsome; and he carried himself with a sort of swinging, debonair grace and swagger wholly attractive.

They were strangers to us in their mode of dress; no one regarding them could have named a nation of earth or any of the habited planets from which they might have come. Yet the strangeness went deeper than their clothes. They seemed older. A vague aspect of command seemed upon them--especially did it envelop Brett, like an aura sensed but not seen. Martt's old jocularity was unchanged; no dignity, no reservation, no aloofness with us had been added to the new swagger. Yet beneath his laughter there seemed always a hidden solemnity. And then I saw it all--this subtle strangeness that clung to them--I saw it lurking in their eyes. Memories mirrored there; memories of things no man had seen and felt before. Eyes--and more especially Brett's eyes--which had seen, perhaps, too much.