The men were looking at their watches. Westermark trans-ferred his gaze to the gravel to say, “This figure of 3.3077 is surely not a universal constant. It may vary1 think it will varyfrom planetary body to planetary body. My private opinion is that it is bound to be connected with solar activity in some way. If that is so, then we may find that the men returning from Venus will be perceiving on a continuum slightly in arrears of Earth time.”
He stood up suddenly, looking dismayed, the absorption gone from his face.
“That’s a point that hadn’t occurred to me,” Stackpole said, making a note. “If the expedition to Venus is primed with these points beforehand, we should have no trouble about organising their return. Ultimately, this confusion will be sorted out, and I’ve no doubt that it will eventually vastly enrich the culture of mankind. The possibilities are of such enormity that …”
“It’s awful! You’re all crazy!” Janet exclaimed. She jumped up and hurried off towards the house.
Or then again
Jack began to move after her towards the house. By his watch, which showed Earth time, it was 11.18 and twelve seconds; he thought, not the first time, that he would invest in another watch, which would be strapped to his right wrist and show Martian time. No, the one on his left wrist should show Martian time, for that was the wrist he principally consulted and the time by which he lived, even when going through the business of communicating with the earth-bound human race.
He realised he was now moving ahead of Janet, by her reckoning. It would be interesting to have someone ahead of him in perception; then he would wish to converse, would want to go to the labour of it. Although it would rob him of the sensation that he was perpetually first in the universe, first everywhere, with everything dewy in that strange light Marslight! He’d call it that, till he had it classified, the romantic vision preceding the scientific, with a touch of the grand permissible before the steadying discipline closed in. Or then again, suppose they were wrong in their theories, and the perceptual effect was some freak of the long space journey itself; supposing time were quantal…. Supposing all time were quantal. After all, ageing was a matter of steps, not a smooth progress, for much of the inorganic world as for the organic.
Now he was standing quite still on the lawn. The glaze was coming through the grass, making it look brittle, almost tingeing each blade with a tiny spectrum of light. If his perceptual time were further ahead than it was now, would the Marslight be stronger, the Earth more translucent? How beautiful it would look! After a longer star journey one would return to a cobweb of a world, centuries behind one in perceptual time, a mere embodiment of light, a prism. Hun-grily, he visualised it. But they needed more knowledge.
Suddenly he thought, If I could get on the Venus expedi-tioni If the Institute’s right, I’d be perhaps six, say five and a halfno, one can’t saybut I’d be ahead of Venerean time. I must go. I’d be valuable to them. I only have to volunteer, surely.’
He did not notice Stackpole touch his arm in cordial fashion and go past him into the house. He stood looking at the ground and through it, to the stoney vales of Mars and the unguessable landscapes of Venus.
The figures move
Janet had consented to ride into town with Stackpole. He was collecting his cricket shoes, which had been restudded; she thought she might buy a roll of film for her camera. The children would like photos of her and Daddy together. Standing together.
As the car ran beside trees, their shadows flickered red and green before her vision. Stackpole held the wheel very capa-bly, whistling under his breath. Strangely, she did not resent a habit she would normally have found irksome, taking it as a sign that he was not entirely at his ease.
“I have an awful feeling you now understand my husband better than I do,” she said.
He did not deny it. “Why do you feel that?”