His ship had fallen into the sun.
And the sun was big and fiery and merciless, and it was always in the sky and you couldn't get away from it.
So for a long time after my father died my mother slept through the days and wouldn't go out. We had breakfast at midnight and lunch at three in the morning, and dinner at the cold dim hour of 6 A.M. We went to all-night shows and went to bed at sunrise.
And, for a long while, the only days we ever went out to walk were the days when it was raining and there was no sun.
* * *
The Fire Balloons
FIRE exploded over summer night lawns. You saw sparkling faces of uncles and aunts. Skyrockets fell up in the brown shining eyes of cousins on the porch, and the cold charred sticks thumped down in dry meadows far away.
The Very Reverend Father Joseph Daniel Peregrine opened his eyes. What a dream: he and his cousins with their fiery play at his grandfather's ancient O
hio home so many years ago!
He lay listening to the great hollow of the church, the other cells where other Fathers lay. Had they, too, on the eve of the flight of the rocket Crucifix, lain with memories of the Fourth of July? Yes. This was like those breathless Independence dawns when you waited for the first concussion and rushed out on the dewy sidewalks, your hands full of loud miracles.
So here they were, the Episcopal Fathers, in the breathing dawn before they pinwheeled off to Mars, leaving their incense through the velvet cathedral of space.
"Should we go at all?" whispered Father Peregrine. "Shouldn't we solve our own sins on Earth? Aren't we running from our lives here?"
He arose, his fleshy body, with its rich look of strawberries, milk, and steak, moving heavily.
"Or is it sloth?" he wondered. "Do I dread the journey?"
He stepped into the needle-spray shower.
"But I shall take you to Mars, body." He addressed himself. "Leaving old sins here. And on to Mars to findnew sins?" A delightful thought almost. Sins no one had ever thought of.
Oh, he himself had written a little book:The Problem of Sin on Other Worlds , ignored as somehow not serious enough by his Episcopal brethren.
Only last night, over a final cigar, he and Father Stone had talked of it.
"On Mars sin might appear as virtue. We must guard against virtuous acts there that, later, might be found to be sins!" said Father Peregrine, beaming. "How exciting! It's been centuries since so much adventure has accompanied the prospect of being a missionary!"
"Iwill recognize sin," said Father Stone bluntly, "even on Mars."
"Oh, we priests pride ourselves on being litmus paper, changing color in sin's presence," retorted Father Peregrine, "but what if Martian chemistry is such we do not colorat all! If there are new senses on Mars, you must admit the possibility of unrecognizable sin."
"If there is no malice aforethought, there is no sin or punishment for same--the Lord assures us that," Father Stone replied.
"On Earth, yes. But perhaps a Martian sin might inform the subconscious of its evil, telepathically, leaving the conscious mind of man free to act, seemingly without malice! Whatthen?"
"Whatcould there be in the way of new sins?"
Father Peregrine leaned heavily forward. "Adamalone did not sin. Add Eve and you add temptation. Add a second man and you make adultery possible. With the addition of sex or people, you add sin. If men were armless they could not strangle with their hands. You would not have that particular sin of murder. Add arms, and you add the possibility of a new violence. Amoebas cannot sin because they reproduce by fission. They do not covet wives or murder each other. Add sex to amoebas, add arms and legs, and you would have murder and adultery. Add an arm or leg or person, or take away each, and you add or subtract possible evil. On Mars, what if there are five new senses, organs, invisible limbs we can't conceive of--then mightn't there be fivenew sins?"
Father Stone gasped. "I think you enjoy this sort of thing!"
"I keep my mind alive, Father; just alive, is all."
"Your mind's always juggling, isn't it?--mirrors, torches, plates."
"Yes. Because sometimes the Church seems like those posed circus tableaus where the curtain lifts and men, white, zinc-oxide, talcum-powder statues, freeze to represent abstract Beauty. Very wonderful. But I hope there will always be room for me to dart about among the statues, don't you, Father Stone?"
Father Stone had moved away. "I think we'd better go to bed. In a few hours we'll be jumping up to see yournew sins, Father Peregrine."