3 - Barbarians of Mars (19 page)

 
          
 
I HAD listened with keen interest to Michael
Kane's story and it had moved me to a deeper emotion than any I had experienced
before.

 
          
 
Now I realized why he seemed so much more
relaxed than he had ever been before. He had found something - something rare
on Earth,

 
          
 
At that point I was tempted to ask him to let
me return to Mars with him, but he smiled.

 
          
 
"Would you really like that?" he
asked.

 
          
 
"I - I think so."

 
          
 
He shook his head.

 
          
 
"Find Mars in
yourself
,"
he said. Then he grinned. "It is far less strenuous, for one thing."

 
          
 
I thought this over and then shrugged.

 
          
 
"Perhaps you're right," I said.
"But at least I'll have the pleasure of committing your story to paper. So
others will have the pleasure of sharing a little of what you found on
Mars."

 
          
 
"I hope so," he said. He paused.
"I suppose you think me rather sentimental."

 
          
 
"What do you mean?"

 
          
 
"Well, trying to describe all my emotions
to you - the bit I told you about our ride to the Calling Hills."

 
          
 
"There is a great difference between
sentimentality and honest sentiment," I told him. "The trouble is
that people tend to confuse one for the other and so reject both. All we seek
is honesty."

 
          
 
"And
an
absence
of fear." He smiled.

 
          
 
"That comes with honesty," I
suggested.

 
          
 
"Partly," he agreed.

 
          
 
"What a mistrusting lot we are on
Earth," I said. "We are so blind that we even distrust beauty when we
see it, feeling that it cannot be what it appears to be."

 
          
 
"A healthy enough feeling," Kane
pointed out. "But it can, as you say, go too far. Perhaps the old medieval
ideal is not such a bad one - moderation in all things. So often that phrase is
taken to apply to just the physical side of mankind, but it is just as
important to his spiritual development, I think."

 
          
 
I nodded.

 
          
 
"Well," he said. "For fear of
boring you further, I will return to the basement and the matter transmitter. I
find that Earth is a better place every time I return - but I find Mars the same,
also. I am a lucky man."

 
          
 
"You are an exceptionally lucky
man," I said. "When will you come back? There must be more adventures
yet to come."

 
          
 
"Wasn't that one enough
?
"
He grinned.

 
          
 
"For the moment," I told him. 'But I
will soon want to hear more."

 
          
 
"Remember," he joked, pretending to
wag a warning finger.
"Moderation in all things."

 
          
 
"It will comfort me as I wait for your
next visit," I said, smiling.

 
          
 
"I will be back," he assured me.

 
          
 
And then he had left the room - left me
sitting beside a dying fire, still full of memories of Mars.

 
          
 
There would be even more memories for me soon.
Of that I was sure.

The End