Em said to my wife, "There must have been a hundred of them. They kept coming and coming and flying into that hatch. Then they began dumping out all the recording instruments. The men tried to run a motor-driven ladder up to the ship and those owls hit the driver on the head and knocked him out with some kind of instrument."
Guy turned his grief-stricken face to me. "Then the hatch closed and we don't dare go near the ship. It was supposed to fire in five minutes, but it hasn't. Those damned owls could have...."
There was a glare in the east. We all turned and saw a brief streak of gilt pencil its way up the black velvet beyond the mountains.
"That's it!" Guy shouted. "That's the ship!" Then he moaned. "A total loss."
I grabbed him by the shoulders. "You mean it won't make it to Venus?"
He jerked away in misery. "Sure, it will make it. The automatic controls can't be tampered with. But the rocket is on its way without any recording instruments or TV aboard. Just a load of owls."
My son laughed. "Owls! My dad can tell you a thing or two."
I silenced him with a scowl. He shut up, then danced off across the terrace. "Man, man! This is the biggest! The most—the greatest—the end!"
The phone was ringing. As I went to the box on the terrace, I grabbed my boy's arm. "Don't you breathe a word."
He giggled. "The joke is on you, Pop. Why should I say anything? I'll just grin once in a while."
"Now you cut that out."
He held onto my arm and walked toward the phone box with me, half convulsed. "Wait till men land on Venus and find Venusians with a legend about their Great White Father in California. That's when I'll tell."
The phone call was from a screaming psychotic who wanted Guy. I stood near Guy while he listened to the excited voice over the wire.
Presently Guy said, "No, no. The automatic controls will correct for the delay in firing. It isn't that. It's just that there aren't any instruments.... What? What just happened? Calm down. I can't understand you."
I heard Em say to my wife, "You know, the strangest thing occurred out there. Ithoughtit looked like those owls were carrying things on their backs. One of them dropped something and I saw the men open a package wrapped in a leaf. You'd never believe what was in it—three little birds roasted to a nice brown!"
My son nudged me. "Smart owls. Long trip."
I put my hand over his mouth. Then I saw that Guy was holding the receiver limply away from his ear.
He spluttered. "They just taped a radio message from the rocket. It's true that the radio wasn't thrown out. But we didn't have a record likethison that rocket."
He yelled into the phone. "Play it back." He thrust the receiver at me.
For a moment, there was only a gritty buzz from the receiver. Then the tape started playing a soft, high voice. "This is Rocket Harold saying everything is well. This is Rocket Harold saying good-by to men." There was a pause and then, in clear volpla language, another voice spoke. "Man who made us, we forgive you. We know we did not come from the stars, but we go there. I, chief, give you welcome to visit. Good-by."
We all stood around too exhausted by the excitement to say anything. I was filled with a big, sudden sadness.
I stood for a long time and looked out to the east, where the sprawling mountain range held a bowl of dancing fireflies between her black breasts.
Presently I said to old Guy, "How long do you think it will be before you have a manned rocket ready for Venus?"