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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Calm Man, by Frank Belknap Long
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Calm Man
+
+Author: Frank Belknap Long
+
+Release Date: April 21, 2009 [EBook #28583]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALM MAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    _Dip the pen of a Frank Belknap Long into a bottle of ink and the
+    result is always bound to be a scintillating piece of brilliant
+    imaginative science fiction. And he's done it again in the tortured
+    story of Sally._
+
+
+  the
+ calm
+  man
+
+ _by ... Frank Belknap Long_
+
+
+ Sally watched the molten gold glow in the sky. Then knew she
+ would not see her son and her husband ever again on Earth.
+
+
+Sally Anders had never really thought of herself as a wallflower. A girl
+could be shy, couldn't she, and still be pretty enough to attract and
+hold men?
+
+Only this morning she had drawn an admiring look from the milkman and a
+wolf cry from Jimmy on the corner, with his newspapers and shiny new
+bike. What if the milkman was crowding sixty and wore thick-lensed
+glasses? What if Jimmy was only seventeen?
+
+A male was a male, and a glance was a glance. Why, if I just primp a
+little more, Sally told herself, I'll be irresistible.
+
+Hair ribbons and perfume, a mirror tilted at just the right angle, an
+invitation to a party on the dresser--what more did a girl need?
+
+"Dinner, Sally!" came echoing up from the kitchen. "Do you want to be
+late, child?"
+
+Sally had no intention of being late. Tonight she'd see him across a
+crowded room and her heart would skip a beat. He'd look at her and
+smile, and come straight toward her with his shoulders squared.
+
+There was always one night in a girl's life that stands above all other
+nights. One night when the moon shone bright and clear and the clock on
+the wall went _tick tock, tick tock, tick tock_. One night when each
+tick said, "You're beautiful! Really beautiful!"
+
+Giving her hair a final pat Sally smiled at herself in the mirror.
+
+In the bathroom the water was still running and the perfumed bath soap
+still spread its aromatic sweet odor through the room. Sally went into
+the bathroom and turned off the tap before going downstairs to the
+kitchen.
+
+"My girl looks radiant tonight!" Uncle Ben said, smiling at her over his
+corned beef and cabbage.
+
+Sally blushed and lowered her eyes.
+
+"Ben, you're making her nervous," Sally's mother said, laughing.
+
+Sally looked up and met her uncle's stare, her eyes defiant. "I'm not
+bad-looking whatever you may think," she said.
+
+"Oh, now, Sally," Uncle Ben protested. "No sense in getting on a high
+horse. Tonight you may find a man who just won't be able to resist you."
+
+"Maybe I will and maybe I won't," Sally said. "You'd be surprised if I
+did, wouldn't you?"
+
+It was Uncle Ben's turn to lower his eyes.
+
+"I'll tell the world you've inherited your mother's looks, Sally," he
+said. "But a man has to pride himself on something. My defects of
+character are pretty bad. But no one has ever accused me of dishonesty."
+
+Sally folded her napkin and rose stiffly from the table.
+
+"Good night, Uncle," she said.
+
+When Sally arrived at the party every foot of floor space was taken up
+by dancing couples and the reception room was so crowded that, as each
+new guest was announced, a little ripple of displeasure went through the
+men in midnight blue and the women in Nile green and lavender.
+
+For a moment Sally did not move, just stood staring at the dancing
+couples, half-hidden by one of the potted palms that framed the sides of
+the long room.
+
+Moonlight silvered her hair and touched her white throat and arms with a
+caress so gentle that simply by closing her eyes she could fancy herself
+already in his arms.
+
+Moonlight from tall windows flooding down, turning the dancing guests
+into pirouetting ghosts in diaphanous blue and green, scarlet and gold.
+
+_Close your eyes, Sally, close them tight! Now open them! That's it ...
+Slowly, slowly ..._
+
+He came out of nothingness into the light and was right beside her
+suddenly.
+
+He was tall, but not too tall. His face was tanned mahogany brown, and
+his eyes were clear and very bright. And he stood there looking at her
+steadily until her mouth opened and a little gasp flew out.
+
+He took her into his arms without a word and they started to dance ...
+
+They were still dancing when he asked her to be his wife.
+
+"You'll marry me, of course," he said. "We haven't too much time. The
+years go by so swiftly, like great white birds at sea."
+
+They were very close when he asked her, but he made no attempt to kiss
+her. They went right on dancing and while he waited for her answer he
+talked about the moon ...
+
+"When the lights go out and the music stops the moon will remain," he
+said. "It raises tides on the Earth, it inflames the minds and hearts of
+men. There are cyclic rhythms which would set a stone to dreaming and
+desiring on such a night as this."
+
+He stopped dancing abruptly and looked at her with calm assurance.
+
+"You _will_ marry me, won't you?" he asked. "Allowing for a reasonable
+margin of error I seriously doubt if I could be happy with any of these
+other women. I was attracted to you the instant I saw you."
+
+A girl who has never been asked before, who has drawn only one lone wolf
+cry from a newsboy could hardly be expected to resist such an offer.
+
+_Don't resist, Sally. He's strong and tall and extremely good-looking.
+He knows what he wants and makes up his mind quickly. Surely a man so
+resolute must make enough money to support a wife._
+
+"Yes," Sally breathed, snuggling close to him. "Oh, yes!"
+
+She paused a moment, then said, "You may kiss me now if you wish, my
+darling."
+
+He straightened and frowned a little, and looked away quickly. "That can
+wait," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were married a week later and went to live on an elm-shaded street
+just five blocks from where Sally was born. The cottage was small, white
+and attractively decorated inside and out. But Sally changed the
+curtains, as all women must, and bought some new furniture on the
+installment plan.
+
+The neighbors were friendly folk who knew her husband as Mr. James Rand,
+an energetic young insurance broker who would certainly carve a wider
+swath for himself in his chosen profession now that he had so charming a
+wife.
+
+Ten months later the first baby came.
+
+Lying beneath cool white sheets in the hospital Sally looked at the
+other women and felt so deliriously happy she wanted to cry. It was a
+beautiful baby and it cuddled close to her heart, its smallness a
+miracle in itself.
+
+The other husbands came in and sat beside their wives, holding on tight
+to their happiness. There were flowers and smiles, whispers that
+explored bright new worlds of tenderness and rejoicing.
+
+Out in the corridor the husbands congratulated one another and came in
+smelling of cigar smoke.
+
+"Have a cigar! That's right. Eight pounds at birth. That's unusual,
+isn't it? Brightest kid you ever saw. Knew his old man right off."
+
+He was beside her suddenly, standing straight and still in shadows.
+
+"Oh, darling," she whispered. "Why did you wait? It's been three whole
+days."
+
+"Three days?" he asked, leaning forward to stare down at his son.
+"Really! It didn't seem that long."
+
+"Where were you? You didn't even phone!"
+
+"Sometimes it's difficult to phone," he said slowly, as if measuring his
+words. "You have given me a son. That pleases me very much."
+
+A coldness touched her heart and a despair took hold of her. "It pleases
+you! Is that all you can say? You stand there looking at me as if I were
+a--a patient ..."
+
+"A patient?" His expression grew quizzical. "Just what do you mean,
+Sally?"
+
+"You said you were pleased. If a patient is ill her doctor hopes that
+she will get well. He is pleased when she does. If a woman has a baby a
+doctor will say, 'I'm so pleased. The baby is doing fine. You don't have
+to worry about him. I've put him on the scales and he's a bouncing,
+healthy boy.'"
+
+"Medicine is a sane and wise profession," Sally's husband said. "When I
+look at my son that is exactly what I would say to the mother of my son.
+He is healthy and strong. You have pleased me, Sally."
+
+He bent as he spoke and picked Sally's son up. He held the infant in the
+crook of his arm, smiling down at it.
+
+"A healthy male child," he said. "His hair will come in thick and black.
+Soon he will speak, will know that I am his father."
+
+He ran his palm over the baby's smooth head, opened its mouth gently
+with his forefinger and looked inside.
+
+Sally rose on one elbow, her tormented eyes searching his face.
+
+"He's your child, your son!" she sobbed. "A woman has a child and her
+husband comes and puts his arms around her. He holds her close. If they
+love each other they are so happy, so very happy, they break down and
+cry."
+
+"I am too pleased to do anything so fantastic, Sally," he said. "When a
+child is born no tears should be shed by its parents. I have examined
+the child and I am pleased with it. Does not that content you?"
+
+"No, it doesn't!" Sally almost shrieked. "Why do you stare at your own
+son as if you'd never seen a baby before? He isn't a mechanical toy.
+He's our own darling, adorable little baby. _Our child!_ How can you be
+so _inhumanly_ calm?"
+
+He frowned, put the baby down.
+
+"There is a time for love-making and a time for parenthood," he said.
+"Parenthood is a serious responsibility. That is where medicine comes
+in, surgery. If a child is not perfect there are emergency measures
+which can be taken to correct the defect."
+
+Sally's mouth went suddenly dry. "Perfect! What do you mean, Jim? Is
+there something _wrong_ with Tommy?"
+
+"I don't think so," her husband said. "His grasp is firm and strong. He
+has good hearing and his eyesight appears to be all that could be
+desired. Did you notice how his eyes followed me every moment?"
+
+"I wasn't looking at his eyes!" Sally whispered, her voice tight with
+alarm. "Why are you trying to frighten me, Jim? If Tommy wasn't a
+normal, healthy baby do you imagine for one instant they would have
+placed him in my arms?"
+
+"That is a very sound observation," Sally's husband said. "Truth is
+truth, but to alarm you at a time like this would be unnecessarily
+cruel."
+
+"Where does that put you?"
+
+"I simply spoke my mind as the child's father. I had to speak as I did
+because of my natural concern for the health of our child. Do you want
+me to stay and talk to you, Sally?"
+
+Sally shook her head. "No, Jim. I won't let you torture me any more."
+
+Sally drew the baby into her arms again and held it tightly. "I'll
+scream if you stay!" she warned. "I'll become hysterical unless you
+leave."
+
+"Very well," her husband said. "I'll come back tomorrow."
+
+He bent as he spoke and kissed her on the forehead. His lips were ice
+cold.
+
+For eight years Sally sat across the table from her husband at
+breakfast, her eyes fixed upon a nothingness on the green-blue wall at
+his back. Calm he remained even while eating. The eggs she placed before
+him he cracked methodically with a knife and consumed behind a tilted
+newspaper, taking now an assured sip of coffee, now a measured glance at
+the clock.
+
+The presence of his young son bothered him not at all. Tommy could be
+quiet or noisy, in trouble at school, or with an _A_ for good conduct
+tucked with his report card in his soiled leather zipper jacket. It was
+always: "Eat slowly, my son. Never gulp your food. Be sure to take
+plenty of exercise today. Stay in the sun as much as possible."
+
+Often Sally wanted to shriek: "Be a father to him! A real father! Get
+down on the floor and play with him. Shoot marbles with him, spin one of
+his tops. Remember the toy locomotive you gave him for Christmas after I
+got hysterical and screamed at you? Remember the beautiful little train?
+Get it out of the closet and wreck it accidentally. He'll warm up to you
+then. He'll be broken-hearted, but he'll feel close to you, then you'll
+know what it means to have a son!"
+
+Often Sally wanted to fly at him, beat with her fists on his chest. But
+she never did.
+
+_You can't warm a stone by slapping it, Sally. You'd only bruise
+yourself. A stone is neither cruel nor tender. You've married a man of
+stone, Sally._
+
+He hasn't missed a day at the office in eight years. She'd never visited
+the office but he was always there to answer when she phoned. "I'm very
+busy, Sally. What did you say? You've bought a new hat? I'm sure it will
+look well on you, Sally. What did you say? Tommy got into a fight with a
+new boy in the neighborhood? You must take better care of him, Sally."
+
+There are patterns in every marriage. When once the mold has set, a few
+strange behavior patterns must be accepted as a matter of course.
+
+"I'll drop in at the office tomorrow, darling!" Sally had promised right
+after the breakfast pattern had become firmly established. The desire to
+see where her husband worked had been from the start a strong, bright
+flame in her. But he asked her to wait a while before visiting his
+office.
+
+A strong will can dampen the brightest flame, and when months passed and
+he kept saying 'no,' Sally found herself agreeing with her husband's
+suggestion that the visit be put off indefinitely.
+
+Snuff a candle and it stays snuffed. A marriage pattern once established
+requires a very special kind of re-kindling. Sally's husband refused to
+supply the needed spark.
+
+Whenever Sally had an impulse to turn her steps in the direction of the
+office a voice deep in her mind seemed to whisper: "No sense in it,
+Sally. Stay away. He's been mean and spiteful about it all these years.
+Don't give in to him now by going."
+
+Besides, Tommy took up so much of her time. A growing boy was always a
+problem and Tommy seemed to have a special gift for getting into things
+because he was so active. And he went through his clothes, wore out his
+shoes almost faster than she could replace them.
+
+Right now Tommy was playing in the yard. Sally's eyes came to a focus
+upon him, crouching by a hole in the fence which kindly old Mrs.
+Wallingford had erected as a protection against the prying
+inquisitiveness of an eight-year-old determined to make life miserable
+for her.
+
+A thrice-widowed neighbor of seventy without a spiteful hair in her head
+could put up with a boy who rollicked and yelled perhaps. But peep-hole
+spying was another matter.
+
+Sally muttered: "Enough of that!" and started for the kitchen door. Just
+as she reached it the telephone rang.
+
+Sally went quickly to the phone and lifted the receiver. The instant she
+pressed it to her ear she recognized her husband's voice--or thought she
+did.
+
+"Sally, come to the office!" came the voice, speaking in a hoarse
+whisper. "Hurry--or it will be too late! Hurry, Sally!"
+
+Sally turned with a startled gasp, looked out through the kitchen window
+at the autumn leaves blowing crisp and dry across the lawn. As she
+looked the scattered leaves whirled into a flurry around Tommy, then
+lifted and went spinning over the fence and out of sight.
+
+The dread in her heart gave way to a sudden, bleak despair. As she
+turned from the phone something within her withered, became as dead as
+the drifting leaves with their dark autumnal mottlings.
+
+She did not even pause to call Tommy in from the yard. She rushed
+upstairs, then down again, gathering up her hat, gloves and purse,
+making sure she had enough change to pay for the taxi.
+
+The ride to the office was a nightmare ... Tall buildings swept past,
+facades of granite as gray as the leaden skies of mid-winter, beehives
+of commerce where men and women brushed shoulders without touching
+hands.
+
+Autumnal leaves blowing, and the gray buildings sweeping past. Despite
+Tommy, despite everything there was no shining vision to warm Sally from
+within. A cottage must be lived in to become a home and Sally had never
+really had a home.
+
+One-night stand! It wasn't an expression she'd have used by choice, but
+it came unbidden into her mind. If you live for nine years with a man
+who can't relax and be human, who can't be warm and loving you'll begin
+eventually to feel you might as well live alone. Each day had been like
+a lonely sentinel outpost in a desert waste for Sally.
+
+She thought about Tommy ... Tommy wasn't in the least like his father
+when he came racing home from school, hair tousled, books dangling from
+a strap. Tommy would raid the pantry with unthinking zest, invite other
+boys in to look at the Westerns on TV, and trade black eyes for marbles
+with a healthy pugnacity.
+
+Up to a point Tommy _was_ normal, _was_ healthy.
+
+But she had seen mirrored in Tommy's pale blue eyes the same abnormal
+calmness that was always in his father's, and the look of derisive
+withdrawal which made him seem always to be staring down at her from a
+height. And it filled her with terror to see that Tommy's mood could
+change as abruptly and terrifyingly cold ...
+
+Tommy, her son. Tommy, no longer boisterous and eager, but sitting in a
+corner with his legs drawn up, a faraway look in his eyes. Tommy seeming
+to look right through her, into space. Tommy and Jim exchanging silent
+understanding glances. Tommy roaming through the cottage, staring at his
+toys with frowning disapproval. Tommy drawing back when she tried to
+touch him.
+
+_Tommy, Tommy, come back to me!_ How often she had cried out in her
+heart when that coldness came between them.
+
+Tommy drawing strange figures on the floor with a piece of colored
+chalk, then erasing them quickly before she could see them, refusing to
+let her enter his secret child's world.
+
+Tommy picking up the cat and stroking its fur mechanically, while he
+stared out through the kitchen window at rusty blackbirds on the
+wing ...
+
+"This is the address you gave me, lady. Sixty-seven Vine Street," the
+cab driver was saying.
+
+Sally shivered, remembering her husband's voice on the phone,
+remembering where she was ... "_Come to the office, Sally! Hurry,
+hurry--or it will be too late!_"
+
+Too late for what? Too late to recapture a happiness she had never
+possessed?
+
+"This is it, lady!" the cab driver insisted. "Do you want me to wait?"
+
+"No," Sally said, fumbling for her change purse. She descended from the
+taxi, paid the driver and hurried across the pavement to the big office
+building with its mirroring frontage of plate glass and black onyx
+tiles.
+
+The firm's name was on the directory board in the lobby, white on black
+in beautifully embossed lettering. White for hope, and black for
+despair, mourning ...
+
+The elevator opened and closed and Sally was whisked up eight stories
+behind a man in a checkered suit.
+
+"Eighth floor!" Sally whispered, in sudden alarm. The elevator jolted to
+an abrupt halt and the operator swung about to glare at her.
+
+"You should have told me when you got on, Miss!" he complained.
+
+"Sorry," Sally muttered, stumbling out into the corridor. How horrible
+it must be to go to business every day, she thought wildly. To sit in an
+office, to thumb through papers, to bark orders, to be a machine.
+
+Sally stood very still for an instant, startled, feeling her sanity
+threatened by the very absurdity of the thought. People who worked in
+offices could turn for escape to a cottage in the sunset's glow, when
+they were set free by the moving hands of a clock. There could be a
+fierce joy at the thought of deliverance, at the prospect of going home
+at five o'clock.
+
+But for Sally was the brightness, the deliverance withheld. The corridor
+was wide and deserted and the black tiles with their gold borders seemed
+to converge upon her, hemming her into a cool magnificence as
+structurally somber as the architectural embellishments of a costly
+mausoleum.
+
+She found the office with her surface mind, working at cross-purposes
+with the confusion and swiftly mounting dread which made her footsteps
+falter, her mouth go dry.
+
+_Steady, Sally! Here's the office, here's the door. Turn the knob and
+get it over with ..._
+
+Sally opened the door and stepped into a small, deserted reception room.
+Beyond the reception desk was a gate, and beyond the gate a large
+central office branched off into several smaller offices.
+
+Sally paused only an instant. It seemed quite natural to her that a
+business office should be deserted so late in the afternoon.
+
+She crossed the reception room to the gate, passed through it, utter
+desperation giving her courage.
+
+Something within her whispered that she had only to walk across the
+central office, open the first door she came to to find her husband ...
+
+The first door combined privacy with easy accessibility. The instant she
+opened the door she knew that she had been right to trust her instincts.
+This was his office ...
+
+He was sitting at a desk by the window, a patch of sunset sky visible
+over his right shoulder. His elbows rested on the desk and his hands
+were tightly locked as if he had just stopped wringing them.
+
+He was looking straight at her, his eyes wide and staring.
+
+"Jim!" Sally breathed. "Jim, what's wrong?"
+
+He did not answer, did not move or attempt to greet her in any way.
+There was no color at all in his face. His lips were parted, his white
+teeth gleamed. And he was more stiffly controlled than usual--a control
+so intense that for once Sally felt more alarm than bitterness.
+
+There was a rising terror in her now. And a slowly dawning horror. The
+sunlight streamed in, gleaming redly on his hair, his shoulders. He
+seemed to be the center of a flaming red ball ...
+
+_He sent for you, Sally. Why doesn't he get up and speak to you, if only
+to pour salt on the wounds you've borne for eight long years?_
+
+_Poor Sally! You wanted a strong, protective, old-fashioned husband.
+What have you got instead?_
+
+Sally went up to the desk and looked steadily into eyes so calm and
+blank that they seemed like the eyes of a child lost in some dreamy
+wonderland barred forever to adult understanding.
+
+For an instant her terror ebbed and she felt almost reassured. Then she
+made the mistake of bending more closely above him, brushing his right
+elbow with her sleeve.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That single light woman's touch unsettled him. He started to fall,
+sideways and very fast. Topple a dead weight and it crashes with a
+swiftness no opposing force can counter-balance.
+
+It did Sally no good to clutch frantically at his arm as he fell, to tug
+and jerk at the slackening folds of his suit. The heaviness of his
+descending bulk dragged him down and away from her, the awful inertia of
+lifeless flesh.
+
+He thudded to the floor and rolled over on his back, seeming to shrink
+as Sally widened her eyes upon him. He lay in a grotesque sprawl at her
+feet, his jaw hanging open on the gaping black orifice of his mouth ...
+
+Sally might have screamed and gone right on screaming--if she had been a
+different kind of woman. On seeing her husband lying dead her impulse
+might have been to throw herself down beside him, give way to her grief
+in a wild fit of sobbing.
+
+But where there was no grief there could be no sobbing ...
+
+One thing only she did before she left. She unloosed the collar of the
+unmoving form on the floor and looked for the small brown mole she did
+not really expect to find. The mole she knew to be on her husband's
+shoulder, high up on the left side.
+
+She had noticed things that made her doubt her sanity; she needed to see
+the little black mole to reassure her ...
+
+She had noticed the difference in the hair-line, the strange slant of
+the eyebrows, the crinkly texture of the skin where it should have been
+smooth ...
+
+Something was wrong ... horribly, weirdly wrong ...
+
+Even the hands of the sprawled form seemed larger and hairier than the
+hands of her husband. Nevertheless it was important to be sure ...
+
+The absence of the mole clinched it.
+
+Sally crouched beside the body, carefully readjusting the collar. Then
+she got up and walked out of the office.
+
+Some homecomings are joyful, others cruel. Sitting in the taxi,
+clenching and unclenching her hands, Sally had no plan that could be
+called a plan, no hope that was more than a dim flickering in a vast
+wasteland, bleak and unexplored.
+
+But it was strange how one light burning brightly in a cottage window
+could make even a wasteland seem small, could shrink and diminish it
+until it became no more than a patch of darkness that anyone with
+courage might cross.
+
+The light was in Tommy's room and there was a whispering behind the
+door. Sally could hear the whispering as she tiptoed upstairs, could see
+the light streaming out into the hall.
+
+She paused for an instant at the head of the stairs, listening. There
+were two voices in the room, and they were talking back and forth.
+
+Sally tiptoed down the hall, stood with wildly beating heart just
+outside the door.
+
+"She knows now, Tommy," the deepest of the two voices said. "We are very
+close, your mother and I. She knows now that I sent her to the office to
+find my 'stand in.' Oh, it's an amusing term, Tommy--an Earth term we'd
+hardly use on Mars. But it's a term your mother would understand."
+
+A pause, then the voice went on, "You see, my son, it has taken me eight
+years to repair the ship. And in eight years a man can wither up and die
+by inches if he does not have a growing son to go adventuring with him
+in the end."
+
+"Adventuring, father?"
+
+"You have read a good many Earth books, my son, written especially for
+boys. _Treasure Island_, _Robinson Crusoe_, _Twenty Thousand Leagues
+Under The Sea_. What paltry books they are! But in them there is a
+little of the fire, a little of the glow of _our_ world."
+
+"No, father. I started them but I threw them away for I did not like
+them."
+
+"As you and I must throw away all Earth things, my son. I tried to be
+kind to your mother, to be a good husband as husbands go on Earth. But
+how could I feel proud and strong and reckless by her side? How could I
+share her paltry joys and sorrows, chirp with delight as a sparrow might
+chirp hopping about in the grass? Can an eagle pretend to be a sparrow?
+Can the thunder muffle its voice when two white-crested clouds collide
+in the shining depths of the night sky?"
+
+"You tried, father. You did your best."
+
+"Yes, my son, I did try. But if I had attempted to feign emotions I did
+not feel your mother would have seen through the pretense. She would
+then have turned from me completely. Without her I could not have had
+you, my son."
+
+"And now, father, what will we do?"
+
+"Now the ship has been repaired and is waiting for us. Every day for
+eight years I went to the hill and worked on the ship. It was badly
+wrecked, my son, but now my patience has been rewarded, and every
+damaged astronavigation instrument has been replaced."
+
+"You never went to the office, father? You never went at all?"
+
+"No, my son. My stand-in worked at the office in my place. I instilled
+in your mother's mind an intense dislike and fear of the office to keep
+her from ever coming face to face with the stand-in. She might have
+noticed the difference. But I had to have a stand-in, as a safeguard.
+Your mother _might_ have gone to the office despite the mental block."
+
+"She's gone now, father. Why did you send for her?"
+
+"To avoid what she would call a scene, my son. That I could not endure.
+I had the stand-in summon her on the office telephone, then I withdrew
+all vitality from it. She will find it quite lifeless. But it does not
+matter now. When she returns we will be gone."
+
+"Was constructing the stand-in difficult, father?"
+
+"Not for me, my son. On Mars we have many androids, each constructed to
+perform a specific task. Some are ingenious beyond belief--or would seem
+so to Earthmen."
+
+There was a pause, then the weaker of the two voices said, "I will miss
+my mother. She tried to make me happy. She tried very hard."
+
+"You must be brave and strong, my son. We are eagles, you and I. Your
+mother is a sparrow, gentle and dun-colored. I shall always remember her
+with tenderness. You want to go with me, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, father. Oh, yes!"
+
+"Then come, my son. We must hurry. Your mother will be returning any
+minute now."
+
+Sally stood motionless, listening to the voices like a spectator sitting
+before a television screen. A spectator can see as well as hear, and
+Sally could visualize her son's pale, eager face so clearly there was no
+need for her to move forward into the room.
+
+She could not move. And nothing on Earth could have wrenched a tortured
+cry from her. Grief and shock may paralyze the mind and will, but
+Sally's will was not paralyzed.
+
+It was as if the thread of her life had been cut, with only one light
+left burning. Tommy was that light. He would never change. He would go
+from her forever. But he would always be her son.
+
+The door of Tommy's room opened and Tommy and his father came out into
+the hall. Sally stepped back into shadows and watched them walk quickly
+down the hall to the stairs, their voices low, hushed. She heard them
+descend the stairs, their footsteps dwindle, die away into silence ...
+
+_You'll see a light, Sally, a great glow lighting up the sky. The ship
+must be very beautiful. For eight years he labored over it, restoring it
+with all the shining gifts of skill and feeling at his command. He was
+calm toward you, but not toward the ship, Sally--the ship which will
+take him back to Mars!_
+
+How is it on Mars, she wondered. My son, Tommy, will become a strong,
+proud adventurer daring the farthest planet of the farthest star?
+
+You can't stop a boy from adventuring. Surprise him at his books and
+you'll see tropical seas in his eyes, a pearly nautilus, Hong Kong and
+Valparaiso resplendent in the dawn.
+
+_There is no strength quite like the strength of a mother, Sally. Endure
+it, be brave ..._
+
+Sally was at the window when it came. A dazzling burst of radiance,
+starting from the horizon's rim and spreading across the entire sky. It
+lit up the cottage and flickered over the lawn, turning rooftops to
+molten gold and gilding the long line of rolling hills which hemmed in
+the town.
+
+Brighter it grew and brighter, gilding for a moment even Sally's bowed
+head and her image mirrored on the pane. Then, abruptly, it was gone ...
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ May 1954.
+    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+    copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
+    typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Calm Man, by Frank Belknap Long
+
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