The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memory of Mars, by Raymond F. Jones

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Title: The Memory of Mars

Author: Raymond F. Jones

Illustrator: Virgil Finlay

Release Date: July 19, 2008 [EBook #26093]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: Illustrated by FINLAY]

the memory of mars

By RAYMOND F. JONES

_"As soon as I'm well we'll go to Mars for a vacation
again," Alice would say. But now she was dead, and the
surgeons said she was not even human. In his misery,
Hastings knew two things: he loved his wife; but they
had never been off Earth!_

A reporter should be objective even about a hospital. It's his business
to stir others' emotions and not let his own be stirred. But that was no
good, Mel Hastings told himself. No good at all when it was Alice who
was here somewhere, balanced uncertainly between life and death.

Alice had been in Surgery far too long. Something had gone wrong. He was
sure of it. He glanced at his watch. It would soon be dawn outside. To
Mel Hastings this marked a significant and irrevocable passage of time.
If Alice were to emerge safe and whole from the white cavern of Surgery
she would have done so now.

Mel sank deeper in the heavy chair, feeling a quietness within himself
as if the slow creep of death were touching him also. There was a sudden
far distant roar and through the window he saw a streak of brightness in
the sky. That would be the tourist ship, the Martian Princess, he
remembered.

That was the last thing Alice had said before they took her away from
him. "As soon as I'm well again we'll go to Mars for a vacation again,
and then you'll remember. It's so beautiful there. We had so much fun--"

Funny, wonderful little Alice--and her strange delusion that she still
clung to, that they had taken a Martian vacation in the first year of
their marriage. It had started about a year ago, and nothing he cou