In a sudden access of refound confidence, Bridgman drove his fist into the dark sand, buried his forearm like a foundation pillar. A flange of hot metal from Merril’s capsule burned his wrist, bonding him to the spirit of the dead astronaut. Scattered around him on the Martian sand, in a sense Merril had reached Mars after all.

‘Damn it!’ he cried exultantly to himself as the wardens’ lassos stung his neck and shoulders. ‘We made it!’

The Watch-Towers

The next day, for some reason, there was a sudden increase of activity in the watch-towers. This began during the latter half of the morning, and by noon, when Renthall left the hotel on his way to see Mrs Osmond, seemed to have reached its peak. People were standing at their windows and balconies along both sides of the street, whispering agitatedly to each other behind the curtains and pointing up into the sky.

Renthall usually tried to ignore the watch-towers, resenting even the smallest concession to the fact of their existence, but at the bottom of the street, where he was hidden in the shadow thrown by one of the houses, he stopped and craned his head up at the nearest tower.

A hundred feet away from him, it hung over the Public Library, its tip poised no more than twenty feet above the roof. The glass-enclosed cabin in the lowest tier appeared to be full of observers, opening and shutting the windows and shifting about what Renthall assumed were huge pieces of optical equipment. He looked around at the further towers, suspended from the sky at three hundred foot intervals in every direction, noticing an occasional flash of light as a window turned and caught the sun.

An elderly man wearing a shabby black suit and wing collar, who usually loitered outside the library, came across the street to Renthall and backed into the shadows beside him.

‘They’re up to something all right.’ He cupped his hands over his eyes and peered up anxiously at the watch-towers. ‘I’ve never seen them like this as long as I can remember.’

Renthall studied his face. However alarmed, he was obviously relieved by the signs of activity. ‘I shouldn’t worry unduly,’ Renthall told him. ‘It’s a change to see something going on at all.’

Before the other could reply he turned on his heel and strode away along the pavement. It took him ten minutes to reach the street in which Mrs Osmond lived, and he fixed his eyes firmly on the ground, ignoring the few passers-by. Although dominated by the watch-towers — four of them hung in a line exactly down its centre — the street was almost deserted. Half the houses were untenanted and falling into what would soon be an irreversible state of disrepair. Usually Renthall assessed each property carefully, trying to decide whether to leave his hotel and take one of them, but the movement in the watch-towers had caused him more anxiety than he was prepared to admit, and the terrace of houses passed unnoticed.

Mrs Osmond’s house stood halfway down the street, its gate swinging loosely on its rusty hinges. Renthall hesitated under the plane tree growing by the edge of the pavement, and then crossed the narrow garden and quickly let himself through the door.

Mrs Osmond invariably spent the afternoon sitting out on the veranda in the sun, gazing at the weeds in the back garden, but today she had retreated to a corner of the sitting room. She was sorting a suitcase full of old papers when Renthall came in.

Renthall made no attempt to embrace her and wandered over to the window. Mrs Osmond had half drawn the curtains and he pulled them back. There was a watch-tower ninety feet away, almost directly ahead, hanging over the parallel terrace of empty houses. The lines of towers receded diagonally from left to right towards the horizon, partly obscured by the bright haze.

‘Do you think you should have come today?’ Mrs Osmond asked, shifting her plump hips nervously in the chair.

‘Why not?’ Renthall said, scanning the towers, hands loosely in his pockets.

‘But if they’re going to keep a closer watch on us now they’ll notice you coming here.’

‘I shouldn’t believe all the rumours you hear,’ Renthall told her calmly.

‘What do you think it means then?’

‘I’ve absolutely no idea. Their movements may be as random and meaningless as our own.’ Renthall shrugged. ‘Perhaps they are going to keep a closer watch on us. What does it matter if all they do is stare?’

‘Then you mustn’t come here any more!’ Mrs Osmond protested.

‘Why? I hardly believe they can see through walls.’

‘They’re not that stupid,’ Mrs Osmond said irritably. ‘They’ll soon put two and two together, if they haven’t already.’

Renthall took his eyes off the tower and looked down at Mrs Osmond patiently. ‘My dear, this house isn’t tapped. For all they know we may be darning our prayer rugs or discussing the endocrine system of the tapeworm.’

‘Not you, Charles,’ Mrs Osmond said with a short laugh. ‘Not if they know you.’ Evidently pleased by this sally, she relaxed and took a cigarette out of the box on the table.

‘Perhaps they don’t know me,’ Renthall said dryly. ‘In fact, I’m quite sure they don’t. If they did I can’t believe I should still be here.’

He noticed himself stooping, a reliable sign that he was worrying, and went over to the sofa.

‘Is the school going to start tomorrow?’ Mrs Osmond asked when he had disposed his long, thin legs around the table.

‘It should do,’ Renthall said. ‘Hanson went down to the Town Hall this morning, but as usual they had little idea of what was going on.

He opened his jacket and pulled out of the inner pocket an old but neatly folded copy of a woman’s magazine.

‘Charles!’ Mrs Osmond exclaimed. ‘Where did you get this?’

She took it from Renthall and started leafing through the soiled pages.

‘One of my sources,’ Renthall said. From the sofa he could still see the watch-tower over the houses opposite. ‘Georgina Simons. She has a library of them.’

He rose, went over to the window and drew the curtains across.

‘Charles, don’t. I can’t see.’

‘Read it later,’ Renthall told her. He lay back on the sofa again. ‘Are you coming to the recital this afternoon?’

‘Hasn’t it been cancelled?’ Mrs Osmond asked, putting the magazine down reluctantly.

‘No, of course not.’

‘Charles, I don’t think I want to go.’ Mrs Osmond frowned. ‘What records is Hanson going to play?’

‘Some Tchaikovsky. And Grieg.’ He tried to make it sound interesting. ‘You must come. We can’t just sit about subsiding into this state of boredom and uselessness.’

‘I know,’ Mrs Osmqnd said fractiously. ‘But I don’t feel like it. Not today. All those records bore me. I’ve heard them so often.’

‘They bore me too. But at least it’s something to do.’ He put an arm around Mrs Osmond’s shoulders and began to play with the darker unbleached hair behind her ears, tapping the large nickel ear-rings she wore and listening to them tinkle.

When he put his hand on to her knee Mrs Osmond stood up and prowled aimlessly around the room, straightening her skirt.

‘Julia, what is the matter with you?’ Renthall asked irritably. ‘Have you got a headache?’

Mrs Osmond was by the window, gazing up at the watch-towers. ‘Do you think they’re going to come down?’

‘Of course not!’ Renthall snapped. ‘Where on earth did you get that idea?’

Suddenly he felt unbearably exasperated. The confined dimensions of the dusty sitting-room seemed to suffocate reason. He stood up and buttoned his jacket. ‘I’ll see you this afternoon at the Institute, Julia. The recital starts at three.’

Mrs Osmond nodded vaguely, unfastened the french windows and ambled forwards across the veranda into full view of the watch-towers, the glassy expression on her face like a supplicant nun’s.