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"I wouldn't have thought so, sir"

Captain Black stood by the port "Look out there The geraniums A specialized plant That specific variety has only been known on Earth for fifty years Think of the thousands of years it takes to evolve plants Then tell ical that the Martians should have: one, leaded-glass o, cupolas; three, porch swings; four, an instrument that looks like a piano and probably is a piano; and five, if you look closely through this telescopic lens here, is it logical that a Martian coely enough, 'Beautiful Ohio'? All of which means that we have an Ohio River on Mars!"

"Captain Williams, of course!" cried Hinkston,

"What?"

"Captain Williams and his crew of three men! Or Nathaniel York and his partner That would explain it!"

"That would explain absolutely nothing As far as we've been able to figure, the York expedition exploded the day it reached Mars, killing York and his partner As for Williams and his three men, their ship exploded the second day after their arrival At least the pulsations froure that if the men were alive after that they'd have contacted us And anyway, the York expedition was only a year ago, while Captain Williaust Theorizing that they are still alive, could they, even with the help of a brilliant Martian race, have built such a town as this and aged it in so short a ti here for the last seventy years Look at the wood on the porch newel; look at the trees, a century old, all of the else I don't like it And I' the ship until I knohat it is"

"For that , "Williams and his men, as well as York, landed on the opposite side of Mars We were very careful to land on this side"

"An excellent point Just in case a hostile local tribe of Martians killed off York and Williaion, to forestall a recurrence of such a disaster So here we are, as far as we know, in a land that Williams and York never saw"

"Daet out into this town, sir, with your perht patterns, civilization graphs on every planet in our sun systeical and e!"

"I' to wait a moment," said Captain John Black

"Itupon a phenomenon that, for the first time, would absolutely prove the existence of God, sir"

"There are ood faith without such proof, Mr Hinkston"

"I'm one myself, sir But certainly a town like this could not occur without divine intervention The detail It fills h or cry"

"Do neither, then, until we knoe're up against"

"Up against?" Lustig broke in "Against nothing, Captain It's a good, quiet green town, a lot like the old-fashioned one I was born in I like the looks of it"