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                          Two Weeks in August

                         By FRANK M. ROBINSON

                  Illustrated by ELIZABETH MacINTYRE

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                 Galaxy Science Fiction February 1951.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]




             The humblest events sometimes result from the
            most grandiose beginnings. You'd never imagine
             space travel starting this way, for instance!


I suppose there's a guy like McCleary in every office.

Now I'm not a hard man to get along with and it usually takes quite a
bit more than overly bright remarks from the office boy to bother me.
But try as I might, I could never get along with McCleary. To be as
disliked as he was, you have to work at it.

What kind of guy was he? Well, if you came down to the office one day
proud as Punch because of something little Johnny or Josephine had
said, it was a sure cinch that McCleary would horn in with something
his little Louie had spouted off that morning. At any rate, when
McCleary got through, you felt like taking Johnny to the doctor to find
out what made him subnormal.

Or maybe you happened to buy a new Super-eight that week and were
bragging about the mileage, the terrific pickup, and how quickly she
responded to the wheel. Leave it to McCleary to give a quick run-down
on his own car that would make you feel like selling yours for junk at
the nearest scrap heap.

Well, you see what I mean.

But by far the worst of it was when vacation time rolled around. You
could forgive a guy for topping you about how brainy his kids are, and
you might even find it in your heart to forget the terrific bargain he
drove to work in. But vacation time was when he'd really get on your
nerves. _You_ could pack the wife and kids in Old Reliable and roll out
to the lake for your two weeks in August. You might even break the bank
and spend the two weeks at a poor man's Sun Valley. But no matter where
you went, when you came back, you'd have to sit in silence and listen
to McCleary's account of his Vacation in the Adirondacks, or his Tramp
in the Canadian Wilds, or maybe even the Old French Quarter.

The trouble was he always had the photographs, the ticket stubs, and
the souvenirs to prove it. Where he got the money, I'll never know.
Sometimes I'd tell the wife about it and she'd sniff and wonder what
kind of shabby house they lived in that they could afford all the other
things. I never looked him up myself. Tell you the truth, I was afraid
I'd find the McClearys lived on Park Avenue.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now you look forward to a vacation all year, but particularly during
the latter part of July, when, what with the heat and the stuffy
office, you begin to feel like a half-done hotdog at a barbecue. I was
feeling even worse than usual as I was faced with spending my two weeks
in my own backyard, most of my vacation dough having gone to pay the
doctor. The only thing I minded was having McCleary find out about it
and seeing that phony look of sympathy roll across his fat face while
he rambled on about the vacation _he_ was going to have.

It was lunch time and we had just finished talking about the latest on
television and what was wrong with the Administration and who'd win the
pennant when Bob Young brought up the subject of vacations. It turned
out he was due for a trip to the Ozarks and Donley was going after
wall-eye pike in northern Wisconsin. I could sense McCleary prick up
his ears clear across the room.

"How about you, Bill?" Donley asked me. "Got any plans?"

I winked heavily and jerked a thumb warningly toward McCleary, making
sure McCleary couldn't see the gesture.

"My vacation is really going to be out of the world this time," I said.
"Me and the wife are going to Mars. Dry, you know. Even better than
Arizona for her sinus."

Even with the wink they were caught off guard for a minute.

"Mars?" Donley said feebly, edging his chair away. "Yeah, sure. Great
place. Never been there myself, though."

Young just gaped, then grinned as he caught on. "I understand it's a
wonderful spot," he chipped in.

I casually peeled a hard-boiled egg the wife had packed in my lunch
bucket and leaned back in my swivel chair. "It's really swell," I said
dreamily, but loud enough so McCleary couldn't help but overhear.
"Drifting down the Grand Canal at evening, the sun a faint golden disk
behind the crystal towers of Marsport...." I let my voice drift into a
long sigh and reached for Donley's sack of grapes.

About this time McCleary had gnawed his way through a big pastrami
sandwich and waddled over. He stood there expectantly, but we carefully
ignored him.

"Always wanted to go myself," Donley said in the same tone of voice he
would have used to say he'd like to go to California someday. "Pretty
expensive, though, isn't it?"

"Expensive?" I raised a studiedly surprised eyebrow. "Oh, I suppose
a little, but it's worth it. The wife and I got a roomette on the
_Princess of Mars_ for $139.50. That's one way, of course."

"Mars!" Young sighed wistfully.

There was a moment of silence, with all three of us paying silent
tribute to the ultimate in vacations. McCleary slowly masticated a leaf
of lettuce, his initial look of suspicion giving way to half-belief.

"Let's hear some more about it," Young said enthusiastically, suddenly
recovering from his reverie.

"Oh, there isn't much more," I said indifferently. "We plan to stay at
the Redsands hotel in Marsport--American plan. Take in Marsport, with
maybe a side trip to Crystallite. If we have time we might even take a
waterway cruise to the North Pole...."

       *       *       *       *       *

I broke off and dug Donley in the ribs.

"Man, you never fished until you have a Martian flying fish at the end
of the line!" I grabbed a ruler off the desk and began using it as an
imaginary rod and reel. "Talk about fight ... oh, sorry, Mac." My ruler
had amputated part of a floppy lettuce leaf that hung from McCleary's
sandwich.

I settled down in my chair again and started paying attention to my
lunch. "Nothing like it," I added between mouthfuls of liverwurst.

"How about entertainment?" Young winked slyly.

"Well, you know--the wife will be along," I said. "But some of the
places near the Grand Canal--and those Martian Mist Maidens! Brother,
if I was unattached...."

"There ain't any life on Mars," McCleary said, suspicious again.

All three of us looked at him in shocked silence.

"He says there's no life on Mars!" Donley repeated.

"You ever been there, McCleary?" I asked sarcastically.

"No, but just the same...."

"All right," I cut in, "then you don't know whether there is or isn't.
So kindly reserve your opinion until you know a little about the
subject under discussion."

       *       *       *       *       *

I turned back to Donley and Young.

"Really a wonderful place for your health. Dry, thin air, nice and cool
at night. And beautiful! From Marsport you can see low-slung mountains
in the distance, dunes of soft, red sand stretching out to them. If
I were you, Bob, I'd forget all about the Ozarks and sign up on the
rocket."

"There ain't any rockets going to Mars," McCleary said obstinately.

"Isn't," I corrected. "I mean, there is. Besides, McCleary, just
because you never heard of something doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

"The government's still working on V-2," McCleary said flatly. "They
haven't even reached the moon yet."

I sighed softly, acting disgusted at having to deal with somebody as
stupid as McCleary. "Mac, that's the government and besides they're
dealing with military rockets. And did you ever hear of the government
perfecting something before private industry? Who perfected the
telephone, the radio, television? The government? No, private industry,
of course! Private industry has always been ahead of the government on
everything, including rockets. Get on the stick, Mac."

McCleary started in on his lettuce leaf again, looking very shrewd.

"How come I never heard of it before now?" he asked, springing the
clincher argument.

"Look, Mac, this is relatively new. The company's just starting, can't
afford to take full-page ads and that sort of thing. Just give 'em
time, that's all. Why, a couple of years from now you'll be spending
your vacation on Venus or Jupiter or some place like that. From now on
California and the Bahamas will be strictly old hat."

McCleary looked half-believing.

"Where'd you get your tickets?"

I waved vaguely in the direction of downtown. "Oh, there must be at
least a couple of agencies downtown. Might even be able to find them in
the phone book. Look under _Interplanetary Rocket Lines_ or something
like that. You might have a little difficulty, of course. Like I say,
they're not too well advertised."

McCleary was about to say something more, but then the one o'clock bell
rang and we went back to the office grind.

       *       *       *       *       *

Well, McCleary didn't say anything more about it the next day, even
though we'd throw in a chance comment about Mars every now and then, as
if it were the most natural thing in the world, but Mac didn't rise to
the bait. We gradually forgot about it.

The next couple of weeks came and went and then my two weeks in August.
Like I said before, my vacation dough had gone to pay the doctor, so I
stayed at home and watered the begonias.

The Monday morning after vacation, we were all back in the office, if
anything looking more fagged than we had when we left. When lunch time
rolled around, Donley and Young and I piled our lunches on Donley's
desk--his desk was near a window on the north side of the building
so we could get the breeze--and talked about what we had done during
vacation.

McCleary ambled up and like it usually does after McCleary comes
around, the conversation just naturally died down. After a two minute
silence I finally took the hook.

"Okay, Mac," I said, "I know you're just dying to tell us. Where did
you go?"

He almost looked surprised. "To Mars," he said, like he might have said
Aunt Minnie's.

The three of us looked blank for a minute and then we caught on. It
took us a while to recover from laughing and my sides were still aching
when I saw McCleary's face. It definitely had a hurt look on it.

"You don't think I did," he accused us.

"Oh, come off it, McCleary," I said crossly. "A gag's a gag, but it can
be carried too far. Where'd you go? California, Oregon, some place like
that?"

"I said I went to Mars," McCleary repeated hotly, "and I can prove it!"

"Sure," I said. "Like I can prove the world's flat and it's supported
by four elephants standing on a turtle's back like the old Greeks...."

I cut off. McCleary had thrown a couple of pasteboards on the desk and
I picked them up. The printing on it was like you see on a Pullman
ticket. It said something about a roomette, first-class passage on the
_Martian Prince_, for $154.75, and there was even a place where they
had the tax figured. In two blanks at the top of the ticket, they had
it filled out to _E. C. McCleary and wife_. The bottom half was torn
off, just like they do with train tickets.

"Very clever," I said, "but you shouldn't have gone to all that trouble
to have these printed up."

McCleary scowled and dropped a little bunch of kodachrome slides on the
desk. I took one and held it up to the light. It showed Mac and his
wife mounted on something that looked like a cross between a camel and
a zebra. They were at the top of a sand dune and in the distance you
could see the towers of a city. The funny thing was the towers looked a
little--but not much--like minarets and the sand dunes were colored a
beautiful pink.

I passed it on to Donley and Young and started leafing through the
rest. They were beautiful slides. McCleary and spouse in front of
various structures in a delicately tinted marble and crystal city.
McCleary in a pink-and-black boat on a canal that looked as wide as the
Mississippi. McCleary standing on a strangely carved sandstone parapet,
admiring a sunset caused by a sun looking half as big as ours. And
everywhere were the dunes of pink sand.

"Pictures can be faked, Mac," I said.

He looked hurt and got some things out of his desk--a sateen pillow
with scenes like those on his snapshots, an urn filled with pink sand,
a tiny boat like a gondola, only different, a letter opener made out
of peculiar bubbly pink glass. They were all stamped "Souvenir of
Mars" and that kind of junk you don't have made up for a gag. I know
mass-produced articles when I see them.

"We couldn't afford the first-class tour," McCleary said expansively,
"but I figure we can cover that next year." He turned to me puzzledly.
"I asked the passenger agent about the _Princess of Mars_ and he said
he had never heard of the ship. And it's Mars City, not Marsport.
Couldn't understand how you made a mistake."

"It was easy," I said weakly. I pointed to the pasteboard ducats.
"Where'd you get these, Mac?"

He waved generously in the direction of downtown. "Like you said,
there's a couple of agencies downtown...."

       *       *       *       *       *

You know, sometimes I think we misjudged McCleary. It takes a while to
get to know a guy like Mac. Maybe his Louie _is_ brighter than Johnny,
and maybe his chugmobile _is_ something terrific.

For the last few years, all on account of Mac, my two weeks in August
have really been well spent Beautiful! Why, from Mars City you can
see low-slung mountains in the distance and dunes of soft, red sand
stretching out to them. And the sunsets when you're standing on the
parapets of that delicate crystal city.... And, man, fishing in the
Grand Canal....

How do you get to Mars? There's probably a couple of agencies in your
own town. You can look them up in your phone book under "Vacation at
the Planets of Pleasure" or something like that. They might be a little
difficult to find, though.

You see, they're not very well advertised yet.





End of Project Gutenberg's Two Weeks in August, by Frank M. Robinson