Long After Midnight by Ray Bradbury

few hundred
thousand miles. Done?"
                 "Done."
But still Willis did not leave.
                 "Mr.
Shaw," he said, at last. "What... what do you do while the rest of us sleep?"
                 "Do?
Why, bless you. I listen to my tuning fork. Then, I write symphonies between my
ears."
                 Willis
was gone.
                 In
the dark, alone, the old man bent his head. A soft hive of dark bees began to
hum under his honey-sweet breath.
                 Four
hours later, Willis, off watch, crept into his sleep-cubicle.
                 In
half-light, the mouth was waiting for him.
                 Clive's
mouth. It licked its lips and whispered:
                 "Everyone's
talking. About you making an ass out of yourself visiting a
two-hundred-year-old intellectual relic, you, you, you. Jesus, the psycho- med'll be out tomorrow to X-ray your stupid skull!"
                 "Better
that than what you men do all night every night," said Willis.
                 "What
we do is us."
                 "Then
why not let me be me?"
                 "Because
it's unnatural." The tongue licked and darted. "We all miss you. Tonight we piled all the grand
toys in the midst of the wild room and—"
                 "I
don't want to hear it!"
                 "Well,
then," said the mouth, "I might just trot down and tell all this to
your old gentleman friend—"
                 "Don't
go near him!"
                 "I
might." The lips moved in the shadows. "You can't stand guard on him
forever. Some night soon, when you're asleep, someone might—tamper with him,
eh? Scramble his electronic eggs so he'll talk vaudeville instead of Saint Joan? Ha, yes. Think. Long journey.
Crew's bored. Practical joke like that, worth a million to see you froth.
Beware, Charlie. Best come play with us."
                 Willis,
eyes shut, let the blaze out of him.
                 "Whoever
dares to touch Mr. Shaw, so help me God, I'll kill!"
                 He
turned violently on his side, gnawing the back of his fist.
                 In
the half-dark, he could sense Clive's mouth still moving.
                 "Kill?
Well, well. Pity. Sweet dreams."
                 An
hour later, Willis gulped two pills and fell stunned into sleep.
                 In
the middle of the night he dreamed that they were burning good Saint Joan at the
stake and, in the midst of burning, the plain-potato maiden turned to an old
man stoically wrapped around with ropes and vines. The old man's beard was
fiery red even before the flames reached it, and his bright blue eyes were
fixed fiercely upon Eternity, ignoring the fire.
                 "Recant!"
cried a voice. "Confess and recant! Recant!"
                 "There
is nothing to confess, therefore no need for recantation," said the old
man quietly.
                 The
flames leaped up his body like a mob of insane and burning mice.
                 "Mr.
Shaw!" screamed Willis.
                 He
sprang awake.
                 Mr. Shaw.
                 The
cabin was silent. Clive lay asleep.
                 On
his face was a smile.
                 The
smile made Willis pull back, with a cry. He dressed. He ran.
                 Like
a leaf in autumn he fell down the air-tube, growing older and heavier with each
long instant.
                 The
storage pit where the old man "slept" was much more quiet than it had
a right to be.
                 Willis
bent. His hand trembled. At last, he touched the old man.
                 "Sir-?"
                 There
was no motion. The beard did not bristle. Nor the eyes fire themselves to blue
flames. Nor the mouth tremble with gentle blasphemies . .