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      Father Peregrine felt his wrists pounding. He saw the little frontier town with raw, fresh-built sin, and he saw the hills, old with the oldest and yet perhaps an even newer (to him) sin.

      ‘Mayor, could your black Irish laborers cook one more day in hellfire?’

      ‘I’d turn and baste them for you, Father.’

      Father Peregrine nodded to the hills. ‘Then that’s where we’ll go.’

      There was a murmur from everyone.

      ‘It would be so simple,’ explained Father Peregrine, ‘to go into town. I prefer to think that if the Lord walked here and people said, “Here is the beaten path,” He would reply, “Show me the weeds. I will make a path.”’

      ‘But—’

      ‘Father Stone, think how it would weigh upon us if we passed sinners by and did not extend our hands.’

      ‘But globes of fire!’

      ‘I imagine man looked funny to other animals when we first appeared. Yet he has a soul, for all his homeliness. Until we prove otherwise, let us assume that these fiery spheres have souls.’

      ‘All right,’ agreed the mayor, ‘but you’ll be back to town.’

      ‘We’ll see. First, some breakfast. Then you and I, Father Stone, will walk alone into the hills. I don’t want to frighten those fiery Martians with machines or crowds. Shall we have breakfast?’

      The Fathers ate in silence.

      At nightfall Father Peregrine and Father Stone were high in the hills. They stopped and sat upon a rock to enjoy a moment of relaxation and waiting. The Martians had not as yet appeared and they both felt vaguely disappointed.

      ‘I wonder—’ Father Peregrine mopped his face. ‘Do you think if we called “Hello!” they might answer?’

      ‘Father Peregrine, won’t you ever be serious?’

      ‘Not until the good Lord is. Oh, don’t look so terribly shocked, please. The Lord is not serious. In fact, it is a little hard to know just what else He is except loving. And love has to do with humor, doesn’t it? For you cannot love someone unless you put up with him, can you? And you cannot put up with someone constantly unless you can laugh at him. Isn’t that true? And certainly we are ridiculous little animals wallowing in the fudge bowl, and God must love us all the more because we appeal to His humor.’

      ‘I never thought of God as humorous,’ said Father Stone.

      ‘The Creator of the platypus, the camel, the ostrich, and man? Oh, come now!’ Father Peregrine laughed.

      But at this instant, from among the twilight hills, like a series of blue lamps lit to guide their way, came the Martians.

      Father Stone saw them first. ‘Look!’

      Father Peregrine turned and the laughter stopped in his mouth.

      The round blue globes of fire hovered among the twinkling stars, distantly trembling.

      ‘Monsters!’ Father Stone leaped up. But Father Peregrine caught him. ‘Wait!’

      ‘We should’ve gone to town!’

      ‘No, listen, look!’ pleaded Father Peregrine.

      ‘I’m afraid!’

      ‘Don’t be. This is God’s work!’

      ‘The devil’s!’

      ‘No, now, quiet!’ Father Peregrine gentled him and they crouched with the soft blue light on their upturned faces as the fiery orbs drew near.

      And again. Independence Night, thought Father Peregrine, tremoring. He felt like a child back in those July Fourth evenings, the sky blowing apart, breaking into powdery stars and burning sound, the concussions jingling house windows like the ice on a thousand thin ponds. The aunts, uncles, cousins crying, ‘Ah!’ as to some celestial physician. The summer sky colors. And the Fire Balloons, lit by an indulgent grandfather, steadied in his massively tender hands. Oh, the memory of those lovely Fire Balloons, softly lighted, warmly billowed bits of tissue, like insect wings, lying like folded wasps in boxes and, last of all, after the day of riot and fury, at long last from their boxes, delicately unfolded, blue, red, white, patriotic – the Fire Balloons! He saw the dim faces of dear relatives long dead and mantled with moss as Grandfather lit the tiny candle and let the warm air breathe up to form the balloon plumply luminous in his hands, a shining vision which they held, reluctant to let it go; for, once released, it was yet another year gone from life, another Fourth, another bit of Beauty vanished. And then up, up, still up through the warm summer night constellations, the Fire Balloons had drifted, while red-white-and-blue eyes followed them, wordless, from family porches. Away into deep Illinois country, over night rivers and sleeping mansions the Fire Balloons dwindled, forever gone …

      Father Peregrine felt tears in his eyes. Above him the Martians, not one but a thousand whispering Fire Balloons, it seemed, hovered. Any moment he might find his long-dead and blessed grandfather at his elbow, staring up at Beauty.

      But it was Father Stone.

      ‘Let’s go, please, Father!’

      ‘I must speak to them.’ Father Peregrine rustled forward, not knowing what to say, for what had he ever said to the Fire Balloons of time past except with his mind: you are beautiful, you are beautiful, and that was not enough now. He could only lift his heavy arms and call upward, as he had often wished to call after the enchanted Fire Balloons, ‘Hello!’

      But the fiery spheres only burned like images in a dark mirror. They seemed fixed, gaseous, miraculous, forever.

      ‘We come with God,’ said Father Peregrine to the sky.

      ‘Silly, silly, silly.’ Father Stone chewed the back of his hand. ‘In the name of God, Father Peregrine, stop!’

      But now the phosphorescent spheres blew away into the hills. In a moment they were gone.

      Father Peregrine called again, and the echo of his last cry shook the hills above. Turning, he saw an avalanche shake out dust, pause, and then, with a thunder of stone wheels, crash down the mountain upon them.

      ‘Look what you’ve done!’ cried Father Stone.

      Father Peregrine was almost fascinated, then horrified. He turned, knowing they could run only a few feet before the rocks crushed them into ruins. He had time to whisper, Oh, Lord! and the rocks fell!

      ‘Father!’

      They were separated like chaff from wheat. There was a blue shimmering of globes, a shift of cold stars, a roar, and then they stood upon a ledge two hundred feet away watching the spot where their bodies should have been buried under tons of stone.

      The blue light evaporated.

      The two Fathers clutched each other. ‘What happened?’

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