Read "Mars is my Destination" by Frank Belknap Long online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It happened so suddenly it would have taken me completely by surprise, if the alarm bell hadn't started ringing again in some shadowy corner of my mind. It wasn't clamorous this time, but it was loud enough to make me straighten in alarm, with every nerve alert.
I was standing by a high wall of foliage, close to the lakeside and had just started to light a cigarette. All at once, directly overhead, there was a rustling sound that was hard to mistake, for I'd heard it many times before, and it had a peculiar quality which set it apart from all other sounds.