Free Long After Midnight by Ray Bradbury

death, do anything, but get that man. I'll be right outl " He hung up the phone.
                 By
instinct he jerked open the bottom desk drawer to get his service pistol. A
pile of brown rust filled the new leather holster. He swore and leaped up.
                 On
the way out of the office he grabbed a chair. It's wood, he thought. Good
old-fashioned wood, good old-fashioned maple. He hurled it against the wall
twice, and it broke. Then he seized one of the legs, clenched it hard in his
fist, his face bursting red, the breath snorting in his nostrils, his mouth
wide. He struck the palm of his hand with the leg of the chair, testing it.
"All right, God damn it, come on!" he cried.
                 He
rushed out, yelling, and slammed the door.

The Messiah
 
                  
                 "We
all have that special dream when we are young," said Bishop Kelly.
                 The
others at the table murmured, nodded.
                 "There
is no Christian boy," the Bishop continued, "who does not some night
wonder: am I Him? Is this the Second Coming at long last, and am I It? What,
what, oh, what, dear God, if I were Jesus?
How grand!"
                 The
Priests, the Ministers, and the one lonely Rabbi laughed gently, remembering
things from their own childhoods, their own wild dreams, and being great fools.
                 "I
suppose," said the young Priest, Father Niven ,
"that Jewish boys imagine themselves Moses?"
                 "No,
no, my dear friend," said Rabbi Niftier. "The Messiah! The Messiah!"
                 More
quiet laughter, from all.
                 "Of
course," said Father Niven out of his fresh
pink-and-cream face, "how stupid of me. Christ wasn't the Messiah, was he? And your people are still waiting for
Him to arrive. Strange. Oh, the ambiguities."
                 "And
nothing more ambiguous than this." Bishop Kelly rose to escort them all
out onto a terrace which had a view of the Martian hills, the ancient Martian
towns, the old highways, the rivers of dust, and Earth, sixty million miles
away, shining with a clear light in this alien sky.
                 "Did
we ever in our wildest dreams," said the Reverend Smith, "imagine
that one day each of us would have a Baptist Church, a St. Mary's Chapel, a
Mount Sinai Synagogue here, here on Mars?"
                 The
answer was no, no, softly, from them all.
                 Their
quiet was interrupted by another voice which moved among them. Father Niven , as they stood at the balustrade, had tuned his
transistor radio to check the hour. News was being broadcast from the small new
American-Martian wilderness colony below. They listened:
                 "—rumored
near the town. This is the first Martian reported in our community this year.
Citizens are urged to respect any such visitor. If—"
                 Father Niven shut the news off.
                 "Our
elusive congregation," sighed the Reverend Smith. "I must confess, I
came to Mars not only to work with Christians, but hoping to invite one Martian to Sunday supper, to learn
of his theologies, his needs."
                 "We
are still too new to them," said Father Lips-comb. "In another year
or so I think they will understand we're not buffalo hunters in search of
pelts. Still, it is hard to keep
one's curiosity in hand. After all, our Mariner photographs indicated no life whatsoever here. Yet life there is, very
mysterious and half-resembling the human."
                 "Half,
Your Eminence?" The Rabbi mused over his coffee. "I feel they are
even more human than ourselves. They have let us come in. They have hidden in the hills, coming among us only on
occasion, we guess, disguised as Earthmen—"
                 "Do
you really believe they have telepathic powers, then, and hypnotic