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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/23232-8.txt b/23232-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc5ed19 --- /dev/null +++ b/23232-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1604 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Servant Problem, by Robert F. Young + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Servant Problem + +Author: Robert F. Young + +Release Date: October 29, 2007 [EBook #23232] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SERVANT PROBLEM *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Iain Arnell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + + +The Servant Problem + + + Selling a whole town, and doing it inconspicuously, can be a little + difficult ... either giving it away freely, or in a more normal + sense of "selling". People don't quite believe it.... + + +by Robert J. Young + + +Illustrated by Schoenherr + + +[Illustration] + + +If you have ever lived in a small town, you have seen Francis Pfleuger, +and probably you have sent him after sky-hooks, left-handed +monkey-wrenches and pails of steam, and laughed uproariously behind his +back when he set forth to do your bidding. The Francis Pfleugers of the +world have inspired both fun and laughter for generations out of mind. + +The Francis Pfleuger we are concerned with here lived in a small town +named Valleyview, and in addition to suffering the distinction of being +the village idiot, he also suffered the distinction of being the village +inventor. These two distinctions frequently go hand in hand, and afford, +in their incongruous togetherness, an even greater inspiration for fun +and laughter. For in this advanced age of streamlined electric can +openers and sleek pop-up toasters, who but the most naïve among us can +fail to be titillated by the thought of a buck-toothed, wall-eyed moron +building Rube Goldberg contrivances in his basement? + +The Francis Pfleuger we are concerned with did his inventing in his +kitchen rather than in his basement; nevertheless, his machines were in +the Rube Goldberg tradition. Take the one he was assembling now, for +example. It stood on the kitchen table, and its various attachments +jutted this way and that with no apparent rhyme or reason. In its center +there was a transparent globe that looked like an upside-down goldfish +bowl, and in the center of the bowl there was an object that startlingly +resembled a goldfish, but which, of course, was nothing of the sort. +Whatever it was, though, it kept growing brighter and brighter each time +Francis added another attachment, and had already attained a degree of +incandescence so intense that he had been forced to don cobalt-blue +goggles in order to look at it. The date was the First of April, +1962--April Fool's Day. + +Actually, the idea for this particular machine had not originated in +Francis' brain, nor had the parts for it originated in his +kitchen-workshop. When he had gone out to get the milk that morning he +had found a box on his doorstep, and in the box he had found the +goldfish bowl and the attachments, plus a sheet of instructions +entitled, DIRECTIONS FOR ASSEMBLING A MULTIPLE MÖBIUS-KNOT DYNAMO. +Francis thought that a machine capable of tying knots would be pretty +keen, and he had carried the box into the kitchen and set to work +forthwith. + +He now had but one more part to go, and he proceeded to screw it into +place. Then he stepped back to admire his handiwork. Simultaneously his +handiwork went into action. The attachments began to quiver and to emit +sparks; the globe glowed, and the goldfishlike object in its center +began to dart this way and that as though striking at flies. A blue halo +formed above the machine and began to rotate. Faster and faster it +rotated, till finally its gaseous components separated and flew off in a +hundred different directions. Three things happened then in swift +succession: Francis' back doorway took on a bluish cast, the sheet of +instructions vanished, and the machine began to melt. + +A moment later he heard a whining sound on his back doorstep. + +Simultaneously all of the residents of Valleyview heard whining sounds +on _their_ back doorsteps. + +Naturally everybody went to find out about the whining. + + * * * * * + +The sign was a new one. At the most it was no more than six months old. +YOU ARE ENTERING THE VILLAGE OF VALLEYVIEW, it said. PLEASE DRIVE +CAREFULLY--WE ARE FOND OF OUR DOGS. + +Philip Myles drove carefully. He was fond of dogs, too. + +Night had tiptoed in over the October countryside quite some time ago, +but the village of Valleyview had not turned on so much as a single +streetlight--nor, apparently, any other kind of light. All was in +darkness, and not a soul was to be seen. Philip began to suspect that he +had entered a ghost town, and when his headlights darted across a dark +intersection and picked up the overgrown grass and unkempt shrubbery of +the village park, he was convinced that he had. Then he saw the girl +walking the dog. + +He kitty-cornered the intersection and pulled up alongside her. She was +a blonde, tall and chic in a gray fall suit. Her face was +attractive--beautiful even, in a cold and classic way--but she would +never see twenty-five again. But then, Philip would never again see +thirty. When she paused, her dog paused too, although she did not have +it on a leash. It was on the small side, tawny in hue, with golden-brown +eyes, a slender white-tipped tail, and shaggy ears that hung down on +either side of its face in a manner reminiscent of a cocker spaniel's. +It wasn't a cocker spaniel, though. The ears were much too long, for one +thing, and the tail was much too delicate, for another. It was a +breed--or combination of breeds--that Philip had never seen before. + +He leaned across the seat and rolled down the right-hand window. "Could +you direct me to number 23 Locust Street?" he asked. "It's the residence +of Judith Darrow, the village attorney. Maybe you know her." + +The girl gave a start. "Are _you_ the real-estate man I sent for?" + +Philip gave a start, too. Recovering himself, he said, "Then _you're_ +Judith Darrow. I'm ... I'm afraid I'm a little late." + +The girl's eyes flashed. The radiant backwash of the headlights revealed +them to be both green and gray. "I specified in my letter that you were +supposed to be here at nine o'clock this morning!" she said. "Maybe +you'll tell me how you're going to appraise property in the dark!" + +"I'm sorry," Philip said. "My car broke down on the way, and I had to +wait for it to be fixed. When I tried to call you, the operator told me +that your phone had been disconnected. If you'll direct me to the hotel, +I'll stay there overnight and appraise your property in the morning. +There _is_ a hotel, isn't there?" + +"There is--but it's closed. Zarathustra--down!" The dog had raised up on +its hind legs and placed its forepaws on the door in an unsuccessful +attempt to peer in the window. At the girl's command, it sank obediently +down on its haunches. "Except for Zarathustra and myself," she went on, +"the village is empty. Everyone else has already moved out, and we'd +have moved out, too, if I hadn't been entrusted with arranging for the +sale of the business places and the houses. It makes for a rather +awkward situation." + +She had leaned forward, and the light from the dash lay palely upon her +face, softening its austerity. "I don't get this at all," Philip said. +"From your letter I assumed you had two or three places you wanted me to +sell, but not a whole town. There must have been at least a thousand +people living here, and a thousand people just don't pack up and move +out all at once." When she volunteered no explanation, he added, "Where +did they move to?" + +"To Pfleugersville. I know you've never heard of it, so save the +observation." Then, "Do you have any identification?" she asked. + +He gave her his driver's license, his business card and the letter she +had written him. After glancing at them, she handed them back. She +appeared to be undecided about something. "Why don't you let me stay at +the hotel?" he suggested. "You must have the key if it's one of the +places I'm supposed to appraise." + +She shook her head. "I have the key, but there's not a stick of +furniture in the place. We had a village auction last week and got rid +of everything that we didn't plan on taking with us." She sighed. "Well, +there's nothing for it, I guess. The nearest motel is thirty miles away, +so I'll have to put you up at my house. I have a few articles of +furniture left--wedding gifts, mostly, that I was too sentimental to +part with." She got into the car. "Come on, Zarathustra." + +Zarathustra clambered in, leaped across her lap and sat down between +them. Philip pulled away from the curb. "That's an odd name for a dog," +he said. + +"I know. I guess the reason I gave it to him is because he puts me in +mind of a little old man sometimes." + +"But the original Zarathustra isn't noted for his longevity." + +"Perhaps another association was at work then. Turn right at the next +corner." + +A lonely light burned in one of number 23 Locust Street's three front +windows. Its source, however, was not an incandescent bulb, but the +mantle of a gasoline lantern. "The village power-supply was shut off +yesterday," Judith Darrow explained, pumping the lantern into renewed +brightness. She glanced at him sideways. "Did you have dinner?" + +"As a matter of fact--no. But please don't--" + +"Bother? I couldn't if I wanted to. My larder is on its last legs. But +sit down, and I'll make you some sandwiches. I'll make a pot of coffee +too--the gas hasn't been turned off yet." + + * * * * * + +The living room had precisely three articles of furniture to its +name--two armchairs and a coffee table. After Judith left him, Philip +set his brief case on the floor and sat down in one of the chairs. He +wondered idly how she expected to make the trip to Pfleugersville. He +had seen no car in the driveway, and there was no garage on the property +in which one could be concealed. Moreover, it was highly unlikely that +buses serviced the village any more. Valleyview had been bypassed quite +some time ago by one of the new super-duper highways. He shrugged. +Getting to Pfleugersville was her problem, not his. + +He returned his attention to the living room. It was a large room. The +house was large, too--large and Victorianesque. Judith, apparently, had +opened the back door, for a breeze was wafting through the downstairs +rooms--a breeze laden with the scent of flowers and the dew-damp breath +of growing grass. He frowned. The month was October, not June, and since +when did flowers bloom and grass grow in October? He concluded that the +scent must be artificial. + +Zarathustra was regarding him with large golden eyes from the middle of +the living-room floor. The animal did somehow bring to mind a little old +man, although he could not have been more than two or three years old. +"You're not very good company," Philip said. + +"Ruf," said Zarathustra, and turning, trotted through an archway into a +large room that, judging from the empty shelves lining its walls, had +once been a library, and thence through another archway into another +room--the dining room, undoubtedly--and out of sight. + +Philip leaned back wearily in the armchair he had chosen. He was beat. +Take six days a week, ten hours a day, and multiply by fifty-two and you +get three hundred and twelve. Three hundred and twelve days a year, +hunting down clients, talking, walking, driving, expounding; trying in +his early thirties to build the foundation he should have begun building +in his early twenties--the foundation for the family he had suddenly +realized he wanted and someday hoped to have. Sometimes he wished that +ambition had missed him altogether instead of waiting for so long to +strike. Sometimes he wished he could have gone right on being what he +once had been. After all, there was nothing wrong in living in cheap +hotels and even cheaper rooming houses; there was nothing wrong in being +a lackadaisical door-to-door salesman with run-down heels. + +Nothing wrong, that is, except the aching want that came over you +sometimes, and the loneliness of long and empty evenings. + +Zarathustra had re-entered the room and was sitting in the middle of the +floor again. He had not returned empty-handed--or rather, +empty-mouthed--although the object he had brought with him was not the +sort of object dogs generally pick up. It was a rose-- + +A green rose. + + * * * * * + +Disbelievingly, Philip leaned forward and took it from the animal's +mouth. Before he had a chance to examine it, however, footsteps sounded +in the next room, and prompted by he knew not what, he thrust the rose +into his suitcoat pocket. An instant later, Judith Darrow came through +the archway bearing a large tray. After setting it down on the coffee +table, she poured two cups of coffee from a little silver pot and +indicated a plate of sandwiches. "Please help yourself," she said. + +She sat down in the other chair and sipped her coffee. He had one of the +sandwiches, found that he didn't want any more. Somehow, her proximity, +coupled with her silence, made him feel uncomfortable. "Has your husband +already left for Pfleugersville?" he asked politely. + +Her gray-green eyes grew cold. "Yes, he left quite some time ago," she +said. "A year ago, as a matter of fact. But for parts unknown, not +Pfleugersville. Pfleugersville wasn't accessible then, anyway. He had a +brunette on one arm, a redhead on the other, and a pint of Cutty Sark in +his hip pocket." + +Philip was distressed. "I ... I didn't mean to pry," he said. "I'm--" + +"Sorry? Why should you be? Some men are born to settle down and raise +children and others are born to drink and philander. It's as simple as +that." + +"Is it?" something made Philip ask. "Into which category would you say I +fall?" + +"You're in a class by yourself." Tiny silver flecks had come into her +eyes, and he realized to his astonishment that they were flecks of +malevolence. "You've never married, but playing the field hasn't made +you one hundred per cent cynical. You're still convinced that somewhere +there is a woman worthy of your devotion. And you're quite right--the +world is full of them." + +His face tingled as though she had slapped it, and in a sense, she had. +He restrained his anger with difficulty. "I didn't know that my celibacy +was that noticeable," he said. + +"It isn't. I took the liberty of having a private investigator check +into your background. It proved to be unsavory in some respects, as I +implied before, but unlike the backgrounds of the other real-estate +agents I had checked, it contained not the slightest hint of dishonesty. +The nature of my business is such that I need someone of maximum +integrity to contract it with. I had to go far and wide to find you." + +"You're being unfair," Philip said, mollified despite himself. "Most +real-estate agents are honest. As a matter of fact, there's one in the +same office building with me that I'd trust with the family jewels--if I +had any family jewels." + +"Good," Judith Darrow said. "I gambled on you knowing someone like +that." + +He waited for her to elaborate, and when she did not he finished his +coffee and stood up. "If you don't mind, I'll turn in," he said. "I've +had a pretty hard day." + +"I'll show you your room." + +She got two candles, lit them, and after placing them in gilt +candlesticks, handed one of the candlesticks to him. The room was on the +third floor in under the eaves--as faraway from hers, probably, as the +size of the house permitted. Philip did not mind. He liked to sleep in +rooms under eaves. There was an enchantment about the rain on the roof +that people who slept in less celestial bowers never got to know. After +Judith left, he threw open the single window and undressed and climbed +into bed. Remembering the rose, he got it out of his coat pocket and +examined it by candlelight. It was green all right--even greener than he +had at first thought. Its scent was reminiscent of the summer breeze +that was blowing through the downstairs rooms, though not at all in +keeping with the chill October air that was coming through his bedroom +window. He laid it on the table beside the bed and blew out the candle. +He would go looking for the bush tomorrow. + + * * * * * + +Philip was an early riser, and dawn had not yet departed when, fully +dressed, he left the room with the rose in his coat pocket and quietly +descended the stairs. Entering the living room, he found Zarathustra +curled up in one of the armchairs, and for a moment he had the eerie +impression that the animal had extended one of his shaggy ears and was +scratching his back with it. When Philip did a doubletake, however, the +ear was back to normal size and reposing on its owner's tawny cheek. +Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he said, "Come on, Zarathustra, we're +going for a walk." + +He headed for the back door, Zarathustra at his heels. A double door +leading off the dining room barred his way and proved to be locked. +Frowning, he returned to the living room. "All right," he said to +Zarathustra, "we'll go out the front way then." + +[Illustration] + +He walked around the side of the house, his canine companion trotting +beside him. The side yard turned out to be disappointing. It contained +no roses--green ones, or any other kind. About all it did contain that +was worthy of notice was a dog house--an ancient affair that was much +too large for Zarathustra and which probably dated from the days when +Judith had owned a larger dog. The yard itself was a mess: the grass +hadn't been cut all summer, the shrubbery was ragged, and dead leaves +lay everywhere. A similar state of affairs existed next door, and +glancing across lots, he saw that the same desuetude prevailed +throughout the entire neighborhood. Obviously the good citizens of +Valleyview had lost interest in their real estate long before they had +moved out. + +At length his explorations led him to the back door. If there were green +roses anywhere, the trellis that adorned the small back porch was the +logical place for them to be. He found nothing but bedraggled Virginia +creeper and more dead leaves. + +He tried the back door, and finding it locked, circled the rest of the +way around the house. Judith was waiting for him on the front porch. +"How nice of you to walk Zarathustra," she said icily. "I do hope you +found the yard in order." + +[Illustration] + +The yellow dress she was wearing did not match the tone of her voice, +and the frilly blue apron tied round her waist belied the frostiness of +her gray-green eyes. Nevertheless, her rancor was real. "Sorry," he +said. "I didn't know your back yard was out of bounds." Then, "If you'll +give me a list of the places you want evaluated, I'll get started right +away." + +"I'll take you around again personally--after we have breakfast." + +Again he was consigned to the living room while she performed the +necessary culinary operations, and again she served him by tray. Clearly +she did not want him in the kitchen, or anywhere near it. He was not +much of a one for mysteries, but this one was intriguing him more and +more by the minute. + +Breakfast over, she told him to wait on the front porch while she did +the dishes, and instructed Zarathustra to keep him company. She had two +voices: the one she used in addressing Zarathustra contained overtones +of summer, and the one she used in addressing Philip contained +overtones of fall. "Some day," Philip told the little dog, "that chip +she carries on her shoulder is going to fall off of its own accord, and +by then it will be too late--the way it was too late for me when I found +out that the person I'd been running away from all my life was myself in +wolf's clothing." + +"Ruf," said Zarathustra, looking up at him with benign golden eyes. +"Ruf-ruf!" + + * * * * * + +Presently Judith re-appeared, sans apron, and the three of them set +forth into the golden October day. It was Philip's first experience in +evaluating an entire village, but he had a knack for estimating the +worth of property, and by the time noon came around, he had the job half +done. "If you people had made even half an effort to keep your places +up," he told Judith over cold-cut sandwiches and coffee in her living +room, "we could have asked for a third again as much. Why in the world +did you let everything go to pot just because you were moving some place +else?" + +She shrugged. "It's hard to get anyone to do housework these days--not +to mention gardening. Besides, in addition to the servant problem, +there's another consideration--human nature. When you've lived in a +shack all your life and you suddenly acquire a palace, you cease caring +very much what the shack looks like." + +"Shack!" Philip was indignant. "Why, this house is lovely! Practically +every house you've shown me is lovely. Old, yes--but oldness is an +essential part of the loveliness of houses. If Pfleugersville is on the +order of most housing developments I've seen, you and your neighbors are +going to be good and sorry one of these fine days!" + +"But Pfleugersville isn't on the order of most housing developments +you've seen. In fact, it's not a housing development at all. But let's +not go into that. Anyway, we're concerned with Valleyview, not +Pfleugersville." + +"Very well," Philip said. "This afternoon should wind things up so far +as the appraising goes." + + * * * * * + +That evening, after a coffee-less supper--both the gas and the water had +been turned off that afternoon--he totaled up his figures. They made +quite a respectable sum. He looked across the coffee table, which he had +commandeered as a desk, to where Judith, with the dubious help of +Zarathustra, was sorting out a pile of manila envelopes which she had +placed in the middle of the living-room floor. "I'll do my best to sell +everything," he said, "but it's going to be difficult going till we get +a few families living here. People are reluctant about moving into empty +neighborhoods, and businessmen aren't keen about opening up business +places before the customers are available. But I think it'll work out +all right. There's a plaza not far from here that will provide a place +to shop until the local markets are functioning, and Valleyview is part +of a centralized school district." He slipped the paper he had been +figuring on into his brief case, closed the case and stood up. "I'll +keep in touch with you." + +Judith shook her head. "You'll do nothing of the sort. As soon as you +leave, I'm moving to Pfleugersville. My business here is finished." + +"I'll keep in touch with you there then. All you have to do is give me +your address and phone number." + +She shook her head again. "I could give you both, but neither would do +you any good. But that's beside the point. Valleyview is your +responsibility now--not mine." + +Philip sat back down again. "You can start explaining any time," he +said. + +"It's very simple. The property owners of Valleyview signed all of their +houses and places of business over to me. I, in turn, have signed all of +them over to you--with the qualification, of course, that after selling +them you will be entitled to no more than your usual commission." She +withdrew a paper from one of the manila envelopes. "After selling them," +she went on, "you are to divide the proceeds equally among the four +charities specified in this contract." She handed him the paper. "Do you +understand now why I tried so hard to find a trustworthy agent?" + +Philip was staring at the paper, unable, in his astonishment, to read +the words it contained. "Suppose," he said presently, "that +circumstances should make it impossible for me to carry out my end of +the agreement?" + +"In case of illness, you will already have taken the necessary steps to +transfer the property to another agent who, in your opinion, is as +completely honest as you are, and in case of death, you will already +have taken the necessary steps to bequeath the property to the same +agent; and he, in both cases, will already have agreed to the terms laid +down in the contract you're holding in your hands. Why don't you read +it?" + + * * * * * + +Now that his astonishment had abated somewhat, Philip found that he +could do so. "But this still doesn't make sense," he said a short while +later. "Obviously you and the rest of the owners have purchased new +houses. Would it be presumptuous of me to ask how you're going to pay +for them when you're virtually giving your old houses away?" + +"I'm afraid it would be, Mr. Myles." She withdrew another paper from the +envelope and handed it to him. "This is the other copy. If you'll kindly +affix your signature to both, we can bring our business to a close. As +you'll notice, I've already signed." + +"But if you're going to be incommunicado," Philip pointed out, anger +building up in him despite all he could do to stop it, "what good will +your copy do you?" + +Judith's countenance took on a glacial quality. So did her voice. "My +copy will go into the hands of a trusted attorney, sealed in an envelope +which I have already instructed him not to open till five years from +this date. If, at the time it is opened, you have violated the terms of +our agreement, he will institute legal proceedings at once. Fortunately, +although the Valleyview post office is closed, a mail truck passes +through every weekday evening at eight. It's not that I don't trust you, +Mr. Myles--but you are a man, you know." + +Philip was tempted to tear up the two copies then and there, and toss +the pieces into the air. But he didn't, for the very good reason that he +couldn't afford to. Instead, he bore down viciously on his pen and +brought his name to life twice in large and angry letters. He handed +Judith one copy, slipped the other into his breast pocket and got to his +feet. "That," he said, "brings our official business to a close. Now I'd +like to add an unofficial word of advice. It seems to me that you're +exacting an exorbitant price from the world for your husband's having +sold you out for a brunette and a redhead and a pint of Scotch. I've +been sold out lots of times for less than that, but I found out long ago +that the world doesn't pay its bills even when you ask a fair price for +the damages done to you. I suggest that you write the matter off as a +bad debt and forget about it; then maybe you'll become a human being +again." + +She had risen to her feet and was standing stiffly before him. She put +him in mind of an exquisite and fragile statue, and for a moment he had +the feeling that if he were to reach out and touch her, she would +shatter into a million pieces. She did not move for some time, nor did +he; then she bent down, picked up three of the manila envelopes, +straightened, and handed them to him. "Two of these contain the deeds, +maps and other records you will need," she said in a dead voice. "The +third contains the keys to the houses and business places. Each key is +tagged with the correct address. Good-by, Mr. Myles." + +"Good-by," Philip said. + +He looked around the room intending to say good-by to Zarathustra, but +Zarathustra was nowhere to be seen. Finally he went into the hall, +opened the front door and stepped out into the night. A full moon was +rising in the east. He walked down the moonlit walk, climbed into his +car and threw his brief case and the manila envelopes into the back +seat. Soon, Valleyview was far behind him. + +But not as far as it should have been. He couldn't get the green rose +out of his mind. He couldn't get Judith Darrow out of his mind either. +Nor could he exorcise the summer breeze that kept wafting through the +crevices in his common sense. + +A green rose and a grass widow and a breeze with a green breath. A whole +town taking off for greener pastures.... + +He reached into his coat pocket and touched the rose. It was no more +than a stem and a handful of petals now, but its reality could not be +denied. But roses do not bloom in autumn, and green roses do not bloom +at all-- + +"Ruf!" + +He had turned into the new highway some time ago, and was driving along +it at a brisk sixty-five. Now, disbelievingly, he slowed, and pulled +over onto the shoulder. Sure enough, he had a stowaway in the back +seat--a tawny-haired stowaway with golden eyes, over-sized ears, and a +restless, white-tipped tail. "Zarathustra!" he gasped. "How in the +dickens did you get in there?" + +"Ruf," Zarathustra replied. + +Philip groaned. Now he would have to go all the way back to Valleyview. +Now he would have to see Judith Darrow again. Now he would have to--He +paused in midthought, astonished at the abrupt acceleration of his +heartbeat. "Well I'll be damned!" he said, and without further preamble +transferred Zarathustra to the front seat, U-turned, and started back. + + * * * * * + +The gasoline lantern had been moved out of the living-room window, but a +light still showed beyond the panes. He pulled over to the curb and +turned off the ignition. He gave one of Zarathustra's over-sized ears a +playful tug, absently noting a series of small nodules along its lower +extremity. "Come on, Zarathustra," he said. "I may as well deliver you +personally while I'm at it." + +After locking the car, he started up the walk, Zarathustra at his heels. +He knocked on the front door. Presently he knocked again. The door +creaked, swung partially open. He frowned. Had she forgotten to latch +it? he wondered. Or had she deliberately left it unlatched so that +Zarathustra could get in? Zarathustra himself lent plausibility to the +latter conjecture by rising up on his hind legs and pushing the door the +rest of the way open with his forepaws, after which he trotted into the +hall and disappeared. + +Philip pounded on the panels. "Miss Darrow!" he called. "Judith!" + +No answer. He called again. Still no answer. + +A summer breeze came traipsing out of the house and engulfed him in the +scent of roses. What kind of roses? he wondered. Green ones? + +He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him. He made his way +into the living room. The two chairs were gone, and so was the coffee +table. He walked through the living room and into the library; through +the library and into the dining room. The gasoline lantern burned +brightly on the dining-room table, its harsh white light bathing bare +floors and naked walls. + +The breeze was stronger here, the scent of roses almost cloying. He saw +then that the double door that had thwarted him that morning was open, +and he moved toward it across the room. As he had suspected, it gave +access to the kitchen. Pausing on the threshold, he peered inside. It +was an ordinary enough kitchen. Some of the appliances were gone, but +the stove and the refrigerator were still there. The back doorway had an +odd bluish cast that caused the framework to shimmer. The door itself +was open, and he could see starlight lying softly on fields and trees. + +Wonderingly he walked across the room and stepped outside. There was a +faint sputtering sound, as though live wires had been crossed, and for a +fleeting second the scene before him seemed to waver. Then, abruptly, it +grew still. + +He grew still, too--immobile in the strange, yet peaceful, summer night. +He was standing on a grassy plain, and the plain spread out on either +hand to promontories of little trees. Before him, the land sloped gently +upward, and was covered with multicolored flowers that twinkled like +microcosmic stars. In the distance, the lights of a village showed. To +his right, a riotous green-rose bush bloomed, and beneath it Zarathustra +sat, wagging his tail. + +Philip took two steps forward, stopped and looked up at the sky. It was +wrong somehow. For one thing, Cassiopeia had changed position, and for +another, Orion was awry. For still another, there were no clouds for the +moon to hide behind, and yet the moon had disappeared. + +Zarathustra trotted over to where he was standing, gazed up at him with +golden eyes, then headed in the direction of the lights. Philip took a +deep breath, and followed him. He would have visited the village anyway, +Zarathustra or no Zarathustra. Was it Pfleugersville? He knew suddenly +that it was. + + * * * * * + +He had not gone far before he saw a highway. A pair of headlights +appeared suddenly in the direction of the village and resolved rapidly +into a moving van. To his consternation, the van turned off the +thoroughfare and headed in his direction. He ducked into a coppice, +Zarathustra at his heels, and watched the heavy vehicle bounce by. There +were two men in the cab, and painted on the paneling of the truckbed +were the words, PFLEUGERSVILLE MOVERS, INC. + +The van continued on in the direction from which he had come, and +presently he guessed its destination. Judith, clearly, was in the midst +of moving out the furniture she had been too sentimental to sell. The +only trouble was, her house had disappeared. So had the village of +Valleyview. + +He stared at where the houses should have been, saw nothing at first +except a continuation of the starlit plain. Then he noticed an upright +rectangle of pale light hovering just above the ground, and presently he +identified it as Judith's back doorway. He could see through it into the +kitchen, and by straining his eyes, he could even see the stove and the +refrigerator. + +Gradually he made out other upright rectangles hovering just above the +ground, some of them on a line with Judith's. All of them, however, +while outlined in the same shimmering blue that outlined hers, lacked +lighted interiors. + +As he stood there staring, the van came to a halt, turned around and +backed up to the brightest rectangle, hiding it from view. The two men +got out of the cab and walked around to the rear of the truckbed. "We'll +put the stove on first," Philip heard one of them say. And then, "Wonder +why she wants to hang onto junk like this?" + +The other man's voice was fainter, but his words were unmistakable +enough: "Grass widows who turn into old maids have funny notions +sometimes." + +Judith Darrow wasn't really moving out of Valleyview after all. She only +thought she was. + +Philip went on. The breeze was all around him. It blew through his hair, +kissed his cheeks and caressed his forehead. The stars shone palely +down. Some of the land was under cultivation, and he could see green +things growing in the starlight, and the breeze carried their green +breath to his nostrils. He reached the highway and began walking along +it. He saw no further sign of vehicles till he came opposite a large +brick building with bright light spilling through its windows. In front +of it were parked a dozen automobiles of a make that he was unfamiliar +with. + +He heard the whir of machinery and the pounding of hammers, and he went +over and peered through one of the windows. The building proved to be a +furniture factory. Most of the work was being done by machines, but +there were enough tasks left over to keep the owners of the parked cars +busily occupied. The main manual task was upholstering. The machines cut +and sewed and trimmed and planed and doweled and assembled, but +apparently none of them was up to the fine art of spitting tacks. + + * * * * * + +Philip returned to the highway and went on. He came to other buildings +and peered into each. One was a small automobile-assembly plant, another +was a dairy, a third was a long greenhouse. In the first two the +preponderance of the work was being performed by machines. In the third, +however, machines were conspicuously absent. Clearly it was one thing +to build a machine with a superhuman work potential, but quite another +to build one with a green thumb. + +[Illustration] + +He passed a pasture, and saw animals that looked like cows sleeping in +the starlight. He passed a field of newly-sprouted corn. He passed a +power plant, and heard the whine of a generator. Finally he came to the +outskirts of Pfleugersville. + +There was a big illuminated sign by the side of the road. It stopped him +in his tracks, and he stood there staring at its embossed letters: + + PFLEUGERSVILLE, SIRIUS XXI + _Discovered April 1, 1962 + Incorporated September 11, 1962_ + +Philip wiped his forehead. + +Zarathustra had trotted on ahead. Now he stopped and looked back. _Come +on_, he seemed to say. _Now that you've seen this much, you might as +well see the rest._ + +So Philip entered Pfleugersville ... and fell in love-- + +Fell in love with the lovely houses, and the darling trees in summer +bloom. With the parterres of twinkling star-flowers and the expanses of +verdant lawns. With the trellised green roses that tapestried every +porch. With the hydrangealike blooms that garnished every corner. With +Pfleugersville itself. + +Obviously the hour was late, for, other than himself, there was no one +on the streets, although lights burned in the windows of some of the +houses, and dogs of the same breed and size as Zarathustra occasionally +trotted by. And yet according to his watch the time was 10:51. Maybe, +though, Pfleugersville was on different time. Maybe, here in +Pfleugersville, it was the middle of the night. + +The farther he progressed into the village, the more enchanted he +became. He simply couldn't get over the houses. The difference between +them and the houses he was familiar with was subtle, but it was there. +It was the difference that exists between good- and not-quite-good +taste. Here were no standardized patios, but little marble aprons that +were as much a part of the over-all architecture as a glen is a part of +a woods. Here were no stereotyped picture windows, but walls that +blended imperceptibly into pleasing patterns of transparency. Here were +no four-square back yards, but rambling star-flowered playgrounds with +swings and seesaws and shaded swimming holes; with exquisite doghouses +good enough for little girls' dolls to live in. + +He passed a school that seemed to grow out of the very ground it stood +on. He passed a library that had been built around a huge tree, the +branches of which had intertwined their foliage into a living roof. He +passed a block-long supermarket built of tinted glass. Finally he came +to the park. + +He gasped then. Gasped at the delicate trees and the little blue-eyed +lakes; at the fairy-fountains and the winding, pebbled paths. +Star-flowers shed their multicolored radiance everywhere, and starlight +poured prodigally down from the sky. He chose a path at random and +walked along it in the twofold radiance till he came to the cynosure. + +The cynosure was a statue--a statue of a buck-toothed, wall-eyed youth +gazing steadfastly up into the heavens. In one hand the youth held a +Phillips screw driver, in the other a six-inch crescent wrench. Standing +several yards away and staring raptly up into the statue's face was the +youth himself, and so immobile was he that if it hadn't been for the +pedestal on which the statue rested, Philip would have been unable to +distinguish one from the other. + +There was an inscription on the pedestal. He walked over and read it in +the light cast by a nearby parterre of star-flowers: + + FRANCIS FARNSWORTH + PFLEUGER, + DISCOVERER OF + PFLEUGERSVILLE + + _Born: May 5. 1941. Died: ----_ + + _Profession Inventor. On the first day of April of the year of our + Lord, 1962, Francis Farnsworth Pfleuger brought into being a Möbius + coincidence field and established multiple contact with the + twenty-first satellite of the star Sirius, thereby giving the + people of Valleyview access, via their back doorways, to a New + World. Here we have come to live. Here we have come to raise our + children. Here, in this idyllic village, which the noble race that + once inhabited this fair planet left behind them when they migrated + to the Greater Magellanic Cloud, we have settled down to create a + new and better Way of Life. Here, thanks to Francis Farnsworth + Pfleuger, we shall know happiness prosperity and freedom from fear._ + + FRANCIS FARNSWORTH PFLEUGER, WE, THE NEW INHABITANTS OF SIRIUS XXI, + SALUTE YOU! + +Philip wiped his forehead again. + +Presently he noticed that the flesh-and-blood Francis Pfleuger was +looking in his direction. "Me," the flesh-and-blood Francis Pfleuger +said, pointing proudly at the statue. "Me." + +"So I gather," Philip said dryly. And then. "Zarathustra--come back +here!" + +The little dog had started down one of the paths that converged on the +statue. At Philip's command, he stopped but did not turn; instead he +remained where he was, as though waiting for someone to come down the +path. After a moment, someone did--Judith Darrow. + +She was wearing a simple white dress, reminiscent both in design and +décor of a Grecian tunic. A wide gilt belt augmented the effect, and her +delicate sandals did nothing to mar it. In the radiance of the +star-flowers, her eyes were more gray than green. There were shadows +under them, Philip noticed, and the lids were faintly red. + +She halted a few feet from him and looked at him without saying a word. +"I ... I brought your dog back," he said lamely. "I found him in the +back seat of my car." + +"Thank you. I've been looking all over Pfleugersville for him. I left my +Valleyview doors open, hoping he'd come home of his own accord, but I +guess he had other ideas. Now that you've discovered our secret, Mr. +Myles, what do you think of our brave new world?" + +"I think it's lovely," Philip said, "but I don't believe it's where you +seem to think it is." + +"Don't you?" she asked. "Then suppose you show me the full moon that +rose over Valleyview tonight. Or better yet, suppose I show you +something else." She pointed to a region of the heavens just to the left +of the statue's turned-up nose. "You can't see them from here," she +said, "but around that insignificant yellow star, nine planets are in +orbit. One of them is Earth." + +"But that's impossible!" he objected. "Consider the--" + +"Distance? In the sort of space we're dealing with, Mr. Myles, distance +is not a factor. In Möbius space--as we have come to call it for lack +of a better term--any two given points are coincidental, regardless of +how far apart they may be in non-Möbius space. But this becomes manifest +only when a Möbius coincidence-field is established. As you probably +know by now, Francis Pfleuger created such a field." + +At the mention of his name, Francis Pfleuger came hurrying over to where +they were standing. "E," he declared, "equals mc²." + +"Thank you, Francis," Judith said. Then, to Philip, "Shall we walk?" + +They started down one of the converging paths, Zarathustra bringing up +the rear. Behind them, Francis returned to his Narcissistic study of +himself in stone. "We were neighbors back in Valleyview," Judith said, +"but I never dreamed he thought quite so much of himself. Ever since we +put up that statue last week, he's been staring at it night and day. +Sometimes he even brings his lunch with him." + +"He seems to be familiar with Einstein." + +"He's not really, though. He memorized the energy-mass equation in an +attempt to justify his new status in life, but he hasn't the remotest +notion of what it means. It's ironic in a way that Pfleugersville should +have been discovered by someone with an IQ of less than seventy-five." + +"No one with an IQ of less than seventy-five could create the sort of +field you were talking about." + +"He didn't create it deliberately--he brought it into being accidentally +by means of a machine he was building to tie knots with. Or at least +that's what he says. But we do know that there was such a machine +because we saw its fused parts in his kitchen, and there's no question +but what it was the source of the field. Francis, though, can't remember +how he made the parts or how he put them together. As a matter of fact, +to this day he still doesn't understand what happened--though I have a +feeling that he knows more than he lets on." + +"What _did_ happen?" Philip asked. + +For a while Judith was silent. Then, "All of us promised solemnly not to +divulge our secret to an outsider unless he was first accepted by the +group as a whole," she said. "But thanks to my negligence, you know most +of it already, so I suppose you're entitled to know the rest." She +sighed. "Very well--I'll try to explain...." + +When Francis Pfleuger's field had come into being, something had +happened to the back doors of Valleyview that caused them to open upon a +planet which one of the local star-gazers promptly identified as Sirius +XXI. The good folk of Valleyview had no idea of how such a state of +affairs could exist, to say nothing of how it could have come about, +till one of the scientists whom they asked to join them as a part of the +plan which they presently devised to make their forthcoming utopia +self-sufficient, came up with a theory that explained everything. + +According to his theory, the round-trip distance between any two +planetary or ²stella bodies was curved in the manner of a Möbius +strip--i.e., a strip of paper given a half-twist before bringing the two +ends together. In this case, the strip represented the round-trip +distance from Earth to Sirius XXI. Earth was represented on the strip by +one dot, and Sirius XXI by another, and, quite naturally, the two dots +were an equal distance--or approximately 8.8 light years--apart. This +brought them directly opposite one another--one on one side of the +strip, the other on the other side; but since a Möbius strip has only +one surface--or side--the two dots were actually occupying the same +space at the same time. In "Möbius space", then, Earth and Sirius XXI +were "coincidental". + + * * * * * + +Philip looked over his shoulder at the little yellow sun twinkling in +the sky. "Common sense," he said, "tells me differently." + +"Common sense is a liar of the first magnitude," Judith said. "It has +misled man ever since he first climbed down from the trees. It was +common sense that inspired Ptolemy's theory of cosmogony. It was common +sense that inspired the burning of Giordano Bruno...." + +The fact that common sense indicated that 8.8 light years separated +Earth and Sirius XXI in common-sense reality didn't prove that 8.8 light +years separated them in a form of reality that was outside +common-sense's dominion--i.e., Möbius space--and Francis Pfleuger's +field had demonstrated as much. The back-door nodal areas which it had +established, however, were merely limited manifestations of that +reality--in other words, the field had merely provided limited access to +a form of space that had been in existence all along. + +"Though why," Judith concluded, "our back doors should have been +affected rather than our front doors, for example, is +inexplicable--unless it was because Francis built the machine in his +kitchen. In any event, when they did become nodal areas, they manifested +themselves on Sirius XXI, and the dogs in the immediate vicinity +associated them with the doorways of their departed masters and began +whining to be let in." + +"Their departed masters?" + +"The race that built this village. The race that built the factories and +developed the encompassing farms. A year ago, according to the records +they left behind them, they migrated to the Greater Magellanic Cloud." + +Philip was indignant. "Why didn't they take their dogs with them?" + +"They couldn't. After all, they had to leave their cars and their +furniture behind them too, not to mention almost unbelievable +stockpiles of every metal imaginable that will last us for centuries. +The logistics of space travel make taking even an extra handkerchief +along a calculated risk. Anyway, when their dogs 'found' us, they were +overjoyed, and as for us, we fell in love with them at first sight. Our +own dogs, though, didn't take to them at all, and every one of them ran +away." + +"This can't be the only village," Philip said. "There must be others +somewhere." + +"Undoubtedly there are. All we know is that the people who built this +one were the last to leave." + +The park was behind them now, and they were walking down a pleasant +street. "And when you and your neighbors discovered the village, did you +decide to become expatriates right then and there?" Philip asked. + +She nodded. "Do you blame us? You've seen for yourself what a lovely +place it is. But it's far more than that. In Valleyview, we had +unemployment. Here, there is work for everyone, and a corresponding +feeling of wantedness and togetherness. True, most of the work is +farmwork, but what of that? We have every conceivable kind of machine to +help us in our tasks. Indeed, I think that the only machine the Sirians +lacked was one that could manufacture food out of whole cloth. But +consider the most important advantage of all: when we go to bed at night +we can do so without being afraid that sometime during our sleep a +thermonuclear missile will descend out of the sky and devour us in one +huge incandescent bite. If we've made a culture hero out of our village +idiot, it's no more than right, for unwittingly or not, he opened up the +gates of paradise." + +"And you immediately saw to it that no one besides yourselves and a +chosen few would pass through them." + +Judith paused beside a white gate. "Yes, that's true," she said. "To +keep our secret, we lived in our old houses while we were settling our +affairs, closing down our few industries and setting up a new monetary +system. In fact, we even kept our ... the children in the dark for fear +that they would talk at school. Suppose, however, we _had_ publicized +our utopia. Can't you imagine the mockery opportunists would have made +out of it? The village we found was large enough to accommodate +ourselves and the few friends, relatives and specialists we asked to +join us, but no larger; and we did, after all, find it in our own back +yard." She placed her hand on the white gate. "This is where I live." + +He looked at the house, and it was enchanting. Slightly less enchanting, +but delightful in its own right, was the much smaller house beside it. +Judith pointed toward the latter dwelling and looked at Zarathustra. +"It's almost morning, Zarathustra," she said sternly. "Go to bed this +minute!" She opened the gate so that the little dog could pass through +and raised her eyes to Philip. "Our time is different here," she +explained. And then, "I'm afraid you'll have to hurry if you expect to +make it to my back door before the field dies out." + +[Illustration] + +He felt suddenly empty. "Dies out?" he repeated numbly. + +"Yes. We don't know why, but it's been diminishing in strength ever +since it first came into being, and our 'Möbius-strip scientist' has +predicted that it will cease to exist during the next twenty-four hours. +I guess I don't need to remind you that you have important business on +Earth." + +"No," he said, "I guess you don't." His emptiness bowed out before a +wave of bitterness. He had rested his hand on the gate, as close to hers +as he had dared. Now he saw that while it was inches away from hers in +one sense, it was light years away in another. He removed it angrily. +"Business always comes first with you, doesn't it?" + +"Yes. Business never lets you down." + +"Do you know what I think?" Philip said. "I think that you were the one +who did the selling out, not your husband. I think you sold him out for +a law practice." + +Her face turned white as though he had slapped it, and in a sense, he +had. "Good-by," she said, and this time he was certain that if he were +to reach out and touch her, she would shatter into a million pieces. +"Give my love to the planet Earth," she added icily. + +"Good-by," Philip said, his anger gone now, and the emptiness rushing +back. "Don't sell us short, though--we'll make a big splash in your sky +one of these days when we blow ourselves up." + +[Illustration] + +He turned and walked away. Walked out of the enchanting village and down +the highway and across the flower-pulsing plain to Judith's back +doorway. It was unlighted now, and he had trouble distinguishing it from +the others. Its shimmering blue framework was flickering. Judith had not +lied then: the field was dying out. + +He locked the back door behind him, walked sadly through the dark and +empty house and let himself out the front door. He locked the front door +behind him, too, and went down the walk and climbed into his car. He had +thought he had locked it, but apparently he hadn't. He drove out of town +and down the road to the highway, and down the highway toward the big +bright bonfire of the city. + +Dawn was exploring the eastern sky with pale pink fingers when at last +he parked his car in the garage behind his apartment building. He +reached into the back seat for his brief case and the manila envelopes. +His brief case had hair on it. It was soft and warm. "Ruf," it barked. +"Ruf-ruf!" + +He knew then that everything was all right. Just because no one had +invited him to the party didn't mean that he couldn't invite himself. He +would have to hurry, though--he had a lot of things to do, and time was +running out. + +Noon found him on the highway again, his business transacted, his +affairs settled, Zarathustra sitting beside him on the seat. One o'clock +found him driving into Valleyview; two-five found him turning down a +familiar street. He would have to leave his car behind him, but that was +all right. Leaving it to rust away in a ghost town was better than +selling it to some opportunistic dealer for a sum he would have no use +for anyway. He parked it by the curb, and after getting his suitcase out +of the trunk, walked up to the front door of Number 23. He unlocked and +opened the door, and after Zarathustra followed him inside, closed and +locked it behind him. He strode through the house to the kitchen. He +unlocked and opened the back door. He stepped eagerly across the +threshold--and stopped dead still. + +There were boards beneath his feet instead of grass. Instead of a +flower-pied plain, he saw a series of unkempt back yards. Beside him on +an unpainted trellis, Virginia creeper rattled in an October wind. + +Zarathustra came out behind him, descended the back-porch steps and ran +around the side of the house. Looking for the green-rose bush probably. + +"Ruf!" + +Zarathustra had returned and was looking up at him from the bottom step. +On the top step he had placed an offering. + +The offering was a green rose. + +Philip bent down and picked it up. It was fresh, and its fragrance +epitomized the very essence of Sirius XXI. "Zarathustra," he gasped, +"where did you get it?" + +"Ruf!" said Zarathustra, and ran around the side of the house. + +Philip followed, rounded the corner just in time to see the white-tipped +tail disappear into the ancient dog house. Disappointment numbed him. +That was where the rose had been then--stored away for safe-keeping like +an old and worthless bone. + +But the rose was fresh, he reminded himself. + +Did dog houses have back doorways? + +This one did, he saw, kneeling down and peering inside. A lovely back +doorway, rimmed with shimmering blue. It framed a familiar vista, in the +foreground of which a familiar green-rosebush stood. Beneath the +rosebush Zarathustra sat, wagging his tail. + +It was a tight squeeze, but Philip made it. He even managed to get his +suitcase through. And just in time too, for hardly had he done so when +the doorway began to flicker. Now it was on its way out, and as he +watched, it faded into transparency and disappeared. + +He crawled from beneath the rosebush and stood up. The day was bright +and warm, and the position of the sun indicated early morning or late +afternoon. No, not sun--suns. One of them was a brilliant blue-white +orb, the other a twinkling point of light. + +He set off across the plain in Zarathustra's wake. He had a speech +already prepared, and when Judith met him at the gate with wide and +wondering eyes, he delivered it without preamble. "Judith," he said, "I +am contemptuous of the notion that some things are meant to be and +others aren't, and I firmly believe in my own free will; but when your +dog stows away in the back seat of my car two times running and makes +it impossible for me not to see you again, then there must be something +afoot which neither you nor I can do a thing about. Whatever it is, I +have given in to it and have transferred your real estate to an agent +more trustworthy than myself. I know you haven't known me long, and I +know I'm not an accepted member of your group, but maybe somebody will +give me a job raking lawns or washing windows or hoeing corn long enough +for me to prove that I am not in the least antisocial; and maybe, in +time, you yourself will get to know me well enough to realize that while +I have a weakness for blondes who look like Grecian goddesses, I have no +taste whatever for redheads, brunettes, or Cutty Sark. In any event, I +have burned my bridges behind me, and whether I ever become a resident +of Pfleugersville or not, I have already become a resident of Sirius +XXI." + +Judith Darrow was silent for some time. Then, "This morning," she said, +"I wanted to ask you to join us, but I couldn't for two reasons. The +first was your commitment to sell our houses, the second was my +bitterness toward men. You have eliminated the first, and the second +seems suddenly inane." She raised her eyes. "Philip, please join us. I +want you to." + +Zarathustra, whose real name was Siddenon Phenphonderill, left them +standing there in each other's arms and trotted down the street and out +of town. He covered the ground in easy lopes that belied his three +hundred and twenty-five years, and soon he arrived at the Meeting Place. +The mayors of the other villages had been awaiting him since early +morning and were shifting impatiently on their haunches. When he +clambered up on the rostrum they extended their audio-appendages and +retractile fingers and accorded him a round of applause. He extended his +own "hands" and held them up for silence, then, retracting them again, +he seated himself before the little lectern and began his report, the +idiomatic translation of which follows forthwith: + +"Gentlemen, my apologies for my late arrival. I will touch upon the +circumstances that were responsible for it presently. + +"To get down to the matter uppermost in your minds: Yes, the experiment +was a success, and if you will use your psycho-transmutative powers to +remodel your villages along the lines my constituents and I remodeled +ours and to build enough factories to give your 'masters' that sense of +self-sufficiency so essential to their well-being, and if you will +'plant' your disassembled Multiple Möbius-Knot Dynamos in such a way +that the resultant fields will be ascribed to accidental causes, you +will have no more trouble attracting personnel than we did. Just make +sure that your 'masters' quarters are superior to your own, and that +you behave like dogs in their presence. And when you fabricate your +records concerning your mythical departed masters, see to it that they +do not conflict with the records we fabricated concerning ours. It would +be desirable indeed if our Sirian-human society could be based on less +deceitful grounds than these, but the very human attitude we are +exploiting renders this impossible at the moment. I hate to think of the +resentment we would incur were we to reveal that, far from being the +mere dogs we seem to be, we are capable of mentally transmuting natural +resources into virtually anything from a key to a concert hall, and I +hate even more to think of the resentment we would incur were we to +reveal that, for all our ability in the inanimate field, we have never +been able to materialize so much as a single blade of grass in the +animate field, and that our reason for coincidentalizing the planet +Earth and creating our irresistible little utopias stems not from a need +for companionship but from a need for gardeners. However, you will find +that all of this can be ironed out eventually through the human +children, with whom you will be thrown into daily contact and whom you +will find to possess all of their parents' abiding love for us and none +of their parents' superior attitude toward us. To a little child, a dog +is a companion, not a pet; an equal, not an inferior--and the little +children of today will be the grown-ups of tomorrow. + +"To return to the circumstances that occasioned my late arrival: I ... I +must confess, gentlemen, that I became quite attached to the 'mistress' +into whose house I sought entry when we first established our field and +who subsequently adopted me when I convinced her real dog that he would +find greener pastures elsewhere. So greatly attached did I become, in +fact, that when the opportunity of ostracizing her loneliness presented +itself, I could not refrain from taking advantage of it. The person to +whom she was most suited and who was most suited to her appeared +virtually upon her very doorstep; but in her stubbornness and in her +pride she aggravated rather than encouraged him, causing him to rebel +against the natural attraction he felt toward her. I am happy to report +that, by means of a number of subterfuges--the final one of which +necessitated the use of our original doorway--I was able to set this +matter right, and that these two once-lonely people are about to embark +upon a relationship which in their folklore is oftentimes quaintly +alluded to by the words, 'They lived happily ever after.' + +"And now, gentlemen, the best of luck to you and your constituents, and +may you end up with servants as excellent as ours. I hereby declare this +meeting adjourned." + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +This etext was produced from "Analog Science Fact Science Fiction" +November 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that +the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Servant Problem, by Robert F. Young + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SERVANT PROBLEM *** + +***** This file should be named 23232-8.txt or 23232-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/3/23232/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Iain Arnell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Young. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: 3em auto 3em auto; text-align: center;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: center;} + + .tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 3em; + padding: .5em .5em .5em .5em;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Servant Problem, by Robert F. Young + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Servant Problem + +Author: Robert F. Young + +Release Date: October 29, 2007 [EBook #23232] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SERVANT PROBLEM *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Iain Arnell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 442px;"> +<img src="images/image1.jpg" width="442" height="600" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h1>The Servant Problem</h1> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Selling a whole town, and doing it inconspicuously, can be a little +difficult … either giving it away freely, or in a more normal +sense of “selling”. People don't quite believe it….</p></div> + + +<h2>by Robert J. Young</h2> + +<h3>Illustrated by Schoenherr</h3> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 423px;"> +<img src="images/image2.jpg" width="331" height="400" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>If you have ever lived in a small town, you have seen Francis Pfleuger, +and probably you have sent him after sky-hooks, left-handed +monkey-wrenches and pails of steam, and laughed uproariously behind his +back when he set forth to do your bidding. The Francis Pfleugers of the +world have inspired both fun and laughter for generations out of mind.</p> + +<p>The Francis Pfleuger we are concerned with here lived in a small town +named Valleyview, and in addition to suffering the distinction of being +the village idiot, he also suffered the distinction of being the village +inventor. These two distinctions frequently go hand in hand, and afford, +in their incongruous togetherness, an even greater inspiration for fun +and laughter. For in this advanced age of streamlined electric can +openers and sleek pop-up toasters, who but the most naïve among us can +fail to be titillated by the thought of a buck-toothed, wall-eyed moron +building Rube Goldberg contrivances in his basement?</p> + +<p>The Francis Pfleuger we are concerned with did his inventing in his +kitchen rather than in his basement; nevertheless, his machines were in +the Rube Goldberg tradition. Take the one he was assembling now, for +example. It stood on the kitchen table, and its various attachments +jutted this way and that with no apparent rhyme or reason. In its center +there was a transparent globe that looked like an upside-down goldfish +bowl, and in the center of the bowl there was an object that startlingly +resembled a goldfish, but which, of course, was nothing of the sort. +Whatever it was, though, it kept growing brighter and brighter each time +Francis added another attachment, and had already attained a degree of +incandescence so intense that he had been forced to don cobalt-blue +goggles in order to look at it. The date was the First of April, +1962—April Fool's Day.</p> + +<p>Actually, the idea for this particular machine had not originated in +Francis' brain, nor had the parts for it originated in his +kitchen-workshop. When he had gone out to get the milk that morning he +had found a box on his doorstep, and in the box he had found the +goldfish bowl and the attachments, plus a sheet of instructions +entitled, DIRECTIONS FOR ASSEMBLING A MULTIPLE MÖBIUS-KNOT DYNAMO. +Francis thought that a machine capable of tying knots would be pretty +keen, and he had carried the box into the kitchen and set to work +forthwith.</p> + +<p>He now had but one more part to go, and he proceeded to screw it into +place. Then he stepped back to admire his handiwork. Simultaneously his +handiwork went into action. The attachments began to quiver and to emit +sparks; the globe glowed, and the goldfishlike object in its center +began to dart this way and that as though striking at flies. A blue halo +formed above the machine and began to rotate. Faster and faster it +rotated, till finally its gaseous components separated and flew off in a +hundred different directions. Three things happened then in swift +succession: Francis' back doorway took on a bluish cast, the sheet of +instructions vanished, and the machine began to melt.</p> + +<p>A moment later he heard a whining sound on his back doorstep.</p> + +<p>Simultaneously all of the residents of Valleyview heard whining sounds +on <i>their</i> back doorsteps.</p> + +<p>Naturally everybody went to find out about the whining.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The sign was a new one. At the most it was no more than six months old. +YOU ARE ENTERING THE VILLAGE OF VALLEYVIEW, it said. PLEASE DRIVE +CAREFULLY—WE ARE FOND OF OUR DOGS.</p> + +<p>Philip Myles drove carefully. He was fond of dogs, too.</p> + +<p>Night had tiptoed in over the October countryside quite some time ago, +but the village of Valleyview had not turned on so much as a single +streetlight—nor, apparently, any other kind of light. All was in +darkness, and not a soul was to be seen. Philip began to suspect that he +had entered a ghost town, and when his headlights darted across a dark +intersection and picked up the overgrown grass and unkempt shrubbery of +the village park, he was convinced that he had. Then he saw the girl +walking the dog.</p> + +<p>He kitty-cornered the intersection and pulled up alongside her. She was +a blonde, tall and chic in a gray fall suit. Her face was +attractive—beautiful even, in a cold and classic way—but she would +never see twenty-five again. But then, Philip would never again see +thirty. When she paused, her dog paused too, although she did not have +it on a leash. It was on the small side, tawny in hue, with golden-brown +eyes, a slender white-tipped tail, and shaggy ears that hung down on +either side of its face in a manner reminiscent of a cocker spaniel's. +It wasn't a cocker spaniel, though. The ears were much too long, for one +thing, and the tail was much too delicate, for another. It was a +breed—or combination of breeds—that Philip had never seen before.</p> + +<p>He leaned across the seat and rolled down the right-hand window. “Could +you direct me to number 23 Locust Street?” he asked. “It's the residence +of Judith Darrow, the village attorney. Maybe you know her.”</p> + +<p>The girl gave a start. “Are <i>you</i> the real-estate man I sent for?”</p> + +<p>Philip gave a start, too. Recovering himself, he said, “Then <i>you're</i> +Judith Darrow. I'm … I'm afraid I'm a little late.”</p> + +<p>The girl's eyes flashed. The radiant backwash of the headlights revealed +them to be both green and gray. “I specified in my letter that you were +supposed to be here at nine o'clock this morning!” she said. “Maybe +you'll tell me how you're going to appraise property in the dark!”</p> + +<p>“I'm sorry,” Philip said. “My car broke down on the way, and I had to +wait for it to be fixed. When I tried to call you, the operator told me +that your phone had been disconnected. If you'll direct me to the hotel, +I'll stay there overnight and appraise your property in the morning. +There <i>is</i> a hotel, isn't there?”</p> + +<p>“There is—but it's closed. Zarathustra—down!” The dog had raised up on +its hind legs and placed its forepaws on the door in an unsuccessful +attempt to peer in the window. At the girl's command, it sank obediently +down on its haunches. “Except for Zarathustra and myself,” she went on, +“the village is empty. Everyone else has already moved out, and we'd +have moved out, too, if I hadn't been entrusted with arranging for the +sale of the business places and the houses. It makes for a rather +awkward situation.”</p> + +<p>She had leaned forward, and the light from the dash lay palely upon her +face, softening its austerity. “I don't get this at all,” Philip said. +“From your letter I assumed you had two or three places you wanted me to +sell, but not a whole town. There must have been at least a thousand +people living here, and a thousand people just don't pack up and move +out all at once.” When she volunteered no explanation, he added, “Where +did they move to?”</p> + +<p>“To Pfleugersville. I know you've never heard of it, so save the +observation.” Then, “Do you have any identification?” she asked.</p> + +<p>He gave her his driver's license, his business card and the letter she +had written him. After glancing at them, she handed them back. She +appeared to be undecided about something. “Why don't you let me stay at +the hotel?” he suggested. “You must have the key if it's one of the +places I'm supposed to appraise.”</p> + +<p>She shook her head. “I have the key, but there's not a stick of +furniture in the place. We had a village auction last week and got rid +of everything that we didn't plan on taking with us.” She sighed. “Well, +there's nothing for it, I guess. The nearest motel is thirty miles away, +so I'll have to put you up at my house. I have a few articles of +furniture left—wedding gifts, mostly, that I was too sentimental to +part with.” She got into the car. “Come on, Zarathustra.”</p> + +<p>Zarathustra clambered in, leaped across her lap and sat down between +them. Philip pulled away from the curb. “That's an odd name for a dog,” +he said.</p> + +<p>“I know. I guess the reason I gave it to him is because he puts me in +mind of a little old man sometimes.”</p> + +<p>“But the original Zarathustra isn't noted for his longevity.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps another association was at work then. Turn right at the next +corner.”</p> + +<p>A lonely light burned in one of number 23 Locust Street's three front +windows. Its source, however, was not an incandescent bulb, but the +mantle of a gasoline lantern. “The village power-supply was shut off +yesterday,” Judith Darrow explained, pumping the lantern into renewed +brightness. She glanced at him sideways. “Did you have dinner?”</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact—no. But please don't—”</p> + +<p>“Bother? I couldn't if I wanted to. My larder is on its last legs. But +sit down, and I'll make you some sandwiches. I'll make a pot of coffee +too—the gas hasn't been turned off yet.”</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The living room had precisely three articles of furniture to its +name—two armchairs and a coffee table. After Judith left him, Philip +set his brief case on the floor and sat down in one of the chairs. He +wondered idly how she expected to make the trip to Pfleugersville. He +had seen no car in the driveway, and there was no garage on the property +in which one could be concealed. Moreover, it was highly unlikely that +buses serviced the village any more. Valleyview had been bypassed quite +some time ago by one of the new super-duper highways. He shrugged. +Getting to Pfleugersville was her problem, not his.</p> + +<p>He returned his attention to the living room. It was a large room. The +house was large, too—large and Victorianesque. Judith, apparently, had +opened the back door, for a breeze was wafting through the downstairs +rooms—a breeze laden with the scent of flowers and the dew-damp breath +of growing grass. He frowned. The month was October, not June, and since +when did flowers bloom and grass grow in October? He concluded that the +scent must be artificial.</p> + +<p>Zarathustra was regarding him with large golden eyes from the middle of +the living-room floor. The animal did somehow bring to mind a little old +man, although he could not have been more than two or three years old. +“You're not very good company,” Philip said.</p> + +<p>“Ruf,” said Zarathustra, and turning, trotted through an archway into a +large room that, judging from the empty shelves lining its walls, had +once been a library, and thence through another archway into another +room—the dining room, undoubtedly—and out of sight.</p> + +<p>Philip leaned back wearily in the armchair he had chosen. He was beat. +Take six days a week, ten hours a day, and multiply by fifty-two and you +get three hundred and twelve. Three hundred and twelve days a year, +hunting down clients, talking, walking, driving, expounding; trying in +his early thirties to build the foundation he should have begun building +in his early twenties—the foundation for the family he had suddenly +realized he wanted and someday hoped to have. Sometimes he wished that +ambition had missed him altogether instead of waiting for so long to +strike. Sometimes he wished he could have gone right on being what he +once had been. After all, there was nothing wrong in living in cheap +hotels and even cheaper rooming houses; there was nothing wrong in being +a lackadaisical door-to-door salesman with run-down heels.</p> + +<p>Nothing wrong, that is, except the aching want that came over you +sometimes, and the loneliness of long and empty evenings.</p> + +<p>Zarathustra had re-entered the room and was sitting in the middle of the +floor again. He had not returned empty-handed—or rather, +empty-mouthed—although the object he had brought with him was not the +sort of object dogs generally pick up. It was a rose—</p> + +<p>A green rose.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Disbelievingly, Philip leaned forward and took it from the animal's +mouth. Before he had a chance to examine it, however, footsteps sounded +in the next room, and prompted by he knew not what, he thrust the rose +into his suitcoat pocket. An instant later, Judith Darrow came through +the archway bearing a large tray. After setting it down on the coffee +table, she poured two cups of coffee from a little silver pot and +indicated a plate of sandwiches. “Please help yourself,” she said.</p> + +<p>She sat down in the other chair and sipped her coffee. He had one of the +sandwiches, found that he didn't want any more. Somehow, her proximity, +coupled with her silence, made him feel uncomfortable. “Has your husband +already left for Pfleugersville?” he asked politely.</p> + +<p>Her gray-green eyes grew cold. “Yes, he left quite some time ago,” she +said. “A year ago, as a matter of fact. But for parts unknown, not +Pfleugersville. Pfleugersville wasn't accessible then, anyway. He had a +brunette on one arm, a redhead on the other, and a pint of Cutty Sark in +his hip pocket.”</p> + +<p>Philip was distressed. “I … I didn't mean to pry,” he said. “I'm—”</p> + +<p>“Sorry? Why should you be? Some men are born to settle down and raise +children and others are born to drink and philander. It's as simple as +that.”</p> + +<p>“Is it?” something made Philip ask. “Into which category would you say I +fall?”</p> + +<p>“You're in a class by yourself.” Tiny silver flecks had come into her +eyes, and he realized to his astonishment that they were flecks of +malevolence. “You've never married, but playing the field hasn't made +you one hundred per cent cynical. You're still convinced that somewhere +there is a woman worthy of your devotion. And you're quite right—the +world is full of them.”</p> + +<p>His face tingled as though she had slapped it, and in a sense, she had. +He restrained his anger with difficulty. “I didn't know that my celibacy +was that noticeable,” he said.</p> + +<p>“It isn't. I took the liberty of having a private investigator check +into your background. It proved to be unsavory in some respects, as I +implied before, but unlike the backgrounds of the other real-estate +agents I had checked, it contained not the slightest hint of dishonesty. +The nature of my business is such that I need someone of maximum +integrity to contract it with. I had to go far and wide to find you.”</p> + +<p>“You're being unfair,” Philip said, mollified despite himself. “Most +real-estate agents are honest. As a matter of fact, there's one in the +same office building with me that I'd trust with the family jewels—if I +had any family jewels.”</p> + +<p>“Good,” Judith Darrow said. “I gambled on you knowing someone like +that.”</p> + +<p>He waited for her to elaborate, and when she did not he finished his +coffee and stood up. “If you don't mind, I'll turn in,” he said. “I've +had a pretty hard day.”</p> + +<p>“I'll show you your room.”</p> + +<p>She got two candles, lit them, and after placing them in gilt +candlesticks, handed one of the candlesticks to him. The room was on the +third floor in under the eaves—as faraway from hers, probably, as the +size of the house permitted. Philip did not mind. He liked to sleep in +rooms under eaves. There was an enchantment about the rain on the roof +that people who slept in less celestial bowers never got to know. After +Judith left, he threw open the single window and undressed and climbed +into bed. Remembering the rose, he got it out of his coat pocket and +examined it by candlelight. It was green all right—even greener than he +had at first thought. Its scent was reminiscent of the summer breeze +that was blowing through the downstairs rooms, though not at all in +keeping with the chill October air that was coming through his bedroom +window. He laid it on the table beside the bed and blew out the candle. +He would go looking for the bush tomorrow.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Philip was an early riser, and dawn had not yet departed when, fully +dressed, he left the room with the rose in his coat pocket and quietly +descended the stairs. Entering the living room, he found Zarathustra +curled up in one of the armchairs, and for a moment he had the eerie +impression that the animal had extended one of his shaggy ears and was +scratching his back with it. When Philip did a doubletake, however, the +ear was back to normal size and reposing on its owner's tawny cheek. +Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he said, “Come on, Zarathustra, we're +going for a walk.”</p> + +<p>He headed for the back door, Zarathustra at his heels. A double door +leading off the dining room barred his way and proved to be locked. +Frowning, he returned to the living room. “All right,” he said to +Zarathustra, “we'll go out the front way then.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image3.jpg" width="500" height="314" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>He walked around the side of the house, his canine companion trotting +beside him. The side yard turned out to be disappointing. It contained +no roses—green ones, or any other kind. About all it did contain that +was worthy of notice was a dog house—an ancient affair that was much +too large for Zarathustra and which probably dated from the days when +Judith had owned a larger dog. The yard itself was a mess: the grass +hadn't been cut all summer, the shrubbery was ragged, and dead leaves +lay everywhere. A similar state of affairs existed next door, and +glancing across lots, he saw that the same desuetude prevailed +throughout the entire neighborhood. Obviously the good citizens of +Valleyview had lost interest in their real estate long before they had +moved out.</p> + +<p>At length his explorations led him to the back door. If there were green +roses anywhere, the trellis that adorned the small back porch was the +logical place for them to be. He found nothing but bedraggled Virginia +creeper and more dead leaves.</p> + +<p>He tried the back door, and finding it locked, circled the rest of the +way around the house. Judith was waiting for him on the front porch. +“How nice of you to walk Zarathustra,” she said icily. “I do hope you +found the yard in order.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 496px;"> +<img src="images/image4.jpg" width="496" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>The yellow dress she was wearing did not match the tone of her voice, +and the frilly blue apron tied round her waist belied the frostiness of +her gray-green eyes. Nevertheless, her rancor was real. “Sorry,” he +said. “I didn't know your back yard was out of bounds.” Then, “If you'll +give me a list of the places you want evaluated, I'll get started right +away.”</p> + +<p>“I'll take you around again personally—after we have breakfast.”</p> + +<p>Again he was consigned to the living room while she performed the +necessary culinary operations, and again she served him by tray. Clearly +she did not want him in the kitchen, or anywhere near it. He was not +much of a one for mysteries, but this one was intriguing him more and +more by the minute.</p> + +<p>Breakfast over, she told him to wait on the front porch while she did +the dishes, and instructed Zarathustra to keep him company. She had two +voices: the one she used in addressing Zarathustra contained overtones +of summer, and the one she used in addressing Philip contained +overtones of fall. “Some day,” Philip told the little dog, “that chip +she carries on her shoulder is going to fall off of its own accord, and +by then it will be too late—the way it was too late for me when I found +out that the person I'd been running away from all my life was myself in +wolf's clothing.”</p> + +<p>“Ruf,” said Zarathustra, looking up at him with benign golden eyes. +“Ruf-ruf!”</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Presently Judith re-appeared, sans apron, and the three of them set +forth into the golden October day. It was Philip's first experience in +evaluating an entire village, but he had a knack for estimating the +worth of property, and by the time noon came around, he had the job half +done. “If you people had made even half an effort to keep your places +up,” he told Judith over cold-cut sandwiches and coffee in her living +room, “we could have asked for a third again as much. Why in the world +did you let everything go to pot just because you were moving some place +else?”</p> + +<p>She shrugged. “It's hard to get anyone to do housework these days—not +to mention gardening. Besides, in addition to the servant problem, +there's another consideration—human nature. When you've lived in a +shack all your life and you suddenly acquire a palace, you cease caring +very much what the shack looks like.”</p> + +<p>“Shack!” Philip was indignant. “Why, this house is lovely! Practically +every house you've shown me is lovely. Old, yes—but oldness is an +essential part of the loveliness of houses. If Pfleugersville is on the +order of most housing developments I've seen, you and your neighbors are +going to be good and sorry one of these fine days!”</p> + +<p>“But Pfleugersville isn't on the order of most housing developments +you've seen. In fact, it's not a housing development at all. But let's +not go into that. Anyway, we're concerned with Valleyview, not +Pfleugersville.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” Philip said. “This afternoon should wind things up so far +as the appraising goes.”</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>That evening, after a coffee-less supper—both the gas and the water had +been turned off that afternoon—he totaled up his figures. They made +quite a respectable sum. He looked across the coffee table, which he had +commandeered as a desk, to where Judith, with the dubious help of +Zarathustra, was sorting out a pile of manila envelopes which she had +placed in the middle of the living-room floor. “I'll do my best to sell +everything,” he said, “but it's going to be difficult going till we get +a few families living here. People are reluctant about moving into empty +neighborhoods, and businessmen aren't keen about opening up business +places before the customers are available. But I think it'll work out +all right. There's a plaza not far from here that will provide a place +to shop until the local markets are functioning, and Valleyview is part +of a centralized school district.” He slipped the paper he had been +figuring on into his brief case, closed the case and stood up. “I'll +keep in touch with you.”</p> + +<p>Judith shook her head. “You'll do nothing of the sort. As soon as you +leave, I'm moving to Pfleugersville. My business here is finished.”</p> + +<p>“I'll keep in touch with you there then. All you have to do is give me +your address and phone number.”</p> + +<p>She shook her head again. “I could give you both, but neither would do +you any good. But that's beside the point. Valleyview is your +responsibility now—not mine.”</p> + +<p>Philip sat back down again. “You can start explaining any time,” he +said.</p> + +<p>“It's very simple. The property owners of Valleyview signed all of their +houses and places of business over to me. I, in turn, have signed all of +them over to you—with the qualification, of course, that after selling +them you will be entitled to no more than your usual commission.” She +withdrew a paper from one of the manila envelopes. “After selling them,” +she went on, “you are to divide the proceeds equally among the four +charities specified in this contract.” She handed him the paper. “Do you +understand now why I tried so hard to find a trustworthy agent?”</p> + +<p>Philip was staring at the paper, unable, in his astonishment, to read +the words it contained. “Suppose,” he said presently, “that +circumstances should make it impossible for me to carry out my end of +the agreement?”</p> + +<p>“In case of illness, you will already have taken the necessary steps to +transfer the property to another agent who, in your opinion, is as +completely honest as you are, and in case of death, you will already +have taken the necessary steps to bequeath the property to the same +agent; and he, in both cases, will already have agreed to the terms laid +down in the contract you're holding in your hands. Why don't you read +it?”</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Now that his astonishment had abated somewhat, Philip found that he +could do so. “But this still doesn't make sense,” he said a short while +later. “Obviously you and the rest of the owners have purchased new +houses. Would it be presumptuous of me to ask how you're going to pay +for them when you're virtually giving your old houses away?”</p> + +<p>“I'm afraid it would be, Mr. Myles.” She withdrew another paper from the +envelope and handed it to him. “This is the other copy. If you'll kindly +affix your signature to both, we can bring our business to a close. As +you'll notice, I've already signed.”</p> + +<p>“But if you're going to be incommunicado,” Philip pointed out, anger +building up in him despite all he could do to stop it, “what good will +your copy do you?”</p> + +<p>Judith's countenance took on a glacial quality. So did her voice. “My +copy will go into the hands of a trusted attorney, sealed in an envelope +which I have already instructed him not to open till five years from +this date. If, at the time it is opened, you have violated the terms of +our agreement, he will institute legal proceedings at once. Fortunately, +although the Valleyview post office is closed, a mail truck passes +through every weekday evening at eight. It's not that I don't trust you, +Mr. Myles—but you are a man, you know.”</p> + +<p>Philip was tempted to tear up the two copies then and there, and toss +the pieces into the air. But he didn't, for the very good reason that he +couldn't afford to. Instead, he bore down viciously on his pen and +brought his name to life twice in large and angry letters. He handed +Judith one copy, slipped the other into his breast pocket and got to his +feet. “That,” he said, “brings our official business to a close. Now I'd +like to add an unofficial word of advice. It seems to me that you're +exacting an exorbitant price from the world for your husband's having +sold you out for a brunette and a redhead and a pint of Scotch. I've +been sold out lots of times for less than that, but I found out long ago +that the world doesn't pay its bills even when you ask a fair price for +the damages done to you. I suggest that you write the matter off as a +bad debt and forget about it; then maybe you'll become a human being +again.”</p> + +<p>She had risen to her feet and was standing stiffly before him. She put +him in mind of an exquisite and fragile statue, and for a moment he had +the feeling that if he were to reach out and touch her, she would +shatter into a million pieces. She did not move for some time, nor did +he; then she bent down, picked up three of the manila envelopes, +straightened, and handed them to him. “Two of these contain the deeds, +maps and other records you will need,” she said in a dead voice. “The +third contains the keys to the houses and business places. Each key is +tagged with the correct address. Good-by, Mr. Myles.”</p> + +<p>“Good-by,” Philip said.</p> + +<p>He looked around the room intending to say good-by to Zarathustra, but +Zarathustra was nowhere to be seen. Finally he went into the hall, +opened the front door and stepped out into the night. A full moon was +rising in the east. He walked down the moonlit walk, climbed into his +car and threw his brief case and the manila envelopes into the back +seat. Soon, Valleyview was far behind him.</p> + +<p>But not as far as it should have been. He couldn't get the green rose +out of his mind. He couldn't get Judith Darrow out of his mind either. +Nor could he exorcise the summer breeze that kept wafting through the +crevices in his common sense.</p> + +<p>A green rose and a grass widow and a breeze with a green breath. A whole +town taking off for greener pastures….</p> + +<p>He reached into his coat pocket and touched the rose. It was no more +than a stem and a handful of petals now, but its reality could not be +denied. But roses do not bloom in autumn, and green roses do not bloom +at all—</p> + +<p>“Ruf!”</p> + +<p>He had turned into the new highway some time ago, and was driving along +it at a brisk sixty-five. Now, disbelievingly, he slowed, and pulled +over onto the shoulder. Sure enough, he had a stowaway in the back +seat—a tawny-haired stowaway with golden eyes, over-sized ears, and a +restless, white-tipped tail. “Zarathustra!” he gasped. “How in the +dickens did you get in there?”</p> + +<p>“Ruf,” Zarathustra replied.</p> + +<p>Philip groaned. Now he would have to go all the way back to Valleyview. +Now he would have to see Judith Darrow again. Now he would have to—He +paused in midthought, astonished at the abrupt acceleration of his +heartbeat. “Well I'll be damned!” he said, and without further preamble +transferred Zarathustra to the front seat, U-turned, and started back.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The gasoline lantern had been moved out of the living-room window, but a +light still showed beyond the panes. He pulled over to the curb and +turned off the ignition. He gave one of Zarathustra's over-sized ears a +playful tug, absently noting a series of small nodules along its lower +extremity. “Come on, Zarathustra,” he said. “I may as well deliver you +personally while I'm at it.”</p> + +<p>After locking the car, he started up the walk, Zarathustra at his heels. +He knocked on the front door. Presently he knocked again. The door +creaked, swung partially open. He frowned. Had she forgotten to latch +it? he wondered. Or had she deliberately left it unlatched so that +Zarathustra could get in? Zarathustra himself lent plausibility to the +latter conjecture by rising up on his hind legs and pushing the door the +rest of the way open with his forepaws, after which he trotted into the +hall and disappeared.</p> + +<p>Philip pounded on the panels. “Miss Darrow!” he called. “Judith!”</p> + +<p>No answer. He called again. Still no answer.</p> + +<p>A summer breeze came traipsing out of the house and engulfed him in the +scent of roses. What kind of roses? he wondered. Green ones?</p> + +<p>He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him. He made his way +into the living room. The two chairs were gone, and so was the coffee +table. He walked through the living room and into the library; through +the library and into the dining room. The gasoline lantern burned +brightly on the dining-room table, its harsh white light bathing bare +floors and naked walls.</p> + +<p>The breeze was stronger here, the scent of roses almost cloying. He saw +then that the double door that had thwarted him that morning was open, +and he moved toward it across the room. As he had suspected, it gave +access to the kitchen. Pausing on the threshold, he peered inside. It +was an ordinary enough kitchen. Some of the appliances were gone, but +the stove and the refrigerator were still there. The back doorway had an +odd bluish cast that caused the framework to shimmer. The door itself +was open, and he could see starlight lying softly on fields and trees.</p> + +<p>Wonderingly he walked across the room and stepped outside. There was a +faint sputtering sound, as though live wires had been crossed, and for a +fleeting second the scene before him seemed to waver. Then, abruptly, it +grew still.</p> + +<p>He grew still, too—immobile in the strange, yet peaceful, summer night. +He was standing on a grassy plain, and the plain spread out on either +hand to promontories of little trees. Before him, the land sloped gently +upward, and was covered with multicolored flowers that twinkled like +microcosmic stars. In the distance, the lights of a village showed. To +his right, a riotous green-rose bush bloomed, and beneath it Zarathustra +sat, wagging his tail.</p> + +<p>Philip took two steps forward, stopped and looked up at the sky. It was +wrong somehow. For one thing, Cassiopeia had changed position, and for +another, Orion was awry. For still another, there were no clouds for the +moon to hide behind, and yet the moon had disappeared.</p> + +<p>Zarathustra trotted over to where he was standing, gazed up at him with +golden eyes, then headed in the direction of the lights. Philip took a +deep breath, and followed him. He would have visited the village anyway, +Zarathustra or no Zarathustra. Was it Pfleugersville? He knew suddenly +that it was.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>He had not gone far before he saw a highway. A pair of headlights +appeared suddenly in the direction of the village and resolved rapidly +into a moving van. To his consternation, the van turned off the +thoroughfare and headed in his direction. He ducked into a coppice, +Zarathustra at his heels, and watched the heavy vehicle bounce by. There +were two men in the cab, and painted on the paneling of the truckbed +were the words, PFLEUGERSVILLE MOVERS, INC.</p> + +<p>The van continued on in the direction from which he had come, and +presently he guessed its destination. Judith, clearly, was in the midst +of moving out the furniture she had been too sentimental to sell. The +only trouble was, her house had disappeared. So had the village of +Valleyview.</p> + +<p>He stared at where the houses should have been, saw nothing at first +except a continuation of the starlit plain. Then he noticed an upright +rectangle of pale light hovering just above the ground, and presently he +identified it as Judith's back doorway. He could see through it into the +kitchen, and by straining his eyes, he could even see the stove and the +refrigerator.</p> + +<p>Gradually he made out other upright rectangles hovering just above +the ground, some of them on a line with Judith's. All of them, however, +while outlined in the same shimmering blue that outlined hers, lacked lighted interiors.</p> + +<p>As he stood there staring, the van came to a halt, turned around and +backed up to the brightest rectangle, hiding it from view. The two men +got out of the cab and walked around to the rear of the truckbed. “We'll +put the stove on first,” Philip heard one of them say. And then, “Wonder +why she wants to hang onto junk like this?”</p> + +<p>The other man's voice was fainter, but his words were unmistakable +enough: “Grass widows who turn into old maids have funny notions +sometimes.”</p> + +<p>Judith Darrow wasn't really moving out of Valleyview after all. She only +thought she was.</p> + +<p>Philip went on. The breeze was all around him. It blew through his hair, +kissed his cheeks and caressed his forehead. The stars shone palely +down. Some of the land was under cultivation, and he could see green +things growing in the starlight, and the breeze carried their green +breath to his nostrils. He reached the highway and began walking along +it. He saw no further sign of vehicles till he came opposite a large +brick building with bright light spilling through its windows. In front +of it were parked a dozen automobiles of a make that he was unfamiliar +with.</p> + +<p>He heard the whir of machinery and the pounding of hammers, and he went +over and peered through one of the windows. The building proved to be a +furniture factory. Most of the work was being done by machines, but +there were enough tasks left over to keep the owners of the parked cars +busily occupied. The main manual task was upholstering. The machines cut +and sewed and trimmed and planed and doweled and assembled, but +apparently none of them was up to the fine art of spitting tacks.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Philip returned to the highway and went on. He came to other buildings +and peered into each. One was a small automobile-assembly plant, another +was a dairy, a third was a long greenhouse. In the first two the +preponderance of the work was being performed by machines. In the third, +however, machines were conspicuously absent. Clearly it was one thing +to build a machine with a superhuman work potential, but quite another +to build one with a green thumb.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image5.jpg" width="500" height="384" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>He passed a pasture, and saw animals that looked like cows sleeping in +the starlight. He passed a field of newly-sprouted +corn. He passed a +power plant, and heard the whine of a generator. Finally he came to the +outskirts of Pfleugersville.</p> + +<p>There was a big illuminated sign by the side of the road. It stopped him +in his tracks, and he stood there staring at its embossed letters:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +PFLEUGERSVILLE, SIRIUS XXI<br /> +<i>Discovered April 1, 1962</i><br /> +<i>Incorporated September 11, 1962</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>Philip wiped his forehead.</p> + +<p>Zarathustra had trotted on ahead. Now he stopped and looked back. <i>Come +on</i>, he seemed to say. <i>Now that you've seen this much, you might as +well see the rest.</i></p> + +<p>So Philip entered Pfleugersville … and fell in love—</p> + +<p>Fell in love with the lovely houses, and the darling trees in summer +bloom. With the parterres of twinkling star-flowers and the expanses of +verdant lawns. With the trellised green roses that tapestried every +porch. With the hydrangealike blooms that garnished every corner. With +Pfleugersville itself.</p> + +<p>Obviously the hour was late, for, other than himself, there was no one +on the streets, although lights burned in the windows of some of the +houses, and dogs of the same breed and size as Zarathustra occasionally +trotted by. And yet according to his watch the time was 10:51. Maybe, +though, Pfleugersville was on different time. Maybe, here in +Pfleugersville, it was the middle of the night.</p> + +<p>The farther he progressed into the village, the more enchanted he +became. He simply couldn't get over the houses. The difference between +them and the houses he was familiar with was subtle, but it was there. +It was the difference that exists between good- and not-quite-good +taste. Here were no standardized patios, but little marble aprons that +were as much a part of the over-all architecture as a glen is a part of +a woods. Here were no stereotyped picture windows, but walls that +blended imperceptibly into pleasing patterns of transparency. Here were +no four-square back yards, but rambling star-flowered playgrounds with +swings and seesaws and shaded swimming holes; with exquisite doghouses +good enough for little girls' dolls to live in.</p> + +<p>He passed a school that seemed to grow out of the very ground it stood +on. He passed a library that had been built around a huge tree, the +branches of which had intertwined their foliage into a living roof. He +passed a block-long supermarket built of tinted glass. Finally he came +to the park.</p> + +<p>He gasped then. Gasped at the delicate trees and the little blue-eyed +lakes; at the fairy-fountains and the winding, pebbled paths. +Star-flowers shed their multicolored radiance everywhere, and starlight +poured prodigally down from the sky. He chose a path at random and +walked along it in the twofold radiance till he came to the cynosure.</p> + +<p>The cynosure was a statue—a statue of a buck-toothed, wall-eyed youth +gazing steadfastly up into the heavens. In one hand the youth held a +Phillips screw driver, in the other a six-inch crescent wrench. Standing +several yards away and staring raptly up into the statue's face was the +youth himself, and so immobile was he that if it hadn't been for the +pedestal on which the statue rested, Philip would have been unable to +distinguish one from the other.</p> + +<p>There was an inscription on the pedestal. He walked over and read it in +the light cast by a nearby parterre of star-flowers:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +FRANCIS FARNSWORTH<br /> +PFLEUGER,<br /> +DISCOVERER OF<br /> +PFLEUGERSVILLE<br /> +<i>Born: May 5. 1941. Died: ——</i> +</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p><i>Profession Inventor. On the first day of April of the year of our +Lord, 1962, Francis Farnsworth Pfleuger brought into being a +Möbius coincidence field and established multiple contact with the +twenty-first satellite of the star Sirius, thereby giving the +people of Valleyview access, via their back doorways, to a New +World. Here we have come to live. Here we have come to raise our +children. Here, in this idyllic village, which the noble race that +once inhabited this fair planet left behind them when they migrated +to the Greater Magellanic Cloud, we have settled down to create a +new and better Way of Life. Here, thanks to Francis Farnsworth +Pfleuger, we shall know happiness prosperity and freedom from +fear.</i></p> + +<p>FRANCIS FARNSWORTH PFLEUGER, WE, THE NEW INHABITANTS OF SIRIUS XXI, +SALUTE YOU!</p></div> + +<p>Philip wiped his forehead again.</p> + +<p>Presently he noticed that the flesh-and-blood Francis Pfleuger was +looking in his direction. “Me,” the flesh-and-blood Francis Pfleuger +said, pointing proudly at the statue. “Me.”</p> + +<p>“So I gather,” Philip said dryly. And then. “Zarathustra—come back +here!”</p> + +<p>The little dog had started down one of the paths that converged on the +statue. At Philip's command, he stopped but did not turn; instead he +remained where he was, as though waiting for someone to come down the +path. After a moment, someone did—Judith Darrow.</p> + +<p>She was wearing a simple white dress, reminiscent both in design and +décor of a Grecian tunic. A wide gilt belt augmented the effect, and her +delicate sandals did nothing to mar it. In the radiance of the +star-flowers, her eyes were more gray than green. There were shadows +under them, Philip noticed, and the lids were faintly red.</p> + +<p>She halted a few feet from him and looked at him without saying a word. +“I … I brought your dog back,” he said lamely. “I found him in the +back seat of my car.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you. I've been looking all over Pfleugersville for him. I left my +Valleyview doors open, hoping he'd come home of his own accord, but I +guess he had other ideas. Now that you've discovered our secret, Mr. +Myles, what do you think of our brave new world?”</p> + +<p>“I think it's lovely,” Philip said, “but I don't believe it's where you +seem to think it is.”</p> + +<p>“Don't you?” she asked. “Then suppose you show me the full moon that +rose over Valleyview tonight. Or better yet, suppose I show you +something else.” She pointed to a region of the heavens just to the left +of the statue's turned-up nose. “You can't see them from here,” she +said, “but around that insignificant yellow star, nine planets are in +orbit. One of them is Earth.”</p> + +<p>“But that's impossible!” he objected. “Consider the—”</p> + +<p>“Distance? In the sort of space we're dealing with, Mr. Myles, distance +is not a factor. In Möbius space—as we have come to call it for lack +of a better term—any two given points are coincidental, regardless of +how far apart they may be in non-Möbius space. But this becomes manifest +only when a Möbius coincidence-field is established. As you probably +know by now, Francis Pfleuger created such a field.”</p> + +<p>At the mention of his name, Francis Pfleuger came hurrying over to where +they were standing. “E,” he declared, “equals mc².”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Francis,” Judith said. Then, to Philip, “Shall we walk?”</p> + +<p>They started down one of the converging paths, Zarathustra bringing up +the rear. Behind them, Francis returned to his Narcissistic study of +himself in stone. “We were neighbors back in Valleyview,” Judith said, +“but I never dreamed he thought quite so much of himself. Ever since we +put up that statue last week, he's been staring at it night and day. +Sometimes he even brings his lunch with him.”</p> + +<p>“He seems to be familiar with Einstein.”</p> + +<p>“He's not really, though. He memorized the energy-mass equation in an +attempt to justify his new status in life, but he hasn't the remotest +notion of what it means. It's ironic in a way that Pfleugersville should +have been discovered by someone with an IQ of less than seventy-five.”</p> + +<p>“No one with an IQ of less than seventy-five could create the sort of +field you were talking about.”</p> + +<p>“He didn't create it deliberately—he brought it into being accidentally +by means of a machine he was building to tie knots with. Or at least +that's what he says. But we do know that there was such a machine +because we saw its fused parts in his kitchen, and there's no question +but what it was the source of the field. Francis, though, can't remember +how he made the parts or how he put them together. As a matter of fact, +to this day he still doesn't understand what happened—though I have a +feeling that he knows more than he lets on.”</p> + +<p>“What <i>did</i> happen?” Philip asked.</p> + +<p>For a while Judith was silent. Then, “All of us promised solemnly not to +divulge our secret to an outsider unless he was first accepted by the +group as a whole,” she said. “But thanks to my negligence, you know most +of it already, so I suppose you're entitled to know the rest.” She +sighed. “Very well—I'll try to explain….”</p> + +<p>When Francis Pfleuger's field had come into being, something had +happened to the back doors of Valleyview that caused them to open upon a +planet which one of the local star-gazers promptly identified as Sirius +XXI. The good folk of Valleyview had no idea of how such a state of +affairs could exist, to say nothing of how it could have come about, +till one of the scientists whom they asked to join them as a part of the +plan which they presently devised to make their forthcoming utopia +self-sufficient, came up with a theory that explained everything.</p> + +<p>According to his theory, the round-trip distance between any two +planetary or stella bodies was curved in the manner of a Möbius +strip—i.e., a strip of paper given a half-twist before bringing the two +ends together. In this case, the strip represented the round-trip +distance from Earth to Sirius XXI. Earth was represented on the strip by +one dot, and Sirius XXI by another, and, quite naturally, the two dots +were an equal distance—or approximately 8.8 light years—apart. This +brought them directly opposite one another—one on one side of the +strip, the other on the other side; but since a Möbius strip has only +one surface—or side—the two dots were actually occupying the same +space at the same time. In “Möbius space”, then, Earth and Sirius XXI +were “coincidental”.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Philip looked over his shoulder at the little yellow sun twinkling in +the sky. “Common sense,” he said, “tells me differently.”</p> + +<p>“Common sense is a liar of the first magnitude,” Judith said. “It has +misled man ever since he first climbed down from the trees. It was +common sense that inspired Ptolemy's theory of cosmogony. It was common +sense that inspired the burning of Giordano Bruno….”</p> + +<p>The fact that common sense indicated that 8.8 light years separated +Earth and Sirius XXI in common-sense reality didn't prove that 8.8 light +years separated them in a form of reality that was outside +common-sense's dominion—i.e., Möbius space—and Francis Pfleuger's +field had demonstrated as much. The back-door nodal areas which it had +established, however, were merely limited manifestations of that +reality—in other words, the field had merely provided limited access to +a form of space that had been in existence all along.</p> + +<p>“Though why,” Judith concluded, “our back doors should have been +affected rather than our front doors, for example, is +inexplicable—unless it was because Francis built the machine in his +kitchen. In any event, when they did become nodal areas, they manifested +themselves on Sirius XXI, and the dogs in the immediate vicinity +associated them with the doorways of their departed masters and began +whining to be let in.”</p> + +<p>“Their departed masters?”</p> + +<p>“The race that built this village. The race that built the factories and +developed the encompassing farms. A year ago, according to the records +they left behind them, they migrated to the Greater Magellanic Cloud.”</p> + +<p>Philip was indignant. “Why didn't they take their dogs with them?”</p> + +<p>“They couldn't. After all, they had to leave their cars and their +furniture behind them too, not to mention almost unbelievable +stockpiles of every metal imaginable that will last us for centuries. +The logistics of space travel make taking even an extra handkerchief +along a calculated risk. Anyway, when their dogs ‘found’ us, they were +overjoyed, and as for us, we fell in love with them at first sight. Our +own dogs, though, didn't take to them at all, and every one of them ran +away.”</p> + +<p>“This can't be the only village,” Philip said. “There must be others +somewhere.”</p> + +<p>“Undoubtedly there are. All we know is that the people who built this +one were the last to leave.”</p> + +<p>The park was behind them now, and they were walking down a pleasant +street. “And when you and your neighbors discovered the village, did you +decide to become expatriates right then and there?” Philip asked.</p> + +<p>She nodded. “Do you blame us? You've seen for yourself what a lovely +place it is. But it's far more than that. In Valleyview, we had +unemployment. Here, there is work for everyone, and a corresponding +feeling of wantedness and togetherness. True, most of the work is +farmwork, but what of that? We have every conceivable kind of machine to +help us in our tasks. Indeed, I think that the only machine the Sirians +lacked was one that could manufacture food out of whole cloth. But +consider the most important advantage of all: when we go to bed at night +we can do so without being afraid that sometime during our sleep a +thermonuclear missile will descend out of the sky and devour us in one +huge incandescent bite. If we've made a culture hero out of our village +idiot, it's no more than right, for unwittingly or not, he opened up the +gates of paradise.”</p> + +<p>“And you immediately saw to it that no one besides yourselves and a +chosen few would pass through them.”</p> + +<p>Judith paused beside a white gate. “Yes, that's true,” she said. “To +keep our secret, we lived in our old houses while we were settling our +affairs, closing down our few industries and setting up a new monetary +system. In fact, we even kept our … the children in the dark for fear +that they would talk at school. Suppose, however, we <i>had</i> publicized +our utopia. Can't you imagine the mockery opportunists would have made +out of it? The village we found was large enough to accommodate +ourselves and the few friends, relatives and specialists we asked to +join us, but no larger; and we did, after all, find it in our own back +yard.” She placed her hand on the white gate. “This is where I live.”</p> + +<p>He looked at the house, and it was enchanting. Slightly less enchanting, +but delightful in its own right, was the much smaller house beside it. +Judith pointed toward the latter dwelling and looked at Zarathustra. +“It's almost morning, Zarathustra,” she said sternly. “Go to bed this +minute!” She opened the gate so that the little dog could pass through +and raised her eyes to Philip. “Our time is different here,” she +explained. And then, “I'm afraid you'll have to hurry if you expect to +make it to my back door before the field dies out.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image6.jpg" width="500" height="263" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>He felt suddenly empty. “Dies out?” he repeated numbly.</p> + +<p>“Yes. We don't know why, but it's been diminishing in strength ever +since it first came into being, and our ‘Möbius-strip scientist’ has +predicted that it will cease to exist during the next twenty-four hours. +I guess I don't need to remind you that you have important business on +Earth.”</p> + +<p>“No,” he said, “I guess you don't.” His emptiness bowed out before a +wave of bitterness. He had rested his hand on the gate, as close to hers +as he had dared. Now he saw that while it was inches away from hers in +one sense, it was light years away in another. He removed it angrily. +“Business always comes first with you, doesn't it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Business never lets you down.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know what I think?” Philip said. “I think that you were the one +who did the selling out, not your husband. I think you sold him out for +a law practice.”</p> + +<p>Her face turned white as though he had slapped it, and in a sense, he +had. “Good-by,” she said, and this time he was certain that if he were +to reach out and touch her, she would shatter into a million pieces. +“Give my love to the planet Earth,” she added icily.</p> + +<p>“Good-by,” Philip said, his anger gone now, and the emptiness rushing +back. “Don't sell us short, though—we'll make a big splash in your sky +one of these days when we blow ourselves up.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image7.jpg" width="500" height="239" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>He turned and walked away. Walked out of the enchanting village and down +the highway and across the flower-pulsing plain to Judith's back +doorway. It was unlighted now, and he had trouble distinguishing it from +the others. Its shimmering blue framework was flickering. Judith had not +lied then: the field was dying out.</p> + +<p>He locked the back door behind him, walked sadly through the dark and +empty house and let himself out the front door. He locked the front door +behind him, too, and went down the walk and climbed into his car. He had +thought he had locked it, but apparently he hadn't. He drove out of town +and down the road to the highway, and down the highway toward the big +bright bonfire of the city.</p> + +<p>Dawn was exploring the eastern sky with pale pink fingers when at last +he parked his car in the garage behind his apartment building. He +reached into the back seat for his brief case and the manila envelopes. +His brief case had hair on it. It was soft and warm. “Ruf,” it barked. +“Ruf-ruf!”</p> + +<p>He knew then that everything was all right. Just because no one had +invited him to the party didn't mean that he couldn't invite himself. He +would have to hurry, though—he had a lot of things to do, and time was +running out.</p> + +<p>Noon found him on the highway again, his business transacted, his +affairs settled, Zarathustra sitting beside him on the seat. One o'clock +found him driving into Valleyview; two-five found him turning down a +familiar street. He would have to leave his car behind him, but that was +all right. Leaving it to rust away in a ghost town was better than +selling it to some opportunistic dealer for a sum he would have no use +for anyway. He parked it by the curb, and after getting his suitcase out +of the trunk, walked up to the front door of Number 23. He unlocked and +opened the door, and after Zarathustra followed him inside, closed and +locked it behind him. He strode through the house to the kitchen. He +unlocked and opened the back door. He stepped eagerly across the +threshold—and stopped dead still.</p> + +<p>There were boards beneath his feet instead of grass. Instead of a +flower-pied plain, he saw a series of unkempt back yards. Beside him on +an unpainted trellis, Virginia creeper rattled in an October wind.</p> + +<p>Zarathustra came out behind him, descended the back-porch steps and ran +around the side of the house. Looking for the green-rose bush probably.</p> + +<p>“Ruf!”</p> + +<p>Zarathustra had returned and was looking up at him from the bottom step. +On the top step he had placed an offering.</p> + +<p>The offering was a green rose.</p> + +<p>Philip bent down and picked it up. It was fresh, and its fragrance +epitomized the very essence of Sirius XXI. “Zarathustra,” he gasped, +“where did you get it?”</p> + +<p>“Ruf!” said Zarathustra, and ran around the side of the house.</p> + +<p>Philip followed, rounded the corner just in time to see the white-tipped +tail disappear into the ancient dog house. Disappointment numbed him. +That was where the rose had been then—stored away for safe-keeping like +an old and worthless bone.</p> + +<p>But the rose was fresh, he reminded himself.</p> + +<p>Did dog houses have back doorways?</p> + +<p>This one did, he saw, kneeling down and peering inside. A lovely back +doorway, rimmed with shimmering blue. It framed a familiar vista, in the +foreground of which a familiar green-rosebush stood. Beneath the +rosebush Zarathustra sat, wagging his tail.</p> + +<p>It was a tight squeeze, but Philip made it. He even managed to get his +suitcase through. And just in time too, for hardly had he done so when +the doorway began to flicker. Now it was on its way out, and as he +watched, it faded into transparency and disappeared.</p> + +<p>He crawled from beneath the rosebush and stood up. The day was bright +and warm, and the position of the sun indicated early morning or late +afternoon. No, not sun—suns. One of them was a brilliant blue-white +orb, the other a twinkling point of light.</p> + +<p>He set off across the plain in Zarathustra's wake. He had a speech +already prepared, and when Judith met him at the gate with wide and +wondering eyes, he delivered it without preamble. “Judith,” he said, “I +am contemptuous of the notion that some things are meant to be and +others aren't, and I firmly believe in my own free will; but when your +dog stows away in the back seat of my car two times running and makes +it impossible for me not to see you again, then there must be something +afoot which neither you nor I can do a thing about. Whatever it is, I +have given in to it and have transferred your real estate to an agent +more trustworthy than myself. I know you haven't known me long, and I +know I'm not an accepted member of your group, but maybe somebody will +give me a job raking lawns or washing windows or hoeing corn long enough +for me to prove that I am not in the least antisocial; and maybe, in +time, you yourself will get to know me well enough to realize that while +I have a weakness for blondes who look like Grecian goddesses, I have no +taste whatever for redheads, brunettes, or Cutty Sark. In any event, I +have burned my bridges behind me, and whether I ever become a resident +of Pfleugersville or not, I have already become a resident of Sirius +XXI.”</p> + +<p>Judith Darrow was silent for some time. Then, “This morning,” she said, +“I wanted to ask you to join us, but I couldn't for two reasons. The +first was your commitment to sell our houses, the second was my +bitterness toward men. You have eliminated the first, and the second +seems suddenly inane.” She raised her eyes. “Philip, please join us. I +want you to.”</p> + +<p>Zarathustra, whose real name was Siddenon Phenphonderill, left them +standing there in each other's arms and trotted down the street and out +of town. He covered the ground in easy lopes that belied his three +hundred and twenty-five years, and soon he arrived at the Meeting Place. +The mayors of the other villages had been awaiting him since early +morning and were shifting impatiently on their haunches. When he +clambered up on the rostrum they extended their audio-appendages and +retractile fingers and accorded him a round of applause. He extended his +own “hands” and held them up for silence, then, retracting them again, +he seated himself before the little lectern and began his report, the +idiomatic translation of which follows forthwith:</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen, my apologies for my late arrival. I will touch upon the +circumstances that were responsible for it presently.</p> + +<p>“To get down to the matter uppermost in your minds: Yes, the experiment +was a success, and if you will use your psycho-transmutative powers to +remodel your villages along the lines my constituents and I remodeled +ours and to build enough factories to give your ‘masters’ that sense of +self-sufficiency so essential to their well-being, and if you will +‘plant’ your disassembled Multiple Möbius-Knot Dynamos in such a way +that the resultant fields will be ascribed to accidental causes, you +will have no more trouble attracting personnel than we did. Just make +sure that your ‘masters’ quarters are superior to your own, and that +you behave like dogs in their presence. And when you fabricate your +records concerning your mythical departed masters, see to it that they +do not conflict with the records we fabricated concerning ours. It would +be desirable indeed if our Sirian-human society could be based on less +deceitful grounds than these, but the very human attitude we are +exploiting renders this impossible at the moment. I hate to think of the +resentment we would incur were we to reveal that, far from being the +mere dogs we seem to be, we are capable of mentally transmuting natural +resources into virtually anything from a key to a concert hall, and I +hate even more to think of the resentment we would incur were we to +reveal that, for all our ability in the inanimate field, we have never +been able to materialize so much as a single blade of grass in the +animate field, and that our reason for coincidentalizing the planet +Earth and creating our irresistible little utopias stems not from a need +for companionship but from a need for gardeners. However, you will find +that all of this can be ironed out eventually through the human +children, with whom you will be thrown into daily contact and whom you +will find to possess all of their parents' abiding love for us and none +of their parents' superior attitude toward us. To a little child, a dog +is a companion, not a pet; an equal, not an inferior—and the little +children of today will be the grown-ups of tomorrow.</p> + +<p>“To return to the circumstances that occasioned my late arrival: I … I +must confess, gentlemen, that I became quite attached to the ‘mistress’ +into whose house I sought entry when we first established our field and +who subsequently adopted me when I convinced her real dog that he would +find greener pastures elsewhere. So greatly attached did I become, in +fact, that when the opportunity of ostracizing her loneliness presented +itself, I could not refrain from taking advantage of it. The person to +whom she was most suited and who was most suited to her appeared +virtually upon her very doorstep; but in her stubbornness and in her +pride she aggravated rather than encouraged him, causing him to rebel +against the natural attraction he felt toward her. I am happy to report +that, by means of a number of subterfuges—the final one of which +necessitated the use of our original doorway—I was able to set this +matter right, and that these two once-lonely people are about to embark +upon a relationship which in their folklore is oftentimes quaintly +alluded to by the words, ‘They lived happily ever after.’</p> + +<p>“And now, gentlemen, the best of luck to you and your constituents, and +may you end up with servants as excellent as ours. I hereby declare this +meeting adjourned.”</p> + +<div class="tnote"><h4>Transcriber's Note</h4> +<p>This etext was produced from “Analog Science Fact +Science Fiction” November 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any +evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Servant Problem, by Robert F. Young + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SERVANT PROBLEM *** + +***** This file should be named 23232-h.htm or 23232-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/3/23232/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Iain Arnell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Young + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Servant Problem + +Author: Robert F. Young + +Release Date: October 29, 2007 [EBook #23232] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SERVANT PROBLEM *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Iain Arnell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + + +The Servant Problem + + + Selling a whole town, and doing it inconspicuously, can be a little + difficult ... either giving it away freely, or in a more normal + sense of "selling". People don't quite believe it.... + + +by Robert J. Young + + +Illustrated by Schoenherr + + +[Illustration] + + +If you have ever lived in a small town, you have seen Francis Pfleuger, +and probably you have sent him after sky-hooks, left-handed +monkey-wrenches and pails of steam, and laughed uproariously behind his +back when he set forth to do your bidding. The Francis Pfleugers of the +world have inspired both fun and laughter for generations out of mind. + +The Francis Pfleuger we are concerned with here lived in a small town +named Valleyview, and in addition to suffering the distinction of being +the village idiot, he also suffered the distinction of being the village +inventor. These two distinctions frequently go hand in hand, and afford, +in their incongruous togetherness, an even greater inspiration for fun +and laughter. For in this advanced age of streamlined electric can +openers and sleek pop-up toasters, who but the most naive among us can +fail to be titillated by the thought of a buck-toothed, wall-eyed moron +building Rube Goldberg contrivances in his basement? + +The Francis Pfleuger we are concerned with did his inventing in his +kitchen rather than in his basement; nevertheless, his machines were in +the Rube Goldberg tradition. Take the one he was assembling now, for +example. It stood on the kitchen table, and its various attachments +jutted this way and that with no apparent rhyme or reason. In its center +there was a transparent globe that looked like an upside-down goldfish +bowl, and in the center of the bowl there was an object that startlingly +resembled a goldfish, but which, of course, was nothing of the sort. +Whatever it was, though, it kept growing brighter and brighter each time +Francis added another attachment, and had already attained a degree of +incandescence so intense that he had been forced to don cobalt-blue +goggles in order to look at it. The date was the First of April, +1962--April Fool's Day. + +Actually, the idea for this particular machine had not originated in +Francis' brain, nor had the parts for it originated in his +kitchen-workshop. When he had gone out to get the milk that morning he +had found a box on his doorstep, and in the box he had found the +goldfish bowl and the attachments, plus a sheet of instructions +entitled, DIRECTIONS FOR ASSEMBLING A MULTIPLE MOeBIUS-KNOT DYNAMO. +Francis thought that a machine capable of tying knots would be pretty +keen, and he had carried the box into the kitchen and set to work +forthwith. + +He now had but one more part to go, and he proceeded to screw it into +place. Then he stepped back to admire his handiwork. Simultaneously his +handiwork went into action. The attachments began to quiver and to emit +sparks; the globe glowed, and the goldfishlike object in its center +began to dart this way and that as though striking at flies. A blue halo +formed above the machine and began to rotate. Faster and faster it +rotated, till finally its gaseous components separated and flew off in a +hundred different directions. Three things happened then in swift +succession: Francis' back doorway took on a bluish cast, the sheet of +instructions vanished, and the machine began to melt. + +A moment later he heard a whining sound on his back doorstep. + +Simultaneously all of the residents of Valleyview heard whining sounds +on _their_ back doorsteps. + +Naturally everybody went to find out about the whining. + + * * * * * + +The sign was a new one. At the most it was no more than six months old. +YOU ARE ENTERING THE VILLAGE OF VALLEYVIEW, it said. PLEASE DRIVE +CAREFULLY--WE ARE FOND OF OUR DOGS. + +Philip Myles drove carefully. He was fond of dogs, too. + +Night had tiptoed in over the October countryside quite some time ago, +but the village of Valleyview had not turned on so much as a single +streetlight--nor, apparently, any other kind of light. All was in +darkness, and not a soul was to be seen. Philip began to suspect that he +had entered a ghost town, and when his headlights darted across a dark +intersection and picked up the overgrown grass and unkempt shrubbery of +the village park, he was convinced that he had. Then he saw the girl +walking the dog. + +He kitty-cornered the intersection and pulled up alongside her. She was +a blonde, tall and chic in a gray fall suit. Her face was +attractive--beautiful even, in a cold and classic way--but she would +never see twenty-five again. But then, Philip would never again see +thirty. When she paused, her dog paused too, although she did not have +it on a leash. It was on the small side, tawny in hue, with golden-brown +eyes, a slender white-tipped tail, and shaggy ears that hung down on +either side of its face in a manner reminiscent of a cocker spaniel's. +It wasn't a cocker spaniel, though. The ears were much too long, for one +thing, and the tail was much too delicate, for another. It was a +breed--or combination of breeds--that Philip had never seen before. + +He leaned across the seat and rolled down the right-hand window. "Could +you direct me to number 23 Locust Street?" he asked. "It's the residence +of Judith Darrow, the village attorney. Maybe you know her." + +The girl gave a start. "Are _you_ the real-estate man I sent for?" + +Philip gave a start, too. Recovering himself, he said, "Then _you're_ +Judith Darrow. I'm ... I'm afraid I'm a little late." + +The girl's eyes flashed. The radiant backwash of the headlights revealed +them to be both green and gray. "I specified in my letter that you were +supposed to be here at nine o'clock this morning!" she said. "Maybe +you'll tell me how you're going to appraise property in the dark!" + +"I'm sorry," Philip said. "My car broke down on the way, and I had to +wait for it to be fixed. When I tried to call you, the operator told me +that your phone had been disconnected. If you'll direct me to the hotel, +I'll stay there overnight and appraise your property in the morning. +There _is_ a hotel, isn't there?" + +"There is--but it's closed. Zarathustra--down!" The dog had raised up on +its hind legs and placed its forepaws on the door in an unsuccessful +attempt to peer in the window. At the girl's command, it sank obediently +down on its haunches. "Except for Zarathustra and myself," she went on, +"the village is empty. Everyone else has already moved out, and we'd +have moved out, too, if I hadn't been entrusted with arranging for the +sale of the business places and the houses. It makes for a rather +awkward situation." + +She had leaned forward, and the light from the dash lay palely upon her +face, softening its austerity. "I don't get this at all," Philip said. +"From your letter I assumed you had two or three places you wanted me to +sell, but not a whole town. There must have been at least a thousand +people living here, and a thousand people just don't pack up and move +out all at once." When she volunteered no explanation, he added, "Where +did they move to?" + +"To Pfleugersville. I know you've never heard of it, so save the +observation." Then, "Do you have any identification?" she asked. + +He gave her his driver's license, his business card and the letter she +had written him. After glancing at them, she handed them back. She +appeared to be undecided about something. "Why don't you let me stay at +the hotel?" he suggested. "You must have the key if it's one of the +places I'm supposed to appraise." + +She shook her head. "I have the key, but there's not a stick of +furniture in the place. We had a village auction last week and got rid +of everything that we didn't plan on taking with us." She sighed. "Well, +there's nothing for it, I guess. The nearest motel is thirty miles away, +so I'll have to put you up at my house. I have a few articles of +furniture left--wedding gifts, mostly, that I was too sentimental to +part with." She got into the car. "Come on, Zarathustra." + +Zarathustra clambered in, leaped across her lap and sat down between +them. Philip pulled away from the curb. "That's an odd name for a dog," +he said. + +"I know. I guess the reason I gave it to him is because he puts me in +mind of a little old man sometimes." + +"But the original Zarathustra isn't noted for his longevity." + +"Perhaps another association was at work then. Turn right at the next +corner." + +A lonely light burned in one of number 23 Locust Street's three front +windows. Its source, however, was not an incandescent bulb, but the +mantle of a gasoline lantern. "The village power-supply was shut off +yesterday," Judith Darrow explained, pumping the lantern into renewed +brightness. She glanced at him sideways. "Did you have dinner?" + +"As a matter of fact--no. But please don't--" + +"Bother? I couldn't if I wanted to. My larder is on its last legs. But +sit down, and I'll make you some sandwiches. I'll make a pot of coffee +too--the gas hasn't been turned off yet." + + * * * * * + +The living room had precisely three articles of furniture to its +name--two armchairs and a coffee table. After Judith left him, Philip +set his brief case on the floor and sat down in one of the chairs. He +wondered idly how she expected to make the trip to Pfleugersville. He +had seen no car in the driveway, and there was no garage on the property +in which one could be concealed. Moreover, it was highly unlikely that +buses serviced the village any more. Valleyview had been bypassed quite +some time ago by one of the new super-duper highways. He shrugged. +Getting to Pfleugersville was her problem, not his. + +He returned his attention to the living room. It was a large room. The +house was large, too--large and Victorianesque. Judith, apparently, had +opened the back door, for a breeze was wafting through the downstairs +rooms--a breeze laden with the scent of flowers and the dew-damp breath +of growing grass. He frowned. The month was October, not June, and since +when did flowers bloom and grass grow in October? He concluded that the +scent must be artificial. + +Zarathustra was regarding him with large golden eyes from the middle of +the living-room floor. The animal did somehow bring to mind a little old +man, although he could not have been more than two or three years old. +"You're not very good company," Philip said. + +"Ruf," said Zarathustra, and turning, trotted through an archway into a +large room that, judging from the empty shelves lining its walls, had +once been a library, and thence through another archway into another +room--the dining room, undoubtedly--and out of sight. + +Philip leaned back wearily in the armchair he had chosen. He was beat. +Take six days a week, ten hours a day, and multiply by fifty-two and you +get three hundred and twelve. Three hundred and twelve days a year, +hunting down clients, talking, walking, driving, expounding; trying in +his early thirties to build the foundation he should have begun building +in his early twenties--the foundation for the family he had suddenly +realized he wanted and someday hoped to have. Sometimes he wished that +ambition had missed him altogether instead of waiting for so long to +strike. Sometimes he wished he could have gone right on being what he +once had been. After all, there was nothing wrong in living in cheap +hotels and even cheaper rooming houses; there was nothing wrong in being +a lackadaisical door-to-door salesman with run-down heels. + +Nothing wrong, that is, except the aching want that came over you +sometimes, and the loneliness of long and empty evenings. + +Zarathustra had re-entered the room and was sitting in the middle of the +floor again. He had not returned empty-handed--or rather, +empty-mouthed--although the object he had brought with him was not the +sort of object dogs generally pick up. It was a rose-- + +A green rose. + + * * * * * + +Disbelievingly, Philip leaned forward and took it from the animal's +mouth. Before he had a chance to examine it, however, footsteps sounded +in the next room, and prompted by he knew not what, he thrust the rose +into his suitcoat pocket. An instant later, Judith Darrow came through +the archway bearing a large tray. After setting it down on the coffee +table, she poured two cups of coffee from a little silver pot and +indicated a plate of sandwiches. "Please help yourself," she said. + +She sat down in the other chair and sipped her coffee. He had one of the +sandwiches, found that he didn't want any more. Somehow, her proximity, +coupled with her silence, made him feel uncomfortable. "Has your husband +already left for Pfleugersville?" he asked politely. + +Her gray-green eyes grew cold. "Yes, he left quite some time ago," she +said. "A year ago, as a matter of fact. But for parts unknown, not +Pfleugersville. Pfleugersville wasn't accessible then, anyway. He had a +brunette on one arm, a redhead on the other, and a pint of Cutty Sark in +his hip pocket." + +Philip was distressed. "I ... I didn't mean to pry," he said. "I'm--" + +"Sorry? Why should you be? Some men are born to settle down and raise +children and others are born to drink and philander. It's as simple as +that." + +"Is it?" something made Philip ask. "Into which category would you say I +fall?" + +"You're in a class by yourself." Tiny silver flecks had come into her +eyes, and he realized to his astonishment that they were flecks of +malevolence. "You've never married, but playing the field hasn't made +you one hundred per cent cynical. You're still convinced that somewhere +there is a woman worthy of your devotion. And you're quite right--the +world is full of them." + +His face tingled as though she had slapped it, and in a sense, she had. +He restrained his anger with difficulty. "I didn't know that my celibacy +was that noticeable," he said. + +"It isn't. I took the liberty of having a private investigator check +into your background. It proved to be unsavory in some respects, as I +implied before, but unlike the backgrounds of the other real-estate +agents I had checked, it contained not the slightest hint of dishonesty. +The nature of my business is such that I need someone of maximum +integrity to contract it with. I had to go far and wide to find you." + +"You're being unfair," Philip said, mollified despite himself. "Most +real-estate agents are honest. As a matter of fact, there's one in the +same office building with me that I'd trust with the family jewels--if I +had any family jewels." + +"Good," Judith Darrow said. "I gambled on you knowing someone like +that." + +He waited for her to elaborate, and when she did not he finished his +coffee and stood up. "If you don't mind, I'll turn in," he said. "I've +had a pretty hard day." + +"I'll show you your room." + +She got two candles, lit them, and after placing them in gilt +candlesticks, handed one of the candlesticks to him. The room was on the +third floor in under the eaves--as faraway from hers, probably, as the +size of the house permitted. Philip did not mind. He liked to sleep in +rooms under eaves. There was an enchantment about the rain on the roof +that people who slept in less celestial bowers never got to know. After +Judith left, he threw open the single window and undressed and climbed +into bed. Remembering the rose, he got it out of his coat pocket and +examined it by candlelight. It was green all right--even greener than he +had at first thought. Its scent was reminiscent of the summer breeze +that was blowing through the downstairs rooms, though not at all in +keeping with the chill October air that was coming through his bedroom +window. He laid it on the table beside the bed and blew out the candle. +He would go looking for the bush tomorrow. + + * * * * * + +Philip was an early riser, and dawn had not yet departed when, fully +dressed, he left the room with the rose in his coat pocket and quietly +descended the stairs. Entering the living room, he found Zarathustra +curled up in one of the armchairs, and for a moment he had the eerie +impression that the animal had extended one of his shaggy ears and was +scratching his back with it. When Philip did a doubletake, however, the +ear was back to normal size and reposing on its owner's tawny cheek. +Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he said, "Come on, Zarathustra, we're +going for a walk." + +He headed for the back door, Zarathustra at his heels. A double door +leading off the dining room barred his way and proved to be locked. +Frowning, he returned to the living room. "All right," he said to +Zarathustra, "we'll go out the front way then." + +[Illustration] + +He walked around the side of the house, his canine companion trotting +beside him. The side yard turned out to be disappointing. It contained +no roses--green ones, or any other kind. About all it did contain that +was worthy of notice was a dog house--an ancient affair that was much +too large for Zarathustra and which probably dated from the days when +Judith had owned a larger dog. The yard itself was a mess: the grass +hadn't been cut all summer, the shrubbery was ragged, and dead leaves +lay everywhere. A similar state of affairs existed next door, and +glancing across lots, he saw that the same desuetude prevailed +throughout the entire neighborhood. Obviously the good citizens of +Valleyview had lost interest in their real estate long before they had +moved out. + +At length his explorations led him to the back door. If there were green +roses anywhere, the trellis that adorned the small back porch was the +logical place for them to be. He found nothing but bedraggled Virginia +creeper and more dead leaves. + +He tried the back door, and finding it locked, circled the rest of the +way around the house. Judith was waiting for him on the front porch. +"How nice of you to walk Zarathustra," she said icily. "I do hope you +found the yard in order." + +[Illustration] + +The yellow dress she was wearing did not match the tone of her voice, +and the frilly blue apron tied round her waist belied the frostiness of +her gray-green eyes. Nevertheless, her rancor was real. "Sorry," he +said. "I didn't know your back yard was out of bounds." Then, "If you'll +give me a list of the places you want evaluated, I'll get started right +away." + +"I'll take you around again personally--after we have breakfast." + +Again he was consigned to the living room while she performed the +necessary culinary operations, and again she served him by tray. Clearly +she did not want him in the kitchen, or anywhere near it. He was not +much of a one for mysteries, but this one was intriguing him more and +more by the minute. + +Breakfast over, she told him to wait on the front porch while she did +the dishes, and instructed Zarathustra to keep him company. She had two +voices: the one she used in addressing Zarathustra contained overtones +of summer, and the one she used in addressing Philip contained +overtones of fall. "Some day," Philip told the little dog, "that chip +she carries on her shoulder is going to fall off of its own accord, and +by then it will be too late--the way it was too late for me when I found +out that the person I'd been running away from all my life was myself in +wolf's clothing." + +"Ruf," said Zarathustra, looking up at him with benign golden eyes. +"Ruf-ruf!" + + * * * * * + +Presently Judith re-appeared, sans apron, and the three of them set +forth into the golden October day. It was Philip's first experience in +evaluating an entire village, but he had a knack for estimating the +worth of property, and by the time noon came around, he had the job half +done. "If you people had made even half an effort to keep your places +up," he told Judith over cold-cut sandwiches and coffee in her living +room, "we could have asked for a third again as much. Why in the world +did you let everything go to pot just because you were moving some place +else?" + +She shrugged. "It's hard to get anyone to do housework these days--not +to mention gardening. Besides, in addition to the servant problem, +there's another consideration--human nature. When you've lived in a +shack all your life and you suddenly acquire a palace, you cease caring +very much what the shack looks like." + +"Shack!" Philip was indignant. "Why, this house is lovely! Practically +every house you've shown me is lovely. Old, yes--but oldness is an +essential part of the loveliness of houses. If Pfleugersville is on the +order of most housing developments I've seen, you and your neighbors are +going to be good and sorry one of these fine days!" + +"But Pfleugersville isn't on the order of most housing developments +you've seen. In fact, it's not a housing development at all. But let's +not go into that. Anyway, we're concerned with Valleyview, not +Pfleugersville." + +"Very well," Philip said. "This afternoon should wind things up so far +as the appraising goes." + + * * * * * + +That evening, after a coffee-less supper--both the gas and the water had +been turned off that afternoon--he totaled up his figures. They made +quite a respectable sum. He looked across the coffee table, which he had +commandeered as a desk, to where Judith, with the dubious help of +Zarathustra, was sorting out a pile of manila envelopes which she had +placed in the middle of the living-room floor. "I'll do my best to sell +everything," he said, "but it's going to be difficult going till we get +a few families living here. People are reluctant about moving into empty +neighborhoods, and businessmen aren't keen about opening up business +places before the customers are available. But I think it'll work out +all right. There's a plaza not far from here that will provide a place +to shop until the local markets are functioning, and Valleyview is part +of a centralized school district." He slipped the paper he had been +figuring on into his brief case, closed the case and stood up. "I'll +keep in touch with you." + +Judith shook her head. "You'll do nothing of the sort. As soon as you +leave, I'm moving to Pfleugersville. My business here is finished." + +"I'll keep in touch with you there then. All you have to do is give me +your address and phone number." + +She shook her head again. "I could give you both, but neither would do +you any good. But that's beside the point. Valleyview is your +responsibility now--not mine." + +Philip sat back down again. "You can start explaining any time," he +said. + +"It's very simple. The property owners of Valleyview signed all of their +houses and places of business over to me. I, in turn, have signed all of +them over to you--with the qualification, of course, that after selling +them you will be entitled to no more than your usual commission." She +withdrew a paper from one of the manila envelopes. "After selling them," +she went on, "you are to divide the proceeds equally among the four +charities specified in this contract." She handed him the paper. "Do you +understand now why I tried so hard to find a trustworthy agent?" + +Philip was staring at the paper, unable, in his astonishment, to read +the words it contained. "Suppose," he said presently, "that +circumstances should make it impossible for me to carry out my end of +the agreement?" + +"In case of illness, you will already have taken the necessary steps to +transfer the property to another agent who, in your opinion, is as +completely honest as you are, and in case of death, you will already +have taken the necessary steps to bequeath the property to the same +agent; and he, in both cases, will already have agreed to the terms laid +down in the contract you're holding in your hands. Why don't you read +it?" + + * * * * * + +Now that his astonishment had abated somewhat, Philip found that he +could do so. "But this still doesn't make sense," he said a short while +later. "Obviously you and the rest of the owners have purchased new +houses. Would it be presumptuous of me to ask how you're going to pay +for them when you're virtually giving your old houses away?" + +"I'm afraid it would be, Mr. Myles." She withdrew another paper from the +envelope and handed it to him. "This is the other copy. If you'll kindly +affix your signature to both, we can bring our business to a close. As +you'll notice, I've already signed." + +"But if you're going to be incommunicado," Philip pointed out, anger +building up in him despite all he could do to stop it, "what good will +your copy do you?" + +Judith's countenance took on a glacial quality. So did her voice. "My +copy will go into the hands of a trusted attorney, sealed in an envelope +which I have already instructed him not to open till five years from +this date. If, at the time it is opened, you have violated the terms of +our agreement, he will institute legal proceedings at once. Fortunately, +although the Valleyview post office is closed, a mail truck passes +through every weekday evening at eight. It's not that I don't trust you, +Mr. Myles--but you are a man, you know." + +Philip was tempted to tear up the two copies then and there, and toss +the pieces into the air. But he didn't, for the very good reason that he +couldn't afford to. Instead, he bore down viciously on his pen and +brought his name to life twice in large and angry letters. He handed +Judith one copy, slipped the other into his breast pocket and got to his +feet. "That," he said, "brings our official business to a close. Now I'd +like to add an unofficial word of advice. It seems to me that you're +exacting an exorbitant price from the world for your husband's having +sold you out for a brunette and a redhead and a pint of Scotch. I've +been sold out lots of times for less than that, but I found out long ago +that the world doesn't pay its bills even when you ask a fair price for +the damages done to you. I suggest that you write the matter off as a +bad debt and forget about it; then maybe you'll become a human being +again." + +She had risen to her feet and was standing stiffly before him. She put +him in mind of an exquisite and fragile statue, and for a moment he had +the feeling that if he were to reach out and touch her, she would +shatter into a million pieces. She did not move for some time, nor did +he; then she bent down, picked up three of the manila envelopes, +straightened, and handed them to him. "Two of these contain the deeds, +maps and other records you will need," she said in a dead voice. "The +third contains the keys to the houses and business places. Each key is +tagged with the correct address. Good-by, Mr. Myles." + +"Good-by," Philip said. + +He looked around the room intending to say good-by to Zarathustra, but +Zarathustra was nowhere to be seen. Finally he went into the hall, +opened the front door and stepped out into the night. A full moon was +rising in the east. He walked down the moonlit walk, climbed into his +car and threw his brief case and the manila envelopes into the back +seat. Soon, Valleyview was far behind him. + +But not as far as it should have been. He couldn't get the green rose +out of his mind. He couldn't get Judith Darrow out of his mind either. +Nor could he exorcise the summer breeze that kept wafting through the +crevices in his common sense. + +A green rose and a grass widow and a breeze with a green breath. A whole +town taking off for greener pastures.... + +He reached into his coat pocket and touched the rose. It was no more +than a stem and a handful of petals now, but its reality could not be +denied. But roses do not bloom in autumn, and green roses do not bloom +at all-- + +"Ruf!" + +He had turned into the new highway some time ago, and was driving along +it at a brisk sixty-five. Now, disbelievingly, he slowed, and pulled +over onto the shoulder. Sure enough, he had a stowaway in the back +seat--a tawny-haired stowaway with golden eyes, over-sized ears, and a +restless, white-tipped tail. "Zarathustra!" he gasped. "How in the +dickens did you get in there?" + +"Ruf," Zarathustra replied. + +Philip groaned. Now he would have to go all the way back to Valleyview. +Now he would have to see Judith Darrow again. Now he would have to--He +paused in midthought, astonished at the abrupt acceleration of his +heartbeat. "Well I'll be damned!" he said, and without further preamble +transferred Zarathustra to the front seat, U-turned, and started back. + + * * * * * + +The gasoline lantern had been moved out of the living-room window, but a +light still showed beyond the panes. He pulled over to the curb and +turned off the ignition. He gave one of Zarathustra's over-sized ears a +playful tug, absently noting a series of small nodules along its lower +extremity. "Come on, Zarathustra," he said. "I may as well deliver you +personally while I'm at it." + +After locking the car, he started up the walk, Zarathustra at his heels. +He knocked on the front door. Presently he knocked again. The door +creaked, swung partially open. He frowned. Had she forgotten to latch +it? he wondered. Or had she deliberately left it unlatched so that +Zarathustra could get in? Zarathustra himself lent plausibility to the +latter conjecture by rising up on his hind legs and pushing the door the +rest of the way open with his forepaws, after which he trotted into the +hall and disappeared. + +Philip pounded on the panels. "Miss Darrow!" he called. "Judith!" + +No answer. He called again. Still no answer. + +A summer breeze came traipsing out of the house and engulfed him in the +scent of roses. What kind of roses? he wondered. Green ones? + +He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him. He made his way +into the living room. The two chairs were gone, and so was the coffee +table. He walked through the living room and into the library; through +the library and into the dining room. The gasoline lantern burned +brightly on the dining-room table, its harsh white light bathing bare +floors and naked walls. + +The breeze was stronger here, the scent of roses almost cloying. He saw +then that the double door that had thwarted him that morning was open, +and he moved toward it across the room. As he had suspected, it gave +access to the kitchen. Pausing on the threshold, he peered inside. It +was an ordinary enough kitchen. Some of the appliances were gone, but +the stove and the refrigerator were still there. The back doorway had an +odd bluish cast that caused the framework to shimmer. The door itself +was open, and he could see starlight lying softly on fields and trees. + +Wonderingly he walked across the room and stepped outside. There was a +faint sputtering sound, as though live wires had been crossed, and for a +fleeting second the scene before him seemed to waver. Then, abruptly, it +grew still. + +He grew still, too--immobile in the strange, yet peaceful, summer night. +He was standing on a grassy plain, and the plain spread out on either +hand to promontories of little trees. Before him, the land sloped gently +upward, and was covered with multicolored flowers that twinkled like +microcosmic stars. In the distance, the lights of a village showed. To +his right, a riotous green-rose bush bloomed, and beneath it Zarathustra +sat, wagging his tail. + +Philip took two steps forward, stopped and looked up at the sky. It was +wrong somehow. For one thing, Cassiopeia had changed position, and for +another, Orion was awry. For still another, there were no clouds for the +moon to hide behind, and yet the moon had disappeared. + +Zarathustra trotted over to where he was standing, gazed up at him with +golden eyes, then headed in the direction of the lights. Philip took a +deep breath, and followed him. He would have visited the village anyway, +Zarathustra or no Zarathustra. Was it Pfleugersville? He knew suddenly +that it was. + + * * * * * + +He had not gone far before he saw a highway. A pair of headlights +appeared suddenly in the direction of the village and resolved rapidly +into a moving van. To his consternation, the van turned off the +thoroughfare and headed in his direction. He ducked into a coppice, +Zarathustra at his heels, and watched the heavy vehicle bounce by. There +were two men in the cab, and painted on the paneling of the truckbed +were the words, PFLEUGERSVILLE MOVERS, INC. + +The van continued on in the direction from which he had come, and +presently he guessed its destination. Judith, clearly, was in the midst +of moving out the furniture she had been too sentimental to sell. The +only trouble was, her house had disappeared. So had the village of +Valleyview. + +He stared at where the houses should have been, saw nothing at first +except a continuation of the starlit plain. Then he noticed an upright +rectangle of pale light hovering just above the ground, and presently he +identified it as Judith's back doorway. He could see through it into the +kitchen, and by straining his eyes, he could even see the stove and the +refrigerator. + +Gradually he made out other upright rectangles hovering just above the +ground, some of them on a line with Judith's. All of them, however, +while outlined in the same shimmering blue that outlined hers, lacked +lighted interiors. + +As he stood there staring, the van came to a halt, turned around and +backed up to the brightest rectangle, hiding it from view. The two men +got out of the cab and walked around to the rear of the truckbed. "We'll +put the stove on first," Philip heard one of them say. And then, "Wonder +why she wants to hang onto junk like this?" + +The other man's voice was fainter, but his words were unmistakable +enough: "Grass widows who turn into old maids have funny notions +sometimes." + +Judith Darrow wasn't really moving out of Valleyview after all. She only +thought she was. + +Philip went on. The breeze was all around him. It blew through his hair, +kissed his cheeks and caressed his forehead. The stars shone palely +down. Some of the land was under cultivation, and he could see green +things growing in the starlight, and the breeze carried their green +breath to his nostrils. He reached the highway and began walking along +it. He saw no further sign of vehicles till he came opposite a large +brick building with bright light spilling through its windows. In front +of it were parked a dozen automobiles of a make that he was unfamiliar +with. + +He heard the whir of machinery and the pounding of hammers, and he went +over and peered through one of the windows. The building proved to be a +furniture factory. Most of the work was being done by machines, but +there were enough tasks left over to keep the owners of the parked cars +busily occupied. The main manual task was upholstering. The machines cut +and sewed and trimmed and planed and doweled and assembled, but +apparently none of them was up to the fine art of spitting tacks. + + * * * * * + +Philip returned to the highway and went on. He came to other buildings +and peered into each. One was a small automobile-assembly plant, another +was a dairy, a third was a long greenhouse. In the first two the +preponderance of the work was being performed by machines. In the third, +however, machines were conspicuously absent. Clearly it was one thing +to build a machine with a superhuman work potential, but quite another +to build one with a green thumb. + +[Illustration] + +He passed a pasture, and saw animals that looked like cows sleeping in +the starlight. He passed a field of newly-sprouted corn. He passed a +power plant, and heard the whine of a generator. Finally he came to the +outskirts of Pfleugersville. + +There was a big illuminated sign by the side of the road. It stopped him +in his tracks, and he stood there staring at its embossed letters: + + PFLEUGERSVILLE, SIRIUS XXI + _Discovered April 1, 1962 + Incorporated September 11, 1962_ + +Philip wiped his forehead. + +Zarathustra had trotted on ahead. Now he stopped and looked back. _Come +on_, he seemed to say. _Now that you've seen this much, you might as +well see the rest._ + +So Philip entered Pfleugersville ... and fell in love-- + +Fell in love with the lovely houses, and the darling trees in summer +bloom. With the parterres of twinkling star-flowers and the expanses of +verdant lawns. With the trellised green roses that tapestried every +porch. With the hydrangealike blooms that garnished every corner. With +Pfleugersville itself. + +Obviously the hour was late, for, other than himself, there was no one +on the streets, although lights burned in the windows of some of the +houses, and dogs of the same breed and size as Zarathustra occasionally +trotted by. And yet according to his watch the time was 10:51. Maybe, +though, Pfleugersville was on different time. Maybe, here in +Pfleugersville, it was the middle of the night. + +The farther he progressed into the village, the more enchanted he +became. He simply couldn't get over the houses. The difference between +them and the houses he was familiar with was subtle, but it was there. +It was the difference that exists between good- and not-quite-good +taste. Here were no standardized patios, but little marble aprons that +were as much a part of the over-all architecture as a glen is a part of +a woods. Here were no stereotyped picture windows, but walls that +blended imperceptibly into pleasing patterns of transparency. Here were +no four-square back yards, but rambling star-flowered playgrounds with +swings and seesaws and shaded swimming holes; with exquisite doghouses +good enough for little girls' dolls to live in. + +He passed a school that seemed to grow out of the very ground it stood +on. He passed a library that had been built around a huge tree, the +branches of which had intertwined their foliage into a living roof. He +passed a block-long supermarket built of tinted glass. Finally he came +to the park. + +He gasped then. Gasped at the delicate trees and the little blue-eyed +lakes; at the fairy-fountains and the winding, pebbled paths. +Star-flowers shed their multicolored radiance everywhere, and starlight +poured prodigally down from the sky. He chose a path at random and +walked along it in the twofold radiance till he came to the cynosure. + +The cynosure was a statue--a statue of a buck-toothed, wall-eyed youth +gazing steadfastly up into the heavens. In one hand the youth held a +Phillips screw driver, in the other a six-inch crescent wrench. Standing +several yards away and staring raptly up into the statue's face was the +youth himself, and so immobile was he that if it hadn't been for the +pedestal on which the statue rested, Philip would have been unable to +distinguish one from the other. + +There was an inscription on the pedestal. He walked over and read it in +the light cast by a nearby parterre of star-flowers: + + FRANCIS FARNSWORTH + PFLEUGER, + DISCOVERER OF + PFLEUGERSVILLE + + _Born: May 5. 1941. Died: ----_ + + _Profession Inventor. On the first day of April of the year of our + Lord, 1962, Francis Farnsworth Pfleuger brought into being a Moebius + coincidence field and established multiple contact with the + twenty-first satellite of the star Sirius, thereby giving the + people of Valleyview access, via their back doorways, to a New + World. Here we have come to live. Here we have come to raise our + children. Here, in this idyllic village, which the noble race that + once inhabited this fair planet left behind them when they migrated + to the Greater Magellanic Cloud, we have settled down to create a + new and better Way of Life. Here, thanks to Francis Farnsworth + Pfleuger, we shall know happiness prosperity and freedom from fear._ + + FRANCIS FARNSWORTH PFLEUGER, WE, THE NEW INHABITANTS OF SIRIUS XXI, + SALUTE YOU! + +Philip wiped his forehead again. + +Presently he noticed that the flesh-and-blood Francis Pfleuger was +looking in his direction. "Me," the flesh-and-blood Francis Pfleuger +said, pointing proudly at the statue. "Me." + +"So I gather," Philip said dryly. And then. "Zarathustra--come back +here!" + +The little dog had started down one of the paths that converged on the +statue. At Philip's command, he stopped but did not turn; instead he +remained where he was, as though waiting for someone to come down the +path. After a moment, someone did--Judith Darrow. + +She was wearing a simple white dress, reminiscent both in design and +decor of a Grecian tunic. A wide gilt belt augmented the effect, and her +delicate sandals did nothing to mar it. In the radiance of the +star-flowers, her eyes were more gray than green. There were shadows +under them, Philip noticed, and the lids were faintly red. + +She halted a few feet from him and looked at him without saying a word. +"I ... I brought your dog back," he said lamely. "I found him in the +back seat of my car." + +"Thank you. I've been looking all over Pfleugersville for him. I left my +Valleyview doors open, hoping he'd come home of his own accord, but I +guess he had other ideas. Now that you've discovered our secret, Mr. +Myles, what do you think of our brave new world?" + +"I think it's lovely," Philip said, "but I don't believe it's where you +seem to think it is." + +"Don't you?" she asked. "Then suppose you show me the full moon that +rose over Valleyview tonight. Or better yet, suppose I show you +something else." She pointed to a region of the heavens just to the left +of the statue's turned-up nose. "You can't see them from here," she +said, "but around that insignificant yellow star, nine planets are in +orbit. One of them is Earth." + +"But that's impossible!" he objected. "Consider the--" + +"Distance? In the sort of space we're dealing with, Mr. Myles, distance +is not a factor. In Moebius space--as we have come to call it for lack +of a better term--any two given points are coincidental, regardless of +how far apart they may be in non-Moebius space. But this becomes manifest +only when a Moebius coincidence-field is established. As you probably +know by now, Francis Pfleuger created such a field." + +At the mention of his name, Francis Pfleuger came hurrying over to where +they were standing. "E," he declared, "equals mc squared." + +"Thank you, Francis," Judith said. Then, to Philip, "Shall we walk?" + +They started down one of the converging paths, Zarathustra bringing up +the rear. Behind them, Francis returned to his Narcissistic study of +himself in stone. "We were neighbors back in Valleyview," Judith said, +"but I never dreamed he thought quite so much of himself. Ever since we +put up that statue last week, he's been staring at it night and day. +Sometimes he even brings his lunch with him." + +"He seems to be familiar with Einstein." + +"He's not really, though. He memorized the energy-mass equation in an +attempt to justify his new status in life, but he hasn't the remotest +notion of what it means. It's ironic in a way that Pfleugersville should +have been discovered by someone with an IQ of less than seventy-five." + +"No one with an IQ of less than seventy-five could create the sort of +field you were talking about." + +"He didn't create it deliberately--he brought it into being accidentally +by means of a machine he was building to tie knots with. Or at least +that's what he says. But we do know that there was such a machine +because we saw its fused parts in his kitchen, and there's no question +but what it was the source of the field. Francis, though, can't remember +how he made the parts or how he put them together. As a matter of fact, +to this day he still doesn't understand what happened--though I have a +feeling that he knows more than he lets on." + +"What _did_ happen?" Philip asked. + +For a while Judith was silent. Then, "All of us promised solemnly not to +divulge our secret to an outsider unless he was first accepted by the +group as a whole," she said. "But thanks to my negligence, you know most +of it already, so I suppose you're entitled to know the rest." She +sighed. "Very well--I'll try to explain...." + +When Francis Pfleuger's field had come into being, something had +happened to the back doors of Valleyview that caused them to open upon a +planet which one of the local star-gazers promptly identified as Sirius +XXI. The good folk of Valleyview had no idea of how such a state of +affairs could exist, to say nothing of how it could have come about, +till one of the scientists whom they asked to join them as a part of the +plan which they presently devised to make their forthcoming utopia +self-sufficient, came up with a theory that explained everything. + +According to his theory, the round-trip distance between any two +planetary or squaredstella bodies was curved in the manner of a Moebius +strip--i.e., a strip of paper given a half-twist before bringing the two +ends together. In this case, the strip represented the round-trip +distance from Earth to Sirius XXI. Earth was represented on the strip by +one dot, and Sirius XXI by another, and, quite naturally, the two dots +were an equal distance--or approximately 8.8 light years--apart. This +brought them directly opposite one another--one on one side of the +strip, the other on the other side; but since a Moebius strip has only +one surface--or side--the two dots were actually occupying the same +space at the same time. In "Moebius space", then, Earth and Sirius XXI +were "coincidental". + + * * * * * + +Philip looked over his shoulder at the little yellow sun twinkling in +the sky. "Common sense," he said, "tells me differently." + +"Common sense is a liar of the first magnitude," Judith said. "It has +misled man ever since he first climbed down from the trees. It was +common sense that inspired Ptolemy's theory of cosmogony. It was common +sense that inspired the burning of Giordano Bruno...." + +The fact that common sense indicated that 8.8 light years separated +Earth and Sirius XXI in common-sense reality didn't prove that 8.8 light +years separated them in a form of reality that was outside +common-sense's dominion--i.e., Moebius space--and Francis Pfleuger's +field had demonstrated as much. The back-door nodal areas which it had +established, however, were merely limited manifestations of that +reality--in other words, the field had merely provided limited access to +a form of space that had been in existence all along. + +"Though why," Judith concluded, "our back doors should have been +affected rather than our front doors, for example, is +inexplicable--unless it was because Francis built the machine in his +kitchen. In any event, when they did become nodal areas, they manifested +themselves on Sirius XXI, and the dogs in the immediate vicinity +associated them with the doorways of their departed masters and began +whining to be let in." + +"Their departed masters?" + +"The race that built this village. The race that built the factories and +developed the encompassing farms. A year ago, according to the records +they left behind them, they migrated to the Greater Magellanic Cloud." + +Philip was indignant. "Why didn't they take their dogs with them?" + +"They couldn't. After all, they had to leave their cars and their +furniture behind them too, not to mention almost unbelievable +stockpiles of every metal imaginable that will last us for centuries. +The logistics of space travel make taking even an extra handkerchief +along a calculated risk. Anyway, when their dogs 'found' us, they were +overjoyed, and as for us, we fell in love with them at first sight. Our +own dogs, though, didn't take to them at all, and every one of them ran +away." + +"This can't be the only village," Philip said. "There must be others +somewhere." + +"Undoubtedly there are. All we know is that the people who built this +one were the last to leave." + +The park was behind them now, and they were walking down a pleasant +street. "And when you and your neighbors discovered the village, did you +decide to become expatriates right then and there?" Philip asked. + +She nodded. "Do you blame us? You've seen for yourself what a lovely +place it is. But it's far more than that. In Valleyview, we had +unemployment. Here, there is work for everyone, and a corresponding +feeling of wantedness and togetherness. True, most of the work is +farmwork, but what of that? We have every conceivable kind of machine to +help us in our tasks. Indeed, I think that the only machine the Sirians +lacked was one that could manufacture food out of whole cloth. But +consider the most important advantage of all: when we go to bed at night +we can do so without being afraid that sometime during our sleep a +thermonuclear missile will descend out of the sky and devour us in one +huge incandescent bite. If we've made a culture hero out of our village +idiot, it's no more than right, for unwittingly or not, he opened up the +gates of paradise." + +"And you immediately saw to it that no one besides yourselves and a +chosen few would pass through them." + +Judith paused beside a white gate. "Yes, that's true," she said. "To +keep our secret, we lived in our old houses while we were settling our +affairs, closing down our few industries and setting up a new monetary +system. In fact, we even kept our ... the children in the dark for fear +that they would talk at school. Suppose, however, we _had_ publicized +our utopia. Can't you imagine the mockery opportunists would have made +out of it? The village we found was large enough to accommodate +ourselves and the few friends, relatives and specialists we asked to +join us, but no larger; and we did, after all, find it in our own back +yard." She placed her hand on the white gate. "This is where I live." + +He looked at the house, and it was enchanting. Slightly less enchanting, +but delightful in its own right, was the much smaller house beside it. +Judith pointed toward the latter dwelling and looked at Zarathustra. +"It's almost morning, Zarathustra," she said sternly. "Go to bed this +minute!" She opened the gate so that the little dog could pass through +and raised her eyes to Philip. "Our time is different here," she +explained. And then, "I'm afraid you'll have to hurry if you expect to +make it to my back door before the field dies out." + +[Illustration] + +He felt suddenly empty. "Dies out?" he repeated numbly. + +"Yes. We don't know why, but it's been diminishing in strength ever +since it first came into being, and our 'Moebius-strip scientist' has +predicted that it will cease to exist during the next twenty-four hours. +I guess I don't need to remind you that you have important business on +Earth." + +"No," he said, "I guess you don't." His emptiness bowed out before a +wave of bitterness. He had rested his hand on the gate, as close to hers +as he had dared. Now he saw that while it was inches away from hers in +one sense, it was light years away in another. He removed it angrily. +"Business always comes first with you, doesn't it?" + +"Yes. Business never lets you down." + +"Do you know what I think?" Philip said. "I think that you were the one +who did the selling out, not your husband. I think you sold him out for +a law practice." + +Her face turned white as though he had slapped it, and in a sense, he +had. "Good-by," she said, and this time he was certain that if he were +to reach out and touch her, she would shatter into a million pieces. +"Give my love to the planet Earth," she added icily. + +"Good-by," Philip said, his anger gone now, and the emptiness rushing +back. "Don't sell us short, though--we'll make a big splash in your sky +one of these days when we blow ourselves up." + +[Illustration] + +He turned and walked away. Walked out of the enchanting village and down +the highway and across the flower-pulsing plain to Judith's back +doorway. It was unlighted now, and he had trouble distinguishing it from +the others. Its shimmering blue framework was flickering. Judith had not +lied then: the field was dying out. + +He locked the back door behind him, walked sadly through the dark and +empty house and let himself out the front door. He locked the front door +behind him, too, and went down the walk and climbed into his car. He had +thought he had locked it, but apparently he hadn't. He drove out of town +and down the road to the highway, and down the highway toward the big +bright bonfire of the city. + +Dawn was exploring the eastern sky with pale pink fingers when at last +he parked his car in the garage behind his apartment building. He +reached into the back seat for his brief case and the manila envelopes. +His brief case had hair on it. It was soft and warm. "Ruf," it barked. +"Ruf-ruf!" + +He knew then that everything was all right. Just because no one had +invited him to the party didn't mean that he couldn't invite himself. He +would have to hurry, though--he had a lot of things to do, and time was +running out. + +Noon found him on the highway again, his business transacted, his +affairs settled, Zarathustra sitting beside him on the seat. One o'clock +found him driving into Valleyview; two-five found him turning down a +familiar street. He would have to leave his car behind him, but that was +all right. Leaving it to rust away in a ghost town was better than +selling it to some opportunistic dealer for a sum he would have no use +for anyway. He parked it by the curb, and after getting his suitcase out +of the trunk, walked up to the front door of Number 23. He unlocked and +opened the door, and after Zarathustra followed him inside, closed and +locked it behind him. He strode through the house to the kitchen. He +unlocked and opened the back door. He stepped eagerly across the +threshold--and stopped dead still. + +There were boards beneath his feet instead of grass. Instead of a +flower-pied plain, he saw a series of unkempt back yards. Beside him on +an unpainted trellis, Virginia creeper rattled in an October wind. + +Zarathustra came out behind him, descended the back-porch steps and ran +around the side of the house. Looking for the green-rose bush probably. + +"Ruf!" + +Zarathustra had returned and was looking up at him from the bottom step. +On the top step he had placed an offering. + +The offering was a green rose. + +Philip bent down and picked it up. It was fresh, and its fragrance +epitomized the very essence of Sirius XXI. "Zarathustra," he gasped, +"where did you get it?" + +"Ruf!" said Zarathustra, and ran around the side of the house. + +Philip followed, rounded the corner just in time to see the white-tipped +tail disappear into the ancient dog house. Disappointment numbed him. +That was where the rose had been then--stored away for safe-keeping like +an old and worthless bone. + +But the rose was fresh, he reminded himself. + +Did dog houses have back doorways? + +This one did, he saw, kneeling down and peering inside. A lovely back +doorway, rimmed with shimmering blue. It framed a familiar vista, in the +foreground of which a familiar green-rosebush stood. Beneath the +rosebush Zarathustra sat, wagging his tail. + +It was a tight squeeze, but Philip made it. He even managed to get his +suitcase through. And just in time too, for hardly had he done so when +the doorway began to flicker. Now it was on its way out, and as he +watched, it faded into transparency and disappeared. + +He crawled from beneath the rosebush and stood up. The day was bright +and warm, and the position of the sun indicated early morning or late +afternoon. No, not sun--suns. One of them was a brilliant blue-white +orb, the other a twinkling point of light. + +He set off across the plain in Zarathustra's wake. He had a speech +already prepared, and when Judith met him at the gate with wide and +wondering eyes, he delivered it without preamble. "Judith," he said, "I +am contemptuous of the notion that some things are meant to be and +others aren't, and I firmly believe in my own free will; but when your +dog stows away in the back seat of my car two times running and makes +it impossible for me not to see you again, then there must be something +afoot which neither you nor I can do a thing about. Whatever it is, I +have given in to it and have transferred your real estate to an agent +more trustworthy than myself. I know you haven't known me long, and I +know I'm not an accepted member of your group, but maybe somebody will +give me a job raking lawns or washing windows or hoeing corn long enough +for me to prove that I am not in the least antisocial; and maybe, in +time, you yourself will get to know me well enough to realize that while +I have a weakness for blondes who look like Grecian goddesses, I have no +taste whatever for redheads, brunettes, or Cutty Sark. In any event, I +have burned my bridges behind me, and whether I ever become a resident +of Pfleugersville or not, I have already become a resident of Sirius +XXI." + +Judith Darrow was silent for some time. Then, "This morning," she said, +"I wanted to ask you to join us, but I couldn't for two reasons. The +first was your commitment to sell our houses, the second was my +bitterness toward men. You have eliminated the first, and the second +seems suddenly inane." She raised her eyes. "Philip, please join us. I +want you to." + +Zarathustra, whose real name was Siddenon Phenphonderill, left them +standing there in each other's arms and trotted down the street and out +of town. He covered the ground in easy lopes that belied his three +hundred and twenty-five years, and soon he arrived at the Meeting Place. +The mayors of the other villages had been awaiting him since early +morning and were shifting impatiently on their haunches. When he +clambered up on the rostrum they extended their audio-appendages and +retractile fingers and accorded him a round of applause. He extended his +own "hands" and held them up for silence, then, retracting them again, +he seated himself before the little lectern and began his report, the +idiomatic translation of which follows forthwith: + +"Gentlemen, my apologies for my late arrival. I will touch upon the +circumstances that were responsible for it presently. + +"To get down to the matter uppermost in your minds: Yes, the experiment +was a success, and if you will use your psycho-transmutative powers to +remodel your villages along the lines my constituents and I remodeled +ours and to build enough factories to give your 'masters' that sense of +self-sufficiency so essential to their well-being, and if you will +'plant' your disassembled Multiple Moebius-Knot Dynamos in such a way +that the resultant fields will be ascribed to accidental causes, you +will have no more trouble attracting personnel than we did. Just make +sure that your 'masters' quarters are superior to your own, and that +you behave like dogs in their presence. And when you fabricate your +records concerning your mythical departed masters, see to it that they +do not conflict with the records we fabricated concerning ours. It would +be desirable indeed if our Sirian-human society could be based on less +deceitful grounds than these, but the very human attitude we are +exploiting renders this impossible at the moment. I hate to think of the +resentment we would incur were we to reveal that, far from being the +mere dogs we seem to be, we are capable of mentally transmuting natural +resources into virtually anything from a key to a concert hall, and I +hate even more to think of the resentment we would incur were we to +reveal that, for all our ability in the inanimate field, we have never +been able to materialize so much as a single blade of grass in the +animate field, and that our reason for coincidentalizing the planet +Earth and creating our irresistible little utopias stems not from a need +for companionship but from a need for gardeners. However, you will find +that all of this can be ironed out eventually through the human +children, with whom you will be thrown into daily contact and whom you +will find to possess all of their parents' abiding love for us and none +of their parents' superior attitude toward us. To a little child, a dog +is a companion, not a pet; an equal, not an inferior--and the little +children of today will be the grown-ups of tomorrow. + +"To return to the circumstances that occasioned my late arrival: I ... I +must confess, gentlemen, that I became quite attached to the 'mistress' +into whose house I sought entry when we first established our field and +who subsequently adopted me when I convinced her real dog that he would +find greener pastures elsewhere. So greatly attached did I become, in +fact, that when the opportunity of ostracizing her loneliness presented +itself, I could not refrain from taking advantage of it. The person to +whom she was most suited and who was most suited to her appeared +virtually upon her very doorstep; but in her stubbornness and in her +pride she aggravated rather than encouraged him, causing him to rebel +against the natural attraction he felt toward her. I am happy to report +that, by means of a number of subterfuges--the final one of which +necessitated the use of our original doorway--I was able to set this +matter right, and that these two once-lonely people are about to embark +upon a relationship which in their folklore is oftentimes quaintly +alluded to by the words, 'They lived happily ever after.' + +"And now, gentlemen, the best of luck to you and your constituents, and +may you end up with servants as excellent as ours. I hereby declare this +meeting adjourned." + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +This etext was produced from "Analog Science Fact Science Fiction" +November 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that +the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Servant Problem, by Robert F. Young + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SERVANT PROBLEM *** + +***** This file should be named 23232.txt or 23232.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/3/23232/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Iain Arnell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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