"What if -- they find him?"
Tyler shook his head angrily. He was still tense, on edge. "Don't you understand? They'll never find him -- he doesn't exist. At least, not in our world. He's in his own world. You saw it. The model. The improved substitute."
"He's there?"
"All his life he's worked on it. Built it up. Made it real. He brought that world into being -- and now he's in it. That's what he wanted. That's why he built it. He didn't merely dream about an escape world. He actually constructed it -- every bit and piece. Now he's warped himself right out of our world, into it. Out of our lives."
world. He actually constructed it -- every bit and piece. Now he's warped himself right out of our world, into it. Out of our lives."
"It took me awhile to realize it. The mind constructs reality. Frames it. Creates it. We all have a common reality, a common dream. But Haskel turned his back on our common reality and created his own. And he had a unique capacity -- far beyond the ordinary. He devoted his whole life, his whole skill to building it. He's there now."
Tyler hesitated and frowned. He gripped the wheel tightly and increased speed. The Buick hissed along the dark street, through the silent, unmoving bleakness that was the town.
"There's only one thing," he continued presently. "One thing I don't understand."
"What is it?"
"The model. It was also gone. I assumed he'd -- shrink, I suppose. Merge with it. But the model's gone, too." Tyler shrugged. "It doesn't matter." He peered into the darkness. "We're almost there. This is Elm."
It was then Madge screamed. "Look!"
To the right of the car was a small, neat building. And a sign. The sign was easily visible in the darkness.
WOODLAND MORTUARY
Madge was sobbing in horror. The car roared forward, automatically guided by Tyler's numb hands. Another sign flashed by briefly, as they coasted up before the city hall.
STEUBEN PET SHOP
The city hall was lit by recessed, hidden illumination. A low, simple building, a square of glowing white. Like a marble Greek temple.
Tyler pulled the car to a halt. Then suddenly shrieked and started up again. But not soon enough.
The two shiny-black police cars came silently up around the Buick, one on each side. The four stern cops already had their hands on the door. Stepping out and coming toward him, grim and efficient.
Souvenir
"Here we go, sir," the robot pilot said. The words startled Rogers and made him look up sharply. He tensed his body and adjusted the trace web inside his coat as the bubble ship started dropping, swiftly and silently, toward the planet's surface.
This -- his heart caught -- was Williamson's World. The legendary lost planet -- found, after three centuries. By accident, of course. This blue and green planet, the holy grail of the Galactic System, had been almost miraculously discovered by a routine charting mission.
Frank Williamson had been the first Terran to develop an outer-space drive -- the first to hop from the Solar System toward the universe beyond. He had never come back. He -- his world, his colony -- had never been found. There had been endless rumors, false leads, fake legends -- and nothing more.
"I'm receiving field clearance." The robot pilot raised the gain on the control speaker, and clicked to attention.
"Field ready," came a ghostly voice from below. "Remember, your drive mechanism is unfamiliar to us. How much run is required? Emergency brake-walls are up."
to us. How much run is required? Emergency brake-walls are up."
Three hundred years! It had taken a long time to find Williamson's World. Many authorities had given him up. Some believed he had never landed, had died out in space. Perhaps there was no Williamson's World. Certainly there had been no real clues, nothing tangible to go on. Frank Williamson and three families had utterly disappeared in the trackless void, never to be heard from again.
Until now...
The young man met him at the field. He was thin and red-haired and dressed in a colorful suit of bright material. "You're from the Galactic Relay Center?" he asked.
"That's right," Rogers said huskily. "I'm Edward Rogers."
The young man held out his hand. Rogers shook it awkwardly. "My name is Williamson," the young man said. "Gene Williamson."
The name thundered in Rogers' ears. "Are you --"
The young man nodded, his gaze enigmatical. "I'm his great-great-great-great-grandson. His tomb is here. You may see it, if you wish."
"I almost expected to see him. He's -- well, almost a god-figure to us. The first man to break out of the Solar System."
"He means a lot to us, too," the young man said. "He brought us here. They searched a long time before they found a planet that was habitable." Williamson waved at the city stretched out beyond the field. "This one proved satisfactory. It's the System's tenth planet."
Rogers' eyes began to shine. Williamson's World. Under his feet. He stamped hard as they walked down the ramp together, away from the field. How many men in the Galaxy had dreamed of striding down a landing ramp onto Williamson's World with a young descendant of Frank Williamson beside them?
"They'll all want to come here," Williamson said, as if aware of his thoughts. "Throw rubbish around and break off the flowers. Pick up handfuls of dirt to take back." He laughed a little nervously. "The Relay will control them, of course."
"Of course," Rogers assured him.
At the ramp-end Rogers stopped short. For the first time he saw the city.
"What's wrong?" Gene Williamson asked, with a faint trace of amusement.
They had been cut off, of course. Isolated -- so perhaps it wasn't so surprising. It was a wonder they weren't living in caves, eating raw meat. But Williamson had always symbolized progress -development. He had been a man ahead of other men.
True, his space-drive by modern standards had been primitive, a curiosity. But the concept remained unaltered; Williamson the pioneer, and inventor. The man who built.
Yet the city was nothing more than a village, with a few dozen houses, and some public buildings and industrial units at its perimeter. Beyond the city stretched green fields, hills, and broad prairies. Surface vehicles crawled leisurely along the narrow streets and most of the citizens walked on foot. An incredible anachronism it seemed, dragged up from the past.
"I'm accustomed to the uniform Galactic culture," Rogers said. "Relay keeps the technocratic and ideological level constant throughout. It's hard to adjust to such a radically different social stage. But you've been cut off."
"Cut off?" asked Williamson.
"From Relay. You've had to develop without help."
In front of them a surface vehicle crept to a halt. The driver opened the doors manually.
"Now that I recall these factors, I can adjust," Rogers assured him.
"On the contrary," Williamson said, entering the vehicle. "We've been receiving your Relay coordinates for over a century." He motioned Rogers to get in beside him.
Rogers was puzzled. "I don't understand. You mean you hooked onto the web and yet made no attempt to --"
attempt to --"
The surface vehicle hurried along the highway, past the rim of an immense red hill. Soon the city lay behind them -- a faintly glowing place reflecting the rays of the sun. Bushes and plants appeared along the highway. The sheer side of the cliff rose, a towering wall of deep red sandstone; ragged, untouched.
"Nice evening," Williamson said.
Rogers nodded in disturbed agreement.
Williamson rolled down the window. Cool air blew into the car. A few gnatlike insects followed. Far off, two tiny figures were plowing a field -- a man and a huge lumbering beast.