"No, sir."
Paine showed his identification. "You're sure you never heard of any place by that name?"
"Positive, Mr Paine."
"How long have you been on this run?"
"Eleven years, Mr Paine."
Paine rode on until the next stop, Jacksonville. He got off and transferred to a B train heading back to the city. The sun had set. The sky was almost black. Dimly, he could make out the scenery out there beyond the window.
He tensed, holding his breath. One minute to go. Forty seconds. Was there anything? Level fields. Bleak telephone poles. A barren, wasted landscape between towns,
Between? The train rushed on, hurtling through the gloom. Paine gazed out fixedly. Was there something out there? Something beside the fields?
Above the fields a long mass of translucent smoke lay stretched out. A homogeneous mass, extended for almost a mile. What was it? Smoke from the engine? But the engine was diesel. From a truck along the highway? A brush fire? None of the fields looked burned.
Above the fields a long mass of translucent smoke lay stretched out. A homogeneous mass, extended for almost a mile. What was it? Smoke from the engine? But the engine was diesel. From a truck along the highway? A brush fire? None of the fields looked burned.
Across the aisle a tall man in a light coat got to his feet, put his hat on, and moved rapidly toward the door. He leaped down from the train, onto the ground. Paine watched him, fascinated. The man walked rapidly away from the train across the dark fields. He moved with purpose, heading toward the bank of gray haze.
The man rose. He was walking a foot off the ground. He turned to the right. He rose again, now -- three feet off the ground. For a moment he walked parallel to the ground, still heading away from the train. Then he vanished into the bank of haze. He was gone.
Paine hurried up the aisle. But already the train had begun gathering speed. The ground moved past outside. Paine located the conductor, leaning against the wall of the car, a pudding-faced youth.
"Listen," Paine grated. "What was that stop!"
"Beg pardon, sir?"
"That stop! Where the hell were we?"
"We always stop there." Slowly, the conductor reached into his coat and brought out a handful of schedules. He sorted through them and passed one to Paine. "The B always stops at Macon Heights. Didn't you know that?"
"No!"
"It's on the schedule." The youth raised his pulp magazine again. "Always stops there. Always has. Always will."
Paine tore the schedule open. It was true. Macon Heights was listed between Jacksonville and Lewisburg. Exactly thirty miles from the city.
The cloud of gray haze. The vast cloud, gaining form rapidly. As if something were coming into existence. As a matter of fact, something was coming into existence.
Macon Heights!
He caught Laura at her apartment the next morning. She was sitting at the coffee table in a pale pink sweater and dark slacks. Before her was a pile of notes, a pencil and eraser, and a malted milk.
"How did you make out?" Paine demanded.
"Fine. I got your information."
"What's the story?"
"There was quite a bit of material." She patted the sheaf of notes. "I summed up the major parts for you."
"Let's have the summation."
"Seven years ago this August the county board of supervisors voted on three new suburban housing tracts to be set up outside the city. Macon Heights was one of them. There was a big debate. Most of the city merchants opposed the new tracts. Said they would draw too much retail business away from the city."
"Go on."
"There was a long fight. Finally two of the three tracts were approved. Waterville and Cedar Groves. But not Macon Heights."
"I see," Paine murmured thoughtfully.
"Macon Heights was defeated. A compromise; two tracts instead of three. The two tracts were built up right away. You know. We passed through Waterville one afternoon. Nice little place."
"But no Macon Heights."
"No. Macon Heights was given up."
Paine rubbed his jaw. "That's the story, then."
"That's the story. Do you realize I lose a whole half-day's pay because of this? You have to take me out, tonight. Maybe I should get another fellow. I'm beginning to think you're not such a good bet."
me out, tonight. Maybe I should get another fellow. I'm beginning to think you're not such a good bet."
Laura consulted her notes. "The project was defeated by a single vote."
"A single vote. Seven years ago." Paine moved out into the hall. Thanks, honey. Things are beginning to make sense. Lots of sense!"
He caught a cab out front. The cab raced him across the city, toward the train station. Outside, signs and streets flashed by. People and stores and cars.
His hunch had been correct. He had heard the name before. Seven years ago. A bitter county debate on a proposed suburban tract. Two towns approved; one defeated and forgotten.
But now the forgotten town was coming into existence -- seven years later. The town and an undetermined slice of reality along with it. Why? Had something changed in the past? Had an alteration occurred in some past continuum?
That seemed like the explanation. The vote had been close. Macon Heights had almost been approved. Maybe certain parts of the past were unstable. Maybe that particular period, seven years ago, had been critical. Maybe it had never completely "jelled". An odd thought: the past changing, after it had already happened.
Suddenly Paine's eyes focused. He sat up quickly. Across the street was a store sign, halfway along the block. Over a small, inconspicuous establishment. As the cab moved forward Paine peered to see.
BRADSHAW INSURANCE [OR] NOTARY PUBLIC
He pondered. Critchet's place of business. Did it also come and go? Had it always been there? Something about it made him uneasy.
"Hurry it up," Paine ordered the driver. "Let's get going."
When the train slowed down at Macon Heights, Paine got quickly to his feet and made his way up the aisle to the door. The grinding wheels jerked to a halt and Paine leaped down onto the hot gravel siding. He looked around him.
In the afternoon sunlight, Macon Heights glittered and sparkled, its even rows of houses stretching out in all directions. In the center of the town the marquee of the theater rose up.
A theater, even. Paine headed across the track toward the town. Beyond the train station was a parking lot. He stepped up onto the lot and crossed it, following a path past a filling station and onto a sidewalk.
He came out on the main street of the town. A double row of stores stretched out ahead of him. A hardware store. Two drugstores. A dime store. A modern department store.
Paine walked along, hands in his pockets, gazing around him at Macon Heights. An apartment building stuck up, tall and fat. A janitor was washing down the front steps. Everything looked new and modern. The houses, the stores, the pavement and sidewalks. The parking meters. A brown-uniformed cop was giving a car a ticket. Trees, growing at intervals. Neatly clipped and pruned.
He passed a big supermarket. Out in front was a bin of fruit, oranges and grapes. He picked a grape and bit into it.
The grape was real, all right. A big black concord grape, sweet and ripe. Yet twenty-four hours ago there had been nothing here but a barren field.
Paine entered one of the drugstores. He leafed through some magazines and then sat down at the counter. He ordered a cup of coffee from the red-cheeked little waitress.
"This is a nice town," Paine said, as she brought the coffee.
"Yes, isn't it?"
Paine hesitated. "How -- how long have you been working here?"
Paine hesitated. "How -- how long have you been working here?"
"Three months?" Paine studied the buxom little blonde. "You live here in Macon Heights?"