“I’m glad you allowed me to come,” said Emerak. “It isn’t often that a youngster like me gets a chance to—” Emerak’s voice tailed off in a cry of amazement and pain.
“Emerak?” questioned Skrid. There was no reply.
“Where did the youngster go? What happened?” Ullowa said.
“Some fool stunt, I suppose. That little speech of his was too good to be true, Ullowa.”
“No, I can’t seem to locate him anywhere. Can you? Uh, Skrid! Help me! I’m—I’m—Skrid, it’s killing me!”
The sense of pain that burst from Ullowa was very real, and it left Skrid trembling. “Ullowa! Ullowa!”
Skrid felt fear for the first time in more eons than he could remember, and the unfamiliar fright-sensation disturbed his sensitively balanced mind. “Emerald Ullowa! Why don’t you answer?”
Is this the end, Skrid thought, the end of everything? Are we going to perish here after so many years of life? To die alone and unattended, on a dismal planet billions of miles from home? Death was a concept too alien for him to accept.
He called again, his impulses stronger this time. “Emerak! Ullowa! Where are you?”
In panic, he shot beams of thought all around, but the only radiations he picked up were the mindless ones of the newly born.
“Ullowa!”
There was no answer, and Skrid began to feel his fragile body disintegrating. The limbs he had been so proud of—so complex and finely traced—began to blur and twist. He sent out one more frantic cry, feeling the weight of his great age, and sensing the dying thoughts of the newly born around him. Then he melted and trickled away over the heap, while the newborn snowflakes of the Third World watched uncomprehending, even as their own doom was upon them. The sun was beginning to climb over the horizon, and its deadly warmth beat down.
THE STREET THAT WASN’T THERE
Clifford D. Simak and Carl Jacobi
Many science fiction writers have theorized that there might be other “dimensions” or other “planes” of reality, inhabited by beings totally unknown to us. But what if such eerie creatures began to make their way into our world? What effect would they have on us? This deceptively quiet story suggests an unexpected kind of invasion from beyond.
Both Clifford Simak and Carl Jacobi are long-time authors of science fiction, their earliest stories dating back into the 1930’s. The Street That Wasn’t There, written when they were both members of the Minneapolis Fantasy Society, is their only collaboration.
Mr. Jonathan Chambers left his house on Maple Street at exactly seven o’clock in the evening and set out on the daily walk he had taken, at the same time, come rain or snow, for twenty solid years.
The walk never varied. He paced two blocks down Maple Street, stopped at the Red Star confectionery to buy a Rosa Trofero perfecto, then walked to the end of the fourth block on Maple. There he turned right on Lexington, followed Lexington to Oak, down Oak and so by way of Lincoln back to Maple again and to his home.
He took his time. He always returned to his front door at exactly seven forty-five. No one ever stopped to talk with him. Even the man at the Red Star confectionery, where he bought his cigar, remained silent while the purchase was being made. Mr. Chambers merely tapped on the glass top of the counter with a coin, the man reached in and brought forth the box, and Mr. Chambers took his cigar. That was all.
For people long ago had gathered that Mr. Chambers desired to be left alone. The newer generation of townsfolk called it eccentricity. Certain uncouth persons had a different word for it. The oldsters remembered that this queer-looking individual with his black silk muffler, rosewood cane, and bowler hat once had been a professor at State University.
A professor of metaphysics, they seemed to recall, or some such outlandish subject. At any rate, a furore of some sort was connected with his name—at the time an academic scandal. He had written a book, and he had taught the subject matter of that volume to his classes. What that subject matter was had been long forgotten, but it had been considered sufficiently revolutionary to cost Mr. Chambers his post at the University.
A silver moon shone over the chimneytops and a chill, impish October wind was rustling the dead leaves when Mr. Chambers started out at seven o’clock. It was a good night, he told himself, smelling the clean, crisp air of autumn and the faint pungence of distant wood smoke.
He walked unhurriedly, swinging his cane a bit less jauntily than twenty years ago. He tucked the muffler more securely under the rusty old topcoat and pulled his bowler hat more firmly on his head. He noticed that the streetlight at the corner of Maple and Jefferson was out, and he grumbled a little to himself when he was forced to step off the walk to encircle a boarded-off section of newly laid concrete work before the driveway of 816.
It seemed that he reached the corner of Lexington and Maple just a bit too quickly, but he told himself that this couldn’t be. For he had never done that. For twenty years, since the year following his expulsion from the University, he had lived by the clock. The same thing, at the same time, day after day. He had not deliberately set upon such a life of routine. A bachelor, living alone with sufficient money to supply his humble needs, the timed existence had grown on him gradually.
So he turned on Lexington and back on Oak. The dog at the corner of Oak and Jefferson was waiting for him once again and came out snarling and growling, snapping at his heels. But Mr. Chambers pretended not to notice and the beast gave up the chase.
A radio blared down the street and faint phrases floated to Mr. Chambers.
“… still taking place … Empire State building disappeared … thin air … famed scientist, Dr. Edmund Harcourt …”
The wind whipped the muted words away and Mr. Chambers grumbled to himself. Another one of those fantastic radio dramas, probably. He remembered one from many years before, something about the Martians. And Harcourt! What did Harcourt have to do with it? He was one of the men who had ridiculed the book Mr. Chambers had written.
But he pushed speculation away, sniffed the clean, crisp air again, looked at the familiar things that materialized out of the late-autumn darkness as he walked along. For there was nothing, absolutely nothing in the world, that he would let upset him. That was a tenet he had laid down twenty years ago.
There was a crowd of men talking excitedly in front of the drugstore at the corner of Oak and Lincoln. Mr. Chambers caught sentences: “It’s happening everywhere… . What do you think it is? … The scientists can’t explain …”
But as Mr. Chambers neared them they fell into what seemed an abashed silence and watched him pass. He, on his part, gave them no sign of recognition. That was the way it had been for many years, ever since the people had become convinced that he did not wish to talk. One of the men half started forward as if to speak to him, but then stepped back and Mr. Chambers continued on his walk.
Back at his own front door he stopped and, as he had done a thousand times before, drew forth the heavy gold watch from his pocket.
He started violently. It was only seven-thirty!
For long minutes he stood there staring at the watch in accusation. The timepiece had not stopped, for it still ticked audibly. But fifteen minutes too soon! For twenty years, day in, day out, he had started out at seven and returned at quarter to eight.