He was walking again-too miserable to run, he told himself.
He was getting hungry and really, really frightened when he saw that spark to the right.
It was a house, of course!
He shouted wildly and no one answered, but it was a house, a spark of reality blinking at him through the horrible, nameless wilderness of the last hours. He turned off the road and went plunging cross-country, across ditches, around trees, through the underbrush, and over a creek.
Queer thing! Even the creek glowed faintly-phosphorescently! But it was only the tiniest fragment of his mind that noted it.
Then he was there, with his hands reaching out to touch the hard white structure. It was neither brick nor stone nor wood, but he never paid that the least mind. It looked like a dun, strong porcelain, but he didn't give a hoot. He was just looking for a door, and when he came to it and saw no bell, he kicked at it and yelled like a demon.
He heard the stirring inside and the blessed, lovely sound of a human voice other than his own. He yelled again.
"Hey, in there!"
There was a faint, oiled whir, and the door opened. A woman emerged, a spark of alarm in her eyes. She was tan and wiry, and behind her was the gaunt figure of a hard-faced man in work clothes…No, not work clothes. Actually they were like nothing Schwartz had ever seen, but, in some indefinable way, they looked like the kind of clothes men worked in.
But Schwartz was not analytical. To him they, and their clothes, were beautiful; beautiful only as the sight of friends to a man alone can be beautiful.
The woman spoke and her voice was liquid, but peremptory, and Schwartz reached for the door to keep himself upright. His lips moved, uselessly, and, in a rush, all the clammiest fears he had known returned to choke his windpipe and stifle his heart.
For the woman spoke in no language Schwartz had ever heard.
2. The Disposal Of A Stranger
Loa Maren and her stolid husband, Arbin, played cards in the cool of the same evening, while the older man in the motor-driven wheel chair in the corner rustled his newspaper angrily and caned, " Arbin!"
Arbin Maren did not answer at once. He fingered the thin, smooth rectangles carefully as he considered the next play. Then, as he slowly made his decision, he responded with an absent, "What do you want, Grew?"
The grizzled Grew regarded his son-in-law fiercely over the top of the paper and rustled it again. He found noise of that sort a great relief to his feelings. When a man teems with energy and finds himself spiked to a wheel chair with two dead sticks for legs, there must be something, by Space, he can do to express himself. Grew used his newspaper. He rustled it; he gestured with it; when necessary, he swatted at things with it.
Elsewhere than on Earth, Grew knew, they had telenews machines that issued rolls of microfilm as servings of current news. Standard book viewers were used for them. But Grew sneered silently at that. An effete and degenerate custom!
Grew said, "Did you read about the archaeological expedition they're sending to Earth?"
"No, I haven't," said Arbin calmly.
Grew knew that, since nobody but himself had seen the paper yet, and the family had given up their video last year. But then his remark had simply been in the nature of an opening gambit, anyway.
He said, "Well, there's one coming. And on an Imperial grant, too, and how do you like that?" He began reciting in the queer unevenness of tone that most people somehow assume automatically when reading aloud, " 'Bel Arvardan, Senior Research Associate at the Imperial Archaeological Institute, in an interview granted the Galactic Press, spoke hopefully of the expected valuable results of archaeological studies which are being projected upon the planet Earth, located on the outskirts of the Sirius Sector (see map). "Earth," he said, "with its archaic civilization and its unique environment, offers a freak culture which has been too long neglected by our social scientists, except as a difficult exercise in local government. I have every expectation that the next year or two will bring about revolutionary changes in some of our supposed fundamental concepts of social evolution and human history." And so on and so on," he finished with a flourish.
Arbin Maren had been listening with only half an ear. He mumbled, "What does he mean, 'freak culture'?"
Loa Maren hadn't been listening at all. She simply said. "It's your play, Arbin."
Grew went on, "Well, aren't you going to ask me why the Tribune printed it? You know they wouldn't print a Galactic Press release for a million Imperial Credits without a good reason."
He waited uselessly for an answer, then said, "Because they have an editorial on it. A full-page editorial that blasts the living daylights out of this guy Arvardan. Here's a fellow wants to come here for scientific purposes and they're choking themselves purple to keep him out. Look at this piece of rabble-rousing. Look at it!" He shook the paper at them. "Read it, why don't you?"
Loa Maren put down her cards and clamped her thin lips firmly together. "Father," she said, "we've had a hard day, so let's not have politics just now. Later, maybe, eh? Please, Father."
Grew scowled and mimicked, " 'Please, Father! Please, Father.' It appears to me you must be getting pretty tired of your old father when you begrudge him a few quiet words on current events. I'm in your way, I suppose, sitting here in the comer and letting you two work for three…Whose fault is it? I'm strong. I'm willing to work. And you know I could get my legs treated and be as well as ever." He slapped them as he spoke: hard. savage, ringing slaps, which he heard but did not feel. "The only reason I can't is because I'm getting too old to make a cure worth their while. Don't you can that a 'freak culture'? What else could you can a world where a man can work but they won't let him? By Space, I think it's about time we stopped this nonsense about our so-called 'peculiar institutions.' They're not just peculiar; they're cracked! I think-"
He was waving his arms and angry blood was reddening his face.
But Arbin had risen from his chair, and his grip was strong on the older man's shoulder. He said, "Now where's the call to be upset, Grew? When you're through with the paper, I'll read the editorial."
"Sure, but you'll agree with them, so what's the use? You young ones are a bunch of milksops; just sponge rubber in the hands of the Ancients."
And Loa said sharply, "Quiet, Father. Don't start that." She sat there listening for a moment. She could not have said exactly what for, but…
Arbin felt that cold little prickle that always came when the Society of Ancients was mentioned. It just wasn't safe to talk as Grew did, to mock Earth's ancient culture, to-to- Why, it was rank Assimilationism. He swallowed earnestly; the word was an ugly one, even when confined to thought.
Of course in Grew's youth there had been much of this foolish talk of abandoning the old ways, but these were different times. Grew should know that-and he probably did, except that it wasn't easy to be reasonable and sensible when you were in a wheel-chair prison, just waiting away your days for the next Census.
Grew was perhaps the least affected, but he said no more. And as the moments passed he grew quieter and the print became progressively more difficult to place in focus. He had not yet had time to give the sports pages a detailed and critical perusal when his nodding head lolled slowly down upon his chest. He snored softly, and the paper fell from his fingers with a final, unintentional rustle.
Then Loa spoke, in a worried whisper. "Maybe we're not being kind to him, Arbin. It's a hard life for a man like Father. It's like being dead compared to the life he used to lead."
"Nothing's like being dead, Loa. He has his papers and his books. Let him be! A bit of excitement like this peps him up. He'll be happy and quiet for days now."
Arbin was beginning to consider his cards again, and as he reached for one the pounding at the door sounded, with hoarse yells that didn't quite coalesce into words.