Paine rubbed his forehead wearily. It didn't seem possible. Maybe he was out of his mind. The town was real. Completely real. It must have always existed. A whole town couldn't rise up out of nothing; out of a cloud of gray haze. Five thousand people, houses and streets and stores.
Stores. Bradshaw Insurance.
Stabbing realization chilled him. Suddenly he understood. It was spreading. Beyond Macon Heights. Into the city. The city was changing, too. Bradshaw Insurance. Critchet's place of business.
Macon Heights couldn't exist without warping the city. They interlocked. The five thousand people came from the city. Their jobs. Their lives. The city was involved.
But how much? How much was the city changing?
Paine threw a quarter on the counter and hurried out of the drugstore, toward the train station. He had to get back to the city. Laura, the change. Was she still there? Was his own life safe?
Fear gripped him. Laura, all his possessions, his plans, hopes and dreams. Suddenly Macon Heights was unimportant. His own world was in jeopardy. Only one thing
mattered now. He had to make sure of it; make sure his own life was still there. Untouched by the spreading circle of change that was lapping out from Macon Heights.
"Where to, buddy?" the cabdriver asked, as Paine came rushing out of the train station.
Paine gave him the address of the apartment. The cab roared out into traffic. Paine settled back nervously. Outside the window the streets and office buildings flashed past. White collar workers were already beginning to get off work, swelling out onto the sidewalks to stand in clumps at each corner.
How much had changed? He concentrated on a row of buildings. The big department store. Had that always been there? The little boot-black shop next to it. He had never noticed that before.
NORRIS HOME FURNISHINGS.
He didn't remember that. But how could he be sure? He felt confused. How could he tell?
The cab let him off in front of the apartment house. Paine stood for a moment, looking around him. Down at the end of the block the owner of the Italian delicatessen was out putting up the awning. Had he ever noticed a delicatessen there before? He could not remember.
What had happened to the big meat market across the street? There was nothing but neat little houses; older houses that looked like they'd been there plenty long. Had a meat market ever been there? The houses looked solid.
In the next block the striped pole of a barbershop glittered. Had there always been a barbershop there?
Maybe it had always been there. Maybe, and maybe not. Everything was shifting. New things were coming into existence, others going away. The past was altering, and memory was tied to the past. How could he trust his memory? How could he be sure?
Terror gripped him. Laura. His world... .
Paine raced up the front steps and pushed open the door of the apartment house. He hurried up the carpeted stairs to the second floor. The door of the apartment was unloc
The living room was dark and silent. The shades were half pulled. He glanced around wildly. The light blue couch, magazines on its arms. The low blond-oak table. The television set. But the room was empty.
"Laura!" he gasped.
Laura hurried from the kitchen, eyes wide with alarm. "Bob! What are you doing home? Is anything the matter?"
Paine relaxed, sagging with relief. "Hello, honey." He kissed her, holding her tight against him. She was warm and substantial; completely real. "No, nothing's wrong. Everything's fine."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure." Paine took his coat off shakily and dropped it over the back of the couch. He wandered around the room, examining things, his confidence returning. His familiar blue couch, cigarette burns on its arms. His old ragged footstool. His desk where he did his work at night. His fishing rods leaning up against the wall behind the bookcase.
The big television set he had purchased only last month; that was safe, too.
Everything, all he owned, was untouched. Safe. Unharmed.
"Dinner won't be ready for half an hour," Laura murmured anxiously, unfastening her apron. "I didn't expect you home so early. I've just been sitting around all day. I did clean the stove. Some salesman left a sample of a new cleanser."
"That's OK." He examined a favorite Renoir print on the wall. "Take your time. It's good to see all these things again. I—"
From the bedroom a crying sound came. Laura turned quickly. "I guess we woke up Jimmy."
"Jimmy?"
Laura laughed. "Darling, don't you remember your own son?"
"Of course," Paine murmured, annoyed. He followed Laura slowly into the bedroom. "Just for a minute everything seemed strange." He rubbed his forehead, frowning. "Strange and unfamiliar. Sort of out of focus."
They stood by the crib, gazing down at the baby. Jimmy glared back up at his mother and dad.
"It must have been the sun," Laura said. "It's so terribly hot outside."
"That must be it. I'm OK now." Paine reached down and poked at the baby. He put his arm around his wife, hugging her to him. "It must have been the sun," he said. He looked down into her eyes and smiled.
A PRESENT FOR PAT
"WHAT is it?" Patricia Blake demanded eagerly.
"What's what?" Eric Blake murmured.
"What did you bring? I know you brought me something!" Her bosom rose and fell excitedly under her mesh blouse. "You brought me a present. I can tell!"
"Honey, I went to Ganymede for Terran Metals, not to find you curios. Now let me unpack my things. Bradshaw says I have to report to the office early tomorrow. He says I better report some good ore deposits."
Pat snatched up a small box, heaped with all the other luggage the robot porter had deposited at the door. "Is it jewelry? No, it's too big for jewelry." She began to tear the cord from the box with her sharp fingernails.
Eric frowned uneasily. "Don't be disappointed, honey. It's sort of strange. Not what you expect." He watched apprehensively. "Don't get mad at me. I'll explain all about it."
Pat's mouth fell open. She turned pale. She dropped the box quickly on the table, eyes wide with horror. "Good Lord! What is it?"
Eric twisted nervously. "I got a good buy on it, honey. You can't usually pick one of them up. The Ganymedeans don't like to sell them, and I—"
"What is it?"
"It's a god," Eric muttered. "A minor Ganymedean deity. I got it practically at cost."
Pat gazed down at the box with fear and growing disgust. "That? That's a—a god?"
In the box was a small, motionless figure, perhaps ten inches high. It was old, terribly old. Its tiny clawlike hands were pressed against its scaly breast. Its insect face was twisted in a scowl of anger—mixed with cynical lust. Instead of legs it rested on a tangle of tentacles. The lower portion of its face dissolved in a complex beak, mandibles of some hard substance. There was an odor to it, as of manure and stale beer. It appeared to be bisexual.
Eric had thoughtfully put a little water dish and some straw in the box. He had punched air holes in the lid and crumbled up newspaper fragments.
"You mean it's an idol." Pat regained her poise slowly. "An idol of a deity."
"No." Eric shook his head stubbornly. "This is a genuine deity. There's a warranty, or something."
"Is it—dead?"
"Not at all."
"Then why doesn't it move?"
"You have to arouse it." The bottom of the figure's belly cupped outward in a hollow bowl. Eric tapped the bowl. "Place an offering here and it comes to life. I'll show you."