The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Vi Part 146

The woman nodded. "I turned the young man inside out. In a moment the transition will be complete. You will be our next entrance to this universe...."

From Red's bunk came a wail. A bawl, like a tiny baby. A dying baby.

Some people die of age. Red died an infant. As for the minus woman--she was murdered on an asteroid.

THE SERVANT PROBLEM.

by Robert J. Young

If you have ever lived in a small town, you have seen Francis Pfleuger, and probably you have sent him after sky-hooks, left-handed monkey-wrenches and pails of steam, and laughed uproariously behind his back when he set forth to do your bidding. The Francis Pfleugers of the world have inspired both fun and laughter for generations out of mind.

The Francis Pfleuger we are concerned with here lived in a small town named Valleyview, and in addition to suffering the distinction of being the village idiot, he also suffered the distinction of being the village inventor. These two distinctions frequently go hand in hand, and afford, in their incongruous togetherness, an even greater inspiration for fun and laughter. For in this advanced age of streamlined electric can openers and sleek pop-up toasters, who but the most naive among us can fail to be t.i.tillated by the thought of a buck-toothed, wall-eyed moron building Rube Goldberg contrivances in his bas.e.m.e.nt?

The Francis Pfleuger we are concerned with did his inventing in his kitchen rather than in his bas.e.m.e.nt; nevertheless, his machines were in the Rube Goldberg tradition. Take the one he was a.s.sembling now, for example. It stood on the kitchen table, and its various attachments jutted this way and that with no apparent rhyme or reason. In its center there was a transparent globe that looked like an upside-down goldfish bowl, and in the center of the bowl there was an object that startlingly resembled a goldfish, but which, of course, was nothing of the sort. Whatever it was, though, it kept growing brighter and brighter each time Francis added another attachment, and had already attained a degree of incandescence so intense that he had been forced to don cobalt-blue goggles in order to look at it. The date was the First of April, 1962--April Fool's Day.

Actually, the idea for this particular machine had not originated in Francis' brain, nor had the parts for it originated in his kitchen-workshop. When he had gone out to get the milk that morning he had found a box on his doorstep, and in the box he had found the goldfish bowl and the attachments, plus a sheet of instructions ent.i.tled, DIRECTIONS FOR a.s.sEMBLING A MULTIPLE MoBIUS-KNOT DYNAMO. Francis thought that a machine capable of tying knots would be pretty keen, and he had carried the box into the kitchen and set to work forthwith.

He now had but one more part to go, and he proceeded to screw it into place. Then he stepped back to admire his handiwork. Simultaneously his handiwork went into action. The attachments began to quiver and to emit sparks; the globe glowed, and the goldfishlike object in its center began to dart this way and that as though striking at flies. A blue halo formed above the machine and began to rotate. Faster and faster it rotated, till finally its gaseous components separated and flew off in a hundred different directions. Three things happened then in swift succession: Francis' back doorway took on a bluish cast, the sheet of instructions vanished, and the machine began to melt.

A moment later he heard a whining sound on his back doorstep.

Simultaneously all of the residents of Valleyview heard whining sounds on their back doorsteps.

Naturally everybody went to find out about the whining.

The sign was a new one. At the most it was no more than six months old. YOU ARE ENTERING THE VILLAGE OF VALLEYVIEW, it said. PLEASE DRIVE CAREFULLY--WE ARE FOND OF OUR DOGS.

Philip Myles drove carefully. He was fond of dogs, too.

Night had tiptoed in over the October countryside quite some time ago, but the village of Valleyview had not turned on so much as a single streetlight--nor, apparently, any other kind of light. All was in darkness, and not a soul was to be seen. Philip began to suspect that he had entered a ghost town, and when his headlights darted across a dark intersection and picked up the overgrown gra.s.s and unkempt shrubbery of the village park, he was convinced that he had. Then he saw the girl walking the dog.

He kitty-cornered the intersection and pulled up alongside her. She was a blonde, tall and chic in a gray fall suit. Her face was attractive--beautiful even, in a cold and cla.s.sic way--but she would never see twenty-five again. But then, Philip would never again see thirty. When she paused, her dog paused too, although she did not have it on a leash. It was on the small side, tawny in hue, with golden-brown eyes, a slender white-tipped tail, and s.h.a.ggy ears that hung down on either side of its face in a manner reminiscent of a c.o.c.ker spaniel's. It wasn't a c.o.c.ker spaniel, though. The ears were much too long, for one thing, and the tail was much too delicate, for another. It was a breed--or combination of breeds--that Philip had never seen before.

He leaned across the seat and rolled down the right-hand window. "Could you direct me to number 23 Locust Street?" he asked. "It's the residence of Judith Darrow, the village attorney. Maybe you know her."

The girl gave a start. "Are you the real-estate man I sent for?"

Philip gave a start, too. Recovering himself, he said, "Then you're Judith Darrow. I'm ... I'm afraid I'm a little late."

The girl's eyes flashed. The radiant backwash of the headlights revealed them to be both green and gray. "I specified in my letter that you were supposed to be here at nine o'clock this morning!" she said. "Maybe you'll tell me how you're going to appraise property in the dark!"

"I'm sorry," Philip said. "My car broke down on the way, and I had to wait for it to be fixed. When I tried to call you, the operator told me that your phone had been disconnected. If you'll direct me to the hotel, I'll stay there overnight and appraise your property in the morning. There is a hotel, isn't there?"

"There is--but it's closed. Zarathustra--down!" The dog had raised up on its hind legs and placed its forepaws on the door in an unsuccessful attempt to peer in the window. At the girl's command, it sank obediently down on its haunches. "Except for Zarathustra and myself," she went on, "the village is empty. Everyone else has already moved out, and we'd have moved out, too, if I hadn't been entrusted with arranging for the sale of the business places and the houses. It makes for a rather awkward situation."

She had leaned forward, and the light from the dash lay palely upon her face, softening its austerity. "I don't get this at all," Philip said. "From your letter I a.s.sumed you had two or three places you wanted me to sell, but not a whole town. There must have been at least a thousand people living here, and a thousand people just don't pack up and move out all at once." When she volunteered no explanation, he added, "Where did they move to?"

"To Pfleugersville. I know you've never heard of it, so save the observation." Then, "Do you have any identification?" she asked.

He gave her his driver's license, his business card and the letter she had written him. After glancing at them, she handed them back. She appeared to be undecided about something. "Why don't you let me stay at the hotel?" he suggested. "You must have the key if it's one of the places I'm supposed to appraise."

She shook her head. "I have the key, but there's not a stick of furniture in the place. We had a village auction last week and got rid of everything that we didn't plan on taking with us." She sighed. "Well, there's nothing for it, I guess. The nearest motel is thirty miles away, so I'll have to put you up at my house. I have a few articles of furniture left--wedding gifts, mostly, that I was too sentimental to part with." She got into the car. "Come on, Zarathustra."

Zarathustra clambered in, leaped across her lap and sat down between them. Philip pulled away from the curb. "That's an odd name for a dog," he said.

"I know. I guess the reason I gave it to him is because he puts me in mind of a little old man sometimes."

"But the original Zarathustra isn't noted for his longevity."

"Perhaps another a.s.sociation was at work then. Turn right at the next corner."

A lonely light burned in one of number 23 Locust Street's three front windows. Its source, however, was not an incandescent bulb, but the mantle of a gasoline lantern. "The village power-supply was shut off yesterday," Judith Darrow explained, pumping the lantern into renewed brightness. She glanced at him sideways. "Did you have dinner?"

"As a matter of fact--no. But please don't--"

"Bother? I couldn't if I wanted to. My larder is on its last legs. But sit down, and I'll make you some sandwiches. I'll make a pot of coffee too--the gas hasn't been turned off yet."

The living room had precisely three articles of furniture to its name--two armchairs and a coffee table. After Judith left him, Philip set his brief case on the floor and sat down in one of the chairs. He wondered idly how she expected to make the trip to Pfleugersville. He had seen no car in the driveway, and there was no garage on the property in which one could be concealed. Moreover, it was highly unlikely that buses serviced the village any more. Valleyview had been bypa.s.sed quite some time ago by one of the new super-duper highways. He shrugged. Getting to Pfleugersville was her problem, not his.

He returned his attention to the living room. It was a large room. The house was large, too--large and Victorianesque. Judith, apparently, had opened the back door, for a breeze was wafting through the downstairs rooms--a breeze laden with the scent of flowers and the dew-damp breath of growing gra.s.s. He frowned. The month was October, not June, and since when did flowers bloom and gra.s.s grow in October? He concluded that the scent must be artificial.

Zarathustra was regarding him with large golden eyes from the middle of the living-room floor. The animal did somehow bring to mind a little old man, although he could not have been more than two or three years old. "You're not very good company," Philip said.

"Ruf," said Zarathustra, and turning, trotted through an archway into a large room that, judging from the empty shelves lining its walls, had once been a library, and thence through another archway into another room--the dining room, undoubtedly--and out of sight.

Philip leaned back wearily in the armchair he had chosen. He was beat. Take six days a week, ten hours a day, and multiply by fifty-two and you get three hundred and twelve. Three hundred and twelve days a year, hunting down clients, talking, walking, driving, expounding; trying in his early thirties to build the foundation he should have begun building in his early twenties--the foundation for the family he had suddenly realized he wanted and someday hoped to have. Sometimes he wished that ambition had missed him altogether instead of waiting for so long to strike. Sometimes he wished he could have gone right on being what he once had been. After all, there was nothing wrong in living in cheap hotels and even cheaper rooming houses; there was nothing wrong in being a lackadaisical door-to-door salesman with run-down heels.

Nothing wrong, that is, except the aching want that came over you sometimes, and the loneliness of long and empty evenings.

Zarathustra had re-entered the room and was sitting in the middle of the floor again. He had not returned empty-handed--or rather, empty-mouthed--although the object he had brought with him was not the sort of object dogs generally pick up. It was a rose-- A green rose.

Disbelievingly, Philip leaned forward and took it from the animal's mouth. Before he had a chance to examine it, however, footsteps sounded in the next room, and prompted by he knew not what, he thrust the rose into his suitcoat pocket. An instant later, Judith Darrow came through the archway bearing a large tray. After setting it down on the coffee table, she poured two cups of coffee from a little silver pot and indicated a plate of sandwiches. "Please help yourself," she said.

She sat down in the other chair and sipped her coffee. He had one of the sandwiches, found that he didn't want any more. Somehow, her proximity, coupled with her silence, made him feel uncomfortable. "Has your husband already left for Pfleugersville?" he asked politely.

Her gray-green eyes grew cold. "Yes, he left quite some time ago," she said. "A year ago, as a matter of fact. But for parts unknown, not Pfleugersville. Pfleugersville wasn't accessible then, anyway. He had a brunette on one arm, a redhead on the other, and a pint of Cutty Sark in his hip pocket."

Philip was distressed. "I ... I didn't mean to pry," he said. "I'm--"

"Sorry? Why should you be? Some men are born to settle down and raise children and others are born to drink and philander. It's as simple as that."

"Is it?" something made Philip ask. "Into which category would you say I fall?"

"You're in a cla.s.s by yourself." Tiny silver flecks had come into her eyes, and he realized to his astonishment that they were flecks of malevolence. "You've never married, but playing the field hasn't made you one hundred per cent cynical. You're still convinced that somewhere there is a woman worthy of your devotion. And you're quite right--the world is full of them."

His face tingled as though she had slapped it, and in a sense, she had. He restrained his anger with difficulty. "I didn't know that my celibacy was that noticeable," he said.

"It isn't. I took the liberty of having a private investigator check into your background. It proved to be unsavory in some respects, as I implied before, but unlike the backgrounds of the other real-estate agents I had checked, it contained not the slightest hint of dishonesty. The nature of my business is such that I need someone of maximum integrity to contract it with. I had to go far and wide to find you."

"You're being unfair," Philip said, mollified despite himself. "Most real-estate agents are honest. As a matter of fact, there's one in the same office building with me that I'd trust with the family jewels--if I had any family jewels."

"Good," Judith Darrow said. "I gambled on you knowing someone like that."

He waited for her to elaborate, and when she did not he finished his coffee and stood up. "If you don't mind, I'll turn in," he said. "I've had a pretty hard day."

"I'll show you your room."

She got two candles, lit them, and after placing them in gilt candlesticks, handed one of the candlesticks to him. The room was on the third floor in under the eaves--as faraway from hers, probably, as the size of the house permitted. Philip did not mind. He liked to sleep in rooms under eaves. There was an enchantment about the rain on the roof that people who slept in less celestial bowers never got to know. After Judith left, he threw open the single window and undressed and climbed into bed. Remembering the rose, he got it out of his coat pocket and examined it by candlelight. It was green all right--even greener than he had at first thought. Its scent was reminiscent of the summer breeze that was blowing through the downstairs rooms, though not at all in keeping with the chill October air that was coming through his bedroom window. He laid it on the table beside the bed and blew out the candle. He would go looking for the bush tomorrow.

Philip was an early riser, and dawn had not yet departed when, fully dressed, he left the room with the rose in his coat pocket and quietly descended the stairs. Entering the living room, he found Zarathustra curled up in one of the armchairs, and for a moment he had the eerie impression that the animal had extended one of his s.h.a.ggy ears and was scratching his back with it. When Philip did a doubletake, however, the ear was back to normal size and reposing on its owner's tawny cheek. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he said, "Come on, Zarathustra, we're going for a walk."

He headed for the back door, Zarathustra at his heels. A double door leading off the dining room barred his way and proved to be locked. Frowning, he returned to the living room. "All right," he said to Zarathustra, "we'll go out the front way then."

He walked around the side of the house, his canine companion trotting beside him. The side yard turned out to be disappointing. It contained no roses--green ones, or any other kind. About all it did contain that was worthy of notice was a dog house--an ancient affair that was much too large for Zarathustra and which probably dated from the days when Judith had owned a larger dog. The yard itself was a mess: the gra.s.s hadn't been cut all summer, the shrubbery was ragged, and dead leaves lay everywhere. A similar state of affairs existed next door, and glancing across lots, he saw that the same desuetude prevailed throughout the entire neighborhood. Obviously the good citizens of Valleyview had lost interest in their real estate long before they had moved out.

At length his explorations led him to the back door. If there were green roses anywhere, the trellis that adorned the small back porch was the logical place for them to be. He found nothing but bedraggled Virginia creeper and more dead leaves.

He tried the back door, and finding it locked, circled the rest of the way around the house. Judith was waiting for him on the front porch. "How nice of you to walk Zarathustra," she said icily. "I do hope you found the yard in order."

The yellow dress she was wearing did not match the tone of her voice, and the frilly blue ap.r.o.n tied round her waist belied the frostiness of her gray-green eyes. Nevertheless, her rancor was real. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't know your back yard was out of bounds." Then, "If you'll give me a list of the places you want evaluated, I'll get started right away."

"I'll take you around again personally--after we have breakfast."

Again he was consigned to the living room while she performed the necessary culinary operations, and again she served him by tray. Clearly she did not want him in the kitchen, or anywhere near it. He was not much of a one for mysteries, but this one was intriguing him more and more by the minute.

Breakfast over, she told him to wait on the front porch while she did the dishes, and instructed Zarathustra to keep him company. She had two voices: the one she used in addressing Zarathustra contained overtones of summer, and the one she used in addressing Philip contained overtones of fall. "Some day," Philip told the little dog, "that chip she carries on her shoulder is going to fall off of its own accord, and by then it will be too late--the way it was too late for me when I found out that the person I'd been running away from all my life was myself in wolf's clothing."

"Ruf," said Zarathustra, looking up at him with benign golden eyes. "Ruf-ruf!"

Presently Judith re-appeared, sans ap.r.o.n, and the three of them set forth into the golden October day. It was Philip's first experience in evaluating an entire village, but he had a knack for estimating the worth of property, and by the time noon came around, he had the job half done. "If you people had made even half an effort to keep your places up," he told Judith over cold-cut sandwiches and coffee in her living room, "we could have asked for a third again as much. Why in the world did you let everything go to pot just because you were moving some place else?"

She shrugged. "It's hard to get anyone to do housework these days--not to mention gardening. Besides, in addition to the servant problem, there's another consideration--human nature. When you've lived in a shack all your life and you suddenly acquire a palace, you cease caring very much what the shack looks like."

"Shack!" Philip was indignant. "Why, this house is lovely! Practically every house you've shown me is lovely. Old, yes--but oldness is an essential part of the loveliness of houses. If Pfleugersville is on the order of most housing developments I've seen, you and your neighbors are going to be good and sorry one of these fine days!"

"But Pfleugersville isn't on the order of most housing developments you've seen. In fact, it's not a housing development at all. But let's not go into that. Anyway, we're concerned with Valleyview, not Pfleugersville."

"Very well," Philip said. "This afternoon should wind things up so far as the appraising goes."

That evening, after a coffee-less supper--both the gas and the water had been turned off that afternoon--he totaled up his figures. They made quite a respectable sum. He looked across the coffee table, which he had commandeered as a desk, to where Judith, with the dubious help of Zarathustra, was sorting out a pile of manila envelopes which she had placed in the middle of the living-room floor. "I'll do my best to sell everything," he said, "but it's going to be difficult going till we get a few families living here. People are reluctant about moving into empty neighborhoods, and businessmen aren't keen about opening up business places before the customers are available. But I think it'll work out all right. There's a plaza not far from here that will provide a place to shop until the local markets are functioning, and Valleyview is part of a centralized school district." He slipped the paper he had been figuring on into his brief case, closed the case and stood up. "I'll keep in touch with you."

Judith shook her head. "You'll do nothing of the sort. As soon as you leave, I'm moving to Pfleugersville. My business here is finished."

"I'll keep in touch with you there then. All you have to do is give me your address and phone number."

She shook her head again. "I could give you both, but neither would do you any good. But that's beside the point. Valleyview is your responsibility now--not mine."

Philip sat back down again. "You can start explaining any time," he said.

"It's very simple. The property owners of Valleyview signed all of their houses and places of business over to me. I, in turn, have signed all of them over to you--with the qualification, of course, that after selling them you will be ent.i.tled to no more than your usual commission." She withdrew a paper from one of the manila envelopes. "After selling them," she went on, "you are to divide the proceeds equally among the four charities specified in this contract." She handed him the paper. "Do you understand now why I tried so hard to find a trustworthy agent?"

Philip was staring at the paper, unable, in his astonishment, to read the words it contained. "Suppose," he said presently, "that circ.u.mstances should make it impossible for me to carry out my end of the agreement?"

"In case of illness, you will already have taken the necessary steps to transfer the property to another agent who, in your opinion, is as completely honest as you are, and in case of death, you will already have taken the necessary steps to bequeath the property to the same agent; and he, in both cases, will already have agreed to the terms laid down in the contract you're holding in your hands. Why don't you read it?"

Now that his astonishment had abated somewhat, Philip found that he could do so. "But this still doesn't make sense," he said a short while later. "Obviously you and the rest of the owners have purchased new houses. Would it be presumptuous of me to ask how you're going to pay for them when you're virtually giving your old houses away?"

"I'm afraid it would be, Mr. Myles." She withdrew another paper from the envelope and handed it to him. "This is the other copy. If you'll kindly affix your signature to both, we can bring our business to a close. As you'll notice, I've already signed."

"But if you're going to be incommunicado," Philip pointed out, anger building up in him despite all he could do to stop it, "what good will your copy do you?"

Judith's countenance took on a glacial quality. So did her voice. "My copy will go into the hands of a trusted attorney, sealed in an envelope which I have already instructed him not to open till five years from this date. If, at the time it is opened, you have violated the terms of our agreement, he will inst.i.tute legal proceedings at once. Fortunately, although the Valleyview post office is closed, a mail truck pa.s.ses through every weekday evening at eight. It's not that I don't trust you, Mr. Myles--but you are a man, you know."

Philip was tempted to tear up the two copies then and there, and toss the pieces into the air. But he didn't, for the very good reason that he couldn't afford to. Instead, he bore down viciously on his pen and brought his name to life twice in large and angry letters. He handed Judith one copy, slipped the other into his breast pocket and got to his feet. "That," he said, "brings our official business to a close. Now I'd like to add an unofficial word of advice. It seems to me that you're exacting an exorbitant price from the world for your husband's having sold you out for a brunette and a redhead and a pint of Scotch. I've been sold out lots of times for less than that, but I found out long ago that the world doesn't pay its bills even when you ask a fair price for the damages done to you. I suggest that you write the matter off as a bad debt and forget about it; then maybe you'll become a human being again."

She had risen to her feet and was standing stiffly before him. She put him in mind of an exquisite and fragile statue, and for a moment he had the feeling that if he were to reach out and touch her, she would shatter into a million pieces. She did not move for some time, nor did he; then she bent down, picked up three of the manila envelopes, straightened, and handed them to him. "Two of these contain the deeds, maps and other records you will need," she said in a dead voice. "The third contains the keys to the houses and business places. Each key is tagged with the correct address. Good-by, Mr. Myles."

"Good-by," Philip said.

He looked around the room intending to say good-by to Zarathustra, but Zarathustra was nowhere to be seen. Finally he went into the hall, opened the front door and stepped out into the night. A full moon was rising in the east. He walked down the moonlit walk, climbed into his car and threw his brief case and the manila envelopes into the back seat. Soon, Valleyview was far behind him.

But not as far as it should have been. He couldn't get the green rose out of his mind. He couldn't get Judith Darrow out of his mind either. Nor could he exorcise the summer breeze that kept wafting through the crevices in his common sense.

A green rose and a gra.s.s widow and a breeze with a green breath. A whole town taking off for greener pastures....