The House from Nowhere Part 2

As they sat down to dinner Mrs. MacDonald, a rosy-cheeked woman with a quick and ready smile, said, "I'm sorry we aren't able to get a connection yet. So everything we're eating tonight is right out of our deep-freeze."

John Miller said, "Gosh, Mrs. MacDonald, as far as I'm concerned, I'd rather eat from your deep-freeze anytime than from the FP!"

Bill MacDonald looked across the table at Jean and said, "All right, Jean."

Jean and all the MacDonalds bent their heads and the girl began, "We thank Thee for our daily bread as by Thy hands...."

As the girl spoke Phil's gaze drifted around to his wife, who lifted her shoulders in mystified amazement. But it was a bigger surprise to see John's bent head. For the moment John was a part of this family--part of a wholeness tied together by an invisible bond. The utter strangeness of it shocked Philon into rare clarity of insight.

He saw himself wrapped up in his business with little regard for Ursula or John, letting them exist under his roof without making them a part of his life. Ursula with her succession of gigolos and her psycho-plays and John withdrawn into his upstairs room with his books.

Then he closed his mind again as if the insight were too blinding.

What strange customs these MacDonalds had! Yet he had to admit the meal looked more appetizing than anything he had ever seen. It gave an impression of sumptuous plenty to see the food for everybody in one place instead of individually packaged under glistening thermocel. And instead of throwaway dishes they used chinaware that could have come right out of a museum.

Ursula asked, "What kind of fish is this?"

Bill MacDonald answered with a big grin. "It's Royal Chinook salmon that I caught in the fish derby on the Columbia River only last--"

Mrs. MacDonald colored suddenly. "You'll have to forgive Bill. He gets himself so wrapped up in his fishing."

Glancing at MacDonald Philon was surprised to see the same confusion and embarra.s.sment on his host's face.

It was after dinner when Mrs. MacDonald and Jean were clearing the table that Philon looked over the library shelves. MacDonald himself appeared uneasy and hovered in the background.

"You'll have to excuse my selections. They're all pretty old.

I--er--inherited most of them from a grandfather."

In a few minutes Philon spotted the _Smyth Report_. Fixing its position well in mind he turned away. MacDonald was saying, "Come down in the bas.e.m.e.nt and I'll show you my hobby room."

"Glad to." As MacDonald led the way Philon whispered to John, "You'll find the book on the second shelf from the bottom on the right side."

John returned him a stony stare of belligerence and Philon clamped his jaw. The boy dropped his glance and gave a reluctant nod of acquiescence.

Upstairs a half hour later Ursula, who had filled her small ashtray with a mound of stubs, suddenly told Philon she was going home.

"But, Ursula, I thought that--"

With thin-lipped impatience she snapped, "I just remembered I had another engagement at eight."

Mrs. MacDonald was genuinely sorry. "Oh, that's too bad, I thought we could have the whole evening together."

Casting a meaningful glance at John and getting a confirming cold-eyed nod in return, Philon got on his feet. "Sorry, folks. Maybe we'll get together another time."

"I hope so," MacDonald said.

In angry silence Philon walked home. Not until they were all in the house and Ursula was hastening toward her second-floor room did he say a word. "I suppose your 'other engagement' means the Cairo again tonight?"

Ascending on the escalator Ursula turned to look scornfully over her shoulder. "Yes! Anything to escape from boredom. All that woman talked about while you were in the bas.e.m.e.nt was redecorating the house or about cooking and asking my opinions. _Ugh!_"

Philon laughed mirthlessly. "Yeah, I guess she picked a flat number to discuss those things with. Anything you might have learned about them you must have got out of a psychoplay."

Stepping off the escalator at the top Ursula spit a nasty epithet his way, then disappeared into the upstairs hall.

John stood at the foot of the escalator, a reluctant witness to the bickering. Divining his att.i.tude Philon mentally shrugged it off. The kid might as well learn what married life was like in these modern days.

"You got the book, eh?"

John pulled a book from his suit coat and laid it on a small table.

"Yes, there's the book--and I never felt so rotten about anything in all my life!"

Philon said, "Kid, you've got a lot to learn about getting along in this world."

"All right--so I've got a lot to learn," John cried bitterly. "But there must be more to life than trying to stop the other guy from stripping the shirt off your back while you succeed in stripping off his!"

With that he took the escalator to the upper hall while Philon watched him disappear.

Left alone now, Philon settled into a chair by a window and stared down the street at the MacDonald house. Odd people--it almost seemed they didn't belong in this time and period, considering their queer ways of thinking and looking at things. MacDonald himself in particular had some odd personal att.i.tudes.

Like that incident in his bas.e.m.e.nt--Philon had curiously pulled open a heavy steel door to a small cubicle filled with a most complex arrangement of large coils and heavy insulators and gla.s.sed-in filaments. MacDonald was almost rude in closing the door when he found Philon opening it. He had fumbled and stuttered around, explaining the room was a niche where he did a little experimenting on his own. Yes, strange people.

The next day Philon eagerly hastened to a bookstore dealing in antique editions. Hugging the book closely Philon told himself his troubles were all over. The book would surely bring between fifty and a hundred grand.

A clerk approached. "Can I help you?"

"I want to talk to Mr. Norton himself."

The clerk spoke into a wrist transmitter. "Mr. Norton, a man to see you."

In a few moments a bulbous man came heavily down the aisle, peering through dark tinted gla.s.ses at Philon. "Yes?"

"I have a very rare first edition of Smyth's _Atomic Energy_," said Philon, showing the book.

Norton adjusted his gla.s.ses, then took the book. He carefully handled it, looking over the outside of the covers, then thumbed the pages.

After a long frowning moment, he said, "Publication date is nineteen forty-six but the book's fairly new. Must have been kept hermetically sealed in helium for a good many years."

"Yeah, yeah, it was," Philon said matter-of-factly. "Came from my paternal grandfather's side of the family. A book like this ought to be worth at the very least seventy-five thousand."

But the bulbous Mr. Norton was not impressed. He shrugged vaguely.

"Well--it's just possible--" He looked up at Philon suddenly. "Before I make any offer to you I shall have to radiocarbon date the book. Are you willing to sacrifice a back flyleaf in the process?"

"Why a flyleaf?"

"We have to convert a sample of the book into carbon dioxide to geigercount the radioactivity in the carbon. You see, all living things like the cotton in the rags the paper is made of absorb the radioactive carbon fourteen that is formed in the upper atmosphere by cosmic radiation. Then it begins to decay and we can measure very accurately the amount, which gives us an absolute time span."

With a frustrated feeling Philon agreed. "Well okay then. It's a waste of time I think. The book is obviously a first edition."

"It will take the technician about two hours to complete the a.n.a.lysis.

We'll have an answer for you--say after lunch."