He came out on the mam street of the town. A double row of stores stretched out ahead of him. A hardware store. Two drugstores. A dime store. A modern department store.
Paine walked along, hands in his pockets, gazing around him at Macon Heights. An apartment building stuck up, tall and fat. A janitor was washing down the front steps. Everything looked new and modern. The houses, the stores, the pavement and sidewalks. The parking meters. A brown-uniformed cop was giving a car a ticket. Trees, growing at intervals. Neatly clipped and pruned.
He passed a big supermarket. Out in front was a bin of fruit, oranges and grapes. He picked a grape and bit into it.
The grape was real, all right. A big black concord grape, sweet and ripe. Yet twenty-four hours ago there had been nothing here but a barren field.
Paine entered one of the drugstores. He leafed through some magazines and then sat down at the counter. He ordered a cup of coffee from the red-cheeked little waitress.
"This is a nice town," Paine said, as she brought the coffee.
"Yes, isn't it?"
Paine hesitated. "How—how long have you been working here?"
"Three months."
"Three months?" Paine studied the buxom little blonde. "You live here in Macon Heights?"
"Oh, yes."
"How long?"
"A couple years, I guess." She moved away to wait on a young soldier who had taken a stool down the counter.
Paine sat drinking his coffee and smoking, idly watching the people passing by outside. Ordinary people. Men and women, mostly women. Some had grocery bags and little wire carts. Automobiles drove slowly back and forth. A sleepy little suburban town. Modern, upper middle-class. A quality town. No slums here. Small, attractive houses. Stores with sloping glass fronts and neon signs.
Some high school kids burst into the drugstore, laughing and bumping into each other. Two girls in bright sweaters sat down next to Paine and ordered lime drinks. They chatted gaily, bits of their conversation drifting to him.
He gazed at them, pondering moodily. They were real, all right. Lipstick and red fingernails. Sweaters and armloads of school books. Hundreds of high school kids, crowding eagerly into the drugstore.
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 t
o 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."
Pat retreated. "No thanks."
"Come on! It's interesting to talk to. Its name is—" He glanced at some writing on the box. "It's name is Tinokuknoi Arevulopapo. We talked most of the way back from Ganymede. It was glad of the opportunity. And I learned quite a few things about gods."
Eric searched his pockets and brought out the remains of a ham sandwich. He wadded up a bit of the ham and stuffed it into the protruding belly-cup of the god.
"I'm going in the other room," Pat said.
"Stick around." Eric caught her arm. "It only takes a second. It begins to digest right away."
The belly-cup quivered. The god's scaly flesh rippled, presently the cup filled with a sluggish dark-colored substance. The ham began to dissolve.
Pat snorted in disgust. "Doesn't it even use its mouth?"
"Not for eating. Only for talking. It's a lot different from usual life-forms."
The tiny eye of the god was focused on them now. A single, unwinking orb of icy malevolence. The mandibles twitched.
"Greetings," the god said.
"Hi." Eric nudged Pat forward. "This is my wife. Mrs. Blake. Patricia."
"How do you do," the god grated.
Pat gave a squeal of dismay. "It talks English."
The god turned to Eric in disgust. "You were right. She is stupid."
Eric colored. "Gods can do anything they want, honey. They're omnipotent."
The god nodded. "That is so. This is Terra, I presume."
"Yes. How does it look?"
"As I expected. I have already heard reports. Certain reports about Terra."
"Eric, are you sure it's safe?" Pat whispered uneasily. "I don't like its looks. And there's something about the way it talks." Her bosom quivered nervously.
"Don't worry, honey," Eric said carelessly. "It's a nice god. I checked before I left Ganymede."
"I'm benevolent," the god explained matter-of-factly. "My capacity has been that of Weather Deity to the Ganymedean aborigines. I have produced rain and allied phenomena when the occasion demanded."
"But that's all in the past," Eric added.
"Correct. I have been a Weather Deity for ten thousand years. There is a limit to even a god's patience. I craved new surroundings." A peculiar gleam flickered across the loathsome face. "That is why I arranged to be sold and brought to Terra."
"You see," Eric said, "the Ganymedeans didn't want to sell it. But it whipped up a thunderstorm and they sort of had to. That's partly why it was so cheap."
"Your husband made a good purchase," the god said. Its single eye roved around curiously. "This is your dwelling? You eat and sleep here?"
"That's right," Eric said. "Pat and I both—"
The front door chimed. "Thomas Matson stands on the threshold," the door stated. "He wishes admission."
"Golly," Eric said. "Good old Tom. I'll go let him in."
Pat indicated the god. "Hadn't you better—"
"Oh, no. I want Tom to see it." Eric stepped to the door and opened it.
"Hello," Tom said, striding in. "Hi, Pat. Nice day." He and Eric shook hands. "The Lab has been wondering when you'd get back. Old Bradshaw is leaping up and down to hear your report." Matson's bean-pole body bent forward in sudden interest. "Say, what's in the box?"
"That's my god," Eric said modestly.
"Really? But God is an unscientific concept."
"This is a different god. I didn't invent it. I bought it On Ganymede. It's a Ganymedean Weather Deity."
"Say something," Pat said to the god. "So he'll believe your owner."
"Let's debate my existence," the god said sneeringly. "You take the negative. Agreed?"
Matson grinned. "What is this, Eric? A little robot? Sort of hideous looking."
"Honest. It's a god. On the way it did a couple of miracles for me. Not big miracles, of course, but enough to convince me."
"Hearsay," Matson said. But he was interested. "Pass a miracle, god. I'm all ears."
"I am not a vulgar showpiece," the god growled.
"Don't get it angry," Eric cautioned. "There's no limit to its powers, once aroused."
"How does a god come into being?" Tom asked. "Does a god create itself? If it's dependent on something prior then there must be a more ultimate order of being which—"
"Gods," the tiny figure stated, "are inhabitants of a higher level, a greater plane of reality. A more advanced dimension. There are a number of planes of existence. Dimensional continuums, arranged in a hierarchy. Mine is one above yours."
"What are you doing here?"
"Occasionally beings pass from one dimensional continuum to another. When they pass from a superior continuum to an inferior—as I have done—they are worshiped as gods."
Tom was disappointed. "You're not a god at all. You're just a life-form of a slightly different dimensional order that's changed phase and entered our vector."
The little figure glowered. "You make it sound simple. Actually, such a transformation requires great cunning and is seldom done. I came here because a member of my race, a certain malodorous Nar Dolk, committed a heinous crime and escaped into this continuum. Our law obliged me to follow in hot pursuit. In the process this flotsam, this spawn of dampness, escaped and assumed some disguise or other. I continually search, but he has not yet been apprehended." The small god broke off suddenly. "Your curiosity is idle. It annoys me."
Tom turned his back on the god. "Pretty weak stuff. We do more down at the Terran Metals Lab than this character ever—"
The air cracked, ozone flashing. Tom Matson shrieked. Invisible hands lifted him bodily and propelled him to the door. The door swung open and Matson sailed down the walk, tumbling in a heap among the rose bushes, arms and legs flailing wildly.
"Help!" Matson yelled, struggling to get up.
"Oh, dear," Pat gasped.
"Golly." Eric shot a glance at the tiny figure. "You did that?"
"Help him," Pat urged, white-faced. "I think he's hurt. He looks funny."
Eric hurried outside and helped Matson to his feet. "You OK? It's your own fault. I told you if you kept annoying it something might happen."
Matson's face was ablaze with rage. "No little pipsqueak god is going to treat me like this!" He pushe
d Eric aside, heading back for the house. "I'll take it down to the Lab and pop it in a bottle of formaldehyde. I'll dissect it and skin it and hang it up on the wall. I'll have the first specimen of a god known to—"
A ball of light glowed around Matson. The ball enveloped him, settling in place around his lean body so that he looked like a filament in an incandescent light.
"What the hell!" Matson muttered. Suddenly he jerked. His body faded. He began to shrink. With a faint whoosh he diminished rapidly. Smaller and smaller he dwindled. His body shuddered, altering strangely.
The light winked out. Sitting stupidly on the walk was a small green toad.
"See?" Eric said wildly. "I told you to keep quiet! Now look what it's done!"
The toad hopped feebly toward the house. At the porch it sagged into immobility, defeated by the steps. It uttered a pathetic, hopeless chug.
Pat's voice rose in a wail of anguish. "Oh, Eric! Look what it's done! Poor Tom!"
"His own fault," Eric said. "He deserves it." But he was beginning to get nervous. "Look here," he said to the god. "That's not a very nice thing to do to a grown man. What'll his wife and kids think?"
"What'll Mr. Bradshaw think?" Pat cried. "He can't go to work like that!"
"True," Eric admitted. He appealed to the god. "I think he's learned his lesson. How about turning him back? OK?"
"You just better undo him!" Pat shrieked, clenching her small fists. "If you don't undo him you'll have Terran Metals after you. Even a god can't stand up to Horace Bradshaw."
"Better change him back," Eric said.
"It'll do him good," the god said. "I'll leave him that way for a couple of centuries—"
"Centuries!" Pat exploded. "Why, you little blob of slime!" She advanced ominously toward the box, shaking with wrath. "See here! You turn him back or I'll take you out of your box and drop you into the garbage disposal unit!"
"Make her be still," the god said to Eric.
"Calm down, Pat," Eric implored.
"I will not calm down! Who does it think it is? A present! How dare you bring this moldy bit of refuse into our house? Is this your idea of a—"