reached into his coat pocket and touched the rose. It was no morethan a stem and a handful of petals now, but its reality could not bedenied. But roses do not bloom in autumn, and green roses do not bloomat all--
"Ruf!"
He had turned into the new highway some time ago, and was driving alongit at a brisk sixty-five. Now, disbelievingly, he slowed, and pulledover onto the shoulder. Sure enough, he had a stowaway in the backseat--a tawny-haired stowaway with golden eyes, over-sized ears, and arestless, white-tipped tail. "Zarathustra!" he gasped. "How in thedickens did you get in there?"
"Ruf," Zarathustra replied.
Philip groaned. Now he would have to go all the way back to Valleyview.Now he would have to see Judith Darrow again. Now he would have to--Hepaused in midthought, astonished at the abrupt acceleration of hisheartbeat. "Well I'll be damned!" he said, and without further preambletransferred Zarathustra to the front seat, U-turned, and started back.
* * * * *
The gasoline lantern had been moved out of the living-room window, but alight still showed beyond the panes. He pulled over to the curb andturned off the ignition. He gave one of Zarathustra's over-sized ears aplayful tug, absently noting a series of small nodules along its lowerextremity. "Come on, Zarathustra," he said. "I may as well deliver youpersonally while I'm at it."
After locking the car, he started up the walk, Zarathustra at his heels.He knocked on the front door. Presently he knocked again. The doorcreaked, swung partially open. He frowned. Had she forgotten to latchit? he wondered. Or had she deliberately left it unlatched so thatZarathustra could get in? Zarathustra himself lent plausibility to thelatter conjecture by rising up on his hind legs and pushing the door therest of the way open with his forepaws, after which he trotted into thehall and disappeared.
Philip pounded on the panels. "Miss Darrow!" he called. "Judith!"
No answer. He called again. Still no answer.
A summer breeze came traipsing out of the house and engulfed him in thescent of roses. What kind of roses? he wondered. Green ones?
He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him. He made his wayinto the living room. The two chairs were gone, and so was the coffeetable. He walked through the living room and into the library; throughthe library and into the dining room. The gasoline lantern burnedbrightly on the dining-room table, its harsh white light bathing barefloors and naked walls.
The breeze was stronger here, the scent of roses almost cloying. He sawthen that the double door that had thwarted him that morning was open,and he moved toward it across the room. As he had suspected, it gaveaccess to the kitchen. Pausing on the threshold, he peered inside. Itwas an ordinary enough kitchen. Some of the appliances were gone, butthe stove and the refrigerator were still there. The back doorway had anodd bluish cast that caused the framework to shimmer. The door itselfwas open, and he could see starlight lying softly on fields and trees.
Wonderingly he walked across the room and stepped outside. There was afaint sputtering sound, as though live wires had been crossed, and for afleeting second the scene before him seemed to waver. Then, abruptly, itgrew still.
He grew still, too--immobile in the strange, yet peaceful, summer night.He was standing on a grassy plain, and the plain spread out on eitherhand to promontories of little trees. Before him, the land sloped gentlyupward, and was covered with multicolored flowers that twinkled likemicrocosmic stars. In the distance, the lights of a village showed. Tohis right, a riotous green-rose bush bloomed, and beneath it Zarathustrasat, wagging his tail.
Philip took two steps forward, stopped and looked up at the sky. It waswrong somehow. For one thing, Cassiopeia had changed position, and foranother, Orion was awry. For still another, there were no clouds for themoon to hide behind, and yet the moon had disappeared.
Zarathustra trotted over to where he was standing, gazed up at him withgolden eyes, then headed in the direction of the lights. Philip took adeep breath, and followed him. He would have visited the village anyway,Zarathustra or no Zarathustra. Was it Pfleugersville? He knew suddenlythat it was.
* * * * *
He had not gone far before he saw a highway. A pair of headlightsappeared suddenly in the direction of the village and resolved rapidlyinto a moving van. To his consternation, the van turned off thethoroughfare and headed in his direction. He ducked into a coppice,Zarathustra at his heels, and watched the heavy vehicle bounce by. Therewere two men in the cab, and painted on the paneling of the truckbedwere the words, PFLEUGERSVILLE MOVERS, INC.
The van continued on in the direction from which he had come, andpresently he guessed its destination. Judith, clearly, was in the midstof moving out the furniture she had been too sentimental to sell. Theonly trouble was, her house had disappeared. So had the village ofValleyview.
He stared at where the houses should have been, saw nothing at firstexcept a continuation of the starlit plain. Then he noticed an uprightrectangle of pale light hovering just above the ground, and presently heidentified it as Judith's back doorway. He could see through it into thekitchen, and by straining his eyes, he could even see the stove and therefrigerator.
Gradually he made out other upright rectangles hovering just above theground, some of them on a line with Judith's. All of them, however,while outlined in the same shimmering blue that outlined hers, lackedlighted interiors.
As he stood there staring, the van came to a halt, turned around andbacked up to the brightest rectangle, hiding it from view. The two mengot out of the cab and walked around to the rear of the truckbed. "We'llput the stove on first," Philip heard one of them say. And then, "Wonderwhy she wants to hang onto junk like this?"
The other man's voice was fainter, but his words were unmistakableenough: "Grass widows who turn into old maids have funny notionssometimes."
Judith Darrow wasn't really moving out of Valleyview after all. She onlythought she was.
Philip went on. The breeze was all around him. It blew through his hair,kissed his cheeks and caressed his forehead. The stars shone palelydown. Some of the land was under cultivation, and he could see greenthings growing in the starlight, and the breeze carried their greenbreath to his nostrils. He reached the highway and began walking alongit. He saw no further sign of vehicles till he came opposite a largebrick building with bright light spilling through its windows. In frontof it were parked a dozen automobiles of a make that he was unfamiliarwith.
He heard the whir of machinery and the pounding of hammers, and he wentover and peered through one of the windows. The building proved to be afurniture factory. Most of the work was being done by machines, butthere were enough tasks left over to keep the owners of the parked carsbusily occupied. The main manual task was upholstering. The machines cutand sewed and trimmed and planed and doweled and assembled, butapparently none of them was up to the fine art of spitting tacks.
* * * * *
Philip returned to the highway and went on. He came to other buildingsand peered into each. One was a small automobile-assembly plant, anotherwas a dairy, a third was a long greenhouse. In the first two thepreponderance of the work was being performed by machines. In the third,however, machines were conspicuously absent. Clearly it was one thingto build a machine with a superhuman work potential, but quite anotherto build one with a green thumb.
He passed a pasture, and saw animals that looked like cows sleeping inthe starlight. He passed a field of newly-sprouted corn. He passed apower plant, and heard the whine of a generator. Finally he came to theoutskirts of Pfleugersville.
There was a big illuminated sign by the side of the road. It stopped himin his tracks, and he stood there staring at its embossed letters:
PFLEUGERSVILLE, SIRIUS XXI _Discovered April 1, 1962 Incorporated September 11, 1962_
Philip wiped his forehead.
Zarathustra had trotted on ahead. Now he stopped and looked back. _Comeon_, he seemed to say. _Now that you've seen
this much, you might aswell see the rest._
So Philip entered Pfleugersville ... and fell in love--
Fell in love with the lovely houses, and the darling trees in summerbloom. With the parterres of twinkling star-flowers and the expanses ofverdant lawns. With the trellised green roses that tapestried everyporch. With the hydrangealike blooms that garnished every corner. WithPfleugersville itself.
Obviously the hour was late, for, other than himself, there was no oneon the streets, although lights burned in the windows of some of thehouses, and dogs of the same breed and size as Zarathustra occasionallytrotted by. And yet according to his watch the time was 10:51. Maybe,though, Pfleugersville was on different time. Maybe, here inPfleugersville, it was the middle of the night.
The farther he progressed into the village, the more enchanted hebecame. He simply couldn't get over the houses. The difference betweenthem and the houses he was familiar with