access toa form of space that had been in existence all along.
"Though why," Judith concluded, "our back doors should have beenaffected rather than our front doors, for example, isinexplicable--unless it was because Francis built the machine in hiskitchen. In any event, when they did become nodal areas, they manifestedthemselves on Sirius XXI, and the dogs in the immediate vicinityassociated them with the doorways of their departed masters and beganwhining to be let in."
"Their departed masters?"
"The race that built this village. The race that built the factories anddeveloped the encompassing farms. A year ago, according to the recordsthey left behind them, they migrated to the Greater Magellanic Cloud."
Philip was indignant. "Why didn't they take their dogs with them?"
"They couldn't. After all, they had to leave their cars and theirfurniture behind them too, not to mention almost unbelievablestockpiles of every metal imaginable that will last us for centuries.The logistics of space travel make taking even an extra handkerchiefalong a calculated risk. Anyway, when their dogs 'found' us, they wereoverjoyed, and as for us, we fell in love with them at first sight. Ourown dogs, though, didn't take to them at all, and every one of them ranaway."
"This can't be the only village," Philip said. "There must be otherssomewhere."
"Undoubtedly there are. All we know is that the people who built thisone were the last to leave."
The park was behind them now, and they were walking down a pleasantstreet. "And when you and your neighbors discovered the village, did youdecide to become expatriates right then and there?" Philip asked.
She nodded. "Do you blame us? You've seen for yourself what a lovelyplace it is. But it's far more than that. In Valleyview, we hadunemployment. Here, there is work for everyone, and a correspondingfeeling of wantedness and togetherness. True, most of the work isfarmwork, but what of that? We have every conceivable kind of machine tohelp us in our tasks. Indeed, I think that the only machine the Sirianslacked was one that could manufacture food out of whole cloth. Butconsider the most important advantage of all: when we go to bed at nightwe can do so without being afraid that sometime during our sleep athermonuclear missile will descend out of the sky and devour us in onehuge incandescent bite. If we've made a culture hero out of our villageidiot, it's no more than right, for unwittingly or not, he opened up thegates of paradise."
"And you immediately saw to it that no one besides yourselves and achosen few would pass through them."
Judith paused beside a white gate. "Yes, that's true," she said. "Tokeep our secret, we lived in our old houses while we were settling ouraffairs, closing down our few industries and setting up a new monetarysystem. In fact, we even kept our ... the children in the dark for fearthat they would talk at school. Suppose, however, we _had_ publicizedour utopia. Can't you imagine the mockery opportunists would have madeout of it? The village we found was large enough to accommodateourselves and the few friends, relatives and specialists we asked tojoin us, but no larger; and we did, after all, find it in our own backyard." She placed her hand on the white gate. "This is where I live."
He looked at the house, and it was enchanting. Slightly less enchanting,but delightful in its own right, was the much smaller house beside it.Judith pointed toward the latter dwelling and looked at Zarathustra."It's almost morning, Zarathustra," she said sternly. "Go to bed thisminute!" She opened the gate so that the little dog could pass throughand raised her eyes to Philip. "Our time is different here," sheexplained. And then, "I'm afraid you'll have to hurry if you expect tomake it to my back door before the field dies out."
He felt suddenly empty. "Dies out?" he repeated numbly.
"Yes. We don't know why, but it's been diminishing in strength eversince it first came into being, and our 'Moebius-strip scientist' haspredicted that it will cease to exist during the next twenty-four hours.I guess I don't need to remind you that you have important business onEarth."
"No," he said, "I guess you don't." His emptiness bowed out before awave of bitterness. He had rested his hand on the gate, as close to hersas he had dared. Now he saw that while it was inches away from hers inone sense, it was light years away in another. He removed it angrily."Business always comes first with you, doesn't it?"
"Yes. Business never lets you down."
"Do you know what I think?" Philip said. "I think that you were the onewho did the selling out, not your husband. I think you sold him out fora law practice."
Her face turned white as though he had slapped it, and in a sense, hehad. "Good-by," she said, and this time he was certain that if he wereto reach out and touch her, she would shatter into a million pieces."Give my love to the planet Earth," she added icily.
"Good-by," Philip said, his anger gone now, and the emptiness rushingback. "Don't sell us short, though--we'll make a big splash in your skyone of these days when we blow ourselves up."
He turned and walked away. Walked out of the enchanting village and downthe highway and across the flower-pulsing plain to Judith's backdoorway. It was unlighted now, and he had trouble distinguishing it fromthe others. Its shimmering blue framework was flickering. Judith had notlied then: the field was dying out.
He locked the back door behind him, walked sadly through the dark andempty house and let himself out the front door. He locked the front doorbehind him, too, and went down the walk and climbed into his car. He hadthought he had locked it, but apparently he hadn't. He drove out of townand down the road to the highway, and down the highway toward the bigbright bonfire of the city.
Dawn was exploring the eastern sky with pale pink fingers when at lasthe parked his car in the garage behind his apartment building. Hereached into the back seat for his brief case and the manila envelopes.His brief case had hair on it. It was soft and warm. "Ruf," it barked."Ruf-ruf!"
He knew then that everything was all right. Just because no one hadinvited him to the party didn't mean that he couldn't invite himself. Hewould have to hurry, though--he had a lot of things to do, and time wasrunning out.
Noon found him on the highway again, his business transacted, hisaffairs settled, Zarathustra sitting beside him on the seat. One o'clockfound him driving into Valleyview; two-five found him turning down afamiliar street. He would have to leave his car behind him, but that wasall right. Leaving it to rust away in a ghost town was better thanselling it to some opportunistic dealer for a sum he would have no usefor anyway. He parked it by the curb, and after getting his suitcase outof the trunk, walked up to the front door of Number 23. He unlocked andopened the door, and after Zarathustra followed him inside, closed andlocked it behind him. He strode through the house to the kitchen. Heunlocked and opened the back door. He stepped eagerly across thethreshold--and stopped dead still.
There were boards beneath his feet instead of grass. Instead of aflower-pied plain, he saw a series of unkempt back yards. Beside him onan unpainted trellis, Virginia creeper rattled in an October wind.
Zarathustra came out behind him, descended the back-porch steps and ranaround the side of the house. Looking for the green-rose bush probably.
"Ruf!"
Zarathustra had returned and was looking up at him from the bottom step.On the top step he had placed an offering.
The offering was a green rose.
Philip bent down and picked it up. It was fresh, and its fragranceepitomized the very essence of Sirius XXI. "Zarathustra," he gasped,"where did you get it?"
"Ruf!" said Zarathustra, and ran around the side of the house.
Philip followed, rounded the corner just in time to see the white-tippedtail disappear into the ancient dog house. Disappointment numbed him.That was where the rose had been then--stored away for safe-keeping likean old and worthless bone.
But the rose was fresh, he reminded himself.
Did dog houses have back doorways?
This one did, he saw, kneeling down and peering inside. A lovely backdoorway, rimmed with shimmering blue. It framed a familiar vista, in theforeground of which
a familiar green-rosebush stood. Beneath therosebush Zarathustra sat, wagging his tail.
It was a tight squeeze, but Philip made it. He even managed to get hissuitcase through. And just in time too, for hardly had he done so whenthe doorway began to flicker. Now it was on its way out, and as hewatched, it faded into transparency and disappeared.
He crawled from beneath the rosebush and stood up. The day was brightand warm, and the position of the sun indicated early morning or lateafternoon. No, not sun--suns. One of them was a brilliant blue-whiteorb, the other a twinkling point of light.
He set off across the plain in