/>
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 titillated by the thought of a buck-toothed, wall-eyed moron

building Rube Goldberg contrivances in his basement?



The Francis Pfleuger we are concerned with did his inventing in his

kitchen rather than in his basement; nevertheless, his machines were in

the Rube Goldberg tradition. Take the one he was assembling 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

entitled, DIRECTIONS FOR ASSEMBLING A MULTIPLE MOeBIUS-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 grass 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 classic 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 shaggy ears that hung down on

either side of its face in a manner reminiscent of a cocker spaniel's.

It wasn't a cocker 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 assumed 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 association 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 bypassed 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 grass. He frowned. The month was October, not June, and since

when did flowers bloom and grass 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 class 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 shaggy 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 grass

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 apron 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 apron, 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 entitled 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

circumstances 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 institute legal proceedings at once. Fortunately,

although the Valleyview post office is closed, a mail truck passes

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 grass widow and a breeze with a green breath. A whole

town taking off for greener pastures....



He reached into his coat pocket and touched the rose. It was no more

than a stem and a handful of petals now, but its reality could not be

denied. But roses do not bloom in autumn, and green roses do not bloom

at all--



"Ruf!"



He had turned into the new highway some time ago, and was driving along

it at a brisk sixty-five. Now, disbelievingly, he slowed, and pulled

over onto the shoulder. Sure enough, he had a stowaway in the back

seat--a tawny-haired stowaway with golden eyes, over-sized ears, and a

restless, white-tipped tail. "Zarathustra!" he gasped. "How in the

dickens 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--He

paused in midthought, astonished at the abrupt acceleration of his

heartbeat. "Well I'll be damned!" he said, and without further preamble

transferred Zarathustra to the front seat, U-turned, and started back.



* * * * *



The gasoline lantern had been moved out of the living-room window, but a

light still showed beyond the panes. He pulled over to the curb and

turned off the ignition. He gave one of Zarathustra's over-sized ears a

playful tug, absently noting a series of small nodules along its lower

extremity. "Come on, Zarathustra," he said. "I may as well deliver you

personally 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 door

creaked, swung partially open. He frowned. Had she forgotten to latch

it? he wondered. Or had she deliberately left it unlatched so that

Zarathustra could get in? Zarathustra himself lent plausibility to the

latter conjecture by rising up on his hind legs and pushing the door the

rest of the way open with his forepaws, after which he trotted into the

hall 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 the

scent of roses. What kind of roses? he wondered. Green ones?



He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him. He made his way

into the living room. The two chairs were gone, and so was the coffee

table. He walked through the living room and into the library; through

the library and into the dining room. The gasoline lantern burned

brightly on the dining-room table, its harsh white light bathing bare

floors and naked walls.



The breeze was stronger here, the scent of roses almost cloying. He saw

then 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 gave

access to the kitchen. Pausing on the threshold, he peered inside. It

was an ordinary enough kitchen. Some of the appliances were gone, but

the stove and the refrigerator were still there. The back doorway had an

odd bluish cast that caused the framework to shimmer. The door itself

was open, and he could see starlight lying softly on fields and trees.



Wonderingly he walked across the room and stepped outside. There was a

faint sputtering sound, as though live wires had been crossed, and for a

fleeting second the scene before him seemed to waver. Then, abruptly, it

grew 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 either

hand to promontories of little trees. Before him, the land sloped gently

upward, and was covered with multicolored flowers that twinkled like

microcosmic stars. In the distance, the lights of a village showed. To

his right, a riotous green-rose bush bloomed, and beneath it Zarathustra

sat, wagging his tail.



Philip took two steps forward, stopped and looked up at the sky. It was

wrong somehow. For one thing, Cassiopeia had changed position, and for

another, Orion was awry. For still another, there were no clouds for the

moon to hide behind, and yet the moon had disappeared.



Zarathustra trotted over to where he was standing, gazed up at him with

golden eyes, then headed in the direction of the lights. Philip took a

deep breath, and followed him. He would have visited the village anyway,

Zarathustra or no Zarathustra. Was it Pfleugersville? He knew suddenly

that it was.



* * * * *



He had not gone far before he saw a highway. A pair of headlights

appeared suddenly in the direction of the village and resolved rapidly

into a moving van. To his consternation, the van turned off the

thoroughfare and headed in his direction. He ducked into a coppice,

Zarathustra at his heels, and watched the heavy vehicle bounce by. There

were two men in the cab, and painted on the paneling of the truckbed

were the words, PFLEUGERSVILLE MOVERS, INC.



The van continued on in the direction from which he had come, and

presently he guessed its destination. Judith, clearly, was in the midst

of moving out the furniture she had been too sentimental to sell. The

only trouble was, her house had disappeared. So had the village of

Valleyview.



He stared at where the houses should have been, saw nothing at first

except a continuation of the starlit plain. Then he noticed an upright

rectangle of pale light hovering just above the ground, and presently he

identified it as Judith's back doorway. He could see through it into the

kitchen, and by straining his eyes, he could even see the stove and the

refrigerator.



Gradually he made out other upright rectangles hovering just above the

ground, some of them on a line with Judith's. All of them, however,

while outlined in the same shimmering blue that outlined hers, lacked

lighted interiors.



As he stood there staring, the van came to a halt, turned around and

backed up to the brightest rectangle, hiding it from view. The two men

got out of the cab and walked around to the rear of the truckbed. "We'll

put the stove on first," Philip heard one of them say. And then, "Wonder

why she wants to hang onto junk like this?"



The other man's voice was fainter, but his words were unmistakable

enough: "Grass widows who turn into old maids have funny notions

sometimes."



Judith Darrow wasn't really moving out of Valleyview after all. She only

thought 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 palely

down. Some of the land was under cultivation, and he could see green

things growing in the starlight, and the breeze carried their green

breath to his nostrils. He reached the highway and began walking along

it. He saw no further sign of vehicles till he came opposite a large

brick building with bright light spilling through its windows. In front

of it were parked a dozen automobiles of a make that he was unfamiliar

with.



He heard the whir of machinery and the pounding of hammers, and he went

over and peered through one of the windows. The building proved to be a

furniture factory. Most of the work was being done by machines, but

there were enough tasks left over to keep the owners of the parked cars

busily occupied. The main manual task was upholstering. The machines cut

and sewed and trimmed and planed and doweled and assembled, but

apparently none of them was up to the fine art of spitting tacks.



* * * * *



Philip returned to the highway and went on. He came to other buildings

and peered into each. One was a small automobile-assembly plant, another

was a dairy, a third was a long greenhouse. In the first two the

preponderance of the work was being performed by machines. In the third,

however, machines were conspicuously absent. Clearly it was one thing

to build a machine with a superhuman work potential, but quite another

to build one with a green thumb.






He passed a pasture, and saw animals that looked like cows sleeping in

the starlight. He passed a field of newly-sprouted corn. He passed a

power plant, and heard the whine of a generator. Finally he came to the

outskirts of Pfleugersville.



There was a big illuminated sign by the side of the road. It stopped him

in 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. Come

on, he seemed to say. Now that you've seen this much, you might as

well see the rest.



So Philip entered Pfleugersville ... and fell in love--



Fell in love with the lovely houses, and the darling trees in summer

bloom. With the parterres of twinkling star-flowers and the expanses of

verdant lawns. With the trellised green roses that tapestried every

porch. With the hydrangealike blooms that garnished every corner. With

Pfleugersville itself.



Obviously the hour was late, for, other than himself, there was no one

on the streets, although lights burned in the windows of some of the

houses, and dogs of the same breed and size as Zarathustra occasionally

trotted by. And yet according to his watch the time was 10:51. Maybe,

though, Pfleugersville was on different time. Maybe, here in

Pfleugersville, it was the middle of the night.



The farther he progressed into the village, the more enchanted he

became. He simply couldn't get over the houses. The difference between

them and the houses he was familiar with was subtle, but it was there.

It was the difference that exists between good- and not-quite-good

taste. Here were no standardized patios, but little marble aprons that

were as much a part of the over-all architecture as a glen is a part of

a woods. Here were no stereotyped picture windows, but walls that

blended imperceptibly into pleasing patterns of transparency. Here were

no four-square back yards, but rambling star-flowered playgrounds with

swings and seesaws and shaded swimming holes; with exquisite doghouses

good enough for little girls' dolls to live in.



He passed a school that seemed to grow out of the very ground it stood

on. He passed a library that had been built around a huge tree, the

branches of which had intertwined their foliage into a living roof. He

passed a block-long supermarket built of tinted glass. Finally he came

to the park.



He gasped then. Gasped at the delicate trees and the little blue-eyed

lakes; at the fairy-fountains and the winding, pebbled paths.

Star-flowers shed their multicolored radiance everywhere, and starlight

poured prodigally down from the sky. He chose a path at random and

walked along it in the twofold radiance till he came to the cynosure.



The cynosure was a statue--a statue of a buck-toothed, wall-eyed youth

gazing steadfastly up into the heavens. In one hand the youth held a

Phillips screw driver, in the other a six-inch crescent wrench. Standing

several yards away and staring raptly up into the statue's face was the

youth himself, and so immobile was he that if it hadn't been for the

pedestal on which the statue rested, Philip would have been unable to

distinguish one from the other.



There was an inscription on the pedestal. He walked over and read it in

the light cast by a nearby parterre of star-flowers:



FRANCIS FARNSWORTH

PFLEUGER,

DISCOVERER OF

PFLEUGERSVILLE



Born: May 5. 1941. Died: ----



Profession Inventor. On the first day of April of the year of our

Lord, 1962, Francis Farnsworth Pfleuger brought into being a Moebius

coincidence field and established multiple contact with the

twenty-first satellite of the star Sirius, thereby giving the

people of Valleyview access, via their back doorways, to a New

World. Here we have come to live. Here we have come to raise our

children. Here, in this idyllic village, which the noble race that

once inhabited this fair planet left behind them when they migrated

to the Greater Magellanic Cloud, we have settled down to create a

new and better Way of Life. Here, thanks to Francis Farnsworth

Pfleuger, we shall know happiness prosperity and freedom from fear.



FRANCIS FARNSWORTH PFLEUGER, WE, THE NEW INHABITANTS OF SIRIUS XXI,

SALUTE YOU!



Philip wiped his forehead again.



Presently he noticed that the flesh-and-blood Francis Pfleuger was

looking in his direction. "Me," the flesh-and-blood Francis Pfleuger

said, pointing proudly at the statue. "Me."



"So I gather," Philip said dryly. And then. "Zarathustra--come back

here!"



The little dog had started down one of the paths that converged on the

statue. At Philip's command, he stopped but did not turn; instead he

remained where he was, as though waiting for someone to come down the

path. After a moment, someone did--Judith Darrow.



She was wearing a simple white dress, reminiscent both in design and

decor of a Grecian tunic. A wide gilt belt augmented the effect, and her

delicate sandals did nothing to mar it. In the radiance of the

star-flowers, her eyes were more gray than green. There were shadows

under them, Philip noticed, and the lids were faintly red.



She halted a few feet from him and looked at him without saying a word.

"I ... I brought your dog back," he said lamely. "I found him in the

back seat of my car."



"Thank you. I've been looking all over Pfleugersville for him. I left my

Valleyview doors open, hoping he'd come home of his own accord, but I

guess he had other ideas. Now that you've discovered our secret, Mr.

Myles, what do you think of our brave new world?"



"I think it's lovely," Philip said, "but I don't believe it's where you

seem to think it is."



"Don't you?" she asked. "Then suppose you show me the full moon that

rose over Valleyview tonight. Or better yet, suppose I show you

something else." She pointed to a region of the heavens just to the left

of the statue's turned-up nose. "You can't see them from here," she

said, "but around that insignificant yellow star, nine planets are in

orbit. One of them is Earth."



"But that's impossible!" he objected. "Consider the--"



"Distance? In the sort of space we're dealing with, Mr. Myles, distance

is not a factor. In Moebius space--as we have come to call it for lack

of a better term--any two given points are coincidental, regardless of

how far apart they may be in non-Moebius space. But this becomes manifest

only when a Moebius coincidence-field is established. As you probably

know by now, Francis Pfleuger created such a field."



At the mention of his name, Francis Pfleuger came hurrying over to where

they were standing. "E," he declared, "equals mc squared."



"Thank you, Francis," Judith said. Then, to Philip, "Shall we walk?"



They started down one of the converging paths, Zarathustra bringing up

the rear. Behind them, Francis returned to his Narcissistic study of

himself in stone. "We were neighbors back in Valleyview," Judith said,

"but I never dreamed he thought quite so much of himself. Ever since we

put up that statue last week, he's been staring at it night and day.

Sometimes he even brings his lunch with him."



"He seems to be familiar with Einstein."



"He's not really, though. He memorized the energy-mass equation in an

attempt to justify his new status in life, but he hasn't the remotest

notion of what it means. It's ironic in a way that Pfleugersville should

have been discovered by someone with an IQ of less than seventy-five."



"No one with an IQ of less than seventy-five could create the sort of

field you were talking about."



"He didn't create it deliberately--he brought it into being accidentally

by means of a machine he was building to tie knots with. Or at least

that's what he says. But we do know that there was such a machine

because we saw its fused parts in his kitchen, and there's no question

but what it was the source of the field. Francis, though, can't remember

how he made the parts or how he put them together. As a matter of fact,

to this day he still doesn't understand what happened--though I have a

feeling that he knows more than he lets on."



"What did happen?" Philip asked.



For a while Judith was silent. Then, "All of us promised solemnly not to

divulge our secret to an outsider unless he was first accepted by the

group as a whole," she said. "But thanks to my negligence, you know most

of it already, so I suppose you're entitled to know the rest." She

sighed. "Very well--I'll try to explain...."



When Francis Pfleuger's field had come into being, something had

happened to the back doors of Valleyview that caused them to open upon a

planet which one of the local star-gazers promptly identified as Sirius

XXI. The good folk of Valleyview had no idea of how such a state of

affairs could exist, to say nothing of how it could have come about,

till one of the scientists whom they asked to join them as a part of the

plan which they presently devised to make their forthcoming utopia

self-sufficient, came up with a theory that explained everything.



According to his theory, the round-trip distance between any two

planetary or squaredstella bodies was curved in the manner of a Moebius

strip--i.e., a strip of paper given a half-twist before bringing the two

ends together. In this case, the strip represented the round-trip

distance from Earth to Sirius XXI. Earth was represented on the strip by

one dot, and Sirius XXI by another, and, quite naturally, the two dots

were an equal distance--or approximately 8.8 light years--apart. This

brought them directly opposite one another--one on one side of the

strip, the other on the other side; but since a Moebius strip has only

one surface--or side--the two dots were actually occupying the same

space at the same time. In "Moebius space", then, Earth and Sirius XXI

were "coincidental".



* * * * *



Philip looked over his shoulder at the little yellow sun twinkling in

the sky. "Common sense," he said, "tells me differently."



"Common sense is a liar of the first magnitude," Judith said. "It has

misled man ever since he first climbed down from the trees. It was

common sense that inspired Ptolemy's theory of cosmogony. It was common

sense that inspired the burning of Giordano Bruno...."



The fact that common sense indicated that 8.8 light years separated

Earth and Sirius XXI in common-sense reality didn't prove that 8.8 light

years separated them in a form of reality that was outside

common-sense's dominion--i.e., Moebius space--and Francis Pfleuger's

field had demonstrated as much. The back-door nodal areas which it had

established, however, were merely limited manifestations of that

reality--in other words, the field had merely provided limited access to

a form of space that had been in existence all along.



"Though why," Judith concluded, "our back doors should have been

affected rather than our front doors, for example, is

inexplicable--unless it was because Francis built the machine in his

kitchen. In any event, when they did become nodal areas, they manifested

themselves on Sirius XXI, and the dogs in the immediate vicinity

associated them with the doorways of their departed masters and began

whining to be let in."



"Their departed masters?"



"The race that built this village. The race that built the factories and

developed the encompassing farms. A year ago, according to the records

they 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 their

furniture behind them too, not to mention almost unbelievable

stockpiles of every metal imaginable that will last us for centuries.

The logistics of space travel make taking even an extra handkerchief

along a calculated risk. Anyway, when their dogs 'found' us, they were

overjoyed, and as for us, we fell in love with them at first sight. Our

own dogs, though, didn't take to them at all, and every one of them ran

away."





"This can't be the only village," Philip said. "There must be others

somewhere."



"Undoubtedly there are. All we know is that the people who built this

one were the last to leave."



The park was behind them now, and they were walking down a pleasant

street. "And when you and your neighbors discovered the village, did you

decide to become expatriates right then and there?" Philip asked.



She nodded. "Do you blame us? You've seen for yourself what a lovely

place it is. But it's far more than that. In Valleyview, we had

unemployment. Here, there is work for everyone, and a corresponding

feeling of wantedness and togetherness. True, most of the work is

farmwork, but what of that? We have every conceivable kind of machine to

help us in our tasks. Indeed, I think that the only machine the Sirians

lacked was one that could manufacture food out of whole cloth. But

consider the most important advantage of all: when we go to bed at night

we can do so without being afraid that sometime during our sleep a

thermonuclear missile will descend out of the sky and devour us in one

huge incandescent bite. If we've made a culture hero out of our village

idiot, it's no more than right, for unwittingly or not, he opened up the

gates of paradise."



"And you immediately saw to it that no one besides yourselves and a

chosen few would pass through them."



Judith paused beside a white gate. "Yes, that's true," she said. "To

keep our secret, we lived in our old houses while we were settling our

affairs, closing down our few industries and setting up a new monetary

system. In fact, we even kept our ... the children in the dark for fear

that they would talk at school. Suppose, however, we had publicized

our utopia. Can't you imagine the mockery opportunists would have made

out of it? The village we found was large enough to accommodate

ourselves and the few friends, relatives and specialists we asked to

join us, but no larger; and we did, after all, find it in our own back

yard." 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 this

minute!" She opened the gate so that the little dog could pass through

and raised her eyes to Philip. "Our time is different here," she

explained. And then, "I'm afraid you'll have to hurry if you expect to

make 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 ever

since it first came into being, and our 'Moebius-strip scientist' has

predicted 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 on

Earth."



"No," he said, "I guess you don't." His emptiness bowed out before a

wave of bitterness. He had rested his hand on the gate, as close to hers

as he had dared. Now he saw that while it was inches away from hers in

one 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 one

who did the selling out, not your husband. I think you sold him out for

a law practice."



Her face turned white as though he had slapped it, and in a sense, he

had. "Good-by," she said, and this time he was certain that if he were

to 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 rushing

back. "Don't sell us short, though--we'll make a big splash in your sky

one of these days when we blow ourselves up."






He turned and walked away. Walked out of the enchanting village and down

the highway and across the flower-pulsing plain to Judith's back

doorway. It was unlighted now, and he had trouble distinguishing it from

the others. Its shimmering blue framework was flickering. Judith had not

lied then: the field was dying out.



He locked the back door behind him, walked sadly through the dark and

empty house and let himself out the front door. He locked the front door

behind him, too, and went down the walk and climbed into his car. He had

thought he had locked it, but apparently he hadn't. He drove out of town

and down the road to the highway, and down the highway toward the big

bright bonfire of the city.



Dawn was exploring the eastern sky with pale pink fingers when at last

he parked his car in the garage behind his apartment building. He

reached 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 had

invited him to the party didn't mean that he couldn't invite himself. He

would have to hurry, though--he had a lot of things to do, and time was

running out.



Noon found him on the highway again, his business transacted, his

affairs settled, Zarathustra sitting beside him on the seat. One o'clock

found him driving into Valleyview; two-five found him turning down a

familiar street. He would have to leave his car behind him, but that was

all right. Leaving it to rust away in a ghost town was better than

selling it to some opportunistic dealer for a sum he would have no use

for anyway. He parked it by the curb, and after getting his suitcase out

of the trunk, walked up to the front door of Number 23. He unlocked and

opened the door, and after Zarathustra followed him inside, closed and

locked it behind him. He strode through the house to the kitchen. He

unlocked and opened the back door. He stepped eagerly across the

threshold--and stopped dead still.



There were boards beneath his feet instead of grass. Instead of a

flower-pied plain, he saw a series of unkempt back yards. Beside him on

an unpainted trellis, Virginia creeper rattled in an October wind.



Zarathustra came out behind him, descended the back-porch steps and ran

around 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 fragrance

epitomized 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-tipped

tail disappear into the ancient dog house. Disappointment numbed him.

That was where the rose had been then--stored away for safe-keeping like

an 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 back

doorway, rimmed with shimmering blue. It framed a familiar vista, in the

foreground of which a familiar green-rosebush stood. Beneath the

rosebush Zarathustra sat, wagging his tail.



It was a tight squeeze, but Philip made it. He even managed to get his

suitcase through. And just in time too, for hardly had he done so when

the doorway began to flicker. Now it was on its way out, and as he

watched, it faded into transparency and disappeared.



He crawled from beneath the rosebush and stood up. The day was bright

and warm, and the position of the sun indicated early morning or late

afternoon. No, not sun--suns. One of them was a brilliant blue-white

orb, the other a twinkling point of light.



He set off across the plain in Zarathustra's wake. He had a speech

already prepared, and when Judith met him at the gate with wide and

wondering eyes, he delivered it without preamble. "Judith," he said, "I

am contemptuous of the notion that some things are meant to be and

others aren't, and I firmly believe in my own free will; but when your

dog stows away in the back seat of my car two times running and makes

it impossible for me not to see you again, then there must be something

afoot which neither you nor I can do a thing about. Whatever it is, I

have given in to it and have transferred your real estate to an agent

more trustworthy than myself. I know you haven't known me long, and I

know I'm not an accepted member of your group, but maybe somebody will

give me a job raking lawns or washing windows or hoeing corn long enough

for me to prove that I am not in the least antisocial; and maybe, in

time, you yourself will get to know me well enough to realize that while

I have a weakness for blondes who look like Grecian goddesses, I have no

taste whatever for redheads, brunettes, or Cutty Sark. In any event, I

have burned my bridges behind me, and whether I ever become a resident

of Pfleugersville or not, I have already become a resident of Sirius

XXI."



Judith Darrow was silent for some time. Then, "This morning," she said,

"I wanted to ask you to join us, but I couldn't for two reasons. The

first was your commitment to sell our houses, the second was my

bitterness toward men. You have eliminated the first, and the second

seems suddenly inane." She raised her eyes. "Philip, please join us. I

want you to."



Zarathustra, whose real name was Siddenon Phenphonderill, left them

standing there in each other's arms and trotted down the street and out

of town. He covered the ground in easy lopes that belied his three

hundred and twenty-five years, and soon he arrived at the Meeting Place.

The mayors of the other villages had been awaiting him since early

morning and were shifting impatiently on their haunches. When he

clambered up on the rostrum they extended their audio-appendages and

retractile fingers and accorded him a round of applause. He extended his

own "hands" and held them up for silence, then, retracting them again,

he seated himself before the little lectern and began his report, the

idiomatic translation of which follows forthwith:



"Gentlemen, my apologies for my late arrival. I will touch upon the

circumstances that were responsible for it presently.



"To get down to the matter uppermost in your minds: Yes, the experiment

was a success, and if you will use your psycho-transmutative powers to

remodel your villages along the lines my constituents and I remodeled

ours and to build enough factories to give your 'masters' that sense of

self-sufficiency so essential to their well-being, and if you will

'plant' your disassembled Multiple Moebius-Knot Dynamos in such a way

that the resultant fields will be ascribed to accidental causes, you

will have no more trouble attracting personnel than we did. Just make

sure that your 'masters' quarters are superior to your own, and that

you behave like dogs in their presence. And when you fabricate your

records concerning your mythical departed masters, see to it that they

do not conflict with the records we fabricated concerning ours. It would

be desirable indeed if our Sirian-human society could be based on less

deceitful grounds than these, but the very human attitude we are

exploiting renders this impossible at the moment. I hate to think of the

resentment we would incur were we to reveal that, far from being the

mere dogs we seem to be, we are capable of mentally transmuting natural

resources into virtually anything from a key to a concert hall, and I

hate even more to think of the resentment we would incur were we to

reveal that, for all our ability in the inanimate field, we have never

been able to materialize so much as a single blade of grass in the

animate field, and that our reason for coincidentalizing the planet

Earth and creating our irresistible little utopias stems not from a need

for companionship but from a need for gardeners. However, you will find

that all of this can be ironed out eventually through the human

children, with whom you will be thrown into daily contact and whom you

will find to possess all of their parents' abiding love for us and none

of their parents' superior attitude toward us. To a little child, a dog



is a companion, not a pet; an equal, not an inferior--and the little

children of today will be the grown-ups of tomorrow.



"To return to the circumstances that occasioned my late arrival: I ... I

must confess, gentlemen, that I became quite attached to the 'mistress'

into whose house I sought entry when we first established our field and

who subsequently adopted me when I convinced her real dog that he would

find greener pastures elsewhere. So greatly attached did I become, in

fact, that when the opportunity of ostracizing her loneliness presented

itself, I could not refrain from taking advantage of it. The person to

whom she was most suited and who was most suited to her appeared

virtually upon her very doorstep; but in her stubbornness and in her

pride she aggravated rather than encouraged him, causing him to rebel

against the natural attraction he felt toward her. I am happy to report

that, by means of a number of subterfuges--the final one of which

necessitated the use of our original doorway--I was able to set this

matter right, and that these two once-lonely people are about to embark

upon a relationship which in their folklore is oftentimes quaintly

alluded to by the words, 'They lived happily ever after.'



"And now, gentlemen, the best of luck to you and your constituents, and

may you end up with servants as excellent as ours. I hereby declare this

meeting adjourned."