Clifford Simak - Ring Around the Sun

"You've searched for him?" asked Vickers.

"Around the place," said Eb. "But we're going to start branching out now. We'll have to organize and get some system in it."

The drugstore owner said: "We thought at first maybe he'd been up during the night wandering around the house or out into the yard and might have had a seizure, of one sort or another. So we looked near at hand at first."

"We've gone over the house," said Joe, "from top to bottom and we've combed the yard and there ain't hide nor hair of him."

"Maybe he went for a walk," Vickers offered.

"No man in his right mind," declared Joe, "goes walking after midnight."

"He wasn't in his right mind, if you ask me," said Eb. "Not that I didn't like him, 'cause I did. Never saw a more mannerly old codger in all my born days, but he had funny ways about him."

Someone with a lantern came down the brick paved walk. "You men ready to get organized?" asked the man with the lantern.

"Sure, sheriff," said Eb. "Sure, we're ready, any time you are. We just been waiting for you to get it figured out."

"Well," said the sheriff, "there ain't much that we can do until it gets light, although that's only a couple hours away. But I thought maybe until it got light enough to see we might take some quick scouts out around. Some of the other boys are going to fan out and cover the town, go up and down all the streets and alleys and I thought maybe some of you might like to have a look along the river."

"That's all right with us," said Eb. "You tell us what you want us to do and we sure will do it."

The sheriff lifted his lantern to shoulder height and looked at them. "Jay Vickers, ain't it? Glad you joined us, Jay. We need all the men there are."

Vickers lied, without knowing why he lied: "I heard some commotion going on."

"Guess you knew the old gent pretty well. Better than the most of us."

"He used to come over and talk to me almost every day," said Vickers.

"I know. We remarked about it. He never talked to no one else."

"We had some common interests," Vickers said, "and I think that he was lonely."

"The housekeeper said he went over to see you last night."

"Yes, he did," said Vickers. "He left shortly after midnight." "Notice anything unusual about him? Any difference in the way he talked?"

"Now, look here, sheriff," said Eb. "You don't think that Jay had anything to do with this?"

"No," the sheriff said. "No, I guess I don't." He lowered the lantern and said, "If you fellows would go down to the river. Split up when you get there. Some of you go up-stream and some of you go down. I don't expect you to find anything, but we might as well look. Be back by daylight and we'll really start combing for him."

The sheriff turned away, walking back up the brick pavement, with his lantern swinging.

"I guess," said Eb, "we might as well get started. I'll take one bunch down the river and Joe will take the others up. That all right with the rest of you?"

"It's all right with me," said Joe.

They walked out the gate and down the street until they hit the cross street, then went down to the bridge. They halted there.

"We split up here," said Eb. "Who wants to go with Joe?"

Several men said they would.

"All right," said Eb. "The rest of you come with me." They separated and plunged down from the street to the river bank. Cold river mist lay close along the bank and in the darkness they could hear the swift, smooth tonguing of the river. A night bird cried across the water and looking out to the other bank, one could see the splintered starlight that had shattered itself against the running current.

Eb asked, "You think we'll find him, Jay?"

Vickers spoke slowly. "No, I don't. I can't tell you why, but somehow I am pretty sure we won't."

IT WAS early evening before Vickers returned home.

The phone was ringing when he stepped inside the door and he strode across the room and picked it up.

It was Ann Carter. "I've been trying to get you all day. I'm terribly upset. Where have you been?"

"Out looking for a man," said Vickers.

"Jay, don't be funny," she said. "Please don't be funny."

"I'm not being funny. An old man, a neighbor of mine, disappeared. I've been out helping look for him."

"Did you find him?"

"No, we didn't."

"That's too bad," she said. "Was he a nice old man?"

"The best."

"Maybe you'll find him later."

"Maybe we will," said Vickers. "Why are you upset?"

"You remember what Crawford said?"

"He said a lot of things."

"But what he said about what would come next. You remember that?"

"I can't say that I do."

"Well, he said clothing would be next. A dress for fifty cents."

"Now that you mention it," said Vickers, "it all comes back to me."

"Well, it happened."

"What happened?"

"A dress. Only it wasn't fifty cents. It was fifteen!"

"You bought one?"

"No, I didn't, Jay. I was too scared to buy one. I was walking down Fifth Avenue and there was a sign in the window, a little discreet sign that said the dress on the model could be had for fifteen cents. Can you imagine that, Jay! A dress for fifteen cents on Fifth Avenue!"

"No, I can't," Vickers confessed.

"It was such a pretty dress," she said. "It shone. Not with stones or tinsel. The material shone. Like it was alive. And the color… Jay, it was the prettiest dress I have ever seen. And I could have bought it for fifteen cents, but I didn't have the nerve. I remembered what Crawford had told us and I stood there looking at the dress and I got cold all over."

"Well, that's too bad," said Vickers. "Buck up your nerve and go back in the morning. Maybe they'll still have it."

"But that isn't the point at all, Jay. Don't you see? It proves what Crawford told us. It proves that he knew what he was talking about, that there really is a conspiracy, that the world really does have its back against the wall."

"And what do you want me to do about it?"

"Why, I–I don't know, Jay. I thought you would be interested."

"I am," said Vickers. "Very interested."

"Jay, there's something going on."

"Keep your shirt on, Ann," said Vickers. "Sure, there's something going on."

"What is it, Jay? I know it's more than Crawford said. I don't know how —»

"I don't know, either. But it's big — it's bigger than you and I can handle. I have to think it out."

"Jay," she said, and the sharp tenseness was gone from her voice. "Jay, I feel better now. It was nice to talk to you."

"You go out in the morning," he told her, "and buy up an armful of those fifteen-cent dresses. Get there early ahead of the crowd."

"Crowd? I don't understand."

"Look, Ann," Vickers said, "when the news gets around, Fifth Avenue is going to have a crush of bargain hunters like nothing you've ever seen before."

"I guess you're right at that," she said. "Phone me tomorrow, Jay?"

"I'll phone."

They said good night and he hung up, stood for a moment, trying to remember the next thing that he should do. There was supper to get and the papers to get in and he'd better see if there was any mail.

He went out the door and walked down the path to the mailbox on the gatepost. He took out a slim handful of letters and leafed through them swiftly, but there was so little light he could not make out what they were. Advertising mostly, he suspected. And a few bills, although it was a bit early in the month for the bills to start.

Back in the house he turned on the desk lamp and laid the pile of letters on the desk. Beneath the lamp lay the litter of tubes and discs that he had picked up from the floor the night before. He stood there staring at them, trying to bring them into correct time perspective. It had only been the night before, but now it seemed as if it were many weeks ago that he had thrown the paperweight and there had been a crunching sound that had erupted with a shower of tiny parts rolling on the floor.