Clifford Simak - Ring Around the Sun

Out of his differentness he had built his life; perhaps out of that very differentness had sprung what small measure of success he had achieved.

He had settled into a rut of his own devising, a polished and well-loved rut, and then something had come along to jolt him out of it. It had started with the little girl coming to the door, and after that Eb talking about the Forever car — and there had been Crawford, and Flanders' strange words on the porch and, finally, the notebook remembered after many years and found in an attic box.

Forever cars and synthetic carbohydrates, Crawford talking about a world with its back against the wall — somehow he knew that all these things were connected, and that he was tied up in some way with all of it.

It was maddening, to be convinced of this without a scrap of evidence, without a shred of reason, without a single clue as to what his part might be.

It had always been like that, he realized, even in little things — the frightening feeling that he had but to stretch out his hand to touch certain truth, but never being able to reach quite far enough to grasp it.

It was absurd to know that a thing was right without knowing why: to know that it had been right to refuse Crawford's offer, when every factor urged its acceptance; to have known from the very start that Horton Flanders could not be found, when there was no reason to suspect he might not be.

Fifteen years ago he had faced a certain problem and after a time, in his own way, had solved it, without realizing he had solved it, by retreat from the human race. He had retreated until his back was against the wall and there, for a while, he had found peace. Now, in some strange way, his sense of "hunch," this undefined feeling that was almost prescience, seemed to be telling him that the world and the affairs of men had sought him out again. But now he could retreat no further, even if he wanted to. Curiously, he did not seem to want to, and that was just as well, for there was no place to go. He had shrunk back from humanity and he could shrink no farther.

He sat alone in the attic, listening to the wind that whispered in the eaves.

SOMEONE was hammering on the door down stairs and shouting his name, but it was a moment or two before he realized what was happening.

He rose from the box and the notebook fell from his fingers and fell rumpled on the floor, face downward, with its open pages caught and crumpled.

"Who is it?" he asked. "What's the matter down there?" But his voice was no more than a croaking whisper.

"Jay," the voice shouted. "Jay, are you here?"

He stumbled down the stairs and into the living room. Eb stood just inside the door.

"What's the matter, Eb?"

"Listen, Jay," Eb told him, "you got to get out of here."

"What for?"

"They think you did away with Flanders."

Vickers reached out a hand and caught the back of a chair and hung on to it.

"I won't even ask you if you did," said Eb. "I'm pretty sure you didn't. That's why I'm giving you a chance."

"A chance?" asked Vickers. "What are you talking about?"

"They're down at the tavern now," said Eb, "talking themselves into a lynching party."

"They?"

"All your friends," Eb said, bitterly. "Someone got them all stirred up. I don't know who it was. I didn't wait to find out who. I came straight up here."

"But I liked Flanders. I was the only one who liked him. I was the only friend he had."

"You haven't any time," Eb told him. "You've got to get away."

"I can't go anywhere. I haven't got my car."

"I brought up one of the Forever cars," said Eb. "No one knows I brought it. No one will know you have it."

"I can't run away. They've got to listen to me. They've got to."

"You damn fool. This isn't the sheriff with a warrant. This is a mob and they won't listen to you."

Eb strode across the room and grabbed Vickers roughly by the arm. "Get going, damn you," he said. "I risked my neck to come up here and warn you. After I've done that, you can't throw the chance away."

Vickers shook his arm free. "All right," he said, "I'll go." "Money?" asked Eb. "I have some."

"Here's some more." Ed reached into his pocket and held out a thin sheaf of bills.

Vickers took it and stuck it in his pocket.

"The car is full of gas," said Eb. "The shift is automatic. It drives like any other car. I left the motor running."

"I hate to do this, Eb."

"I know just how you hate to," said Eb, "but if you save this town a killing there's nothing else to do."

He gave Vickers a shove.

"Come on," he said. "Get going."

Vickers trotted down the path and heard Eb pounding along behind him. The car stood at the gate. Eb had left the door wide open.

"In you go. Cut straight over to the main highway."

"Thanks, Eb."

"Get out of here," said Eb.

Vickers pulled the shift to the drive position and stepped on the gas. The car floated away and swiftly gathered speed. He reached the main highway and swung in toward the west.

He drove for miles, fleeing down the cone of brightness thrown by the headlights. He drove with a benumbed bewilderment that he should be doing this — that he, Jay Vickers, should be fleeing from a lynching party made up of his neighbors.

Someone, Eb had said, had got them all stirred up. And who would it have been who would have stirred them up?

Someone, perhaps, who hated him.

Even as he thought that, he knew who it was. He felt again the threat and the fear that he had felt when he had sat face to face with Crawford — the then-unrealized threat and fear that had made him refuse the offer to write Crawford's book.

There's something going on, Horton Flanders had standing with him in front of the gadget shop.

And there was something going on.

There were everlasting gadgets being made by non-existent firms. There was an organization of world businessmen, backed into a corner by a foe at whom they could not strike back. There was Horton Flanders talking of some new, strange factors which kept the world from war. There were Pretentionists, hiding from the actuality of today, playing dollhouse with the past.

And, finally, here was Jay Vickers fleeing to the west.

By midnight, he knew what he was doing and where he was going.

He was going where Horton Flanders had said that he should go, doing what he had said he would never do.

He was going back to his own childhood.

THEY were exactly the way he had expected them to be.

They sat out in front of the general store, on the bench and the upturned boxes, and turned sly eyes up toward him and they said: "Too bad about your Pa, Jay. He was a damn good man."

They said: "So you write books, do you. Have to read one of your books someday. Never heard of them."

They said: "You going out to the old place?"

"This afternoon," said Vickers.

"It's changed," they warned. "It's changed a whole lot. There ain't no one living there."

"No one?"

"Farming's gone to hell," they told him. "Can't make no money at it. This carbohydrates business. Lots of folk can't keep their places. Banks take them away from them, or they have to sell out cheap. Lots of farms around here being bought up for grazing purposes — just fix the fences and turn some cattle in. Don't even try to farm. Buy feeder stuff out in the west and turn it loose the summer, then fatten it for fall."

"That's what happened to the old place?"

They nodded solemnly at him. "That's what happened, son. Feller that bought it after your Pa, he couldn't make the riffle. Your Pa's place ain't the only one. There's been lots of others, too. You remember the old Preston place, don't you?"