Clifford Simak - New Folks' Home - And Other Stories

Collins had lived out five hundred years in a world which lacked the profit concept. And the red and yellow desert—what kind of world was that? Norman Blaine had not been there long enough to know; but there was one thing he did know—that, like Collins’ world, the Jenkins world was one no one would ask to live in.

The cart had wooden wheels and had been pulled by camel-power; that might mean that it was a world in which the idea of mechanized transportation never had been thought of. But it might, as well, be any one of a thousand other kinds of cultures.

Blaine opened the door of the cubicle and went out. He put the reel back in the rack and stood for a moment in the center of the icy room. After a moment, he realized that it was not the room that was icy, but himself.

This afternoon, when he had talked with Lucinda Silone, Blaine had thought of himself as a dedicated person, had thought of the Center and the guild as a place of dedication. He had talked unctuously of the fact there must be no taint upon the guild, that it must at all times perform its services so as to merit the confidence of anyone who might apply for Sleep.

And where was that dedication now? Where was the public confidence?

How many others had been given substituted dreams? How long had this been going on? Five hundred years ago, Spencer Collins had been given a dream that was not the dream he wanted. So the tampering had been going on five hundred years, at least.

And how many others in the years to come?

Lucinda Silone—what kind of dream would she get? Would it be the mid-nineteenth century plantation or some other place? How many of the dreams that Blaine had helped in fabricating had been changed?

He thought of the girl who had sat across the desk from him that morning—the honey color hair and the blue eyes, the milky whiteness of her skin, the way she talked, the things she had said, and the others that she had not said.

She, too, he thought.

And there was an answer to that. He moved swiftly toward the door.

He climbed the steps and rang the bell; a voice told him to come in.

Lucinda Silone sat in a chair beside a window. There was only one light—a dim light—in the far corner of the room, so that she sat in shadow. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “You do the investigating, too.”

“Miss Silone …”

“Come in and have a seat. I’m quite willing to answer any questions; you see, I am still convinced …”

“Miss Silone,” said Blaine, “I came to tell you not to take the Sleep. I came to warn you; I have …”

“You fool,” she said. “You utter, silly fool.”

“But …”

“Get out of here,” she told him.

“But it’s …”

She rose out of her chair and there was scorn in every line of her. “So I can’t take a chance. Go ahead; tell me it’s dangerous. Go on and tell me it’s a trick. You fool—I knew all that before I ever came.”

“You knew …”

They stood for a moment in tense silence, each staring at the other. “And now you know.” And she said something else he had thought himself not half an hour before: “How about that dedication now?”

“Miss Silone, I came to tell you …”

“Don’t tell anyone,” she said. “Go back home and forget you know it; you’ll be more comfortable that way. Not dedicated, maybe, but much more comfortable. And you’ll live a good deal longer.”

“There is no need to threaten …”

“Not a threat, Blaine; just a tip. If word should get to Farris that you know, you could count your life in hours. And I could see that the tip got round to Farris. I know just the way to do it.”

“But Farris …”

“He’s dedicated, too?”

“Well, no, perhaps not. I don’t …”

The thought was laughable. Paul Farris dedicated!

“When I come back to Center,” she said, speaking evenly and calmly, “we’ll proceed just as if this had never happened. You’ll make it your personal business to see that my Sleep goes through, without a hitch. Because if you don’t, word will get to Farris.”

“But why is it so important that you take the Sleep, knowing what you do?”

“Maybe I’m Entertainment,” she said. “You rule out Entertainment, don’t you? You asked me if I was Entertainment and you were very foxy while you were doing it. You fob off Entertainment because you’re afraid they’ll steal your Dreams for solidiographs. They tried to do it once, and you’ve been jumpy ever since.”

“You’re not Entertainment.”

“You thought so this morning. Or was that all an act?”

“It was an act,” Blaine admitted miserably.

“But this tonight isn’t an act,” she said coldly, “because you’re scared as you’ve never been before. Well, keep on being scared. You have a right to be.”

She stood for a moment, looking at him in disgust. “And now get out.”

Philo did not meet him at the gate, but ran out of a clump of shrubbery, barking in high welcome, when he swung the car around the circle drive and stopped before the house. “Down, Philo,” Blaine told him. “Down.”

He climbed out of the car and Philo moved, quietly now, to stand beside him; in the quietness of the night, he could hear the click of the dog’s toenails upon the bluestone walk. The house stood large and dark, although a light burned beside the door. He wondered how it was that houses and trees always seemed larger in the night, as if with the coming of the dark they took on new dimensions.

A stone crunched underneath a footstep and he swung around. Harriet stood on the path. “I was waiting for you,” she said. “I thought you’d never come. Philo and I were waiting, and …”

“You gave me a start,” he told her. “I thought that you were working.”

She moved swiftly forward and the light from the entrance lamp fell across her face. She was wearing a low-cut dress that sparkled in the light, and a sparkling veil was flung across her head so that it seemed she was surrounded by a thousand twinkling stars. “There was someone here,” she told him.

“Someone …”

“I drove up the back way. There was a car out front, and Philo was barking. I saw three of them come out the door, dragging a fourth. He was fighting and struggling, but they hurried him along and pushed him in the car. Philo was nipping at them, but they paid him no attention, they were in such a hurry. I thought at first it might be you, but then I saw it wasn’t. The three were dressed like goons and I was a little frightened. I sped up and drove past and tore out on the highway, as fast as I could go, and …”

“Now, wait a minute,” Blaine cautioned. “You’re going too fast; take your time and tell me …”

“Then, later, I drove back, without my lights, and parked the car at my place. I came across the woods and I’ve been waiting for you.”

She paused, breathless with her rush of words.

He reached out, put his fingers underneath her chin, tipped up her face and kissed her.

She brushed his hand away. “At a time like this,” she said.

“Any time, at all.”

“Norm, are you in trouble? Is someone after you?”

“There may be several who are after me.”

“And you stand around and slobber over me.”

“I just happened to think,” he said, “of what I have to do.”

“What do you have to do?”

“Go see Farris. He invited me; I forgot until just now.”

“But you forget. I said goons …”

“They weren’t goons. They were dressed to look like goons.”

For now, suddenly, Norman Blaine saw it as a single unit with a single purpose—saw at last the network of intrigue and of purpose that he had sought since that morning.