“House!” he screamed.
“What is the matter, sir?”
“These eyes!”
“But you said, sir, anything but rabbits. I though the eyes were quite novel …”
“Get them out of here!” howled Blake.
The eyes went away and in their place a beach led down to a seashore. The white sand ran down to the surging waves that came beating in and on a distant headland; scraggly, weather-beaten trees leaned against the wind. Above the water birds were flying, screaming as they flew. And within the room was the smell of salt and sand.
“Better?” asked the House.
“Yes,” said Blake, “much better. Thank you very much.”
He sat entranced, staring out upon the scene. It was, he told himself, as if he sat upon the beach.
“We put in the sound and smell,” said the House. “We can add the wind as well.”
“No,” said Blake. “This is quite enough.”
The waves came thundering in and the birds flew crying over them and the great black clouds were rolling up the sky. Was there anything, he wondered, that the House could not reproduce upon that wall? Thousands of combinations, the House had said. A man could sit here and stare out upon any scene he wished.
A house, he thought. What was a house? How had it evolved?
First, in mankind’s dim beginning, no more than a shelter to shield a man against the wind and rain, a place in which to huddle, a place for one to hide. And that, basically, still might be its definition, but now a man did more than hide and huddle; a house was a place to live. Perhaps the day might come, in some future time, when a man no more would leave his house, but live out his life inside it, never venturing out of doors, with no need or urge to venture.
That day, he told himself, might be nearer than one thought. For a house no longer was a shelter merely or a simple place to live. It was a companion and a servant and within its walls was all that one might need.
Off the living room stood the tiny room that housed the dimensino, the logical expansion and development of the TV he had known two hundred years ago. But now it was no longer something that one watched and listened to, but something one experienced. A piece of imagery, he thought, with this stretch of seacoast that lay upon the wall. Once in that room, with the set turned on, one entered into the action and the sense of the entertainment form. Not only was one surrounded and caught up by the sound, the smell, the taste, the temperature, the feel of what was going on, but in some subtle way became a sympathetic and an understanding part of the action and emotion that the room portrayed.
And opposite the dimensino, in a corner of the living area, was the library that contained within the simplicity of its electronic being all the literature that still survived from man’s long history. Here one could dial and select all the extant thoughts and hopes of every human being who had ever put down words, trying to capture on a sheet of paper the ferment of experience and of feeling and conviction which welled inside the brain.
It was—this house—a far cry from two centuries ago, a structure and an institution which must be wondered at. And it was not finished yet. In another two centuries there might be as many changes and refinements as there had been in the last two hundred years. Would there ever be an end, he wondered, to the concept of the house?
He took the paper from underneath his arm and opened it. The House had been right, he saw. There was little news.
Three men had been newly nominated for the Intelligence Depository, to join all those other selected humans whose thoughts and personalities, knowledge and intelligence, had over the last three hundred years been impressed into the massive mind bank which carried in its cores the amassed beliefs and thoughts of the world’s most intellectual humans. The North American weather-modification project finally had been referred for review to the supreme court in Rome. The squabble over the shrimp herds off the coast of Florida still was going on. A survey and exploration ship finally had touched down at Moscow, after being gone for ten years and given up for lost. And the regional hearings on the biological engineering proposal would begin in Washington tomorrow.
The biological engineering story carried with it two one-column cuts, one of Senator Chandler Horton and the other of Senator Solomon Stone.
Blake folded the paper and settled down to read.
WASHINGTON, NORTH AMERICA—The two senators of North America will square off on the proposal for the much-argued program of biological engineering as the regional hearing on the matter opens here tomorrow. Political fireworks are expected. No proposal in recent years has so seized the public imagination and no matter of greater controversy exists in the world today.
North America’s two senators find themselves diametrically opposed, as indeed they have been opposed throughout the greater part of their political careers. Senator Chandler Horton has taken a firm stand in approval of the proposal, which will be submitted at the beginning of next year to a worldwide referendum. Senator Solomon Stone is as firmly opposed to it.
That these two men should find themselves on opposite sides of the fence is nothing new. But the political significance of this issue goes deeper because of the so-called Unanimous Consent rule, whereby, on special issues of this sort, submitted to universal referendum, the mandate of the voters must be unanimously approved on the floor of the World Senate at Geneva. Thus, should the vote be favorable, Senator Stone would be required to stipulate that he would vote to confirm the measure on the senate floor. Failing in this, he would be bound to step aside by resignation of his seat. In this case a special election would be held to fill the vacancy caused by his resignation. Only candidates who made prior pledges to uphold the measure would be eligible to file for the special election.
If the referendum should go against the measure, Senator Horton would find himself in a smiliar position.
In the past, when this situation obtained, certain senators have retained their seats by voting for the proposals which they had opposed. This would not be the case, most observers agree, with either Stone or Horton. Both have placed their political lives and reputations squarely on the line. Their political philosophies are at opposite poles of the spectrum and over the years their personal antipathy toward one another has become a senatorial legend. It is not believed, at this late date, that either.…
“You’ll pardon me, sir,” said the House, “but Upstairs informs me that a strange thing happened to you. You are all right, I trust.”
Blake looked up from the paper.
“Yes,” he said. “I am all right.”
“But might it not,” the House insisted, “be a good idea for you to see a medic.”
Blake laid down the paper and opened his mouth—then closed it firmly. After all, officious as it might be, the House had his good at heart. It was a servo-mechanism and its sole thought and purpose was to serve the human that it sheltered.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you’re right.”
For there was no question that there was something wrong. Within less than twenty-four hours something strange had happened to him twice.
“There was that doctor in Washington,” he said. “At the hospital where they took me to revive me. I think his name was Daniels.”
“Dr. Michael Daniels,” said the House.
“You know his name?”
“Our file on you,” said the House, “is really quite complete. How, otherwise, could we serve you as we are supposed to do?”
“You have his number, then. You could call him.”
“Why, of course. If you wish me to.”
“If you please,” said Blake.
He laid the paper on the table and got up and walked into the living room. He sat down before the phone and the small vision panel lit up, flickering.
“In just a moment, sir,” said the House.
The panel cleared and in it were the head and shoulders of Dr. Michael Daniels.
“Andrew Blake. You remember me?”
“C
ertainly I remember you,” said Daniels. “I was wondering just last night about you. How you were getting on.”
“Physically, I’m O.K.,” said Blake. “But I’ve been having—well, until you find otherwise, I suppose you’d call them hallucinations.”
“But you don’t think they are hallucinations.”
“I’m fairly sure they’re not,” said Blake.
“Could you come in?” asked Daniels. “I’d like to check you out.”
“I’d be glad to come in, doctor.”
“Washington’s bulging at the seams,” said Daniels. “Everything is full. People coming in for the bioengineering show. There’s a housing lot just across the street from us. Can you wait while I make a check?”
“I can wait,” said Blake.
Daniels’ face disappeared and the fuzzy blur of an office, out of focus, danced vaguely on the screen.
Kitchen’s voice bellowed: “One oatmeal cooked and waiting. Also toast. Also eggs and bacon. Also a pot of coffee.”
“Master’s busy on the phone,” said the House, disapprovingly. “And all he ordered was the oatmeal.”
“He might change his mind,” said Kitchen. “Oatmeal might not be enough. He might be hungrier than he thought. You would not want it said that we were starving him.”
Daniels came back into the panel.
“Thanks for waiting,” he said. “I checked. There is no space available right now. There’ll be one foundation in the morning. I reserved it for you. Can it wait that long?”
“I think it can,” said Blake. “I only want to talk with you.”
“We could talk right now.”
Blake shook his head.
“I understand,” said Daniels. “See you tomorrow, then. Let’s say one o’clock. What are your plans today?”
“I haven’t any plans.”
“Why don’t you go fishing. Get your mind off things. Occupy yourself. Are you a fisherman?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. It seems to me I may have been. The sport has a familiar sound to it.”
“Things still dribbling back,” said Daniels. “Still remembering …”
“Not remembering. Just the background. Pieces of it falling into shape now and then. But it doesn’t really tell me anything. Someone mentions something or I read of something and it’s suddenly familiar, a statement or a fact or a situation that I can accept. Something that I’ve known or encountered at some former time, but not when or how or under what conditions I encountered it.”
“I’d give a lot,” said Daniels, “for us to get a clue or two from that background of yours.”
“I simply live with it,” said Blake. “That’s the only way I can get along.”
“It’s the only sensible approach,” Daniels agreed. “You have a good day fishing and I’ll see you tomorrow. Seems to me there are some trout streams out in your locality. Hunt up one of them.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
The phone clicked off and the screen went blank. Blake swung around.
“As soon as you’ve finished breakfast,” said the House, “we’ll have the floater waiting on the patio. You’ll find fishing tackle in the back bedroom, which is used as a sort of store house, and Kitchen will fix you up a lunch. In the meantime I’ll look up a good trout stream and have directions for you and …”
“Cut out that yammering!” howled the Kitchen. “Breakfast is getting cold.”
8
The water foamed through the jam of fallen trees and brush that in some earlier springtime flood had been caught between the clump of birch and the high cut bank that marked a sharp curve in the stream—foamed through the barrier and then smoothed out in a quiet, dark pool.
Carefully Blake guided the chair-like floater to the ground at one end of the barrier, close to the clump of birch, snapped off the gravity field as it came to rest. For a moment he sat in the chair unmoving, listening to the churning of the water, charmed by the deep quietness of the pool. Ahead of him the mountain range lifted in the sky.
Finally he got out of the floater and from its back unstrapped the hamper of lunch to get at his fishing tackle. He set the hamper to one side on the grassy bank from which the clump of birches grew.
Something scrabbled in the dam of twisted tree trunks that lay across the stream. At the sound, Blake spun about. A pair of beady eyes stared out at him from beneath a log.
A mink, he thought. Or perhaps an otter. Peering out at him from its den inside the log jam.
“Hello, there,” said Blake. “Do you mind if I try my luck.”
“Hello, there,” said the otter-mink, in a high and piping voice. “What is this luck that you wish to try? Please elucidate.”
“What was that you …” Blake’s voice ran down to a stop.
The otter-mink emerged from beneath the log. It was neither an otter nor a mink. It was a bipedal being—like something that had stepped from the pages of a children’s book. A hairy rodent snout was topped by a high domed skull from which flared a pair of pointed ears with tassels on the tips of them. It stood two feet high or so and its body was covered with a smooth, brown coat of fur. It wore a pair of bright red trousers that were mostly pockets and its hands were equipped with long and slender fingers.
Its snout twitched. “Would you, perhaps,” it asked in its squeaking voice, “have food inside that basket?”
“Why, yes,” said Blake. “I take it you are hungry.”
It was absurd, of course. In just a little while—in another minute, if not less—this illustration from a children’s book would simply go away and he could get on with his fishing.
“I’m starving,” said the illustration. “The people who usually set out food for me have gone on a vacation. I’ve been scrounging ever since. Have you, perhaps, sometime in your life, tried scrounging for your food?”
“I don’t think,” said Blake, “that I ever have.”
It did not disappear. It kept on staying and it kept on talking and there was no getting rid of it.
Good God, thought Blake, here I go again!
“If you are hungry,” he said, “we should get at the hamper. Is there anything, especially, that you like to eat?”
“I eat,” said the creature, “anything that Homo sapiens can. I am not fussy in the least. My metabolism seems to match most admirably with the denizens of Earth.”
Together they walked over to the hamper and Blake lifted off the cover.
“You seem unconcerned,” said the creature, “by my appearance from the log jam.”
“It’s no concern of mine,” said Blake, trying to think fast, but unable to prod his mind out of its jog. “We have sandwiches here and some cake and a bowl of, I believe—yes, a bowl of potato salad, and some deviled eggs.”
“If you don’t mind, I will take a couple of those sandwiches.”
“Go right ahead,” invited Blake.
“You do not intend to join me?”
“I had breakfast just a while ago.”
The creature sat down with a sandwich in each hand and began eating ravenously.
“You must pardon my poor table manners,” it said to Blake, “but I have not had any decent food for almost two weeks. I suppose that I expect too much. These people that take care of me set out real food for me. Not like a lot of people do—just a bowl of milk.”
Crumbs clung to its trembling whiskers and it went on eating. It finished the two sandwiches and reached out a hand, halted with it poised above the hamper.
“You do not mind?” it asked.
“Not at all,” said Blake.
It took another sandwich.
“You will pardon me,” it asked, “but how many of you are there?”
“How many of me?”
“Yes, of you. How many of you are there?”
“Why,” said Blake, “there is only one of me. How could there be more?”
“It was foolish of me, of course,” said the creature, “but when I first saw y
ou, I could have sworn there were more than one of you.”
He began eating the sandwich, but at a somewhat slower rate than he’d employed on the other two.
He finished it and dabbed delicately at his whiskers, knocking off the crumbs.
“I thank you very much,” he said.
“You are most welcome,” said Blake. “Are you sure you won’t have another one?”
“Not a sandwich, perhaps. But if you had some cake to spare.”
“Help yourself,” said Blake.
The creature helped itself.
“And now,” said Blake, “you’ve asked me a question. Would you say it might be fair if I asked you one.”
“Very fair, indeed,” the creature said. “Go ahead and ask it.”
“I have found myself wondering,” said Blake, “exactly who and what you are.”
“Why bless you,” said the creature, “I thought that you would know. It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t recognize me.”
Blake shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
“I am a Brownie,” said the creature, bowing. “At your service, sir.”
9
Dr. Michael Daniels was waiting at his desk when Blake was ushered into his office.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Daniels asked.
Blake grinned bleakly. “Not too badly, after the going over you gave me yesterday. Were there any tests that you left out?”
“We sort of threw the book at you,” Daniels admitted. “There’s still a test or two, if …”
“No, thank you.”
Daniels gestured at a chair. “Make yourself comfortable. We have some things to talk about.”
Blake took the indicated chair. Daniels pulled a fat folder in front of him and opened it.
“I would assume,” said Blake, “that you have been doing some checking on what might have happened out in space—what happened to me, I mean. Any luck at all?”