1 files changed, 2320 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/26782.txt b/26782.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dc4bf63
--- /dev/null
+++ b/26782.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2320 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of It Could Be Anything, by John Keith Laumer
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: It Could Be Anything
+
+Author: John Keith Laumer
+
+Illustrator: Virgil Finlay
+
+Release Date: October 5, 2008 [EBook #26782]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IT COULD BE ANYTHING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+By KEITH LAUMER
+
+                     it could be
+                      ANYTHING
+
+ _Keith Laumer, well-known for his tales of adventure
+ and action, shows us a different side of his talent
+   in this original, exciting and thought-provoking
+       exploration of the meaning of meaning._
+
+Illustrated by FINLAY
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+"She'll be pulling out in a minute, Brett," Mr. Phillips said. He tucked
+his railroader's watch back in his vest pocket. "You better get
+aboard--if you're still set on going."
+
+"It was reading all them books done it," Aunt Haicey said. "Thick books,
+and no pictures in them. I knew it'd make trouble." She plucked at the
+faded hand-embroidered shawl over her thin shoulders, a tiny bird-like
+woman with bright anxious eyes.
+
+"Don't worry about me," Brett said. "I'll be back."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The place'll be yours when I'm gone," Aunt Haicey said. "Lord knows it
+won't be long."
+
+"Why don't you change your mind and stay on, boy?" Mr. Phillips said,
+blinking up at the young man. "If I talk to Mr. J.D., I think he can
+find a job for you at the plant."
+
+"So many young people leave Casperton," Aunt Haicey said. "They never
+come back."
+
+Mr. Phillips clicked his teeth. "They write, at first," he said. "Then
+they gradually lose touch."
+
+"All your people are here, Brett," Aunt Haicey said. "Haven't you been
+happy here?"
+
+"Why can't you young folks be content with Casperton?" Mr. Phillips
+said. "There's everything you need here."
+
+"It's that Pretty-Lee done it," Aunt Haicey said. "If it wasn't for that
+girl--"
+
+A clatter ran down the line of cars. Brett kissed Aunt Haicey's dry
+cheek, shook Mr. Phillips' hand, and swung aboard. His suitcase was on
+one of the seats. He put it up above in the rack, and sat down, turned
+to wave back at the two old people.
+
+It was a summer morning. Brett leaned back and watched the country slide
+by. It was nice country, Brett thought; mostly in corn, some cattle, and
+away in the distance the hazy blue hills. Now he would see what was on
+the other side of them: the cities, the mountains, and the ocean. Up
+until now all he knew about anything outside of Casperton was what he'd
+read or seen pictures of. As far as he was concerned, chopping wood and
+milking cows back in Casperton, they might as well not have existed.
+They were just words and pictures printed on paper. But he didn't want
+to just read about them. He wanted to see for himself.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Pretty-Lee hadn't come to see him off. She was probably still mad about
+yesterday. She had been sitting at the counter at the Club Rexall,
+drinking a soda and reading a movie magazine with a big picture of an
+impossibly pretty face on the cover--the kind you never see just walking
+down the street. He had taken the next stool and ordered a coke.
+
+"Why don't you read something good, instead of that pap?" he asked her.
+
+"Something good? You mean something dry, I guess. And don't call it ...
+that word. It doesn't sound polite."
+
+"What does it say? That somebody named Doll Starr is fed up with glamor
+and longs for a simple home in the country and lots of kids? Then why
+doesn't she move to Casperton?"
+
+"You wouldn't understand," said Pretty-Lee.
+
+He took the magazine, leafed through it. "Look at this: all about
+people who give parties that cost thousands of dollars, and fly all over
+the world having affairs with each other and committing suicide and
+getting divorced. It's like reading about Martians."
+
+"I still like to read about the stars. There's nothing wrong with it."
+
+"Reading all that junk just makes you dissatisfied. You want to do your
+hair up crazy like the pictures in the magazines and wear weird-looking
+clothes--"
+
+Pretty-Lee bent her straw double. She stood up and took her shopping
+bag. "I'm very glad to know you think my clothes are weird--"
+
+"You're taking everything I say personally. Look." He showed her a
+full-color advertisement on the back cover of the magazine. "Look at
+this. Here's a man supposed to be cooking steaks on some kind of
+back-yard grill. He looks like a movie star; he's dressed up like he was
+going to get married; there's not a wrinkle anywhere. There's not a spot
+on that apron. There isn't even a grease spot on the frying pan. The
+lawn is as smooth as a billiard table. There's his son; he looks just
+like his pop, except that he's not grey at the temples. Did you ever
+really see a man that handsome, or hair that was just silver over the
+ears and the rest glossy black? The daughter looks like a movie starlet,
+and her mom is exactly the same, except that she has that grey streak in
+front to match her husband. You can see the car in the drive; the treads
+of the tires must have just been scrubbed; they're not even dusty.
+There's not a pebble out of place; all the flowers are in full bloom; no
+dead ones. No leaves on the lawn; no dry twigs showing on the trees.
+That other house in the background looks like a palace, and the man with
+the rake, looking over the fence: he looks like this one's twin brother,
+and he's out raking leaves in brand new clothes--"
+
+Pretty-Lee grabbed her magazine. "You just seem to hate everything
+that's nicer than this messy town--"
+
+"I don't think it's nicer. I like you; your hair isn't always perfectly
+smooth, and you've got a mended place on your dress, and you feel human,
+you smell human--"
+
+"Oh!" Pretty-Lee turned and flounced out of the drug store.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Brett shifted in the dusty plush seat and looked around. There were a
+few other people in the car. An old man was reading a newspaper; two old
+ladies whispered together. There was a woman of about thirty with a
+mean-looking kid; and some others. They didn't look like magazine
+pictures, any of them. He tried to picture them doing the things you
+read in newspapers: the old ladies putting poison in somebody's tea; the
+old man giving orders to start a war. He thought about babies in houses
+in cities, and airplanes flying over, and bombs falling down: huge
+explosive bombs. Blam! Buildings fall in, pieces of glass and stone fly
+through the air. The babies are blown up along with everything else--
+
+But the kind of people he knew couldn't do anything like that. They
+liked to loaf and eat and talk and drink beer and buy a new tractor or
+refrigerator and go fishing. And if they ever got mad and hit
+somebody--afterwards they were embarrassed and wanted to shake hands....
+
+The train slowed, came to a shuddery stop. Through the window he saw a
+cardboardy-looking building with the words BAXTER'S JUNCTION painted
+across it. There were a few faded posters on a bulletin board. An old
+man was sitting on a bench, waiting. The two old ladies got off and a
+boy in blue jeans got on. The train started up. Brett folded his jacket
+and tucked it under his head and tried to doze off....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Brett awoke, yawned, sat up. The train was slowing. He remembered you
+couldn't use the toilets while the train was stopped. He got up and went
+to the end of the car. The door was jammed. He got it open and went
+inside and closed the door behind him. The train was going slower,
+clack-clack ... clack-clack ... clack; clack ... cuh-lack ...
+
+He washed his hands, then pulled at the door. It was stuck. He pulled
+harder. The handle was too small; it was hard to get hold of. The train
+came to a halt. Brett braced himself and strained against the door. It
+didn't budge.
+
+He looked out the grimy window. The sun was getting lower. It was about
+three-thirty, he guessed. He couldn't see anything but some dry-looking
+fields.
+
+Outside in the corridor there were footsteps. He started to call, but
+then didn't. It would be too embarrassing, pounding on the door and
+yelling, "Let me out! I'm stuck in the toilet ..."
+
+He tried to rattle the door. It didn't rattle. Somebody was dragging
+something heavy past the door. Mail bags, maybe. He'd better yell. But
+dammit, the door couldn't be all that hard to open. He studied the
+latch. All he had to do was turn it. He got a good grip and twisted.
+Nothing.
+
+He heard the mail bag bump-bump, and then another one. To heck with it;
+he'd yell. He'd wait until he heard the footsteps pass the door again
+and then he'd make some noise.
+
+Brett waited. It was quiet now. He rapped on the door anyway. No answer.
+Maybe there was nobody left in the car. In a minute the train would
+start up and he'd be stuck here until the next stop. He banged on the
+door. "Hey! The door is stuck!"
+
+It sounded foolish. He listened. It was very quiet. He pounded again.
+The car creaked once. He put his ear to the door. He couldn't hear
+anything. He turned back to the window. There was no one in sight. He
+put his cheek flat against it, looked along the car. He saw only dry
+fields.
+
+He turned around and gave the door a good kick. If he damaged it, it was
+too bad; the railroad shouldn't have defective locks on the doors. If
+they tried to make him pay for it, he'd tell them they were lucky he
+didn't sue the railroad ...
+
+       *       *       *
+
+He braced himself against the opposite wall, drew his foot back, and
+kicked hard at the lock. Something broke. He pulled the door open.
+
+He was looking out the open door and through the window beyond. There
+was no platform, just the same dry fields he could see on the other
+side. He came out and went along to his seat. The car was empty now.
+
+He looked out the window. Why had the train stopped here? Maybe there
+was some kind of trouble with the engine. It had been sitting here for
+ten minutes or so now. Brett got up and went along to the door, stepped
+down onto the iron step. Leaning out, he could see the train stretching
+along ahead, one car, two cars--
+
+There was no engine.
+
+Maybe he was turned around. He looked the other way. There were three
+cars. No engine there either. He must be on some kind of siding ...
+
+Brett stepped back inside, and pushed through into the next car. It was
+empty. He walked along the length of it, into the next car. It was empty
+too. He went back through the two cars and his own car and on, all the
+way to the end of the train. All the cars were empty. He stood on the
+platform at the end of the last car, and looked back along the rails.
+They ran straight, through the dry fields, right to the horizon. He
+stepped down to the ground, went along the cindery bed to the front of
+the train, stepping on the ends of the wooden ties. The coupling stood
+open. The tall, dusty coach stood silently on its iron wheels, waiting.
+Ahead the tracks went on--
+
+And stopped.
+
+He walked along the ties, following the iron rails, shiny on top, and
+brown with rust on the sides. A hundred feet from the train they ended.
+The cinders went on another ten feet and petered out. Beyond, the fields
+closed in. Brett looked up at the sun. It was lower now in the west, its
+light getting yellow and late-afternoonish. He turned and looked back at
+the train. The cars stood high and prim, empty, silent. He walked back,
+climbed in, got his bag down from the rack, pulled on his jacket. He
+jumped down to the cinders, followed them to where they ended. He
+hesitated a moment, then pushed between the knee-high stalks. Eastward
+across the field he could see what looked like a smudge on the far
+horizon.
+
+He walked until dark, then made himself a nest in the dead stalks, and
+went to sleep.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+He lay on his back, looking up at pink dawn clouds. Around him, dry
+stalks rustled in a faint stir of air. He felt crumbly earth under his
+fingers. He sat up, reached out and broke off a stalk. It crumbled into
+fragile chips. He wondered what it was. It wasn't any crop he'd ever
+seen before.
+
+He stood, looked around. The field went on and on, dead flat. A locust
+came whirring toward him, plumped to earth at his feet. He picked it up.
+Long elbowed legs groped at his fingers aimlessly. He tossed the insect
+in the air. It fluttered away. To the east the smudge was clearer now;
+it seemed to be a grey wall, far away. A city? He picked up his bag and
+started on.
+
+He was getting hungry. He hadn't eaten since the previous morning. He
+was thirsty too. The city couldn't be more than three hours' walk. He
+tramped along, the dry plants crackling under his feet, little puffs of
+dust rising from the dry ground. He thought about the rails, running
+across the empty fields, ending ...
+
+He had heard the locomotive groaning up ahead as the train slowed. And
+there had been feet in the corridor. Where had they gone?
+
+He thought of the train, Casperton, Aunt Haicey, Mr. Phillips. They
+seemed very far away, something remembered from long ago. Up above the
+sun was hot. That was real. The rest seemed unimportant. Ahead there was
+a city. He would walk until he came to it. He tried to think of other
+things: television, crowds of people, money: the tattered paper and the
+worn silver--
+
+Only the sun and the dusty plain and the dead plants were real now. He
+could see them, feel them. And the suitcase. It was heavy; he shifted
+hands, kept going.
+
+There was something white on the ground ahead, a small shiny surface
+protruding from the earth. Brett dropped the suitcase, went down on one
+knee, dug into the dry soil, pulled out a china teacup, the handle
+missing. Caked dirt crumbled away under his thumb, leaving the surface
+clean. He looked at the bottom of the cup. It was unmarked. Why just one
+teacup, he wondered, here in the middle of nowhere? He dropped it, took
+up his suitcase, and went on.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+After that he watched the ground more closely. He found a shoe; it was
+badly weathered, but the sole was good. It was a high-topped work shoe,
+size 10-1/2-C. Who had dropped it here? He thought of other lone shoes
+he had seen, lying at the roadside or in alleys. How did they get
+there...?
+
+Half an hour later he detoured around the rusted front fender of an
+old-fashioned car. He looked around for the rest of the car but saw
+nothing. The wall was closer now; perhaps five miles more.
+
+A scrap of white paper fluttered across the field in a stir of air. He
+saw another, more, blowing along in the fitful gusts. He ran a few
+steps, caught one, smoothed it out.
+
+    BUY NOW--PAY LATER!
+
+He picked up another.
+
+    PREPARE TO MEET GOD
+
+A third said:
+
+    WIN WITH WILLKIE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The wall loomed above him, smooth and grey. Dust was caked on his skin
+and clothes, and as he walked he brushed at himself absently. The
+suitcase dragged at his arm, thumped against his shin. He was very
+hungry and thirsty. He sniffed the air, instinctively searching for the
+odors of food. He had been following the wall for a long time, searching
+for an opening. It curved away from him, rising vertically from the
+level earth. Its surface was porous, unadorned, too smooth to climb. It
+was, Brett estimated, twenty feet high. If there were anything to make a
+ladder from--
+
+Ahead he saw a wide gate, flanked by grey columns. He came up to it, put
+the suitcase down, and wiped at his forehead with his handkerchief.
+Through the opening in the wall a paved street was visible, and the
+facades of buildings. Those on the street before him were low, not more
+than one or two stories, but behind them taller towers reared up. There
+were no people in sight; no sounds stirred the hot noon-time air. Brett
+picked up his bag and passed through the gate.
+
+For the next hour he walked empty pavements, listening to the echoes of
+his footsteps against brownstone fronts, empty shop windows, curtained
+glass doors, and here and there a vacant lot, weed-grown and desolate.
+He paused at cross streets, looked down long vacant ways. Now and then a
+distant sound came to him: the lonely honk of a horn, a faintly tolling
+bell, a clatter of hooves.
+
+He came to a narrow alley that cut like a dark canyon between blank
+walls. He stood at its mouth, listening to a distant murmur, like a
+crowd at a funeral. He turned down the narrow way.
+
+It went straight for a few yards, then twisted. As he followed its
+turnings the crowd noise gradually grew louder. He could make out
+individual voices now, an occasional word above the hubbub. He started
+to hurry, eager to find someone to talk to.
+
+Abruptly the voices--hundreds of voices, he thought--rose in a roar, a
+long-drawn Yaaayyyyy...! Brett thought of a stadium crowd as the home
+team trotted onto the field. He could hear a band now, a shrilling of
+brass, the clatter and thump of percussion instruments. Now he could see
+the mouth of the alley ahead, a sunny street hung with bunting, the
+backs of people, and over their heads the rhythmic bobbing of a passing
+procession, tall shakos and guidons in almost-even rows. Two tall poles
+with a streamer between them swung into view. He caught a glimpse of
+tall red letters:
+
+    ... For Our Side!
+
+       *       *       *
+
+He moved closer, edged up behind the grey-backed crowd. A phalanx of
+yellow-tuniced men approached, walking stiffly, fez tassels swinging. A
+small boy darted out into the street, loped along at their side. The
+music screeched and wheezed. Brett tapped the man before him.
+
+"What's it all about...?"
+
+He couldn't hear his own voice. The man ignored him. Brett moved along
+behind the crowd, looking for a vantage point or a thinning in the
+ranks. There seemed to be fewer people ahead. He came to the end of the
+crowd, moved on a few yards, stood at the curb. The yellow-jackets had
+passed now, and a group of round-thighed girls in satin blouses and
+black boots and white fur caps glided into view, silent, expressionless.
+As they reached a point fifty feet from Brett, they broke abruptly into
+a strutting prance, knees high, hips flirting, tossing shining batons
+high, catching them, twirling them, and up again ...
+
+Brett craned his neck, looking for TV cameras. The crowd lining the
+opposite side of the street stood in solid ranks, drably clad, eyes
+following the procession, mouths working. A fat man in a rumpled suit
+and a panama hat squeezed to the front, stood picking his teeth.
+Somehow, he seemed out of place among the others. Behind the spectators,
+the store fronts looked normal, dowdy brick and mismatched glass and
+oxidizing aluminum, dusty windows and cluttered displays of cardboard, a
+faded sign that read TODAY ONLY--PRICES SLASHED. To Brett's left the
+sidewalk stretched, empty. To his right the crowd was packed close, the
+shout rising and falling. Now a rank of blue-suited policemen followed
+the majorettes, swinging along silently. Behind them, over them, a piece
+of paper blew along the street. Brett turned to the man on his right.
+
+"Pardon me. Can you tell me the name of this town?"
+
+The man ignored him. Brett tapped the man's shoulder. "Hey! What town is
+this?"
+
+The man took off his hat, whirled it overhead, then threw it up. It
+sailed away over the crowd, lost. Brett wondered briefly how people who
+threw their hats ever recovered them. But then, nobody he knew would
+throw his hat ...
+
+"You mind telling me the name of this place?" Brett said, as he took the
+man's arm, pulled. The man rotated toward Brett, leaning heavily against
+him. Brett stepped back. The man fell, lay stiffly, his arms moving, his
+eyes and mouth open.
+
+"Ahhhhh," he said. "Whum-whum-whum. Awww, jawww ..."
+
+Brett stooped quickly. "I'm sorry," he cried. He looked around. "Help!
+This man ..."
+
+Nobody was watching. The next man, a few feet away, stood close against
+his neighbor, hatless, his jaw moving.
+
+"This man's sick," said Brett, tugging at the man's arm. "He fell."
+
+The man's eyes moved reluctantly to Brett. "None of my business," he
+muttered.
+
+"Won't anybody give me a hand?"
+
+"Probably a drunk."
+
+Behind Brett a voice called in a penetrating whisper: "Quick! You! Get
+into the alley...!"
+
+He turned. A gaunt man of about thirty with sparse reddish hair,
+perspiration glistening on his upper lip, stood at the mouth of a narrow
+way like the one Brett had come through. He wore a grimy pale yellow
+shirt with a wide-flaring collar, limp and sweat-stained, dark green
+knee-breeches, soft leather boots, scuffed and dirty, with limp tops
+that drooped over his ankles. He gestured, drew back into the alley. "In
+here."
+
+Brett went toward him. "This man ..."
+
+"Come on, you fool!" The man took Brett's arm, pulled him deeper into
+the dark passage. Brett resisted. "Wait a minute. That fellow ..." He
+tried to point.
+
+"Don't you know yet?" The red-head spoke with a strange accent. "Golems
+... You got to get out of sight before the--"
+
+       *       *       *
+
+The man froze, flattened himself against the wall. Automatically Brett
+moved to a place beside him. The man's head was twisted toward the alley
+mouth. The tendons in his weathered neck stood out. He had a three-day
+stubble of beard. Brett could smell him, standing this close. He edged
+away. "What--"
+
+"Don't make a sound! Don't move, you idiot!" His voice was a thin hiss.
+
+Brett followed the other's eyes toward the sunny street. The fallen man
+lay on the pavement, moving feebly, eyes open. Something moved up to
+him, a translucent brownish shape, like muddy water. It hovered for a
+moment, then dropped on the man like a breaking wave, flowed around him.
+The body shifted, rotating stiffly, then tilted upright. The sun struck
+through the fluid shape that flowed down now, amber highlights
+twinkling, to form itself into the crested wave, flow away.
+
+"What the hell...!"
+
+"Come on!" The red-head turned, trotted silently toward the shadowy bend
+under the high grey walls. He looked back, beckoned impatiently, passed
+out of sight around the turn--
+
+Brett came up behind him, saw a wide avenue, tall trees with chartreuse
+springtime leaves, a wrought-iron fence, and beyond it, rolling green
+lawns. There were no people in sight.
+
+"Wait a minute! What is this place?!"
+
+His companion turned red-rimmed eyes on Brett. "How long have you been
+here?" he asked. "How did you get in?"
+
+"I came through a gate. Just about an hour ago."
+
+"I knew you were a man as soon as I saw you talking to the golem," said
+the red-head. "I've been here two months; maybe more. We've got to get
+out of sight. You want food? There's a place ..." He jerked his thumb.
+"Come on. Time to talk later."
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Brett followed him. They turned down a side street, pushed through the
+door of a dingy cafe. It banged behind them. There were tables, stools
+at a bar, a dusty juke box. They took seats at a table. The red-head
+groped under the table, pulled off a shoe, hammered it against the wall.
+He cocked his head, listening. The silence was absolute. He hammered
+again. There was a clash of crockery from beyond the kitchen door. "Now
+don't say anything," the red-head said. He eyed the door behind the
+counter expectantly. It flew open. A girl with red cheeks and untidy
+hair, dressed in a green waitress' uniform appeared, swept up to the
+table, pad and pencil in hand.
+
+"Coffee and a ham sandwich," said the red-head. Brett said nothing. The
+girl glanced at him briefly, jotted hastily, whisked away.
+
+"I saw them here the first day," the red-head said. "It was a piece of
+luck. I saw how the Gels started it up. They were big ones--not like the
+tidiers-up. As soon as they were finished, I came in and tried the same
+thing. It worked. I used the golem's lines--"
+
+"I don't know what you're talking about," Brett said. "I'm going to ask
+that girl--"
+
+"Don't say anything to her; it might spoil everything. The whole
+sequence might collapse; or it might call the Gels. I'm not sure. You
+can have the food when it comes back with it."
+
+"Why do you say 'when "it" comes back'?"
+
+"Ah." He looked at Brett strangely. "I'll show you."
+
+Brett could smell food now. His mouth watered. He hadn't eaten for
+twenty-four hours.
+
+"Care, that's the thing," the red-head said. "Move quiet, and stay out
+of sight, and you can live like a County Duke. Food's the hardest, but
+here--"
+
+The red-cheeked girl reappeared, a tray balanced on one arm, a heavy cup
+and saucer in the other hand. She clattered them down on the table.
+
+"Took you long enough," the red-head said. The girl sniffed, opened her
+mouth to speak--and the red-head darted out a stiff finger, jabbed her
+under the ribs. She stood, mouth open, frozen.
+
+Brett half rose. "He's crazy, miss," he said. "Please accept--"
+
+"Don't waste your breath." Brett's host was looking at him triumphantly.
+"Why do I call it 'it'?" He stood up, reached out and undid the top
+buttons of the green uniform. The waitress stood, leaning slightly
+forward, unmoving. The blouse fell open, exposing round white
+breasts--unadorned, blind.
+
+"A doll," said the red-head. "A puppet; a golem."
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Brett stared at her, the damp curls at her temple, the tip of her tongue
+behind her teeth, the tiny red veins in her round cheeks, and the white
+skin curving ...
+
+"That's a quick way to tell 'em," said the red-head. "The teat is
+smooth." He rebuttoned the uniform, then jabbed again at the girl's
+ribs. She straightened, patted her hair.
+
+"No doubt a gentleman like you is used to better," she said carelessly.
+She went away.
+
+"I'm Awalawon Dhuva," the red-head said.
+
+"My name's Brett Hale." Brett took a bite of the sandwich.
+
+"Those clothes," Dhuva said. "And you have a strange way of talking.
+What county are you from?"
+
+"Jefferson."
+
+"Never heard of it. I'm from Wavly. What brought you here?"
+
+"I was on a train. The tracks came to an end out in the middle of
+nowhere. I walked ... and here I am. What is this place?"
+
+"Don't know." Dhuva shook his head. "I knew they were lying about the
+Fire River, though. Never did believe all that stuff. Religious hokum,
+to keep the masses quiet. Don't know what to believe now. Take the roof.
+They say a hundred kharfads up; but how do we know? Maybe it's a
+thousand--or only ten. By Grat, I'd like to go up in a balloon, see for
+myself."
+
+"What are you talking about?" Brett said. "Go where in a balloon? See
+what?"
+
+"Oh, I've seen one at the Tourney. Big hot-air bag, with a basket under
+it. Tied down with a rope. But if you cut the rope...! But you can bet
+the priests will never let that happen, no, sir." Dhuva looked at Brett
+speculatively. "What about your county: Fession, or whatever you called
+it. How high do they tell you it is there?"
+
+"You mean the sky? Well, the air ends after a few miles and space just
+goes on--millions of miles--"
+
+Dhuva slapped the table and laughed. "The people in Fesseron must be
+some yokels! Just goes on up; now who'd swallow that tale?" He chuckled.
+
+"Only a child thinks the sky is some kind of tent," said Brett. "Haven't
+you ever heard of the Solar System, the other planets?"
+
+"What are those?"
+
+"Other worlds. They all circle around the sun, like the Earth."
+
+"Other worlds, eh? Sailing around up under the roof? Funny; I never saw
+them." Dhuva snickered. "Wake up, Brett. Forget all those stories. Just
+believe what you see."
+
+"What about that brown thing?"
+
+"The Gels? They run this place. Look out for them, Brett. Stay alert.
+Don't let them see you."
+
+       *       *       *
+
+"What do they do?"
+
+"I don't know--and I don't want to find out. This is a great place--I
+like it here. I have all I want to eat, plenty of nice rooms for
+sleeping. There's the parades and the scenes. It's a good life--as long
+as you keep out of sight."
+
+"How do you get out of here?" Brett asked, finishing his coffee.
+
+"Don't know how to get out; over the wall, I suppose. I don't plan to
+leave though. I left home in a hurry. The Duke--never mind. I'm not
+going back."
+
+"Are all the people here ... golems?" Brett said. "Aren't there any more
+real people?"
+
+"You're the first I've seen. I spotted you as soon as I saw you. A live
+man moves different than a golem. You see golems doing things like
+knitting their brows, starting back in alarm, looking askance, and
+standing arms akimbo. And they have things like pursed lips and knowing
+glances and mirthless laughter. You know: all the things you read about,
+that real people never do. But now that you're here, I've got somebody
+to talk to. I did get lonesome, I admit. I'll show you where I stay and
+we'll fix you up with a bed."
+
+"I won't be around that long."
+
+"What can you get outside that you can't get here? There's everything
+you need here in the city. We can have a great time."
+
+"You sound like my Aunt Haicey," Brett said. "She said I had everything
+I needed back in Casperton. How does she know what I need? How do you
+know? How do I know myself? I can tell you I need more than food and a
+place to sleep--"
+
+"What more?"
+
+"Everything. Things to think about and something worth doing. Why, even
+in the movies--"
+
+"What's a movie?"
+
+"You know, a play, on film. A moving picture."
+
+"A picture that moves?"
+
+"That's right."
+
+"This is something the priests told you about?" Dhuva seemed to be
+holding in his mirth.
+
+"Everybody's seen movies."
+
+Dhuva burst out laughing. "Those priests," he said. "They're the same
+everywhere, I see. The stories they tell, and people believe them. What
+else?"
+
+"Priests have nothing to do with it."
+
+Dhuva composed his features. "What do they tell you about Grat, and the
+Wheel?"
+
+"Grat? What's that?"
+
+"The Over-Being. The Four-eyed One." Dhuva made a sign, caught himself.
+"Just habit," he said. "I don't believe that rubbish. Never did."
+
+"I suppose you're talking about God," Brett said.
+
+"I don't know about God. Tell me about it."
+
+"He's the creator of the world. He's ... well, superhuman. He knows
+everything that happens, and when you die, if you've led a good life,
+you meet God in Heaven."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"It's ..." Brett waved a hand vaguely, "up above."
+
+"But you said there was just emptiness up above," Dhuva recalled. "And
+some other worlds whirling around, like islands adrift in the sea."
+
+"Well--"
+
+"Never mind," Dhuva held up his hands. "Our priests are liars too. All
+that balderdash about the Wheel and the River of Fire. It's just as bad
+as your Hivvel or whatever you called it. And our Grat and your Mud, or
+Gog: they're the same--" Dhuva's head went up. "What's that?"
+
+"I didn't hear anything."
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Dhuva got to his feet, turned to the door. Brett rose. A towering brown
+shape, glassy and transparent, hung in the door, its surface rippling.
+Dhuva whirled, leaped past Brett, dived for the rear door. Brett stood
+frozen. The shape flowed--swift as quicksilver--caught Dhuva in
+mid-stride, engulfed him. For an instant Brett saw the thin figure, legs
+kicking, upended within the muddy form of the Gel. Then the turbid wave
+swept across to the door, sloshed it aside, disappeared. Dhuva was gone.
+
+Brett stood rooted, staring at the doorway. A bar of sunlight fell
+across the dusty floor. A brown mouse ran along the baseboard. It was
+very quiet. Brett went to the door through which the Gel had
+disappeared, hesitated a moment, then thrust it open.
+
+He was looking down into a great dark pit, acres in extent, its sides
+riddled with holes, the amputated ends of water and sewage lines and
+power cables dangling. Far below light glistened from the surface of a
+black pool. A few feet away the waitress stood unmoving in the dark on a
+narrow strip of linoleum. At her feet the chasm yawned. The edge of the
+floor was ragged, as though it had been gnawed away by rats. There was
+no sign of Dhuva.
+
+Brett stepped back into the dining room, let the door swing shut. He
+took a deep breath, picked up a paper napkin from a table and wiped his
+forehead, dropped the napkin on the floor and went out into the street,
+his suitcase forgotten now. At the corner he turned, walked along past
+silent shop windows crowded with home permanents, sun glasses,
+fingernail polish, suntan lotion, paper cartons, streamers, plastic
+toys, vari-colored garments of synthetic fiber, home remedies, beauty
+aids, popular music, greeting cards ...
+
+At the next corner he stopped, looking down the silent streets. Nothing
+moved. Brett went to a window in a grey concrete wall, pulled himself up
+to peer through the dusty pane, saw a room filled with tailor's forms,
+garment racks, a bicycle, bundled back issues of magazines without
+covers.
+
+He went along to a door. It was solid, painted shut. The next door
+looked easier. He wrenched at the tarnished brass nob, then stepped back
+and kicked the door. With a hollow sound the door fell inward, taking
+with it the jamb. Brett stood staring at the gaping opening. A fragment
+of masonry dropped with a dry clink. Brett stepped through the breach in
+the grey facade. The black pool at the bottom of the pit winked a
+flicker of light back at him in the deep gloom.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Around him, the high walls of the block of buildings loomed in
+silhouette; the squares of the windows were ranks of luminous blue
+against the dark. Dust motes danced in shafts of sunlight. Far above,
+the roof was dimly visible, a spidery tangle of trusswork. And below was
+the abyss.
+
+At Brett's feet the stump of a heavy brass rail projected an inch from
+the floor. It was long enough, Brett thought, to give firm anchor to a
+rope. Somewhere below, Dhuva--a stranger who had befriended him--lay in
+the grip of the Gels. He would do what he could--but he needed
+equipment--and help. First he would find a store with rope, guns,
+knives. He would--
+
+The broken edge of masonry where the door had been caught his eye. The
+shell of the wall, exposed where the door frame had torn away, was
+wafer-thin. Brett reached up, broke off a piece. The outer face--the
+side that showed on the street--was smooth, solid-looking. The back was
+porous, nibbled. Brett stepped outside, examined the wall. He kicked at
+the grey surface. A great piece of wall, six feet high, broke into
+fragments, fell on the sidewalk with a crash, driving out a puff of
+dust. Another section fell. One piece of it skidded away, clattered down
+into the depths. Brett heard a distant splash. He looked at the great
+jagged opening in the wall--like a jigsaw picture with a piece missing.
+He turned and started off at a trot, his mouth dry, his pulse thumping
+painfully in his chest.
+
+Two blocks from the hollow building, Brett slowed to a walk, his
+footsteps echoing in the empty street. He looked into each store window
+as he passed. There were artificial legs, bottles of colored water,
+immense dolls, wigs, glass eyes--but no rope. Brett tried to think. What
+kind of store would handle rope? A marine supply company, maybe. But
+where would he find one?
+
+Perhaps it would be easiest to look in a telephone book. Ahead he saw a
+sign lettered HOTEL. Brett went up to the revolving door, pushed inside.
+He was in a dim, marble-panelled lobby, with double doors leading into
+a beige-carpeted bar on his right, the brass-painted cage of an elevator
+directly before him, flanked by tall urns of sand and an ascending
+staircase. On the left was a dark mahogany-finished reception desk.
+Behind the desk a man stood silently, waiting. Brett felt a wild surge
+of relief.
+
+"Those things, those Gels!" he called, starting across the room. "My
+friend--"
+
+He broke off. The clerk stood, staring over Brett's shoulder, holding a
+pen poised over a book. Brett reached out, took the pen. The man's
+finger curled stiffly around nothing. A golem.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Brett turned away, went into the bar. Vacant stools were ranged before a
+dark mirror. At the tables empty glasses stood before empty chairs.
+Brett started as he heard the revolving door thump-thump. Suddenly soft
+light bathed the lobby behind him. Somewhere a piano tinkled _More Than
+You Know_. With a distant clatter of closing doors the elevator came to
+life.
+
+Brett hugged a shadowed corner, saw a fat man in a limp seersucker suit
+cross to the reception desk. He had a red face, a bald scalp blotched
+with large brown freckles. The clerk inclined his head blandly.
+
+"Ah, yes, sir, a nice double with bath ..." Brett heard the unctuous
+voice of the clerk as he offered the pen. The fat man took it, scrawled
+something in the register. "... at fourteen dollars," the clerk
+murmured. He smiled, dinged the bell. A boy in tight green tunic and
+trousers and a pillbox cap with a chin strap pushed through a door
+beside the desk, took the key, led the way to the elevator. The fat man
+entered. Through the openwork of the shaft Brett watched as the elevator
+car rose, greasy cables trembling and swaying. He started back across
+the lobby--and stopped dead.
+
+A wet brown shape had appeared in the entrance. It flowed across the rug
+to the bellhop. Face blank, the golem turned back to its door. Above,
+Brett heard the elevator stop. Doors clashed. The clerk stood poised
+behind the desk. The Gel hovered, then flowed away. The piano was silent
+now. The lights burned, a soft glow, then winked out. Brett thought
+about the fat man. He had seen him before ...
+
+He went up the stairs. In the second floor corridor Brett felt his way
+along in near-darkness, guided by the dim light coming through transoms.
+He tried a door. It opened. He stepped into a large bedroom with a
+double bed, an easy chair, a chest of drawers. He crossed the room,
+looked out across an alley. Twenty feet away white curtains hung at
+windows in a brick wall. There was nothing behind the windows.
+
+There were sounds in the corridor. Brett dropped to the floor behind the
+bed.
+
+"All right, you two," a drunken voice bellowed. "And may all your
+troubles be little ones." There was laughter, squeals, a dry clash of
+beads flung against the door. A key grated. The door swung wide. Lights
+blazed in the hall, silhouetting the figures of a man in black jacket
+and trousers, a woman in a white bridal dress and veil, flowers in her
+hand.
+
+"Take care, Mel!"
+
+"... do anything I wouldn't do!"
+
+"... kiss the bride, now!"
+
+The couple backed into the room, pushed the door shut, stood against it.
+Brett crouched behind the bed, not breathing, waiting. The couple stood
+at the door, in the dark, heads down ...
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Brett stood, rounded the foot of the bed, approached the two unmoving
+figures. The girl looked young, sleek, perfect-featured, with soft dark
+hair. Her eyes were half-open; Brett caught a glint of light reflected
+from the eyeball. The man was bronzed, broad-shouldered, his hair wavy
+and blond. His lips were parted, showing even white teeth. The two
+stood, not breathing, sightless eyes fixed on nothing.
+
+Brett took the bouquet from the woman's hand. The flowers seemed
+real--except that they had no perfume. He dropped them on the floor,
+pulled at the male golem to clear the door. The figure pivoted, toppled,
+hit with a heavy thump. Brett raised the woman in his arms and propped
+her against the bed. Back at the door he listened. All was quiet now. He
+started to open the door, then hesitated. He went back to the bed, undid
+the tiny pearl buttons down the front of the bridal gown, pulled it
+open. The breasts were rounded, smooth, an unbroken creamy white ...
+
+In the hall, he started toward the stair. A tall Gel rippled into view
+ahead, its shape flowing and wavering, now billowing out, then rising
+up. The shifting form undulated toward Brett. He made a move to run,
+then remembered Dhuva, stood motionless. The Gel wobbled past him,
+slumped suddenly, flowed under a door. Brett let out a breath. Never
+mind the fat man. There were too many Gels here. He started back along
+the corridor.
+
+Soft music came from double doors which stood open on a landing. Brett
+went to them, risked a look inside. Graceful couples moved sedately on a
+polished floor, diners sat at tables, black-clad waiters moving among
+them. At the far side of the room, near a dusty rubber plant, sat the
+fat man, studying a menu. As Brett watched he shook out a napkin, ran it
+around inside his collar, then mopped his face.
+
+Never disturb a scene, Dhuva had said. But perhaps he could blend with
+it. Brett brushed at his suit, straightened his tie, stepped into the
+room. A waiter approached, eyed him dubiously. Brett got out his wallet,
+took out a five-dollar bill.
+
+"A quiet table in the corner," he said. He glanced back. There were no
+Gels in sight. He followed the waiter to a table near the fat man.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Seated, he looked around. He wanted to talk to the fat man, but he
+couldn't afford to attract attention. He would watch, and wait his
+chance.
+
+At the nearby tables men with well-pressed suits, clean collars, and
+carefully shaved faces murmured to sleekly gowned women who fingered
+wine glasses, smiled archly. He caught fragments of conversation:
+
+"My dear, have you heard ..."
+
+"... in the low eighties ..."
+
+"... quite impossible. One must ..."
+
+"... for this time of year."
+
+The waiter returned with a shallow bowl of milky soup. Brett looked at
+the array of spoons, forks, knives, glanced sideways at the diners at
+the next table. It was important to follow the correct ritual. He put
+his napkin in his lap, careful to shake out all the folds. He looked at
+the spoons again, picked a large one, glanced at the waiter. So far so
+good ...
+
+"Wine, sir?"
+
+Brett indicated the neighboring couple. "The same as they're having."
+The waiter turned away, returned holding a wine bottle, label toward
+Brett. He looked at it, nodded. The waiter busied himself with the cork,
+removing it with many flourishes, setting a glass before Brett, pouring
+half an inch of wine. He waited expectantly.
+
+Brett picked up the glass, tasted it. It tasted like wine. He nodded.
+The waiter poured. Brett wondered what would have happened if he had
+made a face and spurned it. But it would be too risky to try. No one
+ever did it.
+
+Couples danced, resumed their seats; others rose and took the floor. A
+string ensemble in a distant corner played restrained tunes that seemed
+to speak of the gentle faded melancholy of decorous tea dances on
+long-forgotten afternoons. Brett glanced toward the fat man. He was
+eating soup noisily, his napkin tied under his chin.
+
+The waiter was back with a plate. "Lovely day, sir," he said.
+
+"Great," Brett agreed.
+
+The waiter placed a covered platter on the table, removed the cover,
+stood with carving knife and fork poised.
+
+"A bit of the crispy, sir?"
+
+Brett nodded. He eyed the waiter surreptitiously. He looked real. Some
+golems seemed realer than others; or perhaps it merely depended on the
+parts they were playing. The man who had fallen at the parade had been
+only a sort of extra, a crowd member. The waiter, on the other hand, was
+able to converse. Perhaps it would be possible to learn something from
+him ...
+
+"What's ... uh ... how do you spell the name of this town?" Brett asked.
+
+"I was never much of a one for spelling, sir," the waiter said.
+
+"Try it."
+
+"Gravy, sir?"
+
+"Sure. Try to spell the name."
+
+"Perhaps I'd better call the headwaiter, sir," the golem said stiffly.
+
+From the corner of an eye Brett caught a flicker of motion. He whirled,
+saw nothing. Had it been a Gel?
+
+"Never mind," he said. The waiter served potatoes, peas, refilled the
+wine glass, moved off silently. The question had been a little too
+unorthodox, Brett decided. Perhaps if he led up to the subject more
+obliquely ...
+
+       *       *       *
+
+When the waiter returned Brett said, "Nice day."
+
+"Very nice, sir."
+
+"Better than yesterday."
+
+"Yes indeed, sir."
+
+"I wonder what tomorrow'll be like."
+
+"Perhaps we'll have a bit of rain, sir."
+
+Brett nodded toward the dance floor. "Nice orchestra."
+
+"They're very popular, sir."
+
+"From here in town?"
+
+"I wouldn't know as to that, sir."
+
+"Lived here long yourself?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir." The waiter's expression showed disapproval. "Would there
+be anything else, sir?"
+
+"I'm a newcomer here," Brett said. "I wonder if you could tell me--"
+
+"Excuse me, sir." The waiter was gone. Brett poked at the mashed
+potatoes. Quizzing golems was hopeless. He would have to find out for
+himself. He turned to look at the fat man. As Brett watched he took a
+large handkerchief from a pocket, blew his nose loudly. No one turned to
+look. The orchestra played softly. The couples danced. Now was as good a
+time as any ...
+
+Brett rose, crossed to the other's table. The man looked up.
+
+"Mind if I sit down?" Brett said. "I'd like to talk to you."
+
+The fat man blinked, motioned to a chair. Brett sat down, leaned across
+the table. "Maybe I'm wrong," he said quietly, "but I think you're
+real."
+
+The fat man blinked again. "What's that?" he snapped. He had a high
+petulant voice.
+
+"You're not like the rest of them. I think I can talk to you. I think
+you're another outsider."
+
+The fat man looked down at his rumpled suit. "I ... ah ... was caught a
+little short today. Didn't have time to change. I'm a busy man. And what
+business is it of yours?" He clamped his jaw shut, eyed Brett warily.
+
+"I'm a stranger here," Brett said. "I want to find out what's going on
+in this place--"
+
+"Buy an amusement guide. Lists all the shows--"
+
+"I don't mean that. I mean these dummies all over the place, and the
+Gels--"
+
+"What dummies? Jells? Jello? You don't like Jello?"
+
+"I love Jello. I don't--"
+
+"Just ask the waiter. He'll bring you your Jello. Any flavor you like.
+Now if you'll excuse me ..."
+
+"I'm talking about the brown things; they look like muddy water. They
+come around if you interfere with a scene."
+
+The fat man looked nervous. "Please. Go away."
+
+"If I make a disturbance, the Gels will come. Is that what you're afraid
+of?"
+
+"Now, now. Be calm. No need for you to get excited."
+
+"I won't make a scene," Brett said. "Just talk to me. How long have you
+been here?"
+
+"I dislike scenes. I dislike them intensely."
+
+"When did you come here?"
+
+"Just ten minutes ago. I just sat down. I haven't had my dinner yet.
+Please, young man. Go back to your table." The fat man watched Brett
+warily. Sweat glistened on his bald head.
+
+"I mean this town. How long have you been here? Where did you come
+from?"
+
+"Why, I was born here. Where did I come from? What sort of question is
+that? Just consider that the stork brought me."
+
+"You were born here?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"What's the name of the town?"
+
+       *       *       *
+
+"Are you trying to make a fool of me?" The fat man was getting angry.
+His voice was rising.
+
+"Shhh," Brett cautioned. "You'll attract the Gels."
+
+"Blast the Jilts, whatever that is!" the fat man snapped. "Now, get
+along with you. I'll call the manager."
+
+"Don't you know?" Brett said, staring at the fat man. "They're all
+dummies; golems, they're called. They're not real."
+
+"Who're not real?"
+
+"All these imitation people at the tables and on the dance floor. Surely
+you realize--"
+
+"I realize you're in need of medical attention." The fat man pushed back
+his chair and got to his feet. "You keep the table," he said. "I'll dine
+elsewhere."
+
+"Wait!" Brett got up, seized the fat man's arm.
+
+"Take your hands off me--" The fat man went toward the door. Brett
+followed. At the cashier's desk Brett turned suddenly, saw a fluid brown
+shape flicker--
+
+"Look!" He pulled at the fat man's arm--
+
+"Look at what?" The Gel was gone.
+
+"It was there: a Gel."
+
+The fat man flung down a bill, hurried away. Brett fumbled out a ten,
+waited for change. "Wait!" he called. He heard the fat man's feet
+receding down the stairs.
+
+"Hurry," he said to the cashier. The woman sat glassy-eyed, staring at
+nothing. The music died. The lights flickered, went off. In the gloom
+Brett saw a fluid shape rise up--
+
+He ran, pounding down the stairs. The fat man was just rounding the
+corner. Brett opened his mouth to call--and went rigid, as a translucent
+shape of mud shot from the door, rose up to tower before him. Brett
+stood, mouth half open, eyes staring, leaning forward with hands
+outflung. The Gel loomed, its surface flickering--waiting. Brett caught
+an acrid odor of geraniums.
+
+A minute passed. Brett's cheek itched. He fought a desire to blink, to
+swallow--to turn and run. The high sun beat down on the silent street,
+the still window displays.
+
+Then the Gel broke form, slumped, flashed away. Brett tottered back
+against the wall, let his breath out in a harsh sigh.
+
+Across the street he saw a window with a display of camping equipment,
+portable stoves, boots, rifles. He crossed the street, tried the door.
+It was locked. He looked up and down the street. There was no one in
+sight. He kicked in the glass beside the latch, reached through and
+turned the knob. Inside he looked over the shelves, selected a heavy
+coil of nylon rope, a sheath knife, a canteen. He examined a Winchester
+repeating rifle with a telescopic sight, then put it back and strapped
+on a .22 revolver. He emptied two boxes of long rifle cartridges into
+his pocket, then loaded the pistol. He coiled the rope over his shoulder
+and went back out into the empty street.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+The fat man was standing in front of a shop in the next block, picking
+at a blemish on his chin and eyeing the window display. He looked up
+with a frown, started away as Brett came up.
+
+"Wait a minute," Brett called. "Didn't you see the Gel? the one that
+cornered me back there?"
+
+The fat man looked back suspiciously, kept going.
+
+"Wait!" Brett caught his arm. "I know you're real. I've seen you belch
+and sweat and scratch. You're the only one I can call on--and I need
+help. My friend is trapped--"
+
+The fat man pulled away, his face flushed an even deeper red. "I'm
+warning you, you maniac: get away from me...!"
+
+Brett stepped close, rammed the fat man hard in the ribs. He sank to his
+knees, gasping. The panama hat rolled away. Brett grabbed his arm,
+steadied him.
+
+"Sorry," he said. "I had to be sure. You're real, all right. We've got
+to rescue my friend, Dhuva--"
+
+The fat man leaned against the glass, rolling terrified eyes, rubbing
+his stomach. "I'll call the police!" he gasped.
+
+"What police?" Brett waved an arm. "Look. Not a car in sight. Did you
+ever see the street that empty before?"
+
+"Wednesday afternoon," the fat man gasped.
+
+"Come with me. I want to show you. It's all hollow. There's nothing
+behind these walls--"
+
+"Why doesn't somebody come along?" the fat man moaned.
+
+"The masonry is only a quarter-inch thick," Brett said. "Come on; I'll
+show you."
+
+"I don't like it," said the fat man. His face was pale and moist.
+"You're mad. What's wrong? It's so quiet ..."
+
+"We've got to try to save him. The Gel took him down into this pit--"
+
+"Let me go," the man whined. "I'm afraid. Can't you just let me lead my
+life in peace?"
+
+"Don't you understand? The Gel took a man. They may be after you next."
+
+"There's no one after me! I'm a business man ... a respectable citizen.
+I mind my own business, give to charity, go to church. All I want is to
+be left alone!"
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Brett dropped his hands from the fat man's arms, stood looking at him:
+the blotched face, pale now, the damp forehead, the quivering jowls. The
+fat man stooped for his hat, slapped it against his leg, clamped it on
+his head.
+
+"I think I understand now," said Brett. "This is your place, this
+imitation city. Everything's faked to fit your needs--like in the hotel.
+Wherever you go, the scene unrolls in front of you. You never see the
+Gels, never discover the secret of the golems--because you conform. You
+never do the unexpected."
+
+"That's right. I'm law-abiding. I'm respectable. I don't pry. I don't
+nose into other people's business. Why should I? Just let me alone ..."
+
+"Sure," Brett said. "Even if I dragged you down there and showed you,
+you wouldn't believe it. But you're not in the scene now. I've taken you
+out of it--"
+
+Suddenly the fat man turned and ran a few yards, then looked back to see
+whether Brett was pursuing him. He shook a round fist.
+
+"I've seen your kind before," he shouted. "Troublemakers."
+
+Brett took a step toward him. The fat man yelped and ran another fifty
+feet, his coat tails bobbing. He looked back, stopped, a fat figure
+alone in the empty sunny street.
+
+"You haven't seen the last of me!" he shouted. "We know how to deal with
+your kind." He tugged at his vest, went off along the sidewalk. Brett
+watched him go, then started back toward the hollow building.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The jagged fragments of masonry Brett had knocked from the wall lay as
+he had left them. He stepped through the opening, peered down into the
+murky pit, trying to judge its depth. A hundred feet at least. Perhaps a
+hundred and fifty.
+
+He unslung the rope from his shoulder, tied one end to the brass stump,
+threw the coil down the precipitous side. It fell away into darkness,
+hung swaying. It was impossible to tell whether the end reached any
+solid footing below. He couldn't waste any more time looking for help.
+He would have to try it alone.
+
+There was a scrape of shoe leather on the pavement outside. He turned,
+stepped out into the white sunlight. The fat man rounded the corner,
+recoiled as he saw Brett. He flung out a pudgy forefinger, his
+protruding eyes wide in his blotchy red face.
+
+"There he is! I told you he came this way!" Two uniformed policemen came
+into view. One eyed the gun at Brett's side, put a hand on his own.
+
+"Better take that off, sir."
+
+"Look!" Brett said to the fat man. He stooped, picked up a crust of
+masonry. "Look at this--just a shell--"
+
+"He's blasted a hole right in that building, officer!" the fat man
+shrilled. "He's dangerous."
+
+The cop ignored the gaping hole in the wall. "You'll have to come along
+with me, sir. This gentleman registered a complaint ..."
+
+Brett stood staring into the cop's eyes. They were pale blue eyes,
+looking steadily back at him from a bland face. Could the cop be real?
+Or would he be able to push him over, as he had other golems?
+
+"The fellow's not right in the head," the fat man was saying to the cop.
+"You should have heard his crazy talk. A troublemaker. His kind have got
+to be locked up!"
+
+The cop nodded. "Can't have anyone causing trouble."
+
+"Only a young fellow," said the fat man. He mopped at his forehead with
+a large handkerchief. "Tragic. But I'm sure that you men know how to
+handle him."
+
+"Better give me the gun, sir." The cop held out a hand. Brett moved
+suddenly, rammed stiff fingers into the cop's ribs. He stiffened,
+toppled, lay rigid, staring up at nothing.
+
+"You ... you killed him," the fat man gasped, backing. The second cop
+tugged at his gun. Brett leaped at him, sent him down with a blow to the
+ribs. He turned to face the fat man.
+
+"I didn't kill them! I just turned them off. They're not real, they're
+just golems."
+
+"A killer! And right in the city, in broad daylight."
+
+"You've got to help me!" Brett cried. "This whole scene: don't you see?
+It has the air of something improvised in a hurry, to deal with the
+unexpected factor; that's me. The Gels know something's wrong, but they
+can't quite figure out what. When you called the cops the Gels
+obliged--"
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Startlingly the fat man burst into tears. He fell to his knees.
+
+"Don't kill me ... oh, don't kill me ..."
+
+"Nobody's going to kill you, you fool!" Brett snapped. "Look! I want to
+show you!" He seized the fat man's lapel, dragged him to his feet and
+across the sidewalk, through the opening. The fat man stopped dead,
+stumbled back--
+
+"What's this? What kind of place is this?" He scrambled for the opening.
+
+"It's what I've been trying to tell you. This city you live in--it's a
+hollow shell. There's nothing inside. None of it's real. Only you ...
+and me. There was another man: Dhuva. I was in a cafe with him. A Gel
+came. He tried to run. It caught him. Now he's ... down there."
+
+"I'm not alone," the fat man babbled. "I have my friends, my clubs, my
+business associates. I'm insured. Lately I've been thinking a lot about
+Jesus--"
+
+He broke off, whirled, and jumped for the doorway. Brett leaped after
+him, caught his coat. It ripped. The fat man stumbled over one of the
+cop-golems, went to hands and knees. Brett stood over him.
+
+"Get up, damn it!" he snapped. "I need help and you're going to help
+me!" He hauled the fat man to his feet. "All you have to do is stand by
+the rope. Dhuva may be unconscious when I find him. You'll have to help
+me haul him up. If anybody comes along, any Gels, I mean--give me a
+signal. A whistle ... like this--" Brett demonstrated. "And if I get in
+trouble, do what you can. Here ..." Brett started to offer the fat man
+the gun, then handed him the hunting knife. "If anybody interferes, this
+may not do any good, but it's something. I'm going down now."
+
+The fat man watched as Brett gripped the rope, let himself over the
+edge. Brett looked up at the glistening face, the damp strands of hair
+across the freckled scalp. Brett had no assurance that the man would
+stay at his post, but he had done what he could.
+
+"Remember," said Brett. "It's a real man they've got, like you and me
+... not a golem. We owe it to him." The fat man's hands trembled. He
+watched Brett, licked his lips. Brett started down.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The descent was easy. The rough face of the excavation gave footholds.
+The end of a decaying timber projected; below it was the stump of a
+crumbling concrete pipe two feet in diameter. Brett was ten feet below
+the rim of floor now. Above, the broad figure of the fat man was visible
+in silhouette against the jagged opening in the wall.
+
+Now the cliff shelved back; the rope hung free. Brett eased past the cut
+end of a rusted water pipe, went down hand over hand. If there were
+nothing at the bottom to give him footing, it would be a long climb back
+...
+
+Twenty feet below he could see the still black water, pockmarked with
+expanding rings where bits of debris dislodged by his passage peppered
+the surface.
+
+There was a rhythmic vibration in the rope. Brett felt it through his
+hands, a fine sawing sensation ...
+
+He was falling, gripping the limp rope ...
+
+He slammed on his back in three feet of oily water. The coils of rope
+collapsed around him with a sustained splashing. He got to his feet,
+groped for the end of the rope. The glossy nylon strands had been
+cleanly cut.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+For half an hour Brett waded in waist-deep water along a wall of damp
+clay that rose sheer above him. Far above, bars of dim sunlight crossed
+the upper reaches of the cavern. He had seen no sign of Dhuva ... or the
+Gels.
+
+He encountered a sodden timber that projected above the surface of the
+pool, clung to it to rest. Bits of flotsam--a plastic pistol, bridge
+tallies, a golf bag--floated in the black water. A tunnel extended
+through the clay wall ahead; beyond, Brett could see a second great
+cavern rising. He pictured the city, silent and empty above, and the
+honey-combed earth beneath. He moved on.
+
+An hour later Brett had traversed the second cavern. Now he clung to an
+outthrust spur of granite directly beneath the point at which Dhuva had
+disappeared. Far above he could see the green-clad waitress standing
+stiffly on her ledge. He was tired. Walking in water, his feet
+floundering in soft mud, was exhausting. He was no closer to escape, or
+to finding Dhuva, than he had been when the fat man cut the rope. He had
+been a fool to leave the man alone, with a knife ... but he had had no
+choice.
+
+He would have to find another way out. Endlessly wading at the bottom of
+the pit was useless. He would have to climb. One spot was as good as
+another. He stepped back and scanned the wall of clay looming over him.
+Twenty feet up, water dripped from the broken end of a four-inch water
+main. Brett uncoiled the rope from his shoulder, tied a loop in the end,
+whirled it and cast upward. It missed, fell back with a splash. He
+gathered it in, tried again. On the third try it caught. He tested it,
+then started up. His hands were slippery with mud and water. He twined
+the rope around his legs, inched higher. The slender cable was smooth as
+glass. He slipped back two feet, then inched upward, slipped again,
+painfully climbed, slipped, climbed.
+
+After the first ten feet he found toe-holds in the muddy wall. He worked
+his way up, his hands aching and raw. A projecting tangle of power cable
+gave a secure purchase for a foot. He rested. Nearby, an opening two
+feet in diameter gaped in the clay: a tunnel. It might be possible to
+swing sideways across the face of the clay and reach the opening. It was
+worth a try. His stiff, clay-slimed hands would pull him no higher.
+
+He gripped the rope, kicked off sideways, hooked a foot in the tunnel
+mouth, half jumped, half fell into the mouth of the tunnel. He clung to
+the rope, shook it loose from the pipe above, coiled it and looped it
+over his shoulder. On hands and knees he started into the narrow
+passage.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+The tunnel curved left, then right, dipped, then angled up. Brett
+crawled steadily, the smooth stiff clay yielding and cold against his
+hands and sodden knees. Another smaller tunnel joined from the left.
+Another angled in from above. The tunnel widened to three feet, then
+four. Brett got to his feet, walked in a crouch. Here and there, barely
+visible in the near-darkness, objects lay imbedded in the mud: a
+silver-plated spoon, its handle bent; the rusted engine of an electric
+train; a portable radio, green with corrosion from burst batteries.
+
+At a distance, Brett estimated, of a hundred yards from the pit, the
+tunnel opened into a vast cave, green-lit from tiny discs of frosted
+glass set in the ceiling far above. A row of discolored concrete piles,
+the foundations of the building above, protruded against the near wall,
+their surfaces nibbled and pitted. Between Brett and the concrete
+columns the floor was littered with pale sticks and stones, gleaming
+dully in the gloom.
+
+Brett started across the floor. One of the sticks snapped underfoot. He
+kicked a melon-sized stone. It rolled lightly, came to rest with hollow
+eyes staring toward him. A human skull.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The floor of the cave covered an area the size of a city block. It was
+blanketed with human bones, with here and there a small cat skeleton or
+the fanged snout-bones of a dog. There was a constant rustling of rats
+that played among the rib cages, sat atop crania, scuttled behind
+shin-bones. Brett picked his way, stepping over imitation pearl
+necklaces, zircon rings, plastic buttons, hearing aids, lipsticks,
+compacts, corset stays, prosthetic devices, rubber heels, wrist watches,
+lapel watches, pocket watches with corroded brass chains.
+
+Ahead Brett saw a patch of color: a blur of pale yellow. He hurried,
+stumbling over bone heaps, crunching eyeglasses underfoot. He reached
+the still figure where it lay slackly, face down. Gingerly he squatted,
+turned it on its back. It was Dhuva.
+
+Brett slapped the cold wrists, rubbed the clammy hands. Dhuva stirred,
+moaned weakly. Brett pulled him to a sitting position. "Wake up!" he
+whispered. "Wake up!"
+
+Dhuva's eyelids fluttered. He blinked dully at Brett.
+
+"The Gels may turn up any minute," Brett hissed. "We have to get away
+from here. Can you walk?"
+
+"I saw it," said Dhuva faintly. "But it moved so fast ..."
+
+"You're safe here for the moment," Brett said. "There are none of them
+around. But they may be back. We've got to find a way out!"
+
+Dhuva started up, staring around. "Where am I?" he said hoarsely. Brett
+seized his arm, steadied him on his feet.
+
+"We're in a hollowed-out cave," he said. "The whole city is undermined
+with them. They're connected by tunnels. We have to find one leading
+back to the surface."
+
+Dhuva gazed around at the acres of bones. "It left me here for dead."
+
+"Or to die," said Brett.
+
+"Look at them," Dhuva breathed. "Hundreds ... thousands ..."
+
+"The whole population, it looks like. The Gels must have whisked them
+down here one by one."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"For interfering with the scenes. But that doesn't matter now. What
+matters is getting out. Come on. I see tunnels on the other side."
+
+They crossed the broad floor, around them the white bones, the rustle of
+rats. They reached the far side of the cave, picked a six-foot tunnel
+which trended upward, a trickle of water seeping out of the dark mouth.
+They started up the slope.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+"We have to have a weapon against the Gels," said Brett.
+
+"Why? I don't want to fight them." Dhuva's voice was thin, frightened.
+"I want to get away from here ... even back to Wavly. I'd rather face
+the Duke."
+
+"This was a real town, once," said Brett. "The Gels have taken it over,
+hollowed out the buildings, mined the earth under it, killed off the
+people, and put imitation people in their place. And nobody ever knew. I
+met a man who's lived here all his life. He doesn't know. But we know
+... and we have to do something about it."
+
+"It's not our business. I've had enough. I want to get away."
+
+"The Gels must stay down below, somewhere in that maze of tunnels. For
+some reason they try to keep up appearances ... but only for the people
+who belong here. They play out scenes for the fat man, wherever he goes.
+And he never goes anywhere he isn't expected to."
+
+"We'll get over the wall somehow," said Dhuva. "We may starve, crossing
+the dry fields, but that's better than this."
+
+They emerged from the tunnel into a coal bin, crossed to a sagging door,
+found themselves in a boiler room. Stairs led up to sunlight. In the
+street, in the shadow of tall buildings, a boxy sedan was parked at the
+curb. Brett went to it, tried the door. It opened. Keys dangled from the
+ignition switch. He slid into the dusty seat. Behind him there was a
+hoarse scream. Brett looked up. Through the streaked windshield he saw a
+mighty Gel rear up before Dhuva, who crouched back against the blackened
+brick front of the building.
+
+"Don't move, Dhuva!" Brett shouted. Dhuva stood frozen, flattened
+against the wall. The Gel towered, its surface rippling.
+
+Brett eased from the seat. He stood on the pavement, fifteen feet from
+the Gel. The rank Gel odor came in waves from the creature. Beyond it he
+could see Dhuva's white terrified face.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Silently Brett turned the latch of the old-fashioned auto hood, raised
+it. The copper fuel line curved down from the firewall to a glass
+sediment cup. The knurled retaining screw turned easily; the cup dropped
+into Brett's hand. Gasoline ran down in an amber stream. Brett pulled
+off his damp coat, wadded it, jammed it under the flow. Over his
+shoulder he saw Dhuva, still rigid--and the Gel, hovering, uncertain.
+
+The coat was saturated with gasoline now. Brett fumbled a match box from
+his pocket. Wet. He threw the sodden container aside. The battery caught
+his eye, clamped in a rusted frame under the hood. He jerked the pistol
+from its holster, used it to short the terminals. Tiny blue sparks
+jumped. He jammed the coat near, rasped the gun against the soft lead
+poles. With a whoosh! the coat caught; yellow flames leaped,
+soot-rimmed. Brett snatched at a sleeve, whirled the coat high. The
+great Gel, attracted by the sudden motion, rushed at him. He flung the
+blazing garment over the monster, leaped aside.
+
+The creature went mad. It slumped, lashed itself against the pavement.
+The burning coat was thrown clear. The Gel threw itself across the
+pavement, into the gutter, sending a splatter of filthy water over
+Brett. From the corner of his eye, Brett saw Dhuva seize the burning
+coat, hurl it into the pooled gasoline in the gutter. Fire leaped twenty
+feet high; in its center the great Gel bucked and writhed. The ancient
+car shuddered as the frantic monster struck it. Black smoke boiled up;
+an unbelievable stench came to Brett's nostrils. He backed, coughing.
+Flames roared around the front of the car. Paint blistered and burned. A
+tire burst. In a final frenzy, the Gel whipped clear, lay, a great
+blackened shape of melting rubber, twitching, then still.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+"They've tunneled under everything," Brett said. "They've cut through
+power lines and water lines, concrete, steel, earth; they've left the
+shell, shored up with spidery-looking trusswork. Somehow they've kept
+water and power flowing to wherever they needed it--"
+
+"I don't care about your theories," Dhuva said; "I only want to get
+away."
+
+"It's bound to work, Dhuva. I need your help."
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I'll have to try alone." He turned away.
+
+"Wait," Dhuva called. He came up to Brett. "I owe you a life; you saved
+mine. I can't let you down now. But if this doesn't work ... or if you
+can't find what you want--"
+
+"Then we'll go."
+
+Together they turned down a side street, walking rapidly. At the next
+corner Brett pointed.
+
+"There's one!" They crossed to the service station at a run. Brett tried
+the door. Locked. He kicked at it, splintered the wood around the lock.
+He glanced around inside. "No good," he called. "Try the next building.
+I'll check the one behind."
+
+He crossed the wide drive, battered in a door, looked in at a floor
+covered with wood shavings. It ended ten feet from the door. Brett went
+to the edge, looked down. Diagonally, forty feet away, the underground
+fifty-thousand-gallon storage tank which supplied the gasoline pumps of
+the station perched, isolated, on a column of striated clay, ribbed
+with chitinous Gel buttresses. The truncated feed lines ended six feet
+from the tank. From Brett's position, it was impossible to say whether
+the ends were plugged.
+
+Across the dark cavern a square of light appeared. Dhuva stood in a
+doorway looking toward Brett.
+
+"Over here, Dhuva!" Brett uncoiled his rope, arranged a slip-noose. He
+measured the distance with his eye, tossed the loop. It slapped the top
+of the tank, caught on a massive fitting. He smashed the glass from a
+window, tied the end of the rope to the center post. Dhuva arrived,
+watched as Brett went to the edge, hooked his legs over the rope, and
+started across to the tank.
+
+It was an easy crossing. Brett's feet clanged against the tank. He
+straddled the six-foot cylinder, worked his way to the end, then
+clambered down to the two two-inch feed lines. He tested their
+resilience, then lay flat, eased out on them. There were plugs of hard
+waxy material in the cut ends of the pipes. Brett poked at them with the
+pistol. Chunks loosened and fell. He worked for fifteen minutes before
+the first trickle came. Two minutes later, two thick streams of gasoline
+were pouring down into the darkness.
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Brett and Dhuva piled sticks, scraps of paper, shavings, and lumps of
+coal around a core of gasoline-soaked rags. Directly above the heaped
+tinder a taut rope stretched from the window post to a child's wagon,
+the steel bed of which contained a second heap of combustibles. The
+wagon hung half over the ragged edge of the floor.
+
+"It should take about fifteen minutes for the fire to burn through the
+rope," Brett said. "Then the wagon will fall and dump the hot coals in
+the gasoline. By then it will have spread all over the surface and
+flowed down side tunnels into other parts of the cavern system."
+
+"But it may not get them all."
+
+"It will get some of them. It's the best we can do right now. You get
+the fire going in the wagon; I'll start this one up."
+
+Dhuva sniffed the air. "That fluid," he said. "We know it in Wavly as
+phlogistoneum. The wealthy use it for cooking."
+
+"We'll use it to cook Gels." Brett struck a match. The fire leaped up,
+smoking. Dhuva watched, struck his match awkwardly, started his blaze.
+They stood for a moment watching. The nylon curled and blackened,
+melting in the heat.
+
+"We'd better get moving," Brett said. "It doesn't look as though it will
+last fifteen minutes."
+
+They stepped out into the street. Behind them wisps of smoke curled from
+the door. Dhuva seized Brett's arm. "Look!"
+
+Half a block away the fat man in the panama hat strode toward them at
+the head of a group of men in grey flannel. "That's him!" the fat man
+shouted, "the one I told you about. I knew the scoundrel would be back!"
+He slowed, eyeing Brett and Dhuva warily.
+
+"You'd better get away from here, fast!" Brett called. "There'll be an
+explosion in a few minutes--"
+
+"Smoke!" the fat man yelped. "Fire! They've set fire to the city! There
+it is! pouring out of the window ... and the door!" He started forward.
+Brett yanked the pistol from the holster, thumbed back the hammer.
+
+"Stop right there!" he barked. "For your own good I'm telling you to
+run. I don't care about that crowd of golems you've collected, but I'd
+hate to see a real human get hurt--even a cowardly one like you."
+
+"These are honest citizens," the fat man gasped, standing, staring at
+the gun. "You won't get away with this. We all know you. You'll be dealt
+with ..."
+
+"We're going now. And you're going too."
+
+"You can't kill us all," the fat man said. He licked his lips. "We won't
+let you destroy our city."
+
+       *       *       *
+
+As the fat man turned to exhort his followers Brett fired, once twice,
+three times. Three golems fell on their faces. The fat man whirled.
+
+"Devil!" he shrieked. "A killer is abroad!" He charged, mouth open.
+Brett ducked aside, tripped the fat man. He fell heavily, slamming his
+face against the pavement. The golems surged forward. Brett and Dhuva
+slammed punches to the sternum, took clumsy blows on the shoulder, back,
+chest. Golems fell. Brett ducked a wild swing, toppled his attacker,
+turned to see Dhuva deal with the last of the dummies. The fat man sat
+in the street, dabbing at his bleeding nose, the panama still in place.
+
+"Get up," Brett commanded. "There's no time left."
+
+"You've killed them. Killed them all ..." The fat man got to his feet,
+then turned suddenly and plunged for the door from which a cloud of
+smoke poured. Brett hauled him back. He and Dhuva started off, dragging
+the struggling man between them. They had gone a block when their
+prisoner, with a sudden frantic jerk, freed himself, set off at a run
+for the fire.
+
+"Let him go!" Dhuva cried. "It's too late to go back!"
+
+The fat man leaped fallen golems, wrestled with the door, disappeared
+into the smoke. Brett and Dhuva sprinted for the corner. As they
+rounded it a tremendous blast shook the street. The pavement before them
+quivered, opened in a wide crack. A ten-foot section dropped from view.
+They skirted the gaping hole, dashed for safety as the facades along the
+street cracked, fell in clouds of dust. The street trembled under a
+second explosion. Cracks opened, dust rising in puffs from the long
+wavering lines. Masonry collapsed around them. They put their heads down
+and ran.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Winded, Brett and Dhuva walked through the empty streets of the city.
+Behind them, smoke blackened the sky. Embers floated down around them.
+The odor of burning Gel was carried on the wind. The late sun shone on
+the blank pavement. A lone golem in a tasseled fez, left over from the
+morning's parade, leaned stiffly against a lamp post, eyes blank. Empty
+cars sat in driveways. TV antennae stood forlornly against the sunset.
+
+"That place looks lived-in," said Brett, indicating an open apartment
+window with a curtain billowing above a potted geranium. "I'll take a
+look."
+
+He came back shaking his head. "They were all in the TV room. They
+looked so natural at first; I mean, they didn't look up or anything when
+I walked in. I turned the set off. The electricity is still working
+anyway. Wonder how long it will last?"
+
+They turned down a residential street. Underfoot the pavement trembled
+at a distant blast. They skirted a crack, kept going. Occasional golems
+stood in awkward poses or lay across sidewalks. One, clad in black,
+tilted awkwardly in a gothic entry of fretted stone work. "I guess there
+won't be any church this Sunday," said Brett.
+
+He halted before a brown brick apartment house. An untended hose welled
+on a patch of sickly lawn. Brett went to the door, stood listening, then
+went in. Across the room the still figure of a woman sat in a rocker. A
+curl stirred on her smooth forehead. A flicker of expression seemed to
+cross the lined face. Brett started forward. "Don't be afraid. You can
+come with us--"
+
+He stopped. A flapping window-shade cast restless shadows on the still
+golem features on which dust was already settling. Brett turned away,
+shaking his head.
+
+"All of them," he said. "It's as though they were snipped out of paper.
+When the Gels died their dummies died with them."
+
+"Why?" said Dhuva. "What does it all mean?"
+
+"Mean?" said Brett. He shook his head, started off again along the
+street. "It doesn't mean anything. It's just the way things are."
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Brett sat in a deserted Cadillac, tuning the radio.
+
+"... anybody hear me?" said a plaintive voice from the speaker. "This is
+Ab Gullorian, at the Twin Spires. Looks like I'm the only one left
+alive. Can anybody hear me?"
+
+Brett tuned. "... been asking the wrong questions ... looking for the
+Final Fact. Now these are strange matters, brothers. But if a flower
+blooms, what man shall ask why? What lore do we seek in a symphony...?"
+
+He twisted the knob again. "... Kansas City. Not more than half a dozen
+of us. And the dead! Piled all over the place. But it's a funny thing:
+Doc Potter started to do an autopsy--"
+
+Brett turned the knob. "... CQ, CQ, CQ. This is Hollip Quate, calling
+CQ, CQ. There's been a disaster here at Port Wanderlust. We need--"
+
+"Take Jesus into your hearts," another station urged.
+
+"... to base," the radio said faintly, with much crackling. "Lunar
+Observatory to base. Come in, Lunar Control. This is Commander McVee of
+the Lunar Detachment, sole survivor--"
+
+"... hello, Hollip Quate? Hollip Quate? This is Kansas City calling.
+Say, where did you say you were calling from...?"
+
+"It looks as though both of us had a lot of mistaken ideas about the
+world outside," said Brett. "Most of these stations sound as though they
+might as well be coming from Mars."
+
+"I don't understand where the voices come from," Dhuva said. "But all
+the places they name are strange to me ... except the Twin Spires."
+
+"I've heard of Kansas City," Brett said, "but none of the other ones."
+
+The ground trembled. A low rumble rolled. "Another one," Brett said. He
+switched off the radio, tried the starter. It groaned, turned over. The
+engine caught, sputtered, then ran smoothly.
+
+"Get in, Dhuva. We might as well ride. Which way do we go to get out of
+this place?"
+
+"The wall lies in that direction," said Dhuva. "But I don't know about a
+gate."
+
+"We'll worry about that when we get to it," said Brett. "This whole
+place is going to collapse before long. We really started something. I
+suppose other underground storage tanks caught--and gas lines, too."
+
+A building ahead cracked, fell in a heap of pulverized plaster. The car
+bucked as a blast sent a ripple down the street. A manhole cover popped
+up, clattered a few feet, dropped from sight. Brett swerved, gunned the
+car. It leaped over rubble, roared along the littered pavement. Brett
+looked in the rear-view mirror. A block behind them the street ended.
+Smoke and dust rose from the immense pit.
+
+"We just missed it that time!" he called. "How far to the wall?"
+
+"Not far! Turn here ..."
+
+Brett rounded the corner with a shrieking of tires. Ahead the grey wall
+rose up, blank, featureless.
+
+"This is a dead end!" Brett shouted.
+
+"We'd better get out and run for it--"
+
+"No time! I'm going to ram the wall! Maybe I can knock a hole in it."
+
+       *       *       *
+
+Dhuva crouched; teeth gritted, Brett held the accelerator to the floor,
+roared straight toward the wall. The heavy car shot across the last few
+yards, struck--
+
+And burst through a curtain of canvas into a field of dry stalks.
+
+Brett steered the car in a wide curve to halt and look back. A blackened
+panama hat floated down, settled among the stalks. Smoke poured up in a
+dense cloud from behind the canvas wall. A fetid stench pervaded the
+air.
+
+"That finishes that, I guess," Brett said.
+
+"I don't know. Look there."
+
+Brett turned. Far across the dry field columns of smoke rose from the
+ground.
+
+"The whole thing's undermined," Brett said. "How far does it go?"
+
+"No telling. But we'd better be off. Perhaps we can get beyond the edge
+of it. Not that it matters. We're all that's left ..."
+
+"You sound like the fat man," Brett said. "But why should we be so
+surprised to find out the truth? After all, we never saw it before. All
+we knew--or thought we knew--was what they told us. The moon, the other
+side of the world, a distant city ... or even the next town. How do we
+really know what's there ... unless we go and see for ourselves? Does a
+goldfish in his bowl know what the ocean is like?"
+
+"Where did they come from, those Gels? How much of the world have they
+undermined? What about Wavly? Is it a golem country too? The Duke ...
+and all the people I knew?"
+
+"I don't know, Dhuva. I've been wondering about the people in Casperton.
+Like Doc Welch. I used to see him in the street with his little black
+bag. I always thought it was full of pills and scalpels; but maybe it
+really had zebra's tails and toad's eyes in it. Maybe he's really a
+magician on his way to cast spells against demons. Maybe the people I
+used to see hurrying to catch the bus every morning weren't really going
+to the office. Maybe they go down into caves and chip away at the
+foundations of things. Maybe they go up on rooftops and put on
+rainbow-colored robes and fly away. I used to pass by a bank in
+Casperton: a big grey stone building with little curtains over the
+bottom half of the windows. I never go in there. I don't have anything
+to do in a bank. I've always thought it was full of bankers, banking ...
+Now I don't know. It could be anything ..."
+
+"That's why I'm afraid," Dhuva said. "It could be anything."
+
+"Things aren't really any different than they were," said Brett, "...
+except that now we know." He turned the big car out across the field
+toward Casperton.
+
+"I don't know what we'll find when we get back. Aunt Haicey, Pretty-Lee
+... But there's only one way to find out."
+
+The moon rose as the car bumped westward, raising a trail of dust
+against the luminous sky of evening.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The body shifted, rotating stiffly, then tilted upright.
+
+"The sun struck through the amber shape that flowed down to form itself
+into the crested wave."
+
+see IT COULD BE ANYTHING
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ January 1963.
+    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+    copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
+    typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's It Could Be Anything, by John Keith Laumer
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IT COULD BE ANYTHING ***
+
+***** This file should be named 26782.txt or 26782.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/7/8/26782/
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.