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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31588-h.zip b/31588-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..be5441d --- /dev/null +++ b/31588-h.zip diff --git a/31588-h/31588-h.htm b/31588-h/31588-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..01a6824 --- /dev/null +++ b/31588-h/31588-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1346 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The House from Nowhere, by Arthur G. Stangland + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 100%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.p1 { margin-left:80%; } +.center {text-align: center;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The House from Nowhere, by Arthur G. Stangland + +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: The House from Nowhere + +Author: Arthur G. Stangland + +Release Date: March 10, 2010 [EBook #31588] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE FROM NOWHERE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe Aug-Sept 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="585" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<div class="sidenote"><i>Time-travel continues to exercise its mesmeric fascination +upon writers, readers and editors of science fiction alike. Probably +because almost all of us, at one time or another, have longed greatly +to visit either the future or the past. Perhaps, in view of the +dangerous paradoxes such travel must involve, it is a good thing that +such horological journeys have to date been confined to the printed +page.</i></div> +<p> </p> + +<h1>the house from nowhere</h1> + +<p> </p> +<h2><i>by ... Arthur G. Stangland</i></h2> +<p> </p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>New neighbors are always exciting. But the anachronistic +MacDonalds offered a bit too much.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The morning paper lay unread before Philon Miller on the breakfast +table and even the prospects of steaming coffee, ham, eggs and orange +juice could not make him forget his last night's visitors.</p> + +<p>On the closed-circuit Industrial TV screen glowed the words, <i>Food +Preparation Center breakfast menu for July 24, 2052. No. 1, orange +juice, coffee, ham and eggs. No. 2, waffle, coffee....</i></p> + +<p>Automatically he punched the button for <i>No. 1</i>. Oh, his visitors had +made matters appear justifiable. The presidential election campaign +was going badly, Rakoff the chairman said, and his poll-quota for the +election had been upped from twenty-five grand to fifty.</p> + +<p>A stainless-steel capsule popped into the transparent wall dock. Of +course the party quota system was taken for granted, he mused, +removing the capsule, but it was an obligation you didn't welsh on. +The muscle boys in the party organization saw to that. But still, +fifty thousand....</p> + +<p>Across the table John, his sixteen-year-old adopted son, stirred. "I +guess you aren't as hungry as I am, Phil."</p> + +<p>"What? Oh, sorry." John—down here for breakfast? What was the +matter? The kid sick or something? Every morning he took his meal to +his room to eat in solitude. Funny kid.</p> + +<p>Philon removed the food capsule from the wall dock, stopping the soft +gushing of air in the suction tube. Setting it on the table he snapped +it open and removed the individual thermocels of food.</p> + +<p>Philon poured coffee from the thermos and absently stirred in cream +and sugar. Fifty thousand....</p> + +<p>John was well into his breakfast already. "Phil, I was down to visit +those people on the corner—you know, the house that appeared there +over-night."</p> + +<p>"Um."</p> + +<p>"Their name is MacDonald," John said. "And they have a son, Jimmie, +just my age, and a younger girl, Jean. Gosh, you ought to see the +inside of their house, Phil. Old-fashioned! At the windows they got +something called venetian blinds instead of our variable mirror +thermopanes. And you know what? They don't even have an FP connection. +They prepare all their meals in the house!"</p> + +<p>John's excitement finally aroused Philon's attention. "No Food +Preparation service? But that's unheard of!"</p> + +<p>"They're sure swell people though."</p> + +<p>"Where in the world did they come from?" Philon poured more coffee.</p> + +<p>"Some place out West—Oregon, I think. Lived in a small town."</p> + +<p>"How come their house appeared over-night?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah, I asked them about that," John said. "They said their house is +a prefab and it was cheaper to move it from Oregon than to buy one +here. So they moved in one night—lock, stock and barrel."</p> + +<p>John looked at Philon with a tentative air. "And another thing—Jimmie +and Jean are their real children."</p> + +<p>Philon began to frown in disgust. "Real children—how vulgar! No one +does that anymore. That custom went out years ago with the Eugenic Act +of two thousand twenty-nine. Breeding perfect children is the job of +selected specimens. Why, I remember the day we passed our check over +to Maternity Clinic! You were the best specimen in the place—and you +carried the highest price tag too—ten thousand dollars!"</p> + +<p>At that moment Ursula, his wife, her green rinse tumbling in stringy +tufts over her forehead pattered into the breakfast room. Her right +eye was closed in a tight squint against her cigarette smoke.</p> + +<p>"Well, do I get my share of breakfast," she muttered, "or do I have to +scrabble at the trough like the rest of the hogs around here?"</p> + +<p>Philon nodded at a third thermocel in the capsule. "That's yours, +Ursula." He fixed her with a cocked eye. "What time did that gigolo +get you home this morning?"</p> + +<p>Ursula blew the hair out of her eyes, then took a good look at her +husband. "Why all the sudden concern about my affairs? I feel like +going to the Cairo I call up Francois. He dances divinely. I feel like +making love I call up Jose...." She shrugged. "So, I say, why the +sudden concern? All these years you say nothing. Every minute away +from home you're involved in big deals to make money, steal +money—maybe even eat it."</p> + +<p>He looked at her cryptically. "I've got to raise a fifty-grand quota."</p> + +<p>Without even looking up from her breakfast Ursula said absently, "Oh, +that. It <i>is</i> election year again, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"And I'll have to ask you to cancel all unnecessary expenditures for +the time being."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "Can't—I've already reserved <i>Love's Passion</i> for +this afternoon and a whole block of titles for three months."</p> + +<p>Philon compressed his mouth, then practically blew the words at her. +"Damn it, Ursula, you're spending too much time psycho-dreaming these +cheap plays. You know the psychiatrist has warned you to lay off them. +Stimulates your endocrine system too much. No wonder you live on +sleeping pills."</p> + +<p>"Oh, shut up!" She stared at him, the anger in her tugging at her +loose mouth. "If I feel like a psychoplay I'm going to have me a +psychoplay. It's the only stimulation I get any more."</p> + +<p>Muttering, "T'hell with it!" Philon got up from the table and walked +into the living room. Slipping into his gray top coat and hat he +ascended to the copter roofport.</p> + +<p>Before stepping into the copter seat he paused to study the MacDonald +house on the corner. Odd-looking house at that. Mid-twentieth century, +yet it looked brand new.</p> + +<p>Then, putting the house out of mind, Philon shot his copter skyward +and joined Skyway No. 7 traffic into town.</p> + +<p>Descending on his office building he left the ship in care of the +parking attendant and by elevator dropped to his floor. At a door +marked <i>Miller Electronic Manufacturing Co.</i> he walked in.</p> + +<p>In his office he slouched into his chair and stared at the small +calendar on his desk. Rakoff wanted the fifty-thousand before Royal +Pastel Mink Monday. One week—that wasn't very much time.</p> + +<p>Flinching from the unpleasant problem, he stared at the city skyline, +his mind drifting lazily. He thought about Royal Pastel Mink Monday. +Some said it was just another Day dreamed up by furriers to make +people fur-conscious. Others said it commemorated a period of great +public indifference which cost large numbers their freedom to vote.</p> + +<p>Of course the other party had their symbology too—like the Teapot +Celebration. No one seemed to know for sure what it meant. Anyway, why +worry how they started? Why did people knock on wood for luck—or +throw salt over their left shoulder?</p> + +<p>But then once in awhile there arose some who spelled out a strange +lonely cry, calling themselves the conscience of the people. They +spoke sternly of the thin moral fiber of the country, berating the +people for what they called their amoral evolution brought on by +indifference and negligence until they no longer could hear the still +guiding voice of their conscience. But they were scornfully laughed +down and it seemed to Philon he heard less and less of these men.</p> + +<p>In the late afternoon a whip from party headquarters dropped in. +"Hello, Feisel," Philon said with little enthusiasm for the +swarthy-faced man.</p> + +<p>Without even the formality of a greeting Feisel smiled down at Philon +in a half-sneer. "Well, Philon, how we doin' with the fifty grand, +eh?"</p> + +<p>Philon tossed a sheaf of papers on the desk with a gesture of +impatience. "Now look, I'll raise the fifty G's by the end of the +week."</p> + +<p>Feisel lifted a thin black eyebrow and shrugged elaborately. "Just +inquiring, my friend, just inquiring. You know—just showing friendly +interest."</p> + +<p>"Well, go peddle your papers to somebody else. You make me nervous."</p> + +<p>Feisel sniffed with injured pride. "That's gratitude for you. And just +when I was going to put a little bee in your bonnet. I thought you'd +like to know what happened to another guy just like you. You see, he +got ideas, instead of digging to get his quota. He tried to lam out +and you know where they found him? On the sidewalk below his +twenty-third-floor window."</p> + +<p>As Feisel went out, Philon swore softly at his retreating back. But +Feisel's little story sent a chill through him.</p> + +<p>That evening when he descended from his copter port and stepped into +his living room he was surprised to hear young voices upstairs. +Deciding to investigate he stepped on the escalator. At John's door he +poked his head in.</p> + +<p>"Hello."</p> + +<p>A young blond-headed boy with bright clear eyes turned to look at him +and a younger girl with short curly hair smiled back.</p> + +<p>John said, "Phil, this is Jimmie, and Jean, his sister. They don't +have a home-school teleclass rig yet, so they're attending with me."</p> + +<p>"I see." Philon nodded to the children. "And how did you like your +first day at school?"</p> + +<p>"Fine," Jean said, beaming until her eyes almost disappeared. "It was +fun. The teacher was talking about the history of atomic energy and +when I told her we had one of the first editions of the famous Smyth +report on <i>Atomic Energy</i> she was surprised."</p> + +<p>"A first edition of the <i>Smyth Report</i>? No wonder your teacher was +surprised." Through Philon's mind ran the recollection that first +editions of the Smyth Report brought as high as seventy thousand +dollars.</p> + +<p>The children's excited chatter was suddenly interrupted by the front +door chimes. Stepping to the wall televiewer, Philon pressed a button +and said, "Who is it?"</p> + +<p>A pleasant-faced man with a startled look said, "Oh—sorry. This +gadget on the door-casing surprised me. Ah—I think my children, +Jimmie and Jean, are here. I'm Bill MacDonald."</p> + +<p>Behind him Philon heard Jean suppress a dismayed cry. "Gosh, Jimmie, +it's late. Daddy's had to come for us!"</p> + +<p>Philon said, "And I'm Phil Miller, MacDonald. Come in. We'll be down +in a moment."</p> + +<p>The MacDonald children and John headed for the stairs in a happy rush, +ignoring the descending escalator, two steps at a time. Philon +followed at a meditative pace, his thoughts trooping stealthily +abreast. Seventy thousand dollars. Now, if he were to....</p> + +<p>"Beautiful home you've got here, Miller."</p> + +<p>Philon came out of his daydreaming to see MacDonald coming into view +around the corner of a living room ell.</p> + +<p>Philon took his extended hand. "Thanks. Glad you like it."</p> + +<p>Jean broke in breathlessly. "Oh, Daddy, you ought to see how they +conduct classes—by school TV. You write on a glass square and it +appears immediately at the teacher's roll-board. And when you—"</p> + +<p>Jimmie interrupted. "Aw, lemme tell 'im something too, Jean. Dad, John +used a spare TV for Jean's freshman class while we 'showed' for junior +class on his. Gosh, in history, Dad, their old newsreels go back to +World War Two. I even saw your Marine unit—"</p> + +<p>MacDonald cut his son short. "That's enough, Jimmie. You can tell us +about it later." He herded his children toward the front door. +"Thanks, Miller, for letting the kids use the school TV. I'm having +one installed tomorrow."</p> + +<p>After they left John said with a sparkle Philon had never seen before, +"You know, Phil, those are the most interesting kids I've ever met. +All the others I know are bored stiff. They've been everyplace and +they've done everything.</p> + +<p>"But Jimmie and Jean ask more questions about things than anybody I +know. They're really interested. Every time I drop in on them they're +studying history beginning with the middle of the Twentieth Century. +They're absolutely fascinated and read it like fiction."</p> + +<p>With more on his mind than his neighbors' unusual behavior Philon +said, "Mmm." He stood looking at the boy for a long moment until John +finally shifted self-consciously.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Phil?"</p> + +<p>Philon ended his musing. "Tomorrow night we're all going to call on +the MacDonalds. And while we're there I want you to slip that copy of +the <i>Smyth Report</i> out of their library."</p> + +<p>For a moment the young boy's smooth face was a blank mask. Then it +filled in with shocked surprise, then resentment and finally anger. +"You mean—steal?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. If they're too innocent to realize the value of the book +that's their hard luck."</p> + +<p>"But, Phil, I can't imagine myself stealing from...."</p> + +<p>Impatiently, Philon said, "Since when did you suddenly get so +holier-than-thou? Life is harsh, life is iron-fisted and if you don't +keep your guard up you're going to get socked in the kisser."</p> + +<p>John said slowly with a certain tone of shame, "Yes, I know. As far +back as I can remember you've told me that. But in spite of it I can't +help feeling it isn't right to treat the MacDonalds that way. They're +too nice, too good."</p> + +<p>"Look, John. You might as well learn the hard facts of life. All the +high-sounding arguments for a moral world and all the laws on the +books implementing those arguments are just eyewash. Sure, the +President swears that he will uphold the constitution and enforce all +the laws.</p> + +<p>"Then we carefully surround him with counterspies—wire his rooms with +dictaphones, slit his mail, install secret informers on his staff. All +because no matter who the party is able to elect we don't trust +him—because the society he represents does not trust itself."</p> + +<p>"Is that why we have more and bigger jails than ever?"</p> + +<p>Philon shrugged. "All I'm trying to tell you is don't go soft-headed +or the world will take your shirt."</p> + +<p>The next day before leaving for the office Philon said to his wife, +"Call up the MacDonalds and if they're going to be home tonight tell +them we'll be over for a visit."</p> + +<p>Ursula made a face. "Do we <i>have</i> to call on those people? They'll +bore me stiff."</p> + +<p>"For heaven's sake, Ursula! It's a matter of vital importance to +me—and you also, if I have to appeal to your wide streak of +selfishness."</p> + +<p>"I can't see it."</p> + +<p>"I'll explain later. I've got to go."</p> + +<p>During the day Ursula called him. "Well, Phil, I called as you said +and I've committed us for dinner tonight."</p> + +<p>"Dinner! Hmm, they <i>are</i> convivial people."</p> + +<p>"Yes and the dinner is going to be cooked right there in their house. +How vulgar can some people get?"</p> + +<p>That evening while dressing Ursula said, "Phil, John spends a lot of +time at the MacDonalds'. What do you suppose he sees in them? It gets +me the way he quotes them all the time and reports their least doings. +Today he came tearing into the house and said, 'Ursula, it's +wonderful!' I said, 'What's wonderful?' And John said, 'The dinner +they're cooking at MacDonalds'. I've never smelled anything like it in +all my life. Why don't we cook in our house like they do? Mrs. +MacDonald was baking cookies and let me have one right out of the +oven. Mmmm, boy was it <i>good</i>!'"</p> + +<p>Ursula finished, "Now, I ask you, did you ever hear anything so +barbaric—cooking in the house and having all the odors permeate the +whole place?"</p> + +<p>"Well, we'll see."</p> + +<p>Later when they arrived at the MacDonalds' they were welcomed with a +quiet warmth and friendliness that Philon cynically assumed to be a +new and different front.</p> + +<p>As they sat down to dinner Mrs. MacDonald, a rosy-cheeked woman with +a quick and ready smile, said, "I'm sorry we aren't able to get a +connection yet. So everything we're eating tonight is right out of our +deep-freeze."</p> + +<p>John Miller said, "Gosh, Mrs. MacDonald, as far as I'm concerned, I'd +rather eat from your deep-freeze anytime than from the FP!"</p> + +<p>Bill MacDonald looked across the table at Jean and said, "All right, +Jean."</p> + +<p>Jean and all the MacDonalds bent their heads and the girl began, "We +thank Thee for our daily bread as by Thy hands...."</p> + +<p>As the girl spoke Phil's gaze drifted around to his wife, who lifted +her shoulders in mystified amazement. But it was a bigger surprise to +see John's bent head. For the moment John was a part of this +family—part of a wholeness tied together by an invisible bond. The +utter strangeness of it shocked Philon into rare clarity of insight.</p> + +<p>He saw himself wrapped up in his business with little regard for +Ursula or John, letting them exist under his roof without making them +a part of his life. Ursula with her succession of gigolos and her +psycho-plays and John withdrawn into his upstairs room with his books. +Then he closed his mind again as if the insight were too blinding.</p> + +<p>What strange customs these MacDonalds had! Yet he had to admit the +meal looked more appetizing than anything he had ever seen. It gave an +impression of sumptuous plenty to see the food for everybody in one +place instead of individually packaged under glistening thermocel. And +instead of throwaway dishes they used chinaware that could have come +right out of a museum.</p> + +<p>Ursula asked, "What kind of fish is this?"</p> + +<p>Bill MacDonald answered with a big grin. "It's Royal Chinook salmon +that I caught in the fish derby on the Columbia River only last—"</p> + +<p>Mrs. MacDonald colored suddenly. "You'll have to forgive Bill. He gets +himself so wrapped up in his fishing."</p> + +<p>Glancing at MacDonald Philon was surprised to see the same confusion +and embarrassment on his host's face.</p> + +<p>It was after dinner when Mrs. MacDonald and Jean were clearing the +table that Philon looked over the library shelves. MacDonald himself +appeared uneasy and hovered in the background.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to excuse my selections. They're all pretty old. +I—er—inherited most of them from a grandfather."</p> + +<p>In a few minutes Philon spotted the <i>Smyth Report</i>. Fixing its +position well in mind he turned away. MacDonald was saying, "Come down +in the basement and I'll show you my hobby room."</p> + +<p>"Glad to." As MacDonald led the way Philon whispered to John, "You'll +find the book on the second shelf from the bottom on the right side."</p> + +<p>John returned him a stony stare of belligerence and Philon clamped +his jaw. The boy dropped his glance and gave a reluctant nod of +acquiescence.</p> + +<p>Upstairs a half hour later Ursula, who had filled her small ashtray +with a mound of stubs, suddenly told Philon she was going home.</p> + +<p>"But, Ursula, I thought that—"</p> + +<p>With thin-lipped impatience she snapped, "I just remembered I had +another engagement at eight."</p> + +<p>Mrs. MacDonald was genuinely sorry. "Oh, that's too bad, I thought we +could have the whole evening together."</p> + +<p>Casting a meaningful glance at John and getting a confirming cold-eyed +nod in return, Philon got on his feet. "Sorry, folks. Maybe we'll get +together another time."</p> + +<p>"I hope so," MacDonald said.</p> + +<p>In angry silence Philon walked home. Not until they were all in the +house and Ursula was hastening toward her second-floor room did he say +a word. "I suppose your 'other engagement' means the Cairo again +tonight?"</p> + +<p>Ascending on the escalator Ursula turned to look scornfully over her +shoulder. "Yes! Anything to escape from boredom. All that woman talked +about while you were in the basement was redecorating the house or +about cooking and asking my opinions. <i>Ugh!</i>"</p> + +<p>Philon laughed mirthlessly. "Yeah, I guess she picked a flat number to +discuss those things with. Anything you might have learned about them +you must have got out of a psychoplay."</p> + +<p>Stepping off the escalator at the top Ursula spit a nasty epithet his +way, then disappeared into the upstairs hall.</p> + +<p>John stood at the foot of the escalator, a reluctant witness to the +bickering. Divining his attitude Philon mentally shrugged it off. The +kid might as well learn what married life was like in these modern +days.</p> + +<p>"You got the book, eh?"</p> + +<p>John pulled a book from his suit coat and laid it on a small table. +"Yes, there's the book—and I never felt so rotten about anything in +all my life!"</p> + +<p>Philon said, "Kid, you've got a lot to learn about getting along in +this world."</p> + +<p>"All right—so I've got a lot to learn," John cried bitterly. "But +there must be more to life than trying to stop the other guy from +stripping the shirt off your back while you succeed in stripping off +his!"</p> + +<p>With that he took the escalator to the upper hall while Philon watched +him disappear.</p> + +<p>Left alone now, Philon settled into a chair by a window and stared +down the street at the MacDonald house. Odd people—it almost seemed +they didn't belong in this time and period, considering their queer +ways of thinking and looking at things. MacDonald himself in +particular had some odd personal attitudes.</p> + +<p>Like that incident in his basement—Philon had curiously pulled open a +heavy steel door to a small cubicle filled with a most complex +arrangement of large coils and heavy insulators and glassed-in +filaments. MacDonald was almost rude in closing the door when he found +Philon opening it. He had fumbled and stuttered around, explaining the +room was a niche where he did a little experimenting on his own. Yes, +strange people.</p> + +<p>The next day Philon eagerly hastened to a bookstore dealing in antique +editions. Hugging the book closely Philon told himself his troubles +were all over. The book would surely bring between fifty and a hundred +grand.</p> + +<p>A clerk approached. "Can I help you?"</p> + +<p>"I want to talk to Mr. Norton himself."</p> + +<p>The clerk spoke into a wrist transmitter. "Mr. Norton, a man to see +you."</p> + +<p>In a few moments a bulbous man came heavily down the aisle, peering +through dark tinted glasses at Philon. "Yes?"</p> + +<p>"I have a very rare first edition of Smyth's <i>Atomic Energy</i>," said +Philon, showing the book.</p> + +<p>Norton adjusted his glasses, then took the book. He carefully handled +it, looking over the outside of the covers, then thumbed the pages. +After a long frowning moment, he said, "Publication date is nineteen +forty-six but the book's fairly new. Must have been kept hermetically +sealed in helium for a good many years."</p> + +<p>"Yeah, yeah, it was," Philon said matter-of-factly. "Came from my +paternal grandfather's side of the family. A book like this ought to +be worth at the very least seventy-five thousand."</p> + +<p>But the bulbous Mr. Norton was not impressed. He shrugged vaguely. +"Well—it's just possible—" He looked up at Philon suddenly. "Before +I make any offer to you I shall have to radiocarbon date the book. Are +you willing to sacrifice a back flyleaf in the process?"</p> + +<p>"Why a flyleaf?"</p> + +<p>"We have to convert a sample of the book into carbon dioxide to +geigercount the radioactivity in the carbon. You see, all living +things like the cotton in the rags the paper is made of absorb the +radioactive carbon fourteen that is formed in the upper atmosphere by +cosmic radiation. Then it begins to decay and we can measure very +accurately the amount, which gives us an absolute time span."</p> + +<p>With a frustrated feeling Philon agreed. "Well okay then. It's a waste +of time I think. The book is obviously a first edition."</p> + +<p>"It will take the technician about two hours to complete the analysis. +We'll have an answer for you—say after lunch."</p> + +<p>The two hours dragged by and Philon eagerly hastened to the store.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Norton appeared he wore the grim look of a righteously angry +man. He thrust the book at Philon. "Here, sir, is your book. The next +time you try to foist one over on a book trader remember science is a +shrewd detective and you'll have to be cleverer than you've been this +time. This book is, I'll admit, a clever job, but nevertheless a +forgery. It was not printed in nineteen forty-six. The radiocarbon +analysis fixes its age at a mere five or six years. Good day, sir!"</p> + +<p>Philon's mouth fell open. "But—but the MacDonalds have had it +for...." He caught himself, and stammered, "There must be some mistake +because I...."</p> + +<p>Norton said firmly, "I bid you good day, sir!"</p> + +<p>With a sense of the sky falling in on him, Philon found himself out on +the street. No one could be trusted nowadays and he shouldn't have +been surprised at the MacDonalds. Everyone had a little sideline, a +gimmick, to put one over on whoever was gullible enough to swallow it.</p> + +<p>Why should he assume a hillbilly family from way out in Oregon was any +different? This was probably Bill MacDonald's little racket and it was +just Philon's bad luck to stumble on it. MacDonald probably peddled +his spurious first editions down on Front Street for a few hundred +dollars to old bookstores unable to afford radiocarbon dating.</p> + +<p>For awhile he stared out his office window, brooding. The fifty grand +just wasn't to be had—legally or illegally. And when he recalled +Feisel's little gem about the man falling out his office window Philon +was definitely ill.</p> + +<p>Then the cunning that comes to the rescue of all scheming gentry who +depend on their wits emerged from perverse hiding. An ingenious idea +to solve the nagging problem of the fifty thousand arrived full-blown. +Grinning secretively to himself, he walked into the telecommunications +room.</p> + +<p>He got the Technical Reference Room at the Public Library and asked +for the detailed plans of the big electronic National Vote Tabulating +machine in Washington. At the other end a microfilm reel clicked into +place, ready to obey his finger-tip control.</p> + +<p>For two hours he read and read, making notes and studying the circuits +of the complicated machine. Then, satisfied with his information, he +returned the microfilm.</p> + +<p>Leaving the office he descended to the streets and set out for the +party headquarters. Now if only he could sell the neat little idea to +the hierarchy....</p> + +<p>At the luxurious marbled headquarters he asked to be let into the +general chairman's office. The receptionist announced him and Philon +walked in to find Rakoff awaiting him behind his beautiful carved +desk.</p> + +<p>Rakoff's dead-white cheeks never stirred and his stiff blond hair +stood up in a rigid crew cut. He rolled his cigar in his big mouth. +"Hello, Miller. What's on your mind?"</p> + +<p>Philon took a breath and it seemed to him now that this idea was a +crazy one. "I came to tell you I'm unable to raise my fifty grand +quota, Rakoff."</p> + +<p>The man's brows moved slightly and his eyes narrowed significantly. +With a rasp in his voice he said deliberately, "That's too bad, Mr. +Miller—for you."</p> + +<p>The rasping tongue put a faint quaver in Philon's voice but he went +on. "However, I've brought you an idea that's worth more than fifty +grand. It's worth millions."</p> + +<p>Rakoff's eyes hardly blinked. "I'm listening—you're talking."</p> + +<p>And Philon talked, talked rapidly and convincingly. When he finished +Rakoff slapped his fat thigh in excitement.</p> + +<p>That evening Philon dropped in on Bill MacDonald, who was sitting in +his slippers smoking an old fashioned wood pipe.</p> + +<p>"Come in, come in." MacDonald greeted him with a friendly smile. "I +was just doing a little reading."</p> + +<p>Philon held out the book. "I'm returning your masterpiece," he said +with a sardonic smile.</p> + +<p>MacDonald received it, glancing at the title. "Oh, Smyth's <i>Atomic +Energy</i>. Good book—did you find it interesting?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Philon began to laugh. "Well, I'll tell you, Bill, your little racket +of having spurious first editions printed some place and then peddling +them sure caught up with me."</p> + +<p>The good-natured smile on MacDonald's face faded in a look of +incredulity. He took the pipe from his mouth. "Spurious first +editions?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah, I sure took a beating today but I couldn't help laughing over +it afterwards. Here I've been thinking of you folks as simon-pure +numbers. But I got to hand it to you. You sure took me in with Smyth's +<i>Atomic Energy</i> as being a genuine first edition." Philon went on to +explain the radiocarbon dating of the book.</p> + +<p>MacDonald finally broke in to protest, "But that book really <i>is</i> over +a hundred years old." Then he looked up at his wife. "Of course, +Carol, that's the explanation. The radiocarbon wouldn't decay a full +hundred years any more than we...." Suddenly, he seemed to catch +himself, as his wife raised a hand in apparent agitation.</p> + +<p>"But why did you want to sell my book to a dealer?" MacDonald +continued.</p> + +<p>Philon went on to explain the system of the poll quota. He told him a +lot of other things too about the election of a President and the +organized political machines that levied upon all registered voters +what amounted to a checkoff of their incomes.</p> + +<p>Carol MacDonald said, "You mean that not everyone can vote?"</p> + +<p>Philon looked at her in surprise. "Well, of course not. Only people of +means vote—and why shouldn't they? They take the most interest in the +elections and all the candidates come from the higher-middle-class of +income. Anyway why should the people squawk? They took less and less +interest in the elections.</p> + +<p>"When the proportion of voters turning out for elections got down to +thirty percent those that did turn out passed laws disenfranchising +those who hadn't voted for two Presidential elections. So if things +aren't being run to suit those who lost their rights to vote they've +got no one to thank but themselves."</p> + +<p>Bill MacDonald looked at his wife and said in a voice filled with +incredulity, "My lord, Carol, if the people back there only knew what +their careless and negligent disinterest would one day do to their +country!"</p> + +<p>Philon looked from one to the other, saying, "You sound as if you were +talking about the past."</p> + +<p>MacDonald said hurriedly, "I—er—was referring to the history books."</p> + +<p>That night Philon did not sleep well for the morrow would be a day +he'd never forget. Even to his calloused mind the dangers involved in +the exploit were considerable.</p> + +<p>In the morning he went into John's room and stood looking down at the +boy, who sleepily opened his eyes.</p> + +<p>Philon said, "I'm going to be gone from my office all day. And if +anyone calls or comes to see me here at the house tell him I'm sick. +If necessary I'm ordering you to swear in court that I was here all +day and night. Ursula's gone for the weekend to the seashore, so I'm +depending on you. Do you understand?"</p> + +<p>John frowned in confusion. "You say you're sick and staying home all +day?"</p> + +<p>Impatience edging his words Philon went over the explanation again.</p> + +<p>"What d'you mean 'swear in court?' What are you planning to do, Phil?" +John's eyes were wide open now and full of apprehension.</p> + +<p>"Never mind what I'm doing. Just tell anybody inquiring that I'm sick +at home."</p> + +<p>"You mean <i>lie</i>, eh?"</p> + +<p>Phil lifted his hand, then swung, leaving the imprint of his four +fingers on the boy's left cheek. "Now do you understand?"</p> + +<p>The boy blinked back a tear and nodded wordlessly.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In the late afternoon Philon landed at Washington and under an assumed +name made his way to the government building housing the big Election +Tabulator. At the technical maintenance offices Philon asked, "Is Al +Brant around?"</p> + +<p>"Nope. He doesn't come on duty until tomorrow."</p> + +<p>At Brant's address Philon knocked on an apartment door. Footsteps +approached inside and the door was opened by a medium-sized man with +black tousled hair. He appeared less than happy to see Philon.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Phil. What's on your mind?"</p> + +<p>Philon stuck out his hand. "Al, glad to see you again. I know you're +not pleased to see me but let's let bygones be bygones. Can we talk?"</p> + +<p>Al Brant stepped back reluctantly. "Well, I guess so. I thought we'd +said everything we had to say the last time."</p> + +<p>Philon walked in and settled himself on the davenport. "Yeah, I know, +Al, we had some pretty harsh words. But at least I got you out of the +mess."</p> + +<p>Brant said bitterly, "Yeah, got me out of a mess I got into helping +you on one of your shady deals when I worked for you. Well, as I said +before, what's on your mind?"</p> + +<p>Philon patted his right chest saying, "Got a hundred thousand here for +you, Al."</p> + +<p>Brant's brows lifted in amazement. "A hundred thousand! What's the +catch, Phil?"</p> + +<p>Philon's voice dropped to a confidential tone. "You always were a +clever man with electronics, Al, and I've got something here that's +just your meat. I've been studying the design of the Election +Tabulator, and I've discovered a wonderful opportunity for you and me.</p> + +<p>"Now listen—it's possible to replace two transmitters on the main +teletype trunk so that a winning percentage of the incoming votes will +be totaled up for my party. Simple little job, isn't it? Worth a +hundred thousand!"</p> + +<p>For a long moment Al Brant sat and stared at Philon in cold silence. +Finally, he said, "Do you know what the penalty is for jimmying the +Tabulator to influence voting?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"It's life imprisonment!" Brant got up slowly and started across the +room to Philon. "I fell for your line once and got burned—and here +you come again. You must think I'm a born sucker. This time I'm doing +the talking. Give me the hundred grand or I'll kill you with my bare +hands!"</p> + +<p>Philon watched him coming as if he were witness to a nightmare. He was +trapped. And in this moment of snowballing fear he ceased to think. +The gun in his pocket went off without conscious effort. Brant +stopped, then collapsed to the floor. Panic took over Philon's mind +and he fled the apartment building as rapidly as was safe.</p> + +<p>He was almost back in the city when he tuned in a news broadcast As he +listened, he sat in stunned silence. Brant had roused himself enough +before he died to talk to the man who found him in his apartment. +Brant had named his killer as Philon Miller. Miller felt as if he had +turned to ice.</p> + +<p>Then his mind thawed out with a rush of reassuring words. After all, +why should he be worrying? He had John's word in court as a perfect +alibi. Yes, everything would be all right. Everything <i>had</i> to be all +right.</p> + +<p>In the late evening Philon arrived at his house with a consuming sense +of great relief, as if the very act of entering his home would protect +him from anything. There was a sense of safety in the mere familiarity +of the environment.</p> + +<p>On the mail table he found a note from Ursula saying she had gone for +the weekend. Philon shrugged indifferently. He was glad to have her +out of the way anyhow. But John—there was the best ten thousand +dollars he had ever spent. A sound investment, about to pay its first +real dividend.</p> + +<p>"<i>John!</i>" His voice echoed in the house with a disturbing hollow +sound. He wet his dry lips and shouted again, "<i>John</i>—where <i>are</i> +you?"</p> + +<p>Only his echoing voice answered him. In growing fright he pounded up +the escalator and rushed into John's room. It was empty. On a desk he +found a message in John's neat hand—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Phil and Ursula,</i></p> + +<p><i>For a long time I have been very unhappy living with you. +I'm grateful for the food and shelter and education you've +provided. But you have never given me the love and warmth +that I seem to crave. The funny part of it is that I never +understood my craving and what it meant until I saw how love +and affection bound the MacDonald kids and their folks.</i></p> + +<p><i>This afternoon Jimmie and Jean came over to say good-by +because they said their father told them they didn't belong +here—that he was taking his family back where they +belonged, atomic bomb threat and all—whatever he meant by +that. After they left I got to thinking how much I'd like to +go with them. So I'm leaving. Somehow I'm going to talk them +into taking me with them wherever they are going. So this +will have to be good-by.</i></p></div> + +<p class="p1"><i>John.</i></p> + +<p>Philon lifted his eyes from the note and his glance strayed to the +window. Dreading to look he took two slow steps and peered down the +street. The sight of the empty lot on the corner paralyzed him in his +tracks.</p> + +<p>John gone! The MacDonald house gone! Gone was his perfect alibi! In +Washington a dying man's words had spelled out his own death sentence.</p> + +<p>A step at the door roused him from his horror-stricken trance. He +looked up to see a detective and a policeman regarding him with cold +calculation.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Miller?" asked the detective. "We've punched your +announcer button half a dozen times. You deaf? You better come along +to Headquarters to answer some questions about your movements today."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The House from Nowhere, by Arthur G. 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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: The House from Nowhere + +Author: Arthur G. Stangland + +Release Date: March 10, 2010 [EBook #31588] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE FROM NOWHERE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe Aug-Sept 1953. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. + + +[_Time-travel continues to exercise its mesmeric fascination + upon writers, readers and editors of science fiction alike. Probably + because almost all of us, at one time or another, have longed greatly + to visit either the future or the past. Perhaps, in view of the + dangerous paradoxes such travel must involve, it is a good thing that + such horological journeys have to date been confined to the printed + page._] + + + the house from nowhere + + + _by ... Arthur G. Stangland_ + + + New neighbors are always exciting. But the anachronistic + MacDonalds offered a bit too much. + + * * * * * + + + + +The morning paper lay unread before Philon Miller on the breakfast +table and even the prospects of steaming coffee, ham, eggs and orange +juice could not make him forget his last night's visitors. + +On the closed-circuit Industrial TV screen glowed the words, _Food +Preparation Center breakfast menu for July 24, 2052. No. 1, orange +juice, coffee, ham and eggs. No. 2, waffle, coffee...._ + +Automatically he punched the button for _No. 1_. Oh, his visitors had +made matters appear justifiable. The presidential election campaign +was going badly, Rakoff the chairman said, and his poll-quota for the +election had been upped from twenty-five grand to fifty. + +A stainless-steel capsule popped into the transparent wall dock. Of +course the party quota system was taken for granted, he mused, +removing the capsule, but it was an obligation you didn't welsh on. +The muscle boys in the party organization saw to that. But still, +fifty thousand.... + +Across the table John, his sixteen-year-old adopted son, stirred. "I +guess you aren't as hungry as I am, Phil." + +"What? Oh, sorry." John--down here for breakfast? What was the +matter? The kid sick or something? Every morning he took his meal to +his room to eat in solitude. Funny kid. + +Philon removed the food capsule from the wall dock, stopping the soft +gushing of air in the suction tube. Setting it on the table he snapped +it open and removed the individual thermocels of food. + +Philon poured coffee from the thermos and absently stirred in cream +and sugar. Fifty thousand.... + +John was well into his breakfast already. "Phil, I was down to visit +those people on the corner--you know, the house that appeared there +over-night." + +"Um." + +"Their name is MacDonald," John said. "And they have a son, Jimmie, +just my age, and a younger girl, Jean. Gosh, you ought to see the +inside of their house, Phil. Old-fashioned! At the windows they got +something called venetian blinds instead of our variable mirror +thermopanes. And you know what? They don't even have an FP connection. +They prepare all their meals in the house!" + +John's excitement finally aroused Philon's attention. "No Food +Preparation service? But that's unheard of!" + +"They're sure swell people though." + +"Where in the world did they come from?" Philon poured more coffee. + +"Some place out West--Oregon, I think. Lived in a small town." + +"How come their house appeared over-night?" + +"Yeah, I asked them about that," John said. "They said their house is +a prefab and it was cheaper to move it from Oregon than to buy one +here. So they moved in one night--lock, stock and barrel." + +John looked at Philon with a tentative air. "And another thing--Jimmie +and Jean are their real children." + +Philon began to frown in disgust. "Real children--how vulgar! No one +does that anymore. That custom went out years ago with the Eugenic Act +of two thousand twenty-nine. Breeding perfect children is the job of +selected specimens. Why, I remember the day we passed our check over +to Maternity Clinic! You were the best specimen in the place--and you +carried the highest price tag too--ten thousand dollars!" + +At that moment Ursula, his wife, her green rinse tumbling in stringy +tufts over her forehead pattered into the breakfast room. Her right +eye was closed in a tight squint against her cigarette smoke. + +"Well, do I get my share of breakfast," she muttered, "or do I have to +scrabble at the trough like the rest of the hogs around here?" + +Philon nodded at a third thermocel in the capsule. "That's yours, +Ursula." He fixed her with a cocked eye. "What time did that gigolo +get you home this morning?" + +Ursula blew the hair out of her eyes, then took a good look at her +husband. "Why all the sudden concern about my affairs? I feel like +going to the Cairo I call up Francois. He dances divinely. I feel like +making love I call up Jose...." She shrugged. "So, I say, why the +sudden concern? All these years you say nothing. Every minute away +from home you're involved in big deals to make money, steal +money--maybe even eat it." + +He looked at her cryptically. "I've got to raise a fifty-grand quota." + +Without even looking up from her breakfast Ursula said absently, "Oh, +that. It _is_ election year again, isn't it?" + +"And I'll have to ask you to cancel all unnecessary expenditures for +the time being." + +She shook her head. "Can't--I've already reserved _Love's Passion_ for +this afternoon and a whole block of titles for three months." + +Philon compressed his mouth, then practically blew the words at her. +"Damn it, Ursula, you're spending too much time psycho-dreaming these +cheap plays. You know the psychiatrist has warned you to lay off them. +Stimulates your endocrine system too much. No wonder you live on +sleeping pills." + +"Oh, shut up!" She stared at him, the anger in her tugging at her +loose mouth. "If I feel like a psychoplay I'm going to have me a +psychoplay. It's the only stimulation I get any more." + +Muttering, "T'hell with it!" Philon got up from the table and walked +into the living room. Slipping into his gray top coat and hat he +ascended to the copter roofport. + +Before stepping into the copter seat he paused to study the MacDonald +house on the corner. Odd-looking house at that. Mid-twentieth century, +yet it looked brand new. + +Then, putting the house out of mind, Philon shot his copter skyward +and joined Skyway No. 7 traffic into town. + +Descending on his office building he left the ship in care of the +parking attendant and by elevator dropped to his floor. At a door +marked _Miller Electronic Manufacturing Co._ he walked in. + +In his office he slouched into his chair and stared at the small +calendar on his desk. Rakoff wanted the fifty-thousand before Royal +Pastel Mink Monday. One week--that wasn't very much time. + +Flinching from the unpleasant problem, he stared at the city skyline, +his mind drifting lazily. He thought about Royal Pastel Mink Monday. +Some said it was just another Day dreamed up by furriers to make +people fur-conscious. Others said it commemorated a period of great +public indifference which cost large numbers their freedom to vote. + +Of course the other party had their symbology too--like the Teapot +Celebration. No one seemed to know for sure what it meant. Anyway, why +worry how they started? Why did people knock on wood for luck--or +throw salt over their left shoulder? + +But then once in awhile there arose some who spelled out a strange +lonely cry, calling themselves the conscience of the people. They +spoke sternly of the thin moral fiber of the country, berating the +people for what they called their amoral evolution brought on by +indifference and negligence until they no longer could hear the still +guiding voice of their conscience. But they were scornfully laughed +down and it seemed to Philon he heard less and less of these men. + +In the late afternoon a whip from party headquarters dropped in. +"Hello, Feisel," Philon said with little enthusiasm for the +swarthy-faced man. + +Without even the formality of a greeting Feisel smiled down at Philon +in a half-sneer. "Well, Philon, how we doin' with the fifty grand, +eh?" + +Philon tossed a sheaf of papers on the desk with a gesture of +impatience. "Now look, I'll raise the fifty G's by the end of the +week." + +Feisel lifted a thin black eyebrow and shrugged elaborately. "Just +inquiring, my friend, just inquiring. You know--just showing friendly +interest." + +"Well, go peddle your papers to somebody else. You make me nervous." + +Feisel sniffed with injured pride. "That's gratitude for you. And just +when I was going to put a little bee in your bonnet. I thought you'd +like to know what happened to another guy just like you. You see, he +got ideas, instead of digging to get his quota. He tried to lam out +and you know where they found him? On the sidewalk below his +twenty-third-floor window." + +As Feisel went out, Philon swore softly at his retreating back. But +Feisel's little story sent a chill through him. + +That evening when he descended from his copter port and stepped into +his living room he was surprised to hear young voices upstairs. +Deciding to investigate he stepped on the escalator. At John's door he +poked his head in. + +"Hello." + +A young blond-headed boy with bright clear eyes turned to look at him +and a younger girl with short curly hair smiled back. + +John said, "Phil, this is Jimmie, and Jean, his sister. They don't +have a home-school teleclass rig yet, so they're attending with me." + +"I see." Philon nodded to the children. "And how did you like your +first day at school?" + +"Fine," Jean said, beaming until her eyes almost disappeared. "It was +fun. The teacher was talking about the history of atomic energy and +when I told her we had one of the first editions of the famous Smyth +report on _Atomic Energy_ she was surprised." + +"A first edition of the _Smyth Report_? No wonder your teacher was +surprised." Through Philon's mind ran the recollection that first +editions of the Smyth Report brought as high as seventy thousand +dollars. + +The children's excited chatter was suddenly interrupted by the front +door chimes. Stepping to the wall televiewer, Philon pressed a button +and said, "Who is it?" + +A pleasant-faced man with a startled look said, "Oh--sorry. This +gadget on the door-casing surprised me. Ah--I think my children, +Jimmie and Jean, are here. I'm Bill MacDonald." + +Behind him Philon heard Jean suppress a dismayed cry. "Gosh, Jimmie, +it's late. Daddy's had to come for us!" + +Philon said, "And I'm Phil Miller, MacDonald. Come in. We'll be down +in a moment." + +The MacDonald children and John headed for the stairs in a happy rush, +ignoring the descending escalator, two steps at a time. Philon +followed at a meditative pace, his thoughts trooping stealthily +abreast. Seventy thousand dollars. Now, if he were to.... + +"Beautiful home you've got here, Miller." + +Philon came out of his daydreaming to see MacDonald coming into view +around the corner of a living room ell. + +Philon took his extended hand. "Thanks. Glad you like it." + +Jean broke in breathlessly. "Oh, Daddy, you ought to see how they +conduct classes--by school TV. You write on a glass square and it +appears immediately at the teacher's roll-board. And when you--" + +Jimmie interrupted. "Aw, lemme tell 'im something too, Jean. Dad, John +used a spare TV for Jean's freshman class while we 'showed' for junior +class on his. Gosh, in history, Dad, their old newsreels go back to +World War Two. I even saw your Marine unit--" + +MacDonald cut his son short. "That's enough, Jimmie. You can tell us +about it later." He herded his children toward the front door. +"Thanks, Miller, for letting the kids use the school TV. I'm having +one installed tomorrow." + +After they left John said with a sparkle Philon had never seen before, +"You know, Phil, those are the most interesting kids I've ever met. +All the others I know are bored stiff. They've been everyplace and +they've done everything. + +"But Jimmie and Jean ask more questions about things than anybody I +know. They're really interested. Every time I drop in on them they're +studying history beginning with the middle of the Twentieth Century. +They're absolutely fascinated and read it like fiction." + +With more on his mind than his neighbors' unusual behavior Philon +said, "Mmm." He stood looking at the boy for a long moment until John +finally shifted self-consciously. + +"What's the matter, Phil?" + +Philon ended his musing. "Tomorrow night we're all going to call on +the MacDonalds. And while we're there I want you to slip that copy of +the _Smyth Report_ out of their library." + +For a moment the young boy's smooth face was a blank mask. Then it +filled in with shocked surprise, then resentment and finally anger. +"You mean--steal?" + +"Of course. If they're too innocent to realize the value of the book +that's their hard luck." + +"But, Phil, I can't imagine myself stealing from...." + +Impatiently, Philon said, "Since when did you suddenly get so +holier-than-thou? Life is harsh, life is iron-fisted and if you don't +keep your guard up you're going to get socked in the kisser." + +John said slowly with a certain tone of shame, "Yes, I know. As far +back as I can remember you've told me that. But in spite of it I can't +help feeling it isn't right to treat the MacDonalds that way. They're +too nice, too good." + +"Look, John. You might as well learn the hard facts of life. All the +high-sounding arguments for a moral world and all the laws on the +books implementing those arguments are just eyewash. Sure, the +President swears that he will uphold the constitution and enforce all +the laws. + +"Then we carefully surround him with counterspies--wire his rooms with +dictaphones, slit his mail, install secret informers on his staff. All +because no matter who the party is able to elect we don't trust +him--because the society he represents does not trust itself." + +"Is that why we have more and bigger jails than ever?" + +Philon shrugged. "All I'm trying to tell you is don't go soft-headed +or the world will take your shirt." + +The next day before leaving for the office Philon said to his wife, +"Call up the MacDonalds and if they're going to be home tonight tell +them we'll be over for a visit." + +Ursula made a face. "Do we _have_ to call on those people? They'll +bore me stiff." + +"For heaven's sake, Ursula! It's a matter of vital importance to +me--and you also, if I have to appeal to your wide streak of +selfishness." + +"I can't see it." + +"I'll explain later. I've got to go." + +During the day Ursula called him. "Well, Phil, I called as you said +and I've committed us for dinner tonight." + +"Dinner! Hmm, they _are_ convivial people." + +"Yes and the dinner is going to be cooked right there in their house. +How vulgar can some people get?" + +That evening while dressing Ursula said, "Phil, John spends a lot of +time at the MacDonalds'. What do you suppose he sees in them? It gets +me the way he quotes them all the time and reports their least doings. +Today he came tearing into the house and said, 'Ursula, it's +wonderful!' I said, 'What's wonderful?' And John said, 'The dinner +they're cooking at MacDonalds'. I've never smelled anything like it in +all my life. Why don't we cook in our house like they do? Mrs. +MacDonald was baking cookies and let me have one right out of the +oven. Mmmm, boy was it _good_!'" + +Ursula finished, "Now, I ask you, did you ever hear anything so +barbaric--cooking in the house and having all the odors permeate the +whole place?" + +"Well, we'll see." + +Later when they arrived at the MacDonalds' they were welcomed with a +quiet warmth and friendliness that Philon cynically assumed to be a +new and different front. + +As they sat down to dinner Mrs. MacDonald, a rosy-cheeked woman with +a quick and ready smile, said, "I'm sorry we aren't able to get a +connection yet. So everything we're eating tonight is right out of our +deep-freeze." + +John Miller said, "Gosh, Mrs. MacDonald, as far as I'm concerned, I'd +rather eat from your deep-freeze anytime than from the FP!" + +Bill MacDonald looked across the table at Jean and said, "All right, +Jean." + +Jean and all the MacDonalds bent their heads and the girl began, "We +thank Thee for our daily bread as by Thy hands...." + +As the girl spoke Phil's gaze drifted around to his wife, who lifted +her shoulders in mystified amazement. But it was a bigger surprise to +see John's bent head. For the moment John was a part of this +family--part of a wholeness tied together by an invisible bond. The +utter strangeness of it shocked Philon into rare clarity of insight. + +He saw himself wrapped up in his business with little regard for +Ursula or John, letting them exist under his roof without making them +a part of his life. Ursula with her succession of gigolos and her +psycho-plays and John withdrawn into his upstairs room with his books. +Then he closed his mind again as if the insight were too blinding. + +What strange customs these MacDonalds had! Yet he had to admit the +meal looked more appetizing than anything he had ever seen. It gave an +impression of sumptuous plenty to see the food for everybody in one +place instead of individually packaged under glistening thermocel. And +instead of throwaway dishes they used chinaware that could have come +right out of a museum. + +Ursula asked, "What kind of fish is this?" + +Bill MacDonald answered with a big grin. "It's Royal Chinook salmon +that I caught in the fish derby on the Columbia River only last--" + +Mrs. MacDonald colored suddenly. "You'll have to forgive Bill. He gets +himself so wrapped up in his fishing." + +Glancing at MacDonald Philon was surprised to see the same confusion +and embarrassment on his host's face. + +It was after dinner when Mrs. MacDonald and Jean were clearing the +table that Philon looked over the library shelves. MacDonald himself +appeared uneasy and hovered in the background. + +"You'll have to excuse my selections. They're all pretty old. +I--er--inherited most of them from a grandfather." + +In a few minutes Philon spotted the _Smyth Report_. Fixing its +position well in mind he turned away. MacDonald was saying, "Come down +in the basement and I'll show you my hobby room." + +"Glad to." As MacDonald led the way Philon whispered to John, "You'll +find the book on the second shelf from the bottom on the right side." + +John returned him a stony stare of belligerence and Philon clamped +his jaw. The boy dropped his glance and gave a reluctant nod of +acquiescence. + +Upstairs a half hour later Ursula, who had filled her small ashtray +with a mound of stubs, suddenly told Philon she was going home. + +"But, Ursula, I thought that--" + +With thin-lipped impatience she snapped, "I just remembered I had +another engagement at eight." + +Mrs. MacDonald was genuinely sorry. "Oh, that's too bad, I thought we +could have the whole evening together." + +Casting a meaningful glance at John and getting a confirming cold-eyed +nod in return, Philon got on his feet. "Sorry, folks. Maybe we'll get +together another time." + +"I hope so," MacDonald said. + +In angry silence Philon walked home. Not until they were all in the +house and Ursula was hastening toward her second-floor room did he say +a word. "I suppose your 'other engagement' means the Cairo again +tonight?" + +Ascending on the escalator Ursula turned to look scornfully over her +shoulder. "Yes! Anything to escape from boredom. All that woman talked +about while you were in the basement was redecorating the house or +about cooking and asking my opinions. _Ugh!_" + +Philon laughed mirthlessly. "Yeah, I guess she picked a flat number to +discuss those things with. Anything you might have learned about them +you must have got out of a psychoplay." + +Stepping off the escalator at the top Ursula spit a nasty epithet his +way, then disappeared into the upstairs hall. + +John stood at the foot of the escalator, a reluctant witness to the +bickering. Divining his attitude Philon mentally shrugged it off. The +kid might as well learn what married life was like in these modern +days. + +"You got the book, eh?" + +John pulled a book from his suit coat and laid it on a small table. +"Yes, there's the book--and I never felt so rotten about anything in +all my life!" + +Philon said, "Kid, you've got a lot to learn about getting along in +this world." + +"All right--so I've got a lot to learn," John cried bitterly. "But +there must be more to life than trying to stop the other guy from +stripping the shirt off your back while you succeed in stripping off +his!" + +With that he took the escalator to the upper hall while Philon watched +him disappear. + +Left alone now, Philon settled into a chair by a window and stared +down the street at the MacDonald house. Odd people--it almost seemed +they didn't belong in this time and period, considering their queer +ways of thinking and looking at things. MacDonald himself in +particular had some odd personal attitudes. + +Like that incident in his basement--Philon had curiously pulled open a +heavy steel door to a small cubicle filled with a most complex +arrangement of large coils and heavy insulators and glassed-in +filaments. MacDonald was almost rude in closing the door when he found +Philon opening it. He had fumbled and stuttered around, explaining the +room was a niche where he did a little experimenting on his own. Yes, +strange people. + +The next day Philon eagerly hastened to a bookstore dealing in antique +editions. Hugging the book closely Philon told himself his troubles +were all over. The book would surely bring between fifty and a hundred +grand. + +A clerk approached. "Can I help you?" + +"I want to talk to Mr. Norton himself." + +The clerk spoke into a wrist transmitter. "Mr. Norton, a man to see +you." + +In a few moments a bulbous man came heavily down the aisle, peering +through dark tinted glasses at Philon. "Yes?" + +"I have a very rare first edition of Smyth's _Atomic Energy_," said +Philon, showing the book. + +Norton adjusted his glasses, then took the book. He carefully handled +it, looking over the outside of the covers, then thumbed the pages. +After a long frowning moment, he said, "Publication date is nineteen +forty-six but the book's fairly new. Must have been kept hermetically +sealed in helium for a good many years." + +"Yeah, yeah, it was," Philon said matter-of-factly. "Came from my +paternal grandfather's side of the family. A book like this ought to +be worth at the very least seventy-five thousand." + +But the bulbous Mr. Norton was not impressed. He shrugged vaguely. +"Well--it's just possible--" He looked up at Philon suddenly. "Before +I make any offer to you I shall have to radiocarbon date the book. Are +you willing to sacrifice a back flyleaf in the process?" + +"Why a flyleaf?" + +"We have to convert a sample of the book into carbon dioxide to +geigercount the radioactivity in the carbon. You see, all living +things like the cotton in the rags the paper is made of absorb the +radioactive carbon fourteen that is formed in the upper atmosphere by +cosmic radiation. Then it begins to decay and we can measure very +accurately the amount, which gives us an absolute time span." + +With a frustrated feeling Philon agreed. "Well okay then. It's a waste +of time I think. The book is obviously a first edition." + +"It will take the technician about two hours to complete the analysis. +We'll have an answer for you--say after lunch." + +The two hours dragged by and Philon eagerly hastened to the store. + +When Mr. Norton appeared he wore the grim look of a righteously angry +man. He thrust the book at Philon. "Here, sir, is your book. The next +time you try to foist one over on a book trader remember science is a +shrewd detective and you'll have to be cleverer than you've been this +time. This book is, I'll admit, a clever job, but nevertheless a +forgery. It was not printed in nineteen forty-six. The radiocarbon +analysis fixes its age at a mere five or six years. Good day, sir!" + +Philon's mouth fell open. "But--but the MacDonalds have had it +for...." He caught himself, and stammered, "There must be some mistake +because I...." + +Norton said firmly, "I bid you good day, sir!" + +With a sense of the sky falling in on him, Philon found himself out on +the street. No one could be trusted nowadays and he shouldn't have +been surprised at the MacDonalds. Everyone had a little sideline, a +gimmick, to put one over on whoever was gullible enough to swallow it. + +Why should he assume a hillbilly family from way out in Oregon was any +different? This was probably Bill MacDonald's little racket and it was +just Philon's bad luck to stumble on it. MacDonald probably peddled +his spurious first editions down on Front Street for a few hundred +dollars to old bookstores unable to afford radiocarbon dating. + +For awhile he stared out his office window, brooding. The fifty grand +just wasn't to be had--legally or illegally. And when he recalled +Feisel's little gem about the man falling out his office window Philon +was definitely ill. + +Then the cunning that comes to the rescue of all scheming gentry who +depend on their wits emerged from perverse hiding. An ingenious idea +to solve the nagging problem of the fifty thousand arrived full-blown. +Grinning secretively to himself, he walked into the telecommunications +room. + +He got the Technical Reference Room at the Public Library and asked +for the detailed plans of the big electronic National Vote Tabulating +machine in Washington. At the other end a microfilm reel clicked into +place, ready to obey his finger-tip control. + +For two hours he read and read, making notes and studying the circuits +of the complicated machine. Then, satisfied with his information, he +returned the microfilm. + +Leaving the office he descended to the streets and set out for the +party headquarters. Now if only he could sell the neat little idea to +the hierarchy.... + +At the luxurious marbled headquarters he asked to be let into the +general chairman's office. The receptionist announced him and Philon +walked in to find Rakoff awaiting him behind his beautiful carved +desk. + +Rakoff's dead-white cheeks never stirred and his stiff blond hair +stood up in a rigid crew cut. He rolled his cigar in his big mouth. +"Hello, Miller. What's on your mind?" + +Philon took a breath and it seemed to him now that this idea was a +crazy one. "I came to tell you I'm unable to raise my fifty grand +quota, Rakoff." + +The man's brows moved slightly and his eyes narrowed significantly. +With a rasp in his voice he said deliberately, "That's too bad, Mr. +Miller--for you." + +The rasping tongue put a faint quaver in Philon's voice but he went +on. "However, I've brought you an idea that's worth more than fifty +grand. It's worth millions." + +Rakoff's eyes hardly blinked. "I'm listening--you're talking." + +And Philon talked, talked rapidly and convincingly. When he finished +Rakoff slapped his fat thigh in excitement. + +That evening Philon dropped in on Bill MacDonald, who was sitting in +his slippers smoking an old fashioned wood pipe. + +"Come in, come in." MacDonald greeted him with a friendly smile. "I +was just doing a little reading." + +Philon held out the book. "I'm returning your masterpiece," he said +with a sardonic smile. + +MacDonald received it, glancing at the title. "Oh, Smyth's _Atomic +Energy_. Good book--did you find it interesting?" + + * * * * * + +Philon began to laugh. "Well, I'll tell you, Bill, your little racket +of having spurious first editions printed some place and then peddling +them sure caught up with me." + +The good-natured smile on MacDonald's face faded in a look of +incredulity. He took the pipe from his mouth. "Spurious first +editions?" + +"Yeah, I sure took a beating today but I couldn't help laughing over +it afterwards. Here I've been thinking of you folks as simon-pure +numbers. But I got to hand it to you. You sure took me in with Smyth's +_Atomic Energy_ as being a genuine first edition." Philon went on to +explain the radiocarbon dating of the book. + +MacDonald finally broke in to protest, "But that book really _is_ over +a hundred years old." Then he looked up at his wife. "Of course, +Carol, that's the explanation. The radiocarbon wouldn't decay a full +hundred years any more than we...." Suddenly, he seemed to catch +himself, as his wife raised a hand in apparent agitation. + +"But why did you want to sell my book to a dealer?" MacDonald +continued. + +Philon went on to explain the system of the poll quota. He told him a +lot of other things too about the election of a President and the +organized political machines that levied upon all registered voters +what amounted to a checkoff of their incomes. + +Carol MacDonald said, "You mean that not everyone can vote?" + +Philon looked at her in surprise. "Well, of course not. Only people of +means vote--and why shouldn't they? They take the most interest in the +elections and all the candidates come from the higher-middle-class of +income. Anyway why should the people squawk? They took less and less +interest in the elections. + +"When the proportion of voters turning out for elections got down to +thirty percent those that did turn out passed laws disenfranchising +those who hadn't voted for two Presidential elections. So if things +aren't being run to suit those who lost their rights to vote they've +got no one to thank but themselves." + +Bill MacDonald looked at his wife and said in a voice filled with +incredulity, "My lord, Carol, if the people back there only knew what +their careless and negligent disinterest would one day do to their +country!" + +Philon looked from one to the other, saying, "You sound as if you were +talking about the past." + +MacDonald said hurriedly, "I--er--was referring to the history books." + +That night Philon did not sleep well for the morrow would be a day +he'd never forget. Even to his calloused mind the dangers involved in +the exploit were considerable. + +In the morning he went into John's room and stood looking down at the +boy, who sleepily opened his eyes. + +Philon said, "I'm going to be gone from my office all day. And if +anyone calls or comes to see me here at the house tell him I'm sick. +If necessary I'm ordering you to swear in court that I was here all +day and night. Ursula's gone for the weekend to the seashore, so I'm +depending on you. Do you understand?" + +John frowned in confusion. "You say you're sick and staying home all +day?" + +Impatience edging his words Philon went over the explanation again. + +"What d'you mean 'swear in court?' What are you planning to do, Phil?" +John's eyes were wide open now and full of apprehension. + +"Never mind what I'm doing. Just tell anybody inquiring that I'm sick +at home." + +"You mean _lie_, eh?" + +Phil lifted his hand, then swung, leaving the imprint of his four +fingers on the boy's left cheek. "Now do you understand?" + +The boy blinked back a tear and nodded wordlessly. + + * * * * * + +In the late afternoon Philon landed at Washington and under an assumed +name made his way to the government building housing the big Election +Tabulator. At the technical maintenance offices Philon asked, "Is Al +Brant around?" + +"Nope. He doesn't come on duty until tomorrow." + +At Brant's address Philon knocked on an apartment door. Footsteps +approached inside and the door was opened by a medium-sized man with +black tousled hair. He appeared less than happy to see Philon. + +"Hello, Phil. What's on your mind?" + +Philon stuck out his hand. "Al, glad to see you again. I know you're +not pleased to see me but let's let bygones be bygones. Can we talk?" + +Al Brant stepped back reluctantly. "Well, I guess so. I thought we'd +said everything we had to say the last time." + +Philon walked in and settled himself on the davenport. "Yeah, I know, +Al, we had some pretty harsh words. But at least I got you out of the +mess." + +Brant said bitterly, "Yeah, got me out of a mess I got into helping +you on one of your shady deals when I worked for you. Well, as I said +before, what's on your mind?" + +Philon patted his right chest saying, "Got a hundred thousand here for +you, Al." + +Brant's brows lifted in amazement. "A hundred thousand! What's the +catch, Phil?" + +Philon's voice dropped to a confidential tone. "You always were a +clever man with electronics, Al, and I've got something here that's +just your meat. I've been studying the design of the Election +Tabulator, and I've discovered a wonderful opportunity for you and me. + +"Now listen--it's possible to replace two transmitters on the main +teletype trunk so that a winning percentage of the incoming votes will +be totaled up for my party. Simple little job, isn't it? Worth a +hundred thousand!" + +For a long moment Al Brant sat and stared at Philon in cold silence. +Finally, he said, "Do you know what the penalty is for jimmying the +Tabulator to influence voting?" + +"No." + +"It's life imprisonment!" Brant got up slowly and started across the +room to Philon. "I fell for your line once and got burned--and here +you come again. You must think I'm a born sucker. This time I'm doing +the talking. Give me the hundred grand or I'll kill you with my bare +hands!" + +Philon watched him coming as if he were witness to a nightmare. He was +trapped. And in this moment of snowballing fear he ceased to think. +The gun in his pocket went off without conscious effort. Brant +stopped, then collapsed to the floor. Panic took over Philon's mind +and he fled the apartment building as rapidly as was safe. + +He was almost back in the city when he tuned in a news broadcast As he +listened, he sat in stunned silence. Brant had roused himself enough +before he died to talk to the man who found him in his apartment. +Brant had named his killer as Philon Miller. Miller felt as if he had +turned to ice. + +Then his mind thawed out with a rush of reassuring words. After all, +why should he be worrying? He had John's word in court as a perfect +alibi. Yes, everything would be all right. Everything _had_ to be all +right. + +In the late evening Philon arrived at his house with a consuming sense +of great relief, as if the very act of entering his home would protect +him from anything. There was a sense of safety in the mere familiarity +of the environment. + +On the mail table he found a note from Ursula saying she had gone for +the weekend. Philon shrugged indifferently. He was glad to have her +out of the way anyhow. But John--there was the best ten thousand +dollars he had ever spent. A sound investment, about to pay its first +real dividend. + +"_John!_" His voice echoed in the house with a disturbing hollow +sound. He wet his dry lips and shouted again, "_John_--where _are_ +you?" + +Only his echoing voice answered him. In growing fright he pounded up +the escalator and rushed into John's room. It was empty. On a desk he +found a message in John's neat hand-- + + _Phil and Ursula,_ + + _For a long time I have been very unhappy living with you. + I'm grateful for the food and shelter and education you've + provided. But you have never given me the love and warmth + that I seem to crave. The funny part of it is that I never + understood my craving and what it meant until I saw how love + and affection bound the MacDonald kids and their folks._ + + _This afternoon Jimmie and Jean came over to say good-by + because they said their father told them they didn't belong + here--that he was taking his family back where they + belonged, atomic bomb threat and all--whatever he meant by + that. After they left I got to thinking how much I'd like to + go with them. So I'm leaving. Somehow I'm going to talk them + into taking me with them wherever they are going. So this + will have to be good-by._ + + _John._ + +Philon lifted his eyes from the note and his glance strayed to the +window. Dreading to look he took two slow steps and peered down the +street. The sight of the empty lot on the corner paralyzed him in his +tracks. + +John gone! The MacDonald house gone! Gone was his perfect alibi! In +Washington a dying man's words had spelled out his own death sentence. + +A step at the door roused him from his horror-stricken trance. He +looked up to see a detective and a policeman regarding him with cold +calculation. + +"What's the matter, Miller?" asked the detective. "We've punched your +announcer button half a dozen times. You deaf? You better come along +to Headquarters to answer some questions about your movements today." + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The House from Nowhere, by Arthur G. 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