The Door into Summer

CHAPTER 10

Even as he stabbed at the button I tried to shout at him not to do it. But it was too late; I was already falling. My last thought was an agonized one that I didn't want to go through with it. I had chucked away everything and tormented almost to death a poor old man who hadn't done me any harm-and I didn't even know which way I was going. Worse, I didn't know that I could get there.

Then I hit. I don't think I fell more than four feet but I had not been ready for it. I fell like a stick, collapsed like a sack.

Then somebody was saying, "Where the devil did you come from?"

It was a man, about forty, bald-headed but well built and lean. He was standing facing me with his fists on his hipbones. He looked competent and shrewd and his face was not unpleasant save that at the moment he seemed sore at me.

I sat up and found that I was sitting on granite gravel and pine needles. There was a woman standing by the man, a pleasant pretty woman somewhat younger than he. She was looking at me wide-eyed but not speaking.

"Where am I?" I said foolishly. I could have said, "When am I?" but that would have sounded still more foolish, and besides, I didn't think of it. One look at them and I knew when I was not-I was sure it was not 1970. Nor was I still in 2001; in 2001 they kept that sort of thing for the beaches. So I must have gone the wrong way.

Because neither one of them wore anything but smooth coats of tan. Not even Sticktite. But they seemed to find it enough. Certainly they were not embarrassed by it.

"One thing at a time," he objected. "I asked you how you got here?" He glanced up. "Your parachute didn't stick in the trees, did it? In any case, what are you doing here? This is posted private property; you're trespassing. And what are you doing in that Mardi Gras getup?"

I didn't see anything wrong with my clothes-especially in view of the way they were dressed. But I didn't answer. Other times, other customs-I could see that I was going to have trouble.

She put a hand on his arm. "Don't, John," she said gently. "I think he's hurt."

He looked at her, glanced back sharply at me. "Are you hurt?"

I tried to stand up, managed it. "I don't think so. A few bruises, maybe. Uh, what date is today?"

"Huh? Why, it's the first Sunday in May. The third of May, I think. Is that right, Jenny?"

"Yes, dear."

"Look," I said urgently, "I got an awful knock on the head. I'm confused. What's the date? The whole date?"

"What?"

I should have kept my mouth shut until I could pick it up off something, a calendar or a paper. But I had to know right then; I couldn't stand to wait. "What year?"

"Brother, you did get a lump. It's 1970." I saw him staring at my clothes again.

My relief was almost more than I could stand. I'd made it, I'd made it! I wasn't too late. "Thanks," I said. "Thanks an awful lot. You don't know." He still looked as if he wanted to call out the reserves, so I added nervously, "I'm subject to sudden attacks of amnesia. Once I lost, uh-five whole years."

"I should think that would be upsetting," he said slowly. "Do you feel well enough to answer my questions?"

"Don't badger him, dear," she said softly. "He looks like a nice person. I think he's just made a mistake."

"We'll see. Well?"

"I feel all right... now. But I was pretty confused for a minute there."

"Okay. How did you get here? And why are you dressed that way?"

"To tell the truth, I'm not sure how I got here. And I certainly don't know where I am. These spells hit me suddenly. As for how I'm dressed... I guess you could call it personal eccentricity. Uh like the way you're dressed. Or not dressed."

He glanced down at himself and grinned. "Oh, yes, I'm quite aware that the way my wife and I are dressed... or not dressed would call for explanation under some circumstances. But we prefer to make trespassers do the explaining instead. You see, you don't belong here, dressed that way or any other, while we do-just as we are. These are the grounds of the Denver Sunshine Club."

John and Jenny Sutton were the sort of sophisticated, unshockable, friendly people who could invite an earthquake in for tea. John obviously was not satisfied with my fishy explanations and wanted to cross-examine me, but Jenny held him back. I stuck to my story about "dizzy spells" and said that the last I remembered was yesterday evening and that I had been in Denver, at the New Brown Palace. Finally he said, "Well, it's quite interesting, even exciting, and I suppose somebody who's going into Boulder can drop you there and you can get a bus back into Denver." He looked at me again. "But if I take you back to the clubhouse, people are going to be mighty, mighty curious."

I looked down at myself. I had been made vaguely uneasy by the fact that I was dressed and they were not-I mean I felt like the one out of order, not they. "John... would it simplify things if I peeled off my clothes, too?" The prospect did not upset me; I had never been in one of the bare-skin camps before, seeing no point in them. But Chuck and I had spent a couple of weekends at Santa Barbara and one at Laguna Beach-at a beach skin makes sense and nothing else does.

He nodded. "It certainly would."

"Dear," said Jenny, "he could be our guest."

"Mmm... yes. My only love, you paddle your sweet self into the grounds. Mix around and manage to let it be known that we are expecting a guest from... where had it better be, Danny?"

"Uh, from California. Los Angeles. I actually am from there." I almost said "Great Los Angeles" and realized that I was going to have to guard my speech. "Movies" were no longer "grabbies."

"From Los Angeles. That and `Danny' is all that is necessary; we don't use last names, unless offered. So, honey, you spread the word, as if it were something everybody already knew. Then in about half an hour you have to meet us down by the gate. But come here instead. And fetch my overnight bag."

"Why the bag, dear?"

"To conceal that masquerade costume. It's pretty conspicuous, even for anyone who is as eccentric as Danny said he is."

I got up and went at once behind some bushes to undress, since I wouldn't have any excuse for locker-room modesty once Jenny Sutton left us. I had to do it; I couldn't peel down and reveal that I had twenty thousand dollars' worth of gold, figured at the 1970 standard of sixty dollars an ounce, wrapped around my waist. It did not take long, as I had made a belt of the gold, instead of a girdle, the first time I had had trouble getting it off and on to bathe; I had double-looped it and wired it together in front.

When I had my clothes off I wrapped the gold in them and tried to pretend that it all weighed only what clothes should. John Sutton glanced at the bundle but said nothing. He offered me a cigarette-he carried them strapped to his ankle. They were a brand I had never expected to see again.

I waved it but it didn't light. Then I let him light it for me. "Now," he said quietly, "that we are alone, do you have anything you want to tell me? If I'm going to vouch for you to the club, I'm honor-bound to be sure, at the very least, that you won't make trouble."

I took a puff. It felt raw in my throat. "John, I won't make any trouble. That's the last thing on earth that I want."

"Mmm... probably. Just `dizzy spells' then?"

I thought about it. It was an impossible situation. The man had a right to know. But he certainly would not believe the truth, at least I would not have in his shoes. But it would be worse if he did believe me; it would kick up the very hoorah that I did not want. I suppose that if I had been a real, honest, legitimate time traveler, engaged in scientific research, I would have sought publicity, brought along indisputable proof, and invited tests by scientists.

But I wasn't; I was a private and somewhat shady citizen, engaged in hanky-panky I didn't want to call attention to. I was simply looking for my Door into Summer, as quietly as possible.

"John, you wouldn't believe it if I told you."

"Mmm... perhaps. Still, I saw a man fall out of empty sky but he didn't hit hard enough to hurt him. He's wearing funny clothes. He doesn't seem to know where he is or what day it is. Danny, I've read Charles Fort, the same as most people. But I never expected to meet a case. But, having met one, I don't expect the explanation to be as simple as a card trick. So?"

"John, something you said earlier-the way you phrased something-made me think you were a lawyer."

"Yes, I am. Why?"

"Can I make a privileged communication?"

"Hmm-are you asking me to accept you as a client?"

"If you want to put it that way, yes. I'm probably going to need advice."

"Shoot. Privileged."

"Okay. I'm from the future. Time travel."

He didn't say anything for several moments. We were lying stretched out in the sun. I was doing it to keep warm; May in Colorado is sunshiny but brisk. John Sutton seemed used to it and was simply lounging, chewing a pine needle.

"You're right," he answered. "I don't believe it. Let's stick to `dizzy spells.'"

"I told you you wouldn't."

He sighed. "Let's say I don't want to. I don't want to believe in ghosts, either, or reincarnation, or any of this ESP magic. I like simple things that I can understand. I think most people do. So my first advice to you is to keep it a privileged communication. Don't spread it around."

"That suits me."

He rolled over. "But I think it would be a good idea if we burned these clothes. I'll find you something to wear. Will they burn?"

"Uh, not very easily. They'll melt."

"Better put your shoes back on. We wear shoes mostly, and those will get by. Anybody asks you questions about them, they're custom-made. Health shoes."

"They are, both."

"Okay." He started to unroll my clothes before I could stop him. "What the devil!"

It was too late, so I let him uncover it. "Danny," he said in a queer voice, "is this stuff what it appears to be?"

"What does it appear to be?"

"Gold."

"Where did you get it?"

"I bought it."

He felt it, tried the dead softness of the stuff, sensuous as putty, then hefted it. "Cripes! Danny... listen to me carefully. I'm going to ask you one question, and be damned careful how you answer it. Because I've got no use for a client who lies to me. I dump him. And I won't be a party to a felony. Did you come by this stuff legally?"

"Yes."

"Maybe you haven't heard of the Gold Reserve Act of 1968?"

"I have. I came by it legally. I intend to sell it to the Denver Mint, for dollars."

"Jeweler's license, maybe?"

"No. John, I told the simple truth, whether you believe me or not. Where I came from I bought that over the counter, legal as breathing. Now I want to turn it in for dollars at the earliest possible moment. I know that it is against the law to keep it. What can they do to me if I lay it on the counter at the mint and tell them to weigh it?"

"Nothing, in the long run... if you stick to your `dizzy spells.' But they can surely make your life miserable in the meantime." He looked at it. "I think you had better kick a little dirt over it."

"Bury it?"

"You don't have to go that far. But if what you tell me is true, you found this stuff in the mountains. That's where prospectors usually find gold."

"Well... whatever you say. I don't mind some little white lies, since it is legitimately mine anyhow."

"But is it a lie? When did you first lay eyes on this gold? What was the earliest date when it was in your possession?"

I tried to think back. It was the same day I left Yuma, which was sometime in May, 2001. About two weeks ago.

Huh!

"Put that way, John... the earliest date on which I saw that gold... was today, May third, 1970."

He nodded. "So you found it in the mountains."

The Suttons were staying over until Monday morning, so I stayed over. The other club members were all friendly but remarkably unnosy about my personal affairs, less so than any group I've ever been in. I've learned since that this constitutes standard good manners in a skin club, but at the time it made them the most discreet and most polite people I had ever met.

John and Jenny had their own cabin and I slept on a cot in the clubhouse dormitory. It was darn chilly. The next morning John gave me a shirt and a pair of blue jeans. My own clothes were wrapped around the gold in a bag in the trunk of his car-which itself was a Jaguar Imperator, all I needed to tell me that he was no cheap shyster. But I had known that by his manner.

I stayed overnight with them and by Tuesday I had a little money. I never laid eyes on the gold again, but in the course of the next few weeks John turned over to me its exact mint value as bullion minus the standard fees of licensed gold buyers. I know that he did not deal with the mint directly, as he always turned over to me vouchers from gold buyers. He did not deduct for his own services and he never offered to tell me the details.

I did not care. Once I had cash again, I got busy. That first Tuesday, 5 May, 1970, Jenny drove me around and I rented a small loft in the old commercial district. I equipped it with a drafting table, a workbench, an army cot, and darn little else; it already had 120, 240, gas, running water, and a toilet that stopped up easily. I didn't want any more and I had to watch every dime.

It was tedious and time-wasting to design by the old compass-and-T-square routine and I didn't have a minute to spare, so I built Drafting Dan before I rebuilt Flexible Frank. Only this time Flexible Frank became Protean Pete, the all-purpose automaton, so linked as to be able to do almost anything a man can do, provided its Thorsen tubes were properly instructed. I knew that Protean Pete would not stay that way; his descendants would evolve into a horde of specialized gadgets, but I wanted to make the claims as broad as possible.

Working models are not required for patents, merely drawings and descriptions. But I needed good models, models that would work perfectly and anybody could demonstrate, because these models were going to have to sell themselves, show by their very practicality and by the evident economy designed into them for their eventual production engineering that they would not only work but would be a good investment-the patent office is stuffed with things that work but are worthless commercially.

The work went both fast and slow, fast because I knew exactly what I was doing, slow because I did not have a proper machine shop nor any help. Presently I grudgingly dipped into my precious cash to rent some machine tools, then things went better. I worked from breakfast to exhaustion, seven days a week, except for about one weekend a month with John and Jenny at the bare-bottom club near Boulder. By the first of September I had both models working properly and was ready to start on the drawings and descriptions. I designed and sent out for manufacture pretty speckle lacquer cover plates for both of them and I had the external moving parts chrome-plated; these were the only jobs I farmed out and it hurt me to spend the money, but I felt that it was necessary. Oh, I had made extreme use of catalogue-available standard components; I could not have built them otherwise, nor would they have been commercial when I got through. But I did not like to spend money on custom-made prettiness.

I did not have time to get around much, which was just as well. Once when I was out buying a servo motor I ran into a chap I had known in California. He spoke to me and I answered before I thought. "Hey, Dan! Danny Davis! Imagine bumping into you here. I thought you were in Mojave?"

I shook hands. "Just a quick business trip. I'm going back in a few days."

"I'm going back this afternoon. I'll phone Mlles and tell him I saw you."

I looked worried and was. "Don't do that, please."

"Why not? Aren't you and Miles still buddy-buddy budding tycoons together?"

"Well... look, Mort, Miles doesn't know I'm here. I'm supposed to be in Albuquerque on business for the company. But I flew up here on the side, on strictly personal and private business. Get me? Nothing to do with the firm. And I don't care to discuss it with Miles."

He looked knowing. "Woman trouble?"

"Weelll... yes."

"She married?"

"You might say so."

He dug me in the ribs and winked. "I catch. Old Miles is pretty puritanical isn't he? Okay, I'll cover for you and someday you can cover for me. Is she any good?"

I'd like to cover you with a spade, I thought to myself, you fourth-rate frallup. Mort was the sort of no-good traveling salesman who spends more time trying to seduce waitresses than taking care of his customers-besides which, the line he handled was as shoddy as he was, never up to its specs.

But I bought him a drink and treated him to fairy tales about the "married woman" I had invented and listened while he boasted to me of no doubt equally fictitious exploits. Then I shook him.

On another occasion I tried to buy Dr. Twitchell a drink and failed.

I had seated myself beside him at the restaurant counter of a drugstore on Champa Street, then caught sight of his face in the mirror. My first impulse was to crawl under the counter and hide.

Then I caught hold of myself and realized that, out of all the persons living in 1970, he was the one I had least need to worry about. Nothing could go wrong because nothing had... I meant "nothing would." No-Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive situations-conjugations that would make the French literary tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.

In any case, past or future or something else, Twitchell was not a worry to me now. I could relax.

I studied his face in the mirror, wondering if I had been misled by a chance resemblance. But I had not been. Twitchell did not have a general-issue face like mine; he had stern, self-assured, slightly arrogant and quite handsome features which would have looked at home on Zeus. I remembered that face only in ruins, but there was no doubt-and I squirmed inside as I thought of the old man and how badly I had treated him. I wondered how I could make it up to him.

Twitchell caught sight of me eying him in the mirror and turned to me. "Something wrong?"

"No. Uh...ou're Dr. Twitchell, aren't you? At the university?"

"Denver University, yes. Have we met?"

I had almost slipped, having forgotten that he taught at the city university in this year. Remembering in two directions is difficult. "No, Doctor, but I've heard you lecture. You might say I'm one of your fans."

His mouth twitched in a half-smile but he did not rise to it. From that and other things I learned that he had not yet acquired a gnawing need for adulation; he was sure of himself at that age and needed only his own self-approval. "Are you sure you haven't got me mixed up with a movie Star?"

"Oh no! You're Dr. Hubert Twitchell... the great physicist."

His mouth twitched again. "Let's just say that I am a physicist. Or try to be."

We chatted for a while and I tried to hang onto him after he had finished his sandwich. I said it would be an honor if he would let me buy him a drink. He shook his head. "I hardly drink at all and certainly never before dark. Thanks anyway. It's been nice meeting you. Drop into my lab someday if you are ever around the campus."

I said I would.

But I did not make many slips in 1970 (second time around) because I understood it and, anyhow, most people who might have recognized me were in California. I resolved that if I did meet any more familiar faces I would give them the cold stare and the quick brushoff-take no chances.

But little things can cause you trouble too. Like the time I got caught in a zipper simply because I had become used to the more convenient and much safer Sticktite closures. A lot of little things like that I missed very much after having learned in only six months to take them for granted. Shaving-I had to go back to shaving! Once I even caught a cold. That horrid ghost of the past resulted from forgetting that clothes could get soaked in rain. I wish that those precious esthetes who sneer at progress and prattle about the superior beauties of the past could have been with me-dishes that let food get chilled, shirts that had to be laundered, bathroom mirrors that steamed up when you needed them, runny noses, dirt underfoot and dirt in your lungs-I had become used to a better way of living and 1970 was a series of petty frustrations until I got the hang of it again.

But a dog gets used to his fleas and so did I. Denver in 1970 was a very quaint place with a fine old-fashioned flavor; I became very fond of it. It was nothing like the slick New Plan maze it had been (or would be) when I had arrived (or would arrive) there from Yuma; it still had less than two million people, there were still buses and other vehicular traffic in the streets-there still were streets; I had no trouble finding Colfax Avenue.

Denver was still getting used to being the national seat of government and was not quite happy in the role, like a boy in his first formal evening clothes. Its spirit still yearned for high-heeled boots and its Western twang even though it knew it had to grow up and be an international metropolis, with embassies and spies and famous gourmet restaurants. The city was being jerry-built in all directions to house the bureaucrats and lobbyists and contact men and clerk-typists and flunkies; buildings were being thrown up so fast that with each one there was hazard of enclosing a cow inside the walls. Nevertheless, the city had extended only a few miles past Aurora on the east, to Henderson on the north, and Littleton on the south-there was still open country before you reached the Air Academy. On the west, of course, the city flowed into the high country and the federal bureaus were tunneling back into the mountains.

I liked Denver during its federal boom. Nevertheless, I was excruciatingly anxious to get back to my own time.

It was always the little things. I had had my teeth worked over completely shortly after I had been put on the staff of Hired Girl and could afford it. I had never expected to have to see a dental plastician again. Nevertheless, in 1970 I did not have anti-caries pills and so I got a hole in a tooth, a painful one or I would have ignored it. So I went to a dentist. So help me, I had forgotten what he would see when he looked into my mouth. He blinked, moved his mirror around, and said, "Great jumping Jehosaphat! Who was your dentist?"

"Kah hoo hank?"

He took his hands out of my mouth. "Who did it? And how?"

"Huh? You mean my teeth? Oh, that's experimental work they're doing in... India."

"How do they do it?"

"How would I know?"

"Mmm... wait a minute. I've got to get some pictures of this." He started fiddling with his X-ray equipment.

"Oh no," I objected. "Just clean out that bicuspid, plug it up with anything, and let me out of here."

"But-"

"I'm sorry, Doctor. But I'm on a dead run."

So he did as I said, pausing now and again to look at my teeth. I paid cash and did not leave my name. I suppose I could have let him have the pics, but covering up had become a reflex. It couldn't have hurt anything to let him have them. Nor helped either, as X rays would not show how regeneration was accomplished, nor could I have told him.

There is no time like the past to get things done. While I was sweating sixteen hours a day on Drafting Dan and Protean Pete I got something else done with my left hand. Working anonymously through John's law office I hired a detective agency with national branches to dig up Belle's past. I supplied them with her address and the license number and model of her car (since steering wheels are good places to get fingerprints) and suggested that she might have been married here and there and possibly might have a police record. I had to limit the budget severely; I couldn't afford the sort of investigation you read about.

When they did not report back in ten days I kissed my money good-by. But a few days later a thick envelope showed up at John's office.

Belle had been a busy girl. Born six years earlier than she claimed, she had been married twice before she was eighteen. One of them did not count because the man already had a wife; if she had been divorced from the second the agency had not uncovered it. She had apparently been married four times since then although once was doubtful; it may have been the "war-widow" racket worked with the aid of a man who was dead and, could not object. She had been divorced once (respondent) and one of her husbands was dead. She might still be "married" to the others.

Her police record was long and interesting but apparently she had been convicted of a felony only once, in Nebraska, and granted parole without doing time. This was established only by fingerprints, as she had jumped parole, changed her name, and had acquired a new social-security number. The agency asked if they were to notify Nebraska authorities.

I told them not to bother; she had been missing for nine years and her conviction had been for nothing worse than lure in a badger game. I wondered what I would have done if it had been dope peddling? Reflexive decisions have their complications.

I ran behind schedule on the drawings and October was on me before I knew it. I still had the description only half worded, since they had to tie into drawings, and I had done nothing about the claims. Worse, I had done nothing about organizing the deal so that it would hold up; I could not do it until I had a completed job to show. Nor had I had time to make contacts. I began to think that I had made a mistake in not asking Dr. Twitchell to set the controls for at least thirty-two years instead of thirty-one years and a fiddling three weeks; I had underestimated the time I would need and overestimated my own capacity.

I had not shown my toys to my friends, the Suttons, not because I wanted to hide them, but because I had not wanted a lot of talk and useless advice while they were incomplete. On the last Saturday in September 1 was scheduled to go out to the club camp with them. Being behind schedule, I had worked late the night before, then had been awakened early by the torturing clang of an alarm clock so that I could shave and be ready to go when they came by. I shut the sadistic thing off and thanked God that they had got rid of such horrible devices in 2001, then I pulled myself groggily together and went down to the corner drugstore to phone and say that I couldn't make it, I had to work.

Jenny answered, "Danny, you're working too hard. A weekend in the country will do you good."

"I can't help it, Jenny. I have to. I'm sorry."

John got on the other phone and said, "What's all this nonsense?"

"I've got to work, John. I've simply got to. Say hello to the folks for me."

I went back upstairs, burned some toast, vulcanized some eggs, sat back down at Drafting Dan.

An hour later they banged on my door.

None of us went to the mountains that weekend. Instead I demonstrated both devices. Jenny was not much impressed by Drafting Dan (it isn't a woman's gismo, unless she herself is an engineer), but she was wide-eyed over Protean Pete. She kept house with a Mark II Hired Girl and could see how much more this machine could do.

But John could see the importance of Drafting Dan. When I showed him how I could write my signature, recognizably my own, just by punching keys-I admit I had practiced-his eyebrows stayed up. "Chum, you're going to throw draftsmen out of work by the thousand."

"No, I won't. The shortage of engineering talent in this country gets worse every year; this gadget will just help to fill the gap. In a generation you are going to see this tool in every engineering and architectural office in the nation. They'll be as lost without it as a modern mechanic would be without power tools."

"You talk as if you knew."

"I do know."

He looked over at Protean Pete-I had set him to tidying my workbench-and back at Drafting Dan. "Danny ... sometimes I think maybe you were telling me the truth, you know, the thy we met you."

I shrugged. "Call it second sight... but I do know. I'm certain. Does it matter?"

"I guess not. What are your plans for these things?"

I frowned. "That's the hitch, John. I'm a good engineer and a fair jackleg mechanic when I have to be. But I'm no businessman; I've proved that. You've never fooled with patent law?"

"I told you that before. It's a job for a specialist."

"Do you know an honest one? Who's smart as a whip besides? It's reached the point where I've got to have one. I've got to set up a corporation, too, to handle it. And work out the financing. But I haven't got much time; I'm terribly pressed for time."

"Why?"

"I'm going back where I came from."

He sat and said nothing for quite a while. At last he said, "How much time?"

"Uh, about nine weeks. Nine weeks from this coming Thursday to be exact."

He looked at the two machines, looked back at me. "Better revise your schedule. I'd say that you had more like nine months' work cut out for you. You won't be in production even then-just lined up to start moving, with luck."

"John, I can't."

"I'll say you can't."

"I mean I can't change my schedule. That's beyond my control now." I put my face in my hands. I was dead with fatigue, having had less than five hours' sleep and having averaged not much better for days. The shape I was in, I was willing to believe that there was something, after all, to this "fate" business-a man could struggle against it but never beat it.

I looked up. "Will you handle it?"

"Eh? What part of it?"

"Everything. I've done all I know how to do."

"That's a big order, Dan. I could rob you blind. You know that, don't you? And this may be a gold mine."

"It will be. I know."

"Then why trust me? You had better just keep me as your attorney, advice for a fee."

I tried to think while my head ached. I had taken a partner once before-but, damnation, no matter how many times you get your fingers burned, you have to trust people. Otherwise you are a hermit in a cave, sleeping with one eye open. There wasn't any way to be safe; just being alive was deadly dangerous... fatal. In the end.

"Cripes, John, you know the answer to that. You trusted me. Now I need your help again. Will you help me?"

"Of course he will," Jenny put in gently, "though I haven't heard what you two were talking about. Danny? Can it wash dishes? Every dish you have is dirty."

"What, Jenny? Why, I suppose he can. Yes, of course he can."

"Then tell him to, please. I want to see it."

"Oh. I've never programmed him for it. I will if you want me to. But it will take several hours to do it right. Of course after that he'll always be able to do it. But the first time... well, you see, dishwashing involves a lot of alternate choices. It' s a `judgment' job, not a comparatively simple routine like laying bricks or driving a truck."

"Goodness! I'm certainly glad to find that at least one man understands housework. Did you hear what he said, dear? But don't stop to teach him now, Danny. I'll do them myself." She looked around. "Danny, you've been living like a pig, to put it gently."

To tell the simple truth, it had missed me entirely that Protean Pete could work for me. I had been engrossed in planning how he could work for other people in commercial jobs, and teaching him to do them, while I myself had simply been sweeping dirt into the corner or ignoring it. Now I began teaching him all the household tasks that Flexible Frank had learned; he had the capacity, as I had installed three times as many Thorsen tubes in him as Frank had had.

I had time to do it, for John took over.

Jenny typed descriptions for us; John retained a patent attorney to help with the claims. I don't know whether John paid him cash or cut him in on the cake; I never asked. I left the whole thing up to him, including what our shares should be; not only did it leave me free for my proper work, but I figured that if he decided such things he could never be tempted the way Miles had been. And I honestly did not care; money as such is not important. Either John and Jenny were what I thought they were or I might as well find that cave and be a hermit.

I insisted on just two things. "John, I think we ought to call the firm `The Aladdin Autoengineering Corporation.'"

"Sounds pretty fancy. What's wrong with `Davis & Sutton'?"

"That's how it's got to be, John."

"So? Is your second sight telling you this?"

"Could be, could be. We'll use a picture of Aladdin rubbing his lamp as a trade-mark, with the genie funning above him. I'll make a rough sketch. And one thing: the home office had better be in Los Angeles."

"What? Now you've gone too far. That is, if you expect me to run it. What's wrong with Denver?"

"Nothing is wrong with Denver, it's a nice town. But it is not the place to set up the factory. Pick a good site here and some bright morning you wake up and find that the federal enclave has washed over it and you are out of business until you get re-established on a new one. Besides that, labor is scarce, raw materials come overland, building materials are all gray-market. Whereas Los Angeles has an unlimited supply of skilled workmen and more pouring in every thy, Los Angeles is a seaport, Los Angeles is-"

"How about the smog? It's not worth it."

"They'll lick the smog before long. Believe me. And haven't you noticed that Denver is working up smog of its own?"

"Now wait a minute, Dan. You've already made it clear that I will have to run this while you go kiyoodling off on some business of your own. Okay, I agreed. But I ought to have some choice in working conditions."

"It's necessary, John."

"Dan, nobody in his right mind who lives in Colorado would move to California. I was stationed out there during the war; I know. Take Jenny here; she's a native Californian, that's her secret shame. You couldn't hire her to go back. Here you've got winters, changing seasons, brisk mountain air, magnificent-"

Jenny looked up. "Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say I'd never go back."

"What's that, dear?"

Jenny had been quietly knitting; she never talked unless she really had something to say. Now she put down her knitting, a clear sign. "If we did move there, dear, we could join the Oakdale Club; they have outdoor swimming all year round. I was thinking of that just this last weekend when I saw ice on the pool at Boulder."

I stayed until the evening of 2 December, 1970, the last possible minute. I was forced to borrow three thousand dollars from John-the prices I had paid for components had been scandalous-but I offered him a stock mortgage to secure it. He let me sign it, then tore it up and dropped it in a wastebasket. "Pay me when you get around to it."

"It will be thirty years, John."

"As long as that?"

I pondered it. He had never invited me to tell my whole story since the afternoon, six months earlier, when he had told me frankly that he did not believe the essential part-but was going to vouch for me to their club anyhow.

I told him I thought it was time to tell him. "Shall we wake up Jenny? She's entitled to hear it too."

"Mmm... no. Let her nap until just before you have to leave. Jenny is a very uncomplicated person, Dan. She doesn't care who you are or where you came from as long as she likes you. If it seems a good idea, I can pass it on to her later."

"As you will." He let me tell it all, stopping only to fill our glasses-mine with ginger ale; I had a reason not to touch alcohol. When I had brought it up to the point where I landed on a mountainside outside Boulder, I stopped. "That's it," I said. "Though I was mixed up on one point. I've looked at the contour since and I don't think my fall was more than two feet. If they had-I mean `if they were going to'-bulldoze that laboratory site any deeper, I would have been buried alive. Probably would have killed both of you too-if it didn't blow up the whole county. I don't know just what happens when a fiat wave form changes back into a mass where another mass already is."

John went on smoking. "Well?" I said. "What do you think?"

"Danny, you've told me a lot of things about what Los Angeles-I mean `Great Los Angeles'-is going to be like. I'll let you know when I see you just how accurate you've been."

"It's accurate. Subject to minor slips of memory."

"Mmm... you certainly make it sound logical. But in the meantime I think you are the most agreeable lunatic I've ever met. Not that it handicaps you as an engineer... or as a friend. I like you, boy. I'm going to buy you a new strait jacket for Christmas."

"Have it your own way."

"I have to have it this way. The alternative is that I myself am stark staring mad... and that would make quite a problem for Jenny." He glanced at the clock. "We'd better wake her. She'd scalp me if I let you leave without saying good-by to her."

"I wouldn't think of it."

They drove me to Denver International Port and Jenny kissed me good-by at the gate. I caught the eleven o'clock shuttle for Los Angeles.