City (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by Clifford D. Simak

  Webster leaned forward, snapped the toggle and the mountains vanished; the room became a room again. Dusk filtered through the high windows and the fire was a rosy flicker in the ashes.

  ‘Come in,’ said Webster.

  Jenkins opened the door. ‘Dinner is served, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Webster. He rose slowly from the chair. ‘Your place, sir,’ said Jenkins, ‘is laid at the head of the table.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Webster. ‘Thank you, Jenkins. Thank you very much, for reminding me.’

  Webster stood on the broad ramp of the space field and watched the shape that dwindled in the sky with faint flickering points of red lancing through the wintry sunlight.

  For long minutes after the shape was gone he stood there, hands gripping the railing in front of him, eyes still staring up into the sky.

  His lips moved and they said: ‘Good-bye, son’; but there was no sound.

  Slowly he came alive to his surroundings. Knew that people moved about the ramp, saw that the landing field seemed to stretch interminably to the far horizon, dotted here and there with hump-backed things that were waiting spaceships. Scooting tractors worked near one hangar, clearing away the last of the snowfall of the night before.

  Webster shivered and thought that it was queer, for the noonday sun was warm. And shivered again.

  Slowly he turned away from the railing and headed for the administration building. And for one brain-wrenching moment he felt a sudden fear – an unreasonable and embarrassing fear of that stretch of concrete that formed the ramp. A fear that left him shaking mentally as he drove his feet towards the waiting door.

  A man walked towards him, briefcase swinging in his hand, and Webster, eyeing him, wished fervently that the man would not speak to him.

  The man did not speak, passed him with scarcely a glance, and Webster felt relief.

  If he were back home, Webster told himself, he would have finished lunch, would now be ready to lie down for his midday nap. The fire would be blazing on the hearth and the flicker of the flames would be reflected from the andirons. Jenkins would bring him a liqueur and would say a word or two – inconsequential conversation.

  He hurried towards the door, quickening his step, anxious to get away from the bare-cold expanse of the massive ramp.

  Funny how he had felt about Thomas. Natural, of course, that he should have hated to see him go. But entirely unnatural that he should, in those last few minutes, find such horror welling up within him. Horror of the trip through space, horror of the alien land of Mars – although Mars was scarcely alien any longer. For more than a century now Earth-men had known it, had fought it, lived with it; some of them had even grown to love it.

  But it had only been utter will power that had prevented him, in those last few seconds before the ship had taken off, from running out into the field, shrieking for Thomas to come back, shrieking for him not to go.

  And that, of course, never would have done. It would have been exhibitionism, disgraceful and humiliating – the sort of a thing a Webster could not do.

  After all, he told himself, a trip to Mars was no great adventure, not any longer. There had been a day when it had been, but that day was gone for ever. He, himself, in his earlier days had a made a trip to Mars, had stayed there for five long years. That had been – he gasped when he thought of it – that had been almost thirty years ago.

  The babble and hum of the lobby hit him in the face as the robot attendant opened the door for him, and in that babble ran a vein of something that was almost terror. For a moment he hesitated, then stepped inside. The door closed softly behind him.

  He stayed close to the wall to keep out of people’s way, headed for a chair in one corner. He sat down and huddled back, forcing his body deep into the cushions, watching the milling humanity that seethed out in the room.

  Shrill people, hurrying people, people with strange, unneighbourly faces. Strangers – every one of them. Not a face he knew. People going places. Heading out for the planets. Anxious to be off. Worried about last details. Rushing here and there.

  Out of the crowd loomed a familiar face. Webster hunched forward.

  ‘Jenkins!’ he shouted, and then was sorry for the shout, although no one seemed to notice.

  The robot moved towards him, stood before him.

  ‘Tell Raymond,’ said Webster, ‘that I must return immediately. Tell him to bring the ’copter in front at once.’

  ‘I am sorry, sir,’ said Jenkins, ‘but we cannot leave at once. The mechanics found a flaw in the atomics chamber. They are installing a new one. It will take several hours.’

  ‘Surely,’ said Webster, impatiently, ‘that could wait until some other time.’

  ‘The mechanic said not, sir,’ Jenkins told him. ‘It might go at any minute. The entire charge of power—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ agreed Webster, ‘I suppose so.’

  He fidgeted with his hat. ‘I just remembered,’ he said, ‘something I must do. Something that must be done at once. I must get home. I can’t wait several hours.’

  He hitched forward to the edge of the chair, eyes staring at the milling crowd.

  Faces – faces—

  ‘Perhaps you could televise,’ suggested Jenkins. ‘One of the robots might be able to do it. There is a booth—’

  ‘Wait, Jenkins,’ said Webster. He hesitated a moment. ‘There is nothing to do back home. Nothing at all. But I must get there. I can’t stay here. If I have to, I’ll go crazy. I was frightened, out there on the ramp. I’m bewildered and confused here. I have a feeling – a strange, terrible feeling. Jenkins, I—’

  ‘I understand, sir,’ said Jenkins. ‘Your father had it, too.’

  Webster gasped. ‘My father?’

  ‘Yes, sir, that is why he never went anywhere. He was about your age, sir, when he found it out. He tried to make a trip to Europe and he couldn’t. He got halfway there and turned back. He had a name for it.’

  Webster sat in stricken silence.

  ‘A name for it,’ he finally said. ‘Of course there’s a name for it. My father had it. My grandfather – did he have it, too?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know that, sir,’ said Jenkins. ‘I wasn’t created until after your grandfather was an elderly man. But he may have. He never went anywhere, either.’

  ‘You understand, then,’ said Webster. ‘You know how it is. I feel like I’m going to be sick – physically ill. See if you can charter a ’copter – anything, just so we get home.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Jenkins.

  He started off and Webster called him back.

  ‘Jenkins, does anyone else know about this? Anyone—’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Jenkins. ‘Your father never mentioned it and I felt, somehow, that he wouldn’t wish me to.’

  ‘Thank you, Jenkins,’ said Webster.

  Webster huddled back into his chair again, feeling desolate and alone and misplaced. Alone in a humming lobby that pulsed with life – a loneliness that tore at him, that left him limp and weak.

  Homesickness. Downright, shameful homesickness, he told himself. Something that boys are supposed to feel when they first leave home, when they first go out to meet the world.

  There was a fancy word for it – agoraphobia, the morbid dread of being in the midst of open spaces – from the Greek root for the fear – literally, of the market place.

  If he crossed the room to the television booth, he could put in a call, talk with his mother or one of the robots – or, better yet, just sit and look at the place until Jenkins came for him.

  He started to rise, then sank back in the chair again. It was no dice. Just talking to someone or looking in on the place wasn’t being there. He couldn’t smell the pines in the wintry air, or hear familiar snow crunch on the walk beneath his feet or reach out a hand and touch one of the massive oaks that grew along the path. He couldn’t feel the heat of the fire or sense the sure, deft touch of belonging, of being one with a tract of ground
and the things upon it.

  And yet – perhaps it would help. Not much, maybe, but some. He started to rise from the chair again and froze. The few short steps to the booth held terror, a terrible, overwhelming terror. If he crossed them, he would have to run. Run to escape the watching eyes, the unfamiliar sounds, the agonizing nearness of strange faces.

  Abruptly he sat down.

  A woman’s shrill voice cut across the lobby and he shrank away from it. He felt terrible. He felt like hell. He wished Jenkins would get a hustle on.

  The first breath of spring came through the window, filling the study with the promise of melting snows, of coming leaves and flowers, of north-bound wedges of waterfowl streaming through the blue, of trout that lurked in pools waiting for the fly.

  Webster lifted his eyes from the sheaf of papers on his desk, sniffed the breeze, felt the cool whisper of it on his cheek. His hand reached out for the brandy glass, found it empty, and put it back.

  He bent back above the papers once again, picked up a pencil and crossed out a word.

  Critically, he read the final paragraphs:

  The fact that of the two hundred and fifty men who were invited to visit me, presumably on missions of more than ordinary importance, only three were able to come, does not necessarily prove that all but those three are victims of agoraphobia. Some may have had legitimate reasons for being unable to accept my invitation. But it does indicate a growing unwillingness of men living under the mode of Earth existence set up following the break-up of the cities to move from familiar places, a deepening instinct to stay among the scenes and possessions which in their mind have become associated with contentment and graciousness of life.

  What the result of such a trend will be, no one can clearly indicate since it applies to only a small portion of Earth’s population. Among the larger families economic pressure forces some of the sons to seek their fortunes either in other parts of the Earth or on one of the other planets. Many others deliberately seek adventure and opportunity in space while still others become associated with professions or trades which made a sedentary existence impossible.

  He flipped the page over, went on to the last one.

  It was a good paper, he knew, but it could not be published, not just yet. Perhaps after he had died. No one, so far as he could determine, had ever so much as realized the trend, had taken as matter of course the fact that men seldom left their homes. Why, after all, should they leave their homes?

  Certain dangers may be recognized in—

  The televisor muttered at his elbow and he reached out to flip the toggle.

  The room faded and he was face to face with a man who sat behind a desk, almost as if he sat on the opposite side of Webster’s desk. A grey-haired man with sad eyes behind heavy lenses.

  For a moment Webster stared, memory tugging at him.

  ‘Could it be—’ he asked and the man smiled gravely.

  ‘I have changed,’ he said. ‘So have you. My name is Clayborne. Remember? The Martian medical commission—’

  ‘Clayborne! I’d often thought of you. You stayed on Mars.’

  Clayborne nodded. ‘I’ve read your book, Doctor. It is a real contribution. I’ve often thought one should be written, wanted to myself, but I didn’t have the time. Just as well I didn’t. You did a better job. Especially on the brain.’

  ‘The Martian brain,’ Webster told him, ‘always intrigued me. Certain peculiarities. I’m afraid I spent more of those five years taking notes on it than I should have. There was other work to do.’

  ‘A good thing you did,’ said Clayborne. ‘That’s why I’m calling you now. I have a patient – a brain operation. Only you can handle it.’

  Webster gasped, his hands trembling. ‘You’ll bring him here?’

  Clayborne shook his head. ‘He cannot be moved. You know him, I believe. Juwain, the philosopher.’

  ‘Juwain!’ said Webster. ‘He’s one of my best friends. We talked together just a couple of days ago.’

  ‘The attack was sudden,’ said Clayborne. ‘He’s been asking for you.’

  Webster was silent and cold – cold with a chill that crept upon him from some unguessed place. Cold that sent perspiration out upon his forehead, that knotted his fists.

  ‘If you start immediately,’ said Clayborne, ‘you can be here on time. I’ve already arranged with the World Committee to have a ship at your disposal instantly. The utmost speed is necessary.’

  ‘But,’ said Webster, ‘but . . . I cannot come.’

  ‘You can’t come!’

  ‘It’s impossible,’ said Webster. ‘I doubt in any case that I am needed. Surely, you yourself—’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Clayborne. ‘No one can but you. No one else has the knowledge. You hold Juwain’s life in your hands. If you come, he lives. If you don’t, he dies.’

  ‘I can’t go into space,’ said Webster.

  ‘Anyone can go into space,’ snapped Clayborne. ‘It’s not like it used to be. Conditioning of any sort desired is available.’

  ‘But you don’t understand,’ pleaded Webster. ‘You—’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Clayborne. ‘Frankly, I don’t. That anyone should refuse to save the life of his friend—’

  The two men stared at one another for a long moment neither speaking.

  ‘I shall tell the committee to send the ship straight to your home,’ said Clayborne finally. ‘I hope by that time you will see your way clear to come.’

  Clayborne faded and the wall came into view again – the wall and books, the fireplace and the paintings, the well-loved furniture, the promise of spring that came through the open window.

  Webster sat frozen in his chair, staring at the wall in front of him.

  Juwain, the furry, wrinkled face, the sibilant whisper, the friendliness and understanding that was his. Juwain, grasping the stuff that dreams are made of and shaping them into logic, into rules of life and conduct. Juwain using philosophy as a tool, as a science, as a stepping stone to better living.

  Webster dropped his face into his hands and fought the agony that welled up within him.

  Clayborne had not understood. One could not expect him to understand since there was no way for him to know. And even knowing, would he understand? Even he, Webster, would not have understood it in someone else until he had discovered it in himself – the terrible fear of leaving his own fire, his own land, his own possessions, the little symbolisms that he had erected. And yet, not he, himself, alone, but those other Websters as well. Starting with the first John J. Men and women who had set up a cult of Life, a tradition of behaviour.

  He, Jerome A. Webster, had gone to Mars when he was a young man, and had not felt or suspected the psychological poison that ran through his veins. Even as Thomas a few months ago had gone to Mars. But thirty years of quiet life here in the retreat that the Websters called a home had brought it forth, had developed it without his even knowing it. There had, in fact, been no opportunity to know it.

  It was clear how it had developed – clear as crystal now. Habit and mental pattern and a happiness associated with certain things – things that had no actual value in themselves, but had been assigned a value, a definite, concrete value by one family through five generations.

  No wonder other places seemed alien, no wonder other horizons held a hint of horror in their sweep.

  And there was nothing one could do about it – nothing, that is, unless one cut down every tree and burned the house and changed the course of waterways. Even that might not do it – even that—

  The televisor purred and Webster lifted his head from his hands, reached out and thumbed the tumbler.

  The room became a flare of white, but there was no image. A voice said: ‘Secret call. Secret call.’

  Webster slid back a panel in the machine, spun a pair of dials, heard the hum of power surge into a screen that blocked out the room.

  ‘Secrecy established,’ he said.

  The white flare snapped ou
t and a man sat across the desk from him. A man he had seen many times before in televized addresses, in his daily paper.

  Henderson, president of the World Committee.

  ‘I have had a call from Clayborne,’ said Henderson.

  Webster nodded without speaking.

  ‘He tells me you refuse to go to Mars.’

  ‘I have not refused,’ said Webster. ‘When Clayborne cut off the question was left open. I had told him it was impossible for me to go, but he had rejected that, did not seem to understand.’

  ‘Webster, you must go,’ said Henderson. ‘You are the only man with the necessary knowledge of the Martian brain to perform this operation. If it were a simple operation, perhaps someone else could do it. But not one such as this.’

  ‘That may be true,’ said Webster, ‘but—’

  ‘It’s not just a question of saving a life,’ said Henderson. ‘Even the life of so distinguished a personage as Juwain. It involves even more than that. Juwain is a friend of yours. Perhaps he hinted of something he has found.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Webster. ‘Yes, he did. A new concept of philosophy.’

  ‘A concept,’ declared Henderson, ‘that we cannot do without. A concept that will remake the solar system, that will put mankind ahead a hundred thousand years in the space of two generations. A new direction of purpose that will aim towards a goal we heretofore had not suspected, had not even known existed. A brand new truth, you see. One that never before had occurred to anyone.’

  Webster’s hands gripped the edge of the desk until his knuckles stood out white.

  ‘If Juwain dies,’ said Henderson, ‘that concept dies with him. May be lost forever.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Webster. ‘I’ll try—’

  Henderson’s eyes were hard. ‘Is that the best that you can do?’

  ‘That is the best,’ said Webster.

  ‘But man, you must have a reason! Some explanation.’

  ‘None,’ said Webster, ‘that I would care to give.’

  Deliberately he reached out and flipped up the switch.

  Webster sat at the desk and held his hands in front of him, staring at them. Hands that had skill, held knowledge. Hands that could save a life if he could get them to Mars. Hands that could save for the solar system, for mankind, for the Martians an idea – a new idea – that would advance them a hundred thousand years in the next two generations.