boucher book oct28.pdf - Index of

508 Anthony Boucher and Miriam Allen deFord
He went in and out of private houses, what seemed to be hotels, stores, warehouses,
schools, halls, factories, and one building apparently a center of worship.
Not one solitary human being met him, nor any other living creature higher in the
scale of evolution than the equivalent of a cow. The cow-like creatures were not
abundant, but they looked well fed; apparently they browsed on the vegetation of
the many parks and gardens. It was unthinkable that they could be the dominant
race. This civilization had been built by animals with developed cortices and opposable
thumbs.
The planet was as advanced artistically as it was scientifically. In the homes, under
thick layers of dust, were delicate jewels and piles of beautiful thin coins engraved
in strange designs. The walls of the larger buildings were all carved in bas-relief, in a
manner nearer to ancient Mayan art than to any other Patrick knew. Demonology
must have played a large part in the religion, for there were numerous carvings of
small winged beings with long Grecoesque features and what looked like lightningbolts
for arms and legs. In the temple, a grotesque and horrible statue, a hundred
feet high, filled most of the great nave.
There were no libraries or museums, no books, no paintings, no musical instruments,
no microfilm. Yet the inhabitants must have had some means of visual and
auditory public communication, judging by the televiz masts at the Civic Center.
Patrick camped for his first two nights in the nearest house, spreading his blanket
on a rug because the beds were too thick in dust. He had his own food supplies in a
knapsack, but the stores were full of shelves of metal containers obviously (though he
could not understand the drawings on the labels) with edible contents. He sampled
one or two, after testing them for harmlessness, and found one to be a preserved
fruit with a pleasant subacid flavor, another a sort of paste resembling pâté de foie
gras mixed with caviar. There was also a pale pink liquid in a plastic bottle which
turned out to be a delicate wine somewhat like vin rosé.
He felt like a cross between Goldilocks and Alice.
On the third day he passed over a bridge to the Civic Center. The buildings in
their disheveled parks were grouped around a spreading stone edifice with a dome,
which he took to be the City Hall. It was morning, a beautiful sunny summer day
in the bluish whiteness of Altair. The ragged trees, something like oaks, were full of
white and green birds, all singing their little hearts out. A metal fountain, carved in
the likeness of a spreading tree, was spouting water from the tips of its branches into
a little pond. The grass was covered with myriads of low-growing, velvety purple
flowers run wild. Patrick took the broad road, whose ornamental green and brown
tiles showed wide gaps through which grassy blades grew thickly, that led to the
central building. A long flight of steps ended at a massive bronze-like door, heavily
and intricately carved.
Before his eyes, the door opened. A man stood for a second in the doorway, then
dashed down the steps toward him.
Patrick braced himself and reached for his raygun. But the man’s arms were
opened wide, his mouth was stretched in an ecstatic smile, and tears were running
down his cheeks.
He was a tall, burly man, seemingly in late middle age; his hair was white but
his movements were lithe and supple. He was clean-shaven, and was dressed in a