City

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.

But hands chained by a phobia that grew out of this quiet life. Decadence — a strangely beautiful — and deadly — decadence.

Man had forsaken the teeming cities, the huddling places, two hundred years ago. He had done with the old foes and the ancient fears that kept him around the common camp fire, had left behind the hobgoblins that had walked with him from the caves.

And yet and yet Here was another huddling place. Not a huddling place for one's body, but one's mind. A psychological campfire that still held a man within the circle of its light.

Still, Webster knew, he must leave that fire. As the men had done with the cities two centuries before, he must walk off and leave it. And he must not look back.

He had to go to Mars — or at least start for Mars. There was no question there, at all. He had to go.

Whether he would survive the trip, whether he could perform the operation once he had arrived, he did not know. He wondered vaguely, whether agoraphobia could be fatal. In its most exaggerated form, he supposed it could.

He reached out a hand to ring, then hesitated. No use having Jenkins pack. He would do it himself — something to keep him busy until the ship arrived.

From the top shelf of the wardrobe in the bedroom, he took down a bag and saw that it was dusty. He blew on it, but the dust still clung. It had been there for too many years.

As he packed, the room argued with him, talked in that mute tongue with which inanimate but familiar things may converse with a man.

'You can't go,' said the room. 'You can't go off and leave me.'

And Webster argued back, half pleading, half explanatory. 'I have to go. Can't you understand? It's a friend, an old friend. I will be coming back.'

Packing done, Webster returned to the study, slumped into his chair.

He must go and yet he couldn't go. But when the ship arrived, when the time had come, he knew that he would walk out of the house and towards the waiting ship.

He steeled his mind to that, tried to set it in a rigid pattern, tried to blank out everything but the thought that he was leaving.

Things in the room intruded on his brain, as if they were part of a conspiracy to keep them there. Things that he saw as if he were seeing them for the first time. Old, remembered things that suddenly were new. The chronometer that showed both Earthian and Martian time, the days of the month, the phases of the moon. The picture of his dead wife on the desk. The trophy he had won at prep school. The framed short snorter bill that had cost him ten bucks on his trip to Mars.

He stared at them, half unwilling at first, then eagerly, storing up the memory of them in his brain. Seeing them as separate components — of a room he had accepted all these years as a finished whole, never realizing what, a multitude of things went to make it up.

Dusk was falling, the dusk of early spring, a dusk that smelled of early pussy willows.

The ship should have arrived long ago. He caught himself listening for it, even as he realized that he would not hear it. A ship, driven by atomic motors, was silent except when it gathered speed. Landing and taking off, it floated like thistledown, with not a murmur in it.

It would be here soon. It would have to be here soon or he could never go. Much longer to wait, he knew, and his high-keyed resolution would crumble like a mound of dust in beating rain. Not much longer could he hold his purpose against the pleading of the room, against the flicker of the fire, against the murmur of the land where five generations of Websters had lived their lives and died.

He shut his eyes and fought down the chill that crept across his body. He couldn't let it get him now, he told himself. He had to stick it out. When the ship arrived he still must be able to get up and walk out of the door to the waiting port.

A tap came on the door.

'Come in,' Webster called.

It was Jenkins, the light from the fireplace flickering on his shining metal hide.

'Had you called earlier, sir?' he asked.

Webster shook his bead.

'I was afraid you might have,' Jenkins explained, 'and wondered why I didn't come. There was a most extraordinary occurrence, sir. Two men came with a ship and said they wanted you to go to Mars-'

'They are here,' said Webster. 'Why didn't you call me?'

He struggled to his feet.

'I didn't think, sir,' said Jenkins, 'that you would want to be bothered. It was so preposterous. I finally made them understand you could not possibly want to go to Mars.'

Webster stiffened, felt chill fear gripping at his heart.

Hands groping for the edge of the desk, he sat down in the chair, sensed the walls of the room closing in about him, a trap that would never let him go.

III. CENSUS

NOTES ON THE THIRD TALE

To the thousands of readers who love this tale, it is distinguished as the one in which the Dogs first appear. To the student it is much more than that. Basically, it is a tale of guilt and futility. Here the breakdown of the human race continues, with Man assaulted by a sense of guilt and plagued by the instability which results in the human mutants.

The tale attempts to rationalize the mutations, attempts even to explain the Dogs as modifications of the primordial strain. No race, the story says, can become improved if there are no mutations, but there is no word concerning the need of a certain static factor in society to ensure stability. Throughout the legend it becomes abundantly clear that the human race placed little value upon stability.

Tige, who has combed the legend to bolster up contention that the tales actually are human in their origin, believes that no Doggish storyteller would have advanced the theory of mutation, a concept which runs counter to everything in the canine creed. A viewpoint such as this, he claims, must have sprung from some alien mind.

Bounce, however, points out that throughout the legend viewpoints which are diametrically opposed to canine logic often are presented in a favourable light. This, he says, is no more than the mark of a good storyteller — a twisting of values for certain dramatic shock effect.

That Man is presented deliberately as a character who realizes his own shortcomings there can be no doubt at all. In this tale, the human, Grant, talks about a 'groove of logic' and it is apparent that he senses something wrong with human logic. He tells Nathaniel that the human race is always worried. He fastens an almost infantile hope upon the Juwain theory as something which might yet save the human race.

And Grant, in the end, seeing the trend of destruction inherent in his race, passes the destiny of humanity on to Nathaniel.

Of all the characters which appear in the legend, Nathaniel may be the only one having an actual historic basis. In other tales which have come from the racial past, the name Nathaniel is often mentioned. While it is patently impossible that Nathaniel could have accomplished all the deeds which are attributed to him in these tales, it is generally believed that he actually lived and was a figure of importance. The basis of that importance, of course, has been lost in the gulf of time.

The Webster family of humans, which was introduced in the first tale, continues to hold a prominent place throughout the rest of the legend. While this may be another piece of evidence to support Tige's belief, it is possible that the Webster family once again may be no more than a mark of good storytelling, a device