Part 17 (1/2)

It could have been a city in New England, or maybe Wisconsin. Main Street stretched for half a mile from Town Hall to the small department store. Neon tubing brightened every store front, busy proprietors could be seen at work through the large plate gla.s.s windows. There was the bustle you might expect on any Main Street in New England or Wisconsin, but you could not draw the parallel indefinitely.

There were only men. No women.

The hills in which the town nestled were too purple--not purple with distance but the natural color of the gra.s.s.

A somber red sun hung in the pale mauve sky.

This was Earth City, Nowhere.

Arkalion had deposited Temple in the nearby hills, promised they would see one another again. ”It may not be so soon,” Arkalion had said, ”but what's the difference? You'll spend the rest of your life here.

You realize you are lucky, Kit. If, you hadn't come, you would have been dead these five thousand years. Well, good luck.”

Dead--five thousand years. The Earth as he knew it, dust. Stephanie, a fifty generation corpse. Nowhere was right. End of the universe.

Temple shuffled his feet, trudged on into town. A man pa.s.sed him on the street, stooped, gray-haired. The man nodded, did a mild double-take. _I'm an unfamiliar face_, Temple thought.

”Howdy,” he said. ”I'm new here.”

”That's what I thought, stranger. Know just about everyone in these here parts, I do, and I said to myself, now there's a newcomer. Funny you didn't come in the regular way.”

”I'm here,” said Temple.

”Yeah. Funny thing, you get to know everyone. Eh, what you say your name was?”

”Christopher Temple.”

”Make it my business to know everyone. The neighborly way, I always say. Temple, eh? We have one here.”

”One what?”

”Another fellow name of Temple. Jase Temple, son.”

”I'll be d.a.m.ned!” Temple cried, smiling suddenly. ”I will be d.a.m.ned.

Tell me, old timer, where can I find him?”

”Might be anyplace. Town's bigger'n it looks. I tell you, though, Jase Temple's our co-ordinator. You'll find him there, the co-ordinator's office. Town Hall, down the end of the street.”

”I already pa.s.sed it,” Temple told the old man. ”And thanks.”

Temple's legs carried him at a brisk pace, past the row of store fronts and down to the Town Hall. He read a directory, climbed a flight of stairs, found a door marked:

JASON TEMPLE Earth City Co-ordinator

Heart pounding, Temple knocked, heard someone call, ”Come in.”

He pushed the door in and stared at his brother, just rising to face him.

”Kit! Kit! What are you doing ... so you took the journey too!”