Clifford D. Simak

Now the job might be made the harder by someone watching him, although he could not be sure there’d be someone watching. It might not, he told himself, make any difference. His hardest job, he realized, would be to get an appointment with Andrew Arnold. The president of a planetary university would not be an easy man to see. He would have more with which to concern himself than listening to what an associate professor had to say. Especially when that professor could not spell out in advance detail what he wished to talk about.

His hands had stopped the trembling, but he still kept them tightly clasped. In just a little while he’d get out of here and go down to the roadway, where he’d find himself a seat on one of the inner, faster belts. In an hour or so he’d be back on the old home campus and then he’d soon find out if what Drayton said was true. And he’d be back with friends again-with Alley Oop and Ghost, with Harlow Sharp and Allen Preston and all the rest of them. There’d be rowdy midnight drinking bouts at the Pig and Whistle and long, slow walks along the shaded malls and canoeing on the lake. There’d be discussion and argument and the telling of old tales, and the leisurely academic routine that gave one time to live.

He found himself looking forward to the trip, for the roadway ran along the hills of Goblin Reservation. Not that there were only goblins there; there were many other of the Little Folk and they all were friends of his-or at least most of them were friends. Trolls at times could be exasperating and it was rough to build up any real and lasting friendship with a creature like a banshee.

This time of year, he thought, the hills would be beautiful. It had been late summer when he’d left for the Coonskin system and the hills still had worn their mantle of dark green, but now, in the middle of October, they would have burst into the full color of their autumn dress. There’d be the winy red of oak and the brilliant red and yellow of the maples and here and there the flaming scarlet of creeping vines would run like a thread through all the other colors. And the air would smell like cider, that strange, intoxicating scent that came upon the woods only with the dying of the leaves.

He sat there, thinking of the time, just two summers past, when he and Mr. O’Toole had gone on a canoe trip up the river, into the northern wilderness, hoping that somewhere along the way they might make some sort of contact with the spirits recorded in the old Ojibway legends. They had floated on the glass-clear waters and built their fires at night on the edges of the dark pine forests; they had caught their fish for supper and hunted down the wild flowers hidden in the forest glades and spied on many animals and birds and had a good vacation. But they had seen no spirits, which was not surprising. Very few contacts had been made with the Little Folk of North America, for they were truly creatures of the wilds, unlike the semicivilized, human-accustomed sprites of Europe.

The chair in which he sat faced the west and through the towering walls of glass he could see across the river to the bluffs that rose along the border of the ancient state of Iowa -great, dark purple masses rimmed by a pale blue autumn sky. Atop one of the bluffs he could make out the lighter bulk of the College of Thaumaturgy, staffed in large part by the octopoid creatures from Centaurus. Looking at those faint outlines of the buildings, he recalled that he had often promised himself he’d attend one of their summer seminars, but had never got around to doing it.

He reached out and shifted his luggage, preparing to get up, but he stayed on sitting there. He still was a little short of breath and his legs seemed weak. What Drayton had told him, he realized, had hit him harder than he’d thought, and still was hitting him in a series of delayed reactions. He’d have to take it easy, he told himself. He couldn’t get the wind up. It might not be true; it probably wasn’t true. There was no sense in getting too concerned about it until he’d had the chance to find out for himself.