Slowly he backed away from the house. Superficially, except for the lack of windows, there was nothing wrong with it. It was an almost exact copy of the kind of house that could be found in any suburb.
He ran his gaze from the rooftop down to the basement wall— and there was no basement wall. It was a detail that had escaped him—this lack of a basement wall. The house hovered half a foot or so above the ground, suspended in the air.
Suspended, Norton told himself, as the visitors were suspended. There was no question now—no question of how the houses had come into being.
He walked around the corner of the house and there they stood, the visitors, clumped together, like a massed group of darkened buildings standing in the center plaza of some futuristic city, the lower half of them blotted out in the forest dusk, the upper half highlighted by the dying rays of a setting sun.
From their direction came another house, floating along a foot or so above the ground, the whiteness of it ghostly in the twilight. As it approached, Norton backed away, apprehensively, ready to break and run. The house came up, then stopped, as if to determine its position. Then slowly, majestically, it wheeled into line with the other houses and came to a halt, the three of them standing in a row, somewhat closer together, it was true, than would be the ordinary case, but very much like three houses sitting on a street.
Norton took a slow step toward the third house and as he did, lights came on inside of it, with the windows gleaming. Inside it he saw a table in the dining room, set with glass and china and two candlesticks, with tall tapers in them waiting to be lighted. In the living room, the screen of a TV set glimmered and across from it stood a davenport and all about the room were chairs, with a curio cabinet, filled with dainty figurines, ranged against one wall.
Startled, he moved to turn away and as he did, he caught the hint of shadows, as if someone were moving in the kitchen, as if there was someone there taking up the dinner to be brought to the waiting table.
He cried out in terror and spun about, racing toward the river and the canoe that waited there.
49. WASHINGTON, D.C.
When Porter rang the bell, Alice came to the door. She seized him by the arm, hurried him inside and closed the door behind him.
“I know,” he said. “It’s an ungodly hour and I haven’t got much time. But I wanted to see you and I must see the senator.”
“Daddy has the drinks all poured,” said Alice, “and is waiting for you. He’s all a-twitter as to why you should come running out to see us in the middle of the night. You must be knee-deep in matters of importance.”
“A lot of motion,” Porter told her. “A lot of talk. I don’t know if we’re getting anywhere. You’ve heard about the business holiday?”
“A late bulletin on TV. Daddy is all upset about it.”
But the senator, when they came into the room where he was waiting for them, was not visibly upset. He was quite the genial host. He handed Porter a drink and said, “See, young man, I didn’t even have to ask. I have learned your drinking preference.”
“Thank you, senator,” said Porter, accepting the glass. “I stand in need of that.”
“Did you take time to eat tonight?” asked Alice.
He stared at her, as if astonished by the question.
“Well, did you?”
“I’m afraid that I forgot,” said Porter. “It did not occur to me. The kitchen did bring up something, but, at the time, I was with the press corps. It was all gone when I got back.”
“I suspected it,” said Alice. “Soon as you called, I made some sandwiches and started up the coffee. I’ll bring in something for you.~~
“Sit down, Dave,” said the senator, “and say what you have in mind. Is there some way I can help the White House?”
“I think there might be,” said Porter, “but it’s up to you. No one will twist your arm. What you might want to do about it is a matter for your conscience to decide.”
“You must have had some rough hours down there,” said the senator. “I suppose it is still rough. I’m not sure I agree with the President on his financial moratorium, but I do realize there was a need of some sort of action.”
“We were afraid of what the snap reaction might be,” said Porter. “The holiday will give some level headed men the time they’ll need to head off total panic.”
“The dollar is going to take a beating on the foreign exchanges,” the senator told him. “No matter what we do, it will hit near bottom. By tomorrow afternoon, it might be damn near worthless.”
“We can’t do anything about that,” Porter said. “Give us the chance to win a round or two back home and the dollar will climb back. The real danger that we face is right here—the Congress, the press, public opinion.”
“You mean to fight it out,” said the senator. “I think that’s the only thing you can do. Not back down. Not give ground.”
“We’re hanging in there,” said Porter, grimly. “We are not about to say that we were wrong in the handling of the visitor situation. We’ll make no apologies.”
“I like that,” said the senator. “Much as I may disapprove of some of the things that have been going on down there, I do like this show of strength. The way things are tonight, we need strength at the core of government.”
Alice brought in a plate of sandwiches and a cup of coffee, set them on a table beside Porter’s chair.
“You go ahead and eat,” she said. “Don’t even try to talk. Daddy and I will do the talking. We are full of talk.”
“Especially my daughter,” said the senator. “She is fairly bursting with it. To her this business is not, as it may be to the rest of us, a great calamity. She sees it as a chance at a new beginning. I don’t think I need to say I am not in agreement with her.”
“You are wrong,” she told her father. “And you,” she said to Porter, “probably think the same as he. The both of you are wrong. This may be the best thing that ever happened to us. It may shake us up. It may shake some sense into our national consciousness. Shake us loose of the technological syndrome that has ruled our lives for the past hundred years or so. Show us that our economic system is too sensitive and shaky, built on a foundation that basically is treacherous. It may demonstrate to us that there are other values than the smooth operation of machines . .
“And if it did turn us around,” the senator interrupted, “if we are freed from what you like to call the tyranny of technology, if you had a chance for a new beginning, what would you do with it?”
“We’d end the rat race,” she said. “The social and economic rat race. We’d work together for mutual goals. We’d bring an end to the intensely personal competition that is killing us. Without the opportunities for the personal advancement that our technology and the economic system on which it is based encourages, there’d be slight incentive to cut the throat of another person to advance ourselves. That is what the President is doing, although he may not know he’s doing it, by calling for the holiday for business. He’ll give the business world and the public a breathing spell to grope their way back to sanity. Just a little way back to sanity. If they could have a longer time. .
“Let’s not you and I argue about it now,” said the senator. “At some later time, I will discuss it with you.”
“With all your pompous smugness,” said Alice. “With your ingrained conviction .
“Dave must get back,” said the senator. “He’s needed at the White House. He has something weighing on his mind.”
“I’m sorry, dear,” she said to Porter. “I should not have intruded. Can I listen to what you have to say to the senator?”
“You never intrude,” said Porter, finishing his second sandwich. “And, yes, I wish you would listen to what I have to say. Don’t hate me too much for it. I might as well be frank. The White House wants to use the senator.”
“I don’t like the sound of it,” said the senator. “I dislike being used, although I suppose it is a part of politics—to use and to be used. What is it, specifically?”
“We can survive,” said Porter, “or we think we can, if we can keep the Hill off our backs for a little time. Time is all we ask. No great accomplishment. Just a few days’ time.”