by Ayn Rand
“How come their house appeared over-night?”
“Yeah, I asked them about that,” John said. “They said their house is a prefab and it was cheaper to move it from Oregon than to buy one here. So they moved in one night—lock, stock and barrel.”
John looked at Philon with a tentative air. “And another thing—Jimmie and Jean are their real children.”
Philon began to frown in disgust. “Real children—how vulgar! No one does that anymore. That custom went out years ago with the Eugenic Act of two thousand twenty-nine. Breeding perfect children is the job of selected specimens. Why, I remember the day we passed our check over to Maternity Clinic! You were the best specimen in the place—and you carried the highest price tag too—ten thousand dollars!”
At that moment Ursula, his wife, her green rinse tumbling in stringy tufts over her forehead pattered into the breakfast room. Her right eye was closed in a tight squint against her cigarette smoke.
“Well, do I get my share of breakfast,” she muttered, “or do I have to scrabble at the trough like the rest of the hogs around here?”
Philon nodded at a third thermocel in the capsule. “That’s yours, Ursula.” He fixed her with a cocked eye. “What time did that gigolo get you home this morning?”
Ursula blew the hair out of her eyes, then took a good look at her husband. “Why all the sudden concern about my affairs? I feel like going to the Cairo I call up Francois. He dances divinely. I feel like making love I call up Jose....” She shrugged. “So, I say, why the sudden concern? All these years you say nothing. Every minute away from home you’re involved in big deals to make money, steal money—maybe even eat it.”
He looked at her cryptically. “I’ve got to raise a fifty-grand quota.”
Without even looking up from her breakfast Ursula said absently, “Oh, that. It is election year again, isn’t it?”
“And I’ll have to ask you to cancel all unnecessary expenditures for the time being.”
She shook her head. “Can’t—I’ve already reserved Love’s Passion for this afternoon and a whole block of titles for three months.”
Philon compressed his mouth, then practically blew the words at her. “Damn it, Ursula, you’re spending too much time psycho-dreaming these cheap plays. You know the psychiatrist has warned you to lay off them. Stimulates your endocrine system too much. No wonder you live on sleeping pills.”
“Oh, shut up!” She stared at him, the anger in her tugging at her loose mouth. “If I feel like a psychoplay I’m going to have me a psychoplay. It’s the only stimulation I get any more.”
Muttering, “T’hell with it!” Philon got up from the table and walked into the living room. Slipping into his gray top coat and hat he ascended to the copter roofport.
Before stepping into the copter seat he paused to study the MacDonald house on the corner. Odd-looking house at that. Mid-twentieth century, yet it looked brand new.
Then, putting the house out of mind, Philon shot his copter skyward and joined Skyway No. 7 traffic into town.
Descending on his office building he left the ship in care of the parking attendant and by elevator dropped to his floor. At a door marked Miller Electronic Manufacturing Co. he walked in.
In his office he slouched into his chair and stared at the small calendar on his desk. Rakoff wanted the fifty-thousand before Royal Pastel Mink Monday. One week—that wasn’t very much time.
Flinching from the unpleasant problem, he stared at the city skyline, his mind drifting lazily. He thought about Royal Pastel Mink Monday. Some said it was just another Day dreamed up by furriers to make people fur-conscious. Others said it commemorated a period of great public indifference which cost large numbers their freedom to vote.
Of course the other party had their symbology too—like the Teapot Celebration. No one seemed to know for sure what it meant. Anyway, why worry how they started? Why did people knock on wood for luck—or throw salt over their left shoulder?
But then once in awhile there arose some who spelled out a strange lonely cry, calling themselves the conscience of the people. They spoke sternly of the thin moral fiber of the country, berating the people for what they called their amoral evolution brought on by indifference and negligence until they no longer could hear the still guiding voice of their conscience. But they were scornfully laughed down and it seemed to Philon he heard less and less of these men.
In the late afternoon a whip from party headquarters dropped in. “Hello, Feisel,” Philon said with little enthusiasm for the swarthy-faced man.
Without even the formality of a greeting Feisel smiled down at Philon in a half-sneer. “Well, Philon, how we doin’ with the fifty grand, eh?”
Philon tossed a sheaf of papers on the desk with a gesture of impatience. “Now look, I’ll raise the fifty G’s by the end of the week.”
Feisel lifted a thin black eyebrow and shrugged elaborately. “Just inquiring, my friend, just inquiring. You know—just showing friendly interest.”
“Well, go peddle your papers to somebody else. You make me nervous.”
Feisel sniffed with injured pride. “That’s gratitude for you. And just when I was going to put a little bee in your bonnet. I thought you’d like to know what happened to another guy just like you. You see, he got ideas, instead of digging to get his quota. He tried to lam out and you know where they found him? On the sidewalk below his twenty-third-floor window.”
As Feisel went out, Philon swore softly at his retreating back. But Feisel’s little story sent a chill through him.
That evening when he descended from his copter port and stepped into his living room he was surprised to hear young voices upstairs. Deciding to investigate he stepped on the escalator. At John’s door he poked his head in.
“Hello.”
A young blond-headed boy with bright clear eyes turned to look at him and a younger girl with short curly hair smiled back.
John said, “Phil, this is Jimmie, and Jean, his sister. They don’t have a home-school teleclass rig yet, so they’re attending with me.”
“I see.” Philon nodded to the children. “And how did you like your first day at school?”
“Fine,” Jean said, beaming until her eyes almost disappeared. “It was fun. The teacher was talking about the history of atomic energy and when I told her we had one of the first editions of the famous Smyth report on Atomic Energy she was surprised.”
“A first edition of the Smyth Report? No wonder your teacher was surprised.” Through Philon’s mind ran the recollection that first editions of the Smyth Report brought as high as seventy thousand dollars.
The children’s excited chatter was suddenly interrupted by the front door chimes. Stepping to the wall televiewer, Philon pressed a button and said, “Who is it?”
A pleasant-faced man with a startled look said, “Oh—sorry. This gadget on the door-casing surprised me. Ah—I think my children, Jimmie and Jean, are here. I’m Bill MacDonald.”
Behind him Philon heard Jean suppress a dismayed cry. “Gosh, Jimmie, it’s late. Daddy’s had to come for us!”
Philon said, “And I’m Phil Miller, MacDonald. Come in. We’ll be down in a moment.”
The MacDonald children and John headed for the stairs in a happy rush, ignoring the descending escalator, two steps at a time. Philon followed at a meditative pace, his thoughts trooping stealthily abreast. Seventy thousand dollars. Now, if he were to....
“Beautiful home you’ve got here, Miller.”
Philon came out of his daydreaming to see MacDonald coming into view around the corner of a living room ell.
Philon took his extended hand. “Thanks. Glad you like it.”
Jean broke in breathlessly. “Oh, Daddy, you ought to see how they conduct classes—by school TV. You write on a glass square and it appears immediately at the teacher’s roll-board. And when you—”
Jimmie interrupted. “Aw, lemme tell ‘im something too, Jean. Dad, John used a spare TV for Jean’s freshman c
lass while we ‘showed’ for junior class on his. Gosh, in history, Dad, their old newsreels go back to World War Two. I even saw your Marine unit—”
MacDonald cut his son short. “That’s enough, Jimmie. You can tell us about it later.” He herded his children toward the front door. “Thanks, Miller, for letting the kids use the school TV. I’m having one installed tomorrow.”
After they left John said with a sparkle Philon had never seen before, “You know, Phil, those are the most interesting kids I’ve ever met. All the others I know are bored stiff. They’ve been everyplace and they’ve done everything.
“But Jimmie and Jean ask more questions about things than anybody I know. They’re really interested. Every time I drop in on them they’re studying history beginning with the middle of the Twentieth Century. They’re absolutely fascinated and read it like fiction.”
With more on his mind than his neighbors’ unusual behavior Philon said, “Mmm.” He stood looking at the boy for a long moment until John finally shifted self-consciously.
“What’s the matter, Phil?”
Philon ended his musing. “Tomorrow night we’re all going to call on the MacDonalds. And while we’re there I want you to slip that copy of the Smyth Report out of their library.”
For a moment the young boy’s smooth face was a blank mask. Then it filled in with shocked surprise, then resentment and finally anger. “You mean—steal?”
“Of course. If they’re too innocent to realize the value of the book that’s their hard luck.”
“But, Phil, I can’t imagine myself stealing from....”
Impatiently, Philon said, “Since when did you suddenly get so holier-than-thou? Life is harsh, life is iron-fisted and if you don’t keep your guard up you’re going to get socked in the kisser.”
John said slowly with a certain tone of shame, “Yes, I know. As far back as I can remember you’ve told me that. But in spite of it I can’t help feeling it isn’t right to treat the MacDonalds that way. They’re too nice, too good.”
“Look, John. You might as well learn the hard facts of life. All the high-sounding arguments for a moral world and all the laws on the books implementing those arguments are just eyewash. Sure, the President swears that he will uphold the constitution and enforce all the laws.
“Then we carefully surround him with counterspies—wire his rooms with dictaphones, slit his mail, install secret informers on his staff. All because no matter who the party is able to elect we don’t trust him—because the society he represents does not trust itself.”
“Is that why we have more and bigger jails than ever?”
Philon shrugged. “All I’m trying to tell you is don’t go soft-headed or the world will take your shirt.”
The next day before leaving for the office Philon said to his wife, “Call up the MacDonalds and if they’re going to be home tonight tell them we’ll be over for a visit.”
Ursula made a face. “Do we have to call on those people? They’ll bore me stiff.”
“For heaven’s sake, Ursula! It’s a matter of vital importance to me—and you also, if I have to appeal to your wide streak of selfishness.”
“I can’t see it.”
“I’ll explain later. I’ve got to go.”
During the day Ursula called him. “Well, Phil, I called as you said and I’ve committed us for dinner tonight.”
“Dinner! Hmm, they are convivial people.”
“Yes and the dinner is going to be cooked right there in their house. How vulgar can some people get?”
That evening while dressing Ursula said, “Phil, John spends a lot of time at the MacDonalds’. What do you suppose he sees in them? It gets me the way he quotes them all the time and reports their least doings. Today he came tearing into the house and said, ‘Ursula, it’s wonderful!’ I said, ‘What’s wonderful?’ And John said, ‘The dinner they’re cooking at MacDonalds’. I’ve never smelled anything like it in all my life. Why don’t we cook in our house like they do? Mrs. MacDonald was baking cookies and let me have one right out of the oven. Mmmm, boy was it good!’”
Ursula finished, “Now, I ask you, did you ever hear anything so barbaric—cooking in the house and having all the odors permeate the whole place?”
“Well, we’ll see.”
Later when they arrived at the MacDonalds’ they were welcomed with a quiet warmth and friendliness that Philon cynically assumed to be a new and different front.
As they sat down to dinner Mrs. MacDonald, a rosy-cheeked woman with a quick and ready smile, said, “I’m sorry we aren’t able to get a connection yet. So everything we’re eating tonight is right out of our deep-freeze.”
John Miller said, “Gosh, Mrs. MacDonald, as far as I’m concerned, I’d rather eat from your deep-freeze anytime than from the FP!”
Bill MacDonald looked across the table at Jean and said, “All right, Jean.”
Jean and all the MacDonalds bent their heads and the girl began, “We thank Thee for our daily bread as by Thy hands....”
As the girl spoke Phil’s gaze drifted around to his wife, who lifted her shoulders in mystified amazement. But it was a bigger surprise to see John’s bent head. For the moment John was a part of this family—part of a wholeness tied together by an invisible bond. The utter strangeness of it shocked Philon into rare clarity of insight.
He saw himself wrapped up in his business with little regard for Ursula or John, letting them exist under his roof without making them a part of his life. Ursula with her succession of gigolos and her psycho-plays and John withdrawn into his upstairs room with his books. Then he closed his mind again as if the insight were too blinding.
What strange customs these MacDonalds had! Yet he had to admit the meal looked more appetizing than anything he had ever seen. It gave an impression of sumptuous plenty to see the food for everybody in one place instead of individually packaged under glistening thermocel. And instead of throwaway dishes they used chinaware that could have come right out of a museum.
Ursula asked, “What kind of fish is this?”
Bill MacDonald answered with a big grin. “It’s Royal Chinook salmon that I caught in the fish derby on the Columbia River only last—”
Mrs. MacDonald colored suddenly. “You’ll have to forgive Bill. He gets himself so wrapped up in his fishing.”
Glancing at MacDonald Philon was surprised to see the same confusion and embarrassment on his host’s face.
It was after dinner when Mrs. MacDonald and Jean were clearing the table that Philon looked over the library shelves. MacDonald himself appeared uneasy and hovered in the background.
“You’ll have to excuse my selections. They’re all pretty old. I—er—inherited most of them from a grandfather.”
In a few minutes Philon spotted the Smyth Report. Fixing its position well in mind he turned away. MacDonald was saying, “Come down in the basement and I’ll show you my hobby room.”
“Glad to.” As MacDonald led the way Philon whispered to John, “You’ll find the book on the second shelf from the bottom on the right side.”
John returned him a stony stare of belligerence and Philon clamped his jaw. The boy dropped his glance and gave a reluctant nod of acquiescence.
Upstairs a half hour later Ursula, who had filled her small ashtray with a mound of stubs, suddenly told Philon she was going home.
“But, Ursula, I thought that—”
With thin-lipped impatience she snapped, “I just remembered I had another engagement at eight.”
Mrs. MacDonald was genuinely sorry. “Oh, that’s too bad, I thought we could have the whole evening together.”
Casting a meaningful glance at John and getting a confirming cold-eyed nod in return, Philon got on his feet. “Sorry, folks. Maybe we’ll get together another time.”
“I hope so,” MacDonald said.
In angry silence Philon walked home. Not until they were all in the house and Ursula was hastening toward her second-floor room did he say a word
. “I suppose your ‘other engagement’ means the Cairo again tonight?”
Ascending on the escalator Ursula turned to look scornfully over her shoulder. “Yes! Anything to escape from boredom. All that woman talked about while you were in the basement was redecorating the house or about cooking and asking my opinions. Ugh!“
Philon laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah, I guess she picked a flat number to discuss those things with. Anything you might have learned about them you must have got out of a psychoplay.”
Stepping off the escalator at the top Ursula spit a nasty epithet his way, then disappeared into the upstairs hall.
John stood at the foot of the escalator, a reluctant witness to the bickering. Divining his attitude Philon mentally shrugged it off. The kid might as well learn what married life was like in these modern days.
“You got the book, eh?”
John pulled a book from his suit coat and laid it on a small table. “Yes, there’s the book—and I never felt so rotten about anything in all my life!”
Philon said, “Kid, you’ve got a lot to learn about getting along in this world.”
“All right—so I’ve got a lot to learn,” John cried bitterly. “But there must be more to life than trying to stop the other guy from stripping the shirt off your back while you succeed in stripping off his!”
With that he took the escalator to the upper hall while Philon watched him disappear.
Left alone now, Philon settled into a chair by a window and stared down the street at the MacDonald house. Odd people—it almost seemed they didn’t belong in this time and period, considering their queer ways of thinking and looking at things. MacDonald himself in particular had some odd personal attitudes.
Like that incident in his basement—Philon had curiously pulled open a heavy steel door to a small cubicle filled with a most complex arrangement of large coils and heavy insulators and glassed-in filaments. MacDonald was almost rude in closing the door when he found Philon opening it. He had fumbled and stuttered around, explaining the room was a niche where he did a little experimenting on his own. Yes, strange people.
The next day Philon eagerly hastened to a bookstore dealing in antique editions. Hugging the book closely Philon told himself his troubles were all over. The book would surely bring between fifty and a hundred grand.
