Our Children's Children by Clifford D. Simak

yourself?”
    â€œI’ll hang on for a while. Take my car. I’ll call a cab and pick it up at your place.”
    He reached into his pocket, pulled out the keys and tossed them to her.
    â€œWhen you get there,” Judy said, “come up for a drink. I’ll be up and waiting.”
    â€œIt may be late.”
    â€œIf it’s too late, why bother going home? You left your toothbrush last time.”
    â€œPajamas,” he said.
    â€œWhen did you ever need pajamas?”
    He grinned at her lazily. “OK,” he said. “Toothbrush, no pajamas.”
    â€œMaybe,” said Judy, “it’ll make up for this afternoon.”
    â€œWhat this afternoon?”
    â€œI told you, remember. What I planned to do.”
    â€œOh, that.”
    â€œYes, oh, that. I’ve never done it that way.”
    â€œYou’re a shameless child. Now, run along.”
    â€œThe kitchen will be sending coffee and sandwiches to the press lounge. Ask them nice and they’ll throw a crust to you.”
    He sat and watched her go. She walked surely, but with a daintiness that always intrigued and puzzled him, as if she were a sprite who was consciously trying to make an earth creature of herself.
    He shuffled the loose papers on the desk into a pile and stacked them to one side.
    He sat quietly once that was done and listened to the strange mutterings of the place. Somewhere, far off, a phone rang. There was the distant sound of someone walking. Out in the lounge someone was typing and against the wall the wire machines went on with their clacking.
    It was all insane, he told himself. The entire business was stark, staring crazy. No one in their right mind would believe a word of it. Time tunnels and aliens out of space were the sort of junk the high school crowd watched on television. Could it all, he wondered, be a matter of delusion, of mass hysteria? When the sun rose tomorrow, would it all be gone and the world back on the old familiar footing?
    He shoved back the chair and got up. Judy’s deserted console had a couple of lights flashing and he let them flicker. He went into the corridor and down it to the outer door. Out in the garden the heat of the summer day was cooling off, and long shadows thrown by the trees stretched across the lawn. The flower beds lay in all their glory—roses, heliotrope, geraniums, nicotiana, columbines and daisies. He stood, looking across the park to where the Washington Monument reared its classic whiteness.
    Behind him he heard a footstep and swung around. A woman stood just a little distance off, dressed in a white robe that came down to her sandaled feet.
    â€œMiss Gale,” he said, a little startled. “What a pleasant surprise.”
    â€œI hope,” she said, “I have done nothing wrong. No one stopped me. Is it all right to be here?”
    â€œCertainly. As a guest.…”
    â€œI had to see the garden. I had read so much of it.”
    â€œYou have never been here, then?”
    She hesitated. “Yes, I have. But it was not the same. It was nothing like this.”
    â€œWell,” he said, “I suppose that things do change.”
    â€œYes,” she said, “they do.”
    â€œIs there something wrong?”
    â€œNo, I guess not.” She hesitated again. “I see you don’t understand. I can’t imagine there is any reason why I shouldn’t tell you.”
    â€œTell me what? Something about this place?”
    â€œIt’s this,” she said. “Up in my time, up five hundred years ahead, there isn’t any garden. There isn’t any White House.”
    He stared at her.
    â€œSee,” she said, “you don’t believe it. You won’t believe me. We have no nations there—we just have one big nation, although that’s not exactly right. There aren’t any nations and there isn’t any White House. A few ragged, broken walls is all, a piece of rusted