Tom Swift and His Dyna-4 Capsule by Victor Appleton II Page B

philosophy. "Birth. Time plops us down somewhere and leaves us there. Then we’re supposed to grow up. We’re supposed to make friends. We’re supposed to fall in what they call love . And then if you’re lucky time drops something on your plate and tells you to eat."
    "If you mean me, I don’t like the metaphor."
    "It wasn’t designed for you to like." Click. "That’s me all right. Why do I say those things? I don’t know. The blackness comes raining in. You can forgive me, can’t you?"
    "That’s a lot to expect from a ‘boy,’ Reb."
    "Maybe we’re all boys. Just little boys."
    Second Street curved and led them out of town. The few blocks of the imitation business district ended with unnatural abruptness, and suddenly they were on a residential lane with sleepy overarching trees, tall and alive. "I didn’t know trees could grow under artificial light," Bud remarked.
    "I don’t know anything about that," Reb replied. "Gar said something about gardeners and maintenance people coming in now and then."
    "How often?"
    "I guess not often enough for us ." Then she smiled mockingly. "You will have sprung us out by then anyway, out into the light of the real sun. Or the moon. I like the moon."
    "I’ve been there."
    "I tried to see you. You’re too small."
    The houses formed neat facing rows. 1953 was a little late for the picket fences and porch swings of old movies. There were neat rectangular lawns, pop-up sprinklers that now and then came on by themselves, walls of stucco, TV antennas—and in some houses the sound of warm televisions endlessly playing the sort of shows a kid would watch staying home from school, belly-down on a throw-rug. They entered a few houses—for in 1953 many doors were not yet habitually locked—and found quaint households complete but for anyone living in them, beds neatly made and empty. They lacked the heap of living that made a house a home. Which left them sad and sterile. But with shag carpet and window-mount air conditioners.
    All along, Bud was most interested in the cars. It seemed they all had engines and were mechanically complete and anatomically correct—real cars of the era, carefully restored. "But out of gas," he stated in frustration. "They’re not going any place. Don’t need a full tank where time stands still."
    After a single block, a narrow ring surrounding downtown, the houses abandoned any attempt at reality. Further along they were only facades, as on a movie set, with nothing inside—indeed, no insides at all, just three walls and an open back. Props for effect, Bud decided. Like the hair clippings.
    And beyond there was even less than that. The "houses" were only painted models planted in the ground. To create the illusion of distance when viewed from the center of town, the houses had been made smaller. They became the size of small sheds; then just rows of cheap dollhouses and toy cars, with lawns of green felt.
    "It’s creepy-wonderful," observed Reb.
    "I get the creepy part."
    "Oh, but it’s all imitation, artificial— that’s the wonderful . I feel very relaxed here. It’s Reality—so-called, Beeb—that gets under your skin. But this —this is all a big toy. I think I belong here. I love things that don’t pretend to be more than they are. This is all just fakery, real honest fakery, and I know it, and it knows I know it. It’s nice to have something to trust." For once Bud said nothing.
    The two humans trudged on. Finally their own washed-out shadows rose up in front of them, and they came to the wall of the round valley, a village covered by a lid like a tureen that was supposed to be Friendly.
    Bud ran his hands along it and rose on tiptoe. "Concrete or something like it," he told his companion. It was covered with painted detail and on its lower parts, the parts within reach, an appliquéd imitation of rough bare ground and a far horizon—and a highway. "They obviously want to keep the doors hidden. We’ll work our way along it all the