Clifford D. Simak

He must have packed it by mistake, he thought, although be could not, for the life of him, remember packing it. But there it was and perhaps no harm was done. It might even be used at some future time to help substantiate his claim he had been on the planet. Although, he realized, it was not good evidence. It was just a gadget that had an ordinary look about it, although it might not, he reminded himself, seem so ordinary if someone poked around in the mechanism of it.

A light tapping came from somewhere and Maxwell, surprised by so small a noise, stiffened and held himself rigid, listening. Perhaps a windblown branch, he thought, tapping on the roof, although it had a slightly different sound than a branch against the roof.

The tapping stopped and then began again, this time not a steady rapping, but rather like a code. Three quick taps and then a pause, followed by two rapid taps and then another pause, with the pattern of the tapping repeated once again.

It was someone at the door.

Maxwell got up from the bed and stood undecided. It might be newsmen who had finally tracked him down, or thought they’d tracked him down, and if that should be the case, it might be best to leave the door unanswered. But the tapping at the door, it seemed to him, was not boisterous enough, not demanding enough, for a newsman, or several newsmen, who had finally run him to his lair. The taps were soft, almost tentative, the kind of tapping that might be done by someone who did not want to advertise their presence, or who, for one reason or another, was not quite sure of purpose. And if it were newsmen, Maxwell realized, it would do no good not to let them in, for in a little while they’d try the door and find it open and then come bursting in.

The tapping, which had stopped for a moment, took up again. Maxwell trudged to the door and threw it open. Outside stood the Shrimp, a ghostly, gleaming white in the wash of sunlight. Beneath one of his limbs, which now served as an arm rather than a leg, he clutched a paper-wrapped bundle tight against his body.

“For the love of God, come in,” said Maxwell sharply, “before someone sees you here.”

The Shrimp came in and Maxwell closed the door, wondering what it was that had caused him to urge it in.

“You need no apprehension,” said the Shrimp, “about news harvesters. I was careful and I noticed. No one followed me. I’m such a foolish-looking creature no one ever follows me. No one ever accords to me any purpose whatsoever.”

“That is a fortunate thing to have,” said Maxwell. “I think that it is called protective coloration.”

“I appear again,” said Shrimp, “on behalf of Miss Nancy Clayton. She knows you carried little on your trip, have had no chance to shop or have laundry done. No wish to embarrass-charging me to say this with goodly emphasis-but wish to send you clothes to wear.”

He took the bundle from underneath his arm and handed it to Maxwell.

“That is nice of Nancy.”

“She is thoughtful person. She commissioned me to say further.”

“Go ahead,” said Maxwell.

“There will be wheeled vehicle to take you to the house.”

“There is no need of that,” said Maxwell. “The roadway runs right past her place.”

“Once again apology,” said the Shrimp, with firmness, “but she thinks it best. There is much hithering and thithering, by many types of creatures, to learn your whereabouts.”

“Can you tell me,” asked Maxwell, “how Miss Clayton knows my whereabouts?”

Said the Shrimp, “I truly do not know.”

“All right, then. You’ll thank Miss Clayton for me?”

“With gladness,” said the Shrimp.

“I’ll take you around to the back,” the driver said. “There is a swarm of newsmen hanging around out front. They’ll be gone later on, but now they’re there in droves. Miss Clayton suggested you might not want to meet them.”

“Thank you,” Maxwell said. “It is thoughtful of you.” Nancy, he told himself, had taken over, as was her usual practice, viewing it as her prerogative to order people’s lives.

Her house stood on the low bluff that hemmed in the western edge of the lake. Off to the left the water gleamed softly in the early moonlight. The front of the house was ablaze with light, but the back was dark.

The car turned off the highway and climbed slowly along a narrow driveway lined by massive oaks. A startled bird flew, squawking, across the roadway, a flurry of desperately beating wings caught for a moment in the headlights. A pair of dogs came raging down the hollow tunnel of the drive, split and swung on either side of the car.

The driver chuckled. “If you were walking, they’d eat you alive.”

“But why?” asked Maxwell. “Why, all at once, must Nancy be guarded by a dog pack?”

“Not Miss Clayton,” the driver said. “It is someone else.”

The question came to Maxwell’s tongue, but he choked it back.

The driver swung the car into a curved driveway that ran beneath an open portico, and pulled up to a halt.

“In the back door,” the driver said. “You don’t need to knock. Then straight down the hall past the curved staircase. The party’s up in front.”