“So you finally got to Mars, you Moral Climate people?
I wondered when you’d appear.”
“We arrived last week.
We’ll soon have things as neat and tidy as Earth.”
The man waved an identification card irritably toward the House.
“Suppose you tell me about that place, Stendahl?”
“It’s a haunted castle, if you like.”
“I don’t like. Stendahl, I don’t like.
The sound of that word «haunted.»”
“Simple enough.
In this year of our Lord 2005 I have built a mechanical sanctuary.
In it copper bats fly on electronic beams, brass rats scuttle in plastic cellars, robot skeletons dance; robot vampires, harlequins, wolves, and white phantoms, compounded of chemical and ingenuity, live here.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Garrett, smiling quietly.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to tear your place down.”
“I knew you’d come out as soon as you discovered what went on.”
“I’d have come sooner, but we at Moral Climates wanted to be sure of your intentions before we moved in.
We can have the Dismantlers and Burning Crew here by supper.
By midnight your place will be razed to the cellar.
Mr. Stendahl, I consider you somewhat of a fool, sir.
Spending hard-earned money on a folly.
Why, it must have cost you three million dollars — ”
“Four million!
But, Mr. Garrett, I inherited twenty-five million when very young.
I can afford to throw it about.
Seems a dreadful shame, though, to have the House finished only an hour and have you race out with your Dismantlers.
Couldn’t you possibly let me play with my Toy for just, well, twenty-four hours?”
“You know the law. Strict to the letter. No books, no houses, nothing to be produced which in any way suggests ghosts, vampires, fairies, or any creature of the imagination.”
“You’ll be burning Babbitts next!”
“You’ve caused us a lot of trouble, Mr. Stendahl.
It’s in the record.
Twenty years ago.
On Earth.
You and your library.”
“Yes, me and my library.
And a few others like me.
Oh, Poe’s been forgotten for many years now, and Oz and the other creatures.
But I had my little cache.
We had our libraries, a few private citizens, until you sent your men around with torches and incinerators and tore my fifty thousand books up and burned them.
Just as you put a stake through the heart of Halloween and told your film producers that if they made anything at all they would have to make and remake Earnest Hemingway.
My God, how many times have I seen For Whom the Bell Tolls done!
Thirty different versions.
All realistic.
Oh, realism!
Oh, here, oh, now, oh hell!”
“It doesn’t pay to be bitter!”
“Mr. Garrett, you must turn in a full report, mustn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then, for curiosity’s sake, you’d better come in and look around.
It’ll take only a minute.”
“All right.