Crifer, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. "It looks like the garden,"
he admitted to Rikud. "But why should the garden be in the viewport?"
Somehow, Rikud knew this question for a healthy sign. But he could
not tell them of his most amazing thought of all. The change in the
viewport could mean only one thing. The world had been walking--the
word seemed all wrong to Rikud, but he could think of no other, unless
it were running. The world had been walking somewhere. That somewhere
was the garden and the world had arrived.
"It is an old picture of the garden," Chuls suggested, "and the plants
are different."
"Then they've changed?"
"No, merely different."
"Well, what about the viewport? _It_ changed. Where are the stars?
Where are they, Chuls, if it did not change?"
"The stars come out at night."
"So there is a change from day to night!"
"I didn't say that. The stars simply shine at night. Why should they
shine during the day when the world wants them to shine only at night?"
"Once they shone all the time."
"Naturally," said Crifer, becoming interested. "They are variable."
* * * * *
Rikud regretted that he never had had the chance to read that book on
astronomy. He hadn't been reading too much lately. The voice of the
reading machine had begun to bore him. He said, "Well, variable or not,
our whole perspective has changed."
And when Chuls looked away in disinterest, Rikud became angry. If only
the man would realize! If only anyone would realize! It all seemed so
obvious. If he, Rikud, walked from one part of the world to another,
it was with a purpose--to eat, or to sleep, or perhaps to bathe in the
health-rays. Now if the world had walked from--somewhere, through the
vast star-speckled darkness and to the great garden outside, this also
was purposeful. The world had arrived at the garden for a reason. But
if everyone lived as if the world still stood in blackness, how could
they find the nature of that purpose?
"I will eat," Chuls said, breaking Rikud's revery.
Damn the man, all he did was eat!
Yet he did have initiative after a sort. He knew when to eat. Because
he was hungry.
And Rikud, too, was hungry.
Differently.
* * * * *
He had long wondered about the door in the back of the library, and
now, as Crifer sat cross-legged on one of the dusty tables, reading
machine and book on astronomy or stars in his lap, Rikud approached the
door.
"What's in here?" he demanded.
"It's a door, I think," said Crifer.
"I know, but what's beyond it?"
"Beyond it? Oh, you mean _through_ the door."
"Yes."
"Well," Crifer scratched his head, "I don't think anyone ever opened
it. It's only a door."
"I will," said Rikud.
"You will what?"
"Open it. Open the door and look inside."