All the little libraries Out Here are full of rare books--firsteditions of best sellers which people pick up before they leaveSomeplace Else, and which they often donate after they've finished.We assume that these books have entered the public domain by the timethey reach here, and we reproduce them and circulate our own editions.No author has ever sued, and no reproducer has ever been around to_be_ sued by representatives, designates, or assigns.

We are completely autonomous and are always behind the times,because there is a transit-lag which cannot be overcome. EarthCentral, therefore, exercises about as much control over us as a boyjiggling a broken string while looking up at his kite.

Perhaps Yeats had something like this in mind when he wrote thatfine line, "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold." I doubt it,but I still have to go to the library to read the news.

The day melted around me.

The words flowed across the screen in my booth as I readnewspapers and magazines, untouched by human hands, and the watersflowed across Betty's acres, pouring down from the mountains now,washing the floors of the forest, churning our fields topeanut-butter, flooding basements, soaking its way through everything,and tracking our streets with mud.

I hit the library cafeteria for lunch, where I learned from a girlin a green apron and yellow skirts (which swished pleasantly) that thesandbag crews were now hard at work and that there was no eastboundtraffic past Town Square.

After lunch I put on my slicker and boots and walked up that way.

Sure enough, the sandbag wall was already waist high across MainStreet; but then, the water _was_ swirling around at ankle level, andmore of it falling every minute.

I looked up at old Wyeth's statue. His halo had gone away now,which was sort of to be expected. It had made an honest mistake andrealized it after a short time.

He was holding a pair of glasses in his left hand and sort ofglancing down at me, as though a bit apprehensive, wondering perhaps,there inside all that bronze, if I would tell on him now and ruin hishard, wet, greenish splendor. Tell...? I guess I was the only onearound who really remembered the man. He had wanted to be the fatherof this great new country, literally, and he'd tried awfully hard.Three months in office and I'd had to fill out the rest of thetwo-year term. The death certificate gave the cause as "heartstoppage", but it didn't mention the piece of lead which had helpedslow things down a bit. Everybody involved is gone now: the iratehusband, the frightened wife, the coroner. All but me. And I won'ttell anybody if Wyeth's statue won't, because he's a hero now, and weneed heroes' statues Out Here even more than we do heroes. He _did_engineer a nice piece of relief work during the Butler Townshipfloods, and he may as well be remembered for that.

I winked at my old boss, and the rain dripped from his nose andfell into the puddle at my feet.

I walked back to the library through loud sounds and brightflashes, hearing the splashing and the curses of the work crew as themen began to block off another street. Black, overhead, an eyedrifted past. I waved, and the filter snapped up and back down again.I think H.C. John Keams was tending shop that afternoon, but I'm notsure.

Suddenly the heavens opened up and it was like standing under awaterfall.

I reached for a wall and there wasn't one, slipped then, andmanaged to catch myself with my cane before I flopped. I found adoorway and huddled.

Ten minutes of lightning and thunder followed. Then, after theblindness and the deafness passed away and the rains had eased a bit,I saw that the street (Second Avenue) had become a river. Bearing allsorts of garbage, papers, hats, sticks, mud, it sloshed past my niche,gurgling nastily. It looked to be over my boot tops, so I waited forit to subside.

It didn't.

It got right up in there with me and started to play footsie.

So, then seemed as good a time as any. Things certainly weren'tgetting any better.

I tried to run, but with filled boots the best you can manage is afast wade, and my boots were filled after three steps.

That shot the afternoon. How can you concentrate on anything withwet feet? I made it back to the parking lot, then churned my wayhomeward, feeling like a riverboat captain who really wanted to be acamel driver.

It seemed more like evening that afternoon when I pulled up intomy damp but unflooded garage. It seemed more like night than eveningin the alley I cut through on the way to my apartment's back entrance.I hadn't seen the sun for several days, and it's funny how much youcan miss it when it takes a vacation. The sky was a stable dome, andthe high brick walls of the alley were cleaner than I'd ever seenthem, despite the shadows.

I stayed close to the lefthand wall, in order to miss some of therain. As I had driven along the river I'd noticed that it was alreadyreaching after the high water marks on the sides of the piers. TheNoble was a big, spoiled, blood sausage, ready to burst its skin. Alightning flash showed me the whole alley, and I slowed in order toavoid puddles.

I moved ahead, thinking of dry socks and dry martinis, turned acorner to the right, and it struck at me: an org.

Half of its segmented body was reared at a forty-five degree angleabove the pavement, which placed its wide head with the traffic-signaleyes saying "Stop", about three and a half feet off the ground, as itrolled toward me on all its pale little legs, with its mouthful ofdeath aimed at my middle.

I pause now in my narrative for a long digression concerning mychildhood, which, if you will but consider the circumstances, I wasobviously fresh on it an instant:

Born, raised, educated on Earth, I had worked two summers in astockyard while going to college. I still remember the smells and thenoises of the cattle; I used to prod them out of the pens and on theirway up the last mile. And I remember the smells and noises of theuniversity: the formaldehyde in the Bio labs, the sounds of Freshmenslaughtering French verbs, the overpowering aroma of coffee mixed withcigarette smoke in the Student Union, the splash of the newly-pinnedfrat man as his brothers tossed him into the lagoon down in front ofthe Art Museum, the sounds of ignored chapel bells and class bells,the smell of the lawn after the year's first mowing (with big, blackAndy perched on his grass-chewing monster, baseball cap down to hiseyebrows, cigarette somehow not burning his left cheek), and always,always, the _tick-tick-snick-stamp!_ as I moved up or down the strip.I had not wanted to take General Physical Education, but foursemesters of it were required. The only out was to take a class in aspecial sport. I picked fencing because tennis, basketball, boxing,wrestling, handball, judo, all sounded too strenuous, and I couldn'tafford a set of golf clubs. Little did I suspect what would followthis choice. It was as strenuous as any of the others, and more thanseveral. But I liked it. So I tried out for the team in my Sophomoreyear, made it on the epee squad, and picked up three varsity letters,because I stuck with it through my Senior year. Which all goes toshow: Cattle who persevere in looking for an easy out still wind up inthe abattoir, but they may enjoy the trip a little more.

When I came out here on the raw frontier where people all carryweapons, I had my cane made. It combines the best features of theepee and the cattle prod. Only, it is the kind of prod which, if youwere to prod cattle with it, they would never move again.

Over eight hundred volts, max, when the tip touches, if the studin the handle is depressed properly...

My arm shot out and up and my fingers depressed the stud properlyas it moved.