. Presently he knocked again. The door
creaked, swung partially open. He frowned. Had she forgotten to latch
it? he wondered. Or had she deliberately left it unlatched so that
Zarathustra could get in? Zarathustra himself lent plausibility to the
latter conjecture by rising up on his hind legs and pushing the door the
rest of the way open with his forepaws, after which he trotted into the
hall and disappeared.

Philip pounded on the panels. "Miss Darrow!" he called. "Judith!"

No answer. He called again. Still no answer.

A summer breeze came traipsing out of the house and engulfed him in the
scent of roses. What kind of roses? he wondered. Green ones?

He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him. He made his way
into the living room. The two chairs were gone, and so was the coffee
table. He walked through the living room and into the library; through
the library and into the dining room. The gasoline lantern burned
brightly on the dining-room table, its harsh white light bathing bare
floors and naked walls.

The breeze was stronger here, the scent of roses almost cloying. He saw
then that the double door that had thwarted him that morning was open,
and he moved toward it across the room. As he had suspected, it gave
access to the kitchen. Pausing on the threshold, he peered inside. It
was an ordinary enough kitchen. Some of the appliances were gone, but
the stove and the refrigerator were still there. The back doorway had an
odd bluish cast that caused the framework to shimmer. The door itself
was open, and he could see starlight lying softly on fields and trees.

Wonderingly he walked across the room and stepped outside. There was a
faint sputtering sound, as though live wires had been crossed, and for a
fleeting second the scene before him seemed to waver. Then, abruptly, it
grew still.

He grew still, too--immobile in the strange, yet peaceful, summer night.
He was standing on a grassy plain, and the plain spread out on either
hand to promontories of little trees. Before him, the land sloped gently
upward, and was covered with multicolored flowers that twinkled like
microcosmic stars. In the distance, the lights of a village showed. To
his right, a riotous green-rose bush bloomed, and beneath it Zarathustra
sat, wagging his tail.

Philip took two steps forward, stopped and looked up at the sky. It was
wrong somehow. For one thing, Cassiopeia had changed position, and for
another, Orion was awry.