Instead of a
flower-pied plain, he saw a series of unkempt back yards. Beside him on
an unpainted trellis, Virginia creeper rattled in an October wind.

Zarathustra came out behind him, descended the back-porch steps and ran
around the side of the house. Looking for the green-rose bush probably.

"Ruf!"

Zarathustra had returned and was looking up at him from the bottom step.
On the top step he had placed an offering.

The offering was a green rose.

Philip bent down and picked it up. It was fresh, and its fragrance
epitomized the very essence of Sirius XXI. "Zarathustra," he gasped,
"where did you get it?"

"Ruf!" said Zarathustra, and ran around the side of the house.

Philip followed, rounded the corner just in time to see the white-tipped
tail disappear into the ancient dog house. Disappointment numbed him.
That was where the rose had been then--stored away for safe-keeping like
an old and worthless bone.

But the rose was fresh, he reminded himself.

Did dog houses have back doorways?

This one did, he saw, kneeling down and peering inside. A lovely back
doorway, rimmed with shimmering blue. It framed a familiar vista, in the
foreground of which a familiar green-rosebush stood. Beneath the
rosebush Zarathustra sat, wagging his tail.

It was a tight squeeze, but Philip made it. He even managed to get his
suitcase through. And just in time too, for hardly had he done so when
the doorway began to flicker. Now it was on its way out, and as he
watched, it faded into transparency and disappeared.

He crawled from beneath the rosebush and stood up. The day was bright
and warm, and the position of the sun indicated early morning or late
afternoon. No, not sun--suns. One of them was a brilliant blue-white
orb, the other a twinkling point of light.

He set off across the plain in Zarathustra's wake. He had a speech
already prepared, and when Judith met him at the gate with wide and
wondering eyes, he delivered it without preamble. "Judith," he said, "I
am contemptuous of the notion that some things are meant to be and
others aren't, and I firmly believe in my own free will; but when your
dog stows away in the back seat of my car two times running and makes
it impossible for me not to see you again, then there must be something
afoot which neither you nor I can do a thing about. Whatever it is, I
have given in to it and have transferred your real estate to an agent
more trustworthy than myself. I know you have