Clifford D. Simak - City.pdf

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City
Clifford D. Simak
EDITOR'S PREFACE
These are the stories that the Dogs tell when the fires burn high and the wind is from the north. Then
each family circle gathers at the hearthstone and the pups sit silently and listen and when the story's done
they ask many questions:
"What is Man?" they'll ask.
Or perhaps: "What is a city?"
Or "What is a war?"
There is no positive answer to any of these questions. There are suppositions and there are theories
and there are many educated guesses, but there are no answers.
In the family circle, many a storyteller has been forced to fall back on the ancient explanation that it is
nothing but a story, there is no such thing as a Man or city, that one does not search for truth in a simple
tale, but takes it for its pleasure and lets it go at that.
Explanations such as these, while they may do to answer pups, are no explanations. One does search
for truth in such simple tales as these.
The legend, consisting of eight tales, has been told for countless centuries. So far as can be
determined, it has no historic starting point; the most minute study of it fails entirely to illustrate the stages
of its development. There is no doubt that through many years of telling it has become stylized, but there
is no way to trace the direction of its stylization.
That it is ancient and, as some writers claim, that it may be of non-Doggish origin in part, is borne out
by the abundance of jabberwocky which studs the tales-words and phrases, (and worst of all, ideas)
which have no meaning now and may have never had a meaning. Through telling and retelling, these
words and phrases have become accepted, have been assigned, through context, a certain arbitrary
value. But there is no way of knowing whether or not these arbitrary values even approximate the original
meaning of the words.
This edition of the tales will not attempt to enter into the many technical arguments concerning the
existence or nonexistence of Man, of the puzzle of the city, of the several theories relating to war, or of
the many other questions which arise to plague the student who would seek in the legend some evidence
of its having roots in some basic or historic truth.
The purpose of this edition is only to give the full, unexpurgated text of the tales as they finally stand.
Chapter notes are utilized to point out the major points of speculation, but with no attempt at all to
achieve conclusions. For those who wish some further understanding of the tales or of the many points of
consideration which have arisen over them there are ample texts, written by Dogs of far greater
competence than the present editor.
Recent discovery of fragments of what originally must have been an extensive body of literature has
been advanced as the latest argument which would attribute at least part of the legend to mythological
 
(and controversial) Man rather than to the Dogs. But until it can be proved that Man did, in fact, exist,
argument that the discovered fragments originated with Man can have but little point.
Particularly significant or disturbing, depending upon the viewpoint that one takes, is the fact that the
apparent title of the literary fragment is the same as the title of one of the tales in the legend here
presented. The word itself, of course, is entirely meaningless.
The first question, of course, is whether there ever was such a creature as Man. At the moment, in
the absence of positive evidence, the sober consensus must be that there was not, that Man, as presented
in the legend, is a figment of folklore invention. Man may have risen in the early days of Doggish culture
as an imaginary being, a sort of racial god, on which the Dogs might call for help, to which they might
retire for comfort.
Despite these sober conclusions, however, there are those who see in Man an actual elder god, a
visitor from some mystic land or dimensions, who came and stayed awhile and helped and then passed
on to the place from which he came.
There still are others who believe that Man and Dog may have risen together as two co-operating
animals, may have been complementary in the development of a culture, but that at some distant point in
time they reached the parting of the ways.
Of all the disturbing factors in the tales (and they are many) the most disturbing is the suggestion of
reverence which is accorded Man. It is hard for the average reader to accept this reverence as mere
story-telling. It goes far beyond the perfunctory worship of a tribal god; one almost instinctively feels that
it must be deep-rooted in some now forgotten belief or rite involving the pre-history of our race.
There is little hope now, of course, that any of the many areas of controversy which revolve about the
legend ever will be settled.
Here, then, are the tales, to be read as you see fit-for pleasure only, for some sign of historical
significance, for some hint of hidden meaning. Our best advice to the average reader: Don't take them too
much to heart, for complete confusion, if not madness, lurks along the road.
NOTES ON THE FIRST TALE
There is no doubt that, of all the tales, the first is the most difficult for the casual reader. Not
only is its nomenclature trying, but its logic and its ideas seem, at first reading, to be entirely
alien. This may be because in this story and the next a Dog plays no part, is not even mentioned.
From the opening paragraph in this first tale the reader is pitchforked into an utterly strange
situation, with equally strange characters to act out its solution. This much may be said for the
tale, however-by the time one has laboured his way through it the rest of the tales, by comparison,
seem almost homey.
Overriding the entire tale is the concept of the city. While there is no complete understanding
of what a city might be, or why it should be, it is generally agreed that it must have been a small
area accommodating and supporting a large number of residents. Some of the reasons for its
existence are superficially explained in text, but Bounce, who has devoted a lifetime to the study
of the tales, is convinced that the explanation is no more than the clever improvisations of an
ancient storyteller to support an impossible concept. Most students of the tales agree with Bounce
that the reasons as given in the tale do not square with logic and some, Rover among them, have
suspected that here we may have an ancient satire, of which the significance has been lost.
Most authorities in economics and sociology regard such an organization as a city an
impossible structure, not only from the economic standpoint, but from the sociological and
psychological as well. No creature of the highly nervous structure necessary to develop a culture,
they point out, would be able to survive within such restricted limits. The result, if it were tried,
these authorities say, would lead to mass neuroticism which in a short period of time would
destroy the very culture which had built the city.
 
Rover believes that in the first tale we are dealing with almost pure myth and that as a result
no situation or statement can be accepted at face value, that the entire tale must be filled with a
symbolism to which the key has long been lost. Puzzling, however, is the fact that if it is a
myth-concept, and nothing more, that the form by now should not have rounded itself into the
symbolic concepts which are the hallmark of the myth. In the tale there is for the average reader
little that can be tagged as myth-content. The tale itself is perhaps the most angular of the
lot-raw-boned and slung together, with none of the touches of finer sentiment and lofty ideals
which are found in the rest of the legend.
The language of the tale is particularly baffling. Phrases such as the classic "dadburn the kid"
have puzzled semanticists for many centuries and there is today no closer approach to what many
of the words and phrases mean than there was when students first came to pay some serious
attention to the legend.
The terminology for Man has been fairly well worked out, however. The plural for this
mythical race is men, the racial designation is human, the females are women or wives (two terms
which may at one time have had a finer shade of meaning, but which now must be regarded as
synonymous), the pups are children. A male pup is a boy. A female pup a girl.
Aside from the concept of the city, another concept which the reader will find entirely at odds
with his way of life and which may violate his very thinking, is the idea of war and of killing.
Killing is a process, usually involving violence, by which one living thing ends the life of another
living thing. War, it would appear, was mass killing carried out on a scale which is inconceivable.
Rover, in his study of the legend, is convinced that the tales are much more primitive than is
generally supposed, since it is his contention that such concepts as war and killing could never
come out of our present culture, that they must stem from some era of savagery of which there
exists no record.
Tige, who is almost alone in his belief that the tales are based on actual history and that the
race of Man did exist in the primordial days of the Dogs' beginning, contends that this first tale is
the story of the actual breakdown of Man's culture. He believes that the tale as we know it to-day
may be a mere shadow of some greater tale, a gigantic epic which at one time may have
measured fully as large or larger than to-day's entire body of the legend. It does not seem possible,
he writes, that so great an event as the collapse of a mighty mechanical civilization could have
been condensed by the tale's contemporaries into so small a compass as the present tale. What we
have here, says Tige, is only one of many tales which told the entire story and that the one which
does remain to us may be no more than a minor one.
I
CITY
Gramp Stevens sat in a lawn chair, watching the mower at work, feeling the warm, soft sunshine seep
into his bones. The mower reached the edge of the lawn, clucked to itself like a contented hen, made a
neat turn and trundled down another swath. The bag holding the clippings bulged.
Suddenly the mower stopped and clicked excitedly. A panel in its side snapped open and a cranelike
arm reached out, Grasping steel fingers fished around in the grass, came up triumphantly with a stone
clutched tightly, dropped the stone into a small container, disappeared back into the panel again. The
lawn mower gurgled, purred on again, following its swath.
Gramp grumbled at it with suspicion.
"Some day," he told himself, "that dadburned thing is going to miss a lick and have a nervous
breakdown."
He lay back in the chair and stared up at the sun-washed sky. A helicopter skimmed far overhead.
From somewhere inside the house a radio came to life and a torturing crash of music poured out. Gramp,
 
hearing it, shivered and bunkered lower in the chair.
Young Charlie was settling down for a twitch session. Dadburn the kid.
The lawn mower chuckled past and Gramp squinted at it maliciously.
"Automatic," he told the sky. "Ever' blasted thing is automatic now. Getting so you just take a
machine off in a corner and whisper in its ear and it scurries off to do the job."
His daughter's voice came to him out of the window, pitched to carry above the music.
"Father!"
Gramp stirred uneasily. "Yes, Betty."
"Now, Father, you see you move when that lawn mower gets to you. Don't try to out-stubborn it.
After all, it's only a machine. Last time you just sat there and made it cut around you. I never saw the
beat of you."
He didn't answer, letting his head nod a bit, hoping she would think he was asleep and let him be.
"Father," she shrilled, "did you hear me?"
He saw it was no good. "Sure, I heard you," he told her. "I was just flexing to move."
He rose slowly to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane.
Might make her feel sorry for the way she treated him when she saw how old and feeble he was
getting. He'd have to be careful, though. If she knew he didn't need the cane at all, she'd be finding jobs
for him to do and, on the other hand, if he laid it on too thick, she'd be having that fool doctor in to pester
him again.
Grumbling, be moved the chair out into that portion of the lawn that had been cut. The mower, rolling
past, chortled at him fiendishly.
"Some day," Gramp told it, "I'm going to take a swipe at you and bust a gear or two."
The mower hooted at him and went serenely down the lawn. From somewhere down the grassy
street came a jangling of metal, a stuttered coughing.
Gramp, ready to sit down, straightened up and listened.
The sound came more clearly, the rumbling backfire of a balky engine, the clatter of loose metallic
parts.
"An automobile!" yelped Gramp. "An automobile, by cracky!"
He started to gallop for the gate, suddenly remembered tha the was feeble and subsided into a rapid
hobble.
"Must be that crazy Ole Johnson," he told himself. "He's the only one left that's got a car. Just too
dadburned stubborn to give it up."
It was Ole.
Gramp reached the gate in time to see the rusty, dilapidated old machine come bumping around the
corner, rocking and chugging along the unused street. Steam hissed from the over-heated radiator and a
cloud of blue smoke issued from the exhaust, which had lost its muffler five years or more ago.
Ole sat stolidly behind the wheel, squinting his eyes, trying to duck the roughest places, although that
was hard to do, for weeds and grass had overrun the streets and it was hard to see what might be
underneath them.
Gramp waved his cane.
"Hi, Ole," he shouted.
Ole pulled up, setting the emergency brake. The car gasped, shuddered, coughed, died with a
horrible sigh.
"What you burning?" asked Gramp.
"Little bit of everything," said Ole. "Kerosene, some old tractor oil I found out in a barrel, some
rubbing alcohol."
Gramp regarded the fugitive machine with forthright admiration. "Them was the days," he said. "Had
one myself used to be able to do a hundred miles an hour."
"Still O.K.," said Ole, "if you only could find the stuff to run them or get the parts to fix them. Up to
three, four years ago I used to be able to get enough gasoline, but ain't seen none for a long time now.
Quit making it, I guess. No use having gasoline, they tell me, when you have atomic power."
 
"Sure," said Champ. "Guess maybe that's right, but you can't smell atomic power. Sweetest thing I
know, the smell of burning gasoline. These here helicopters and other gadgets they got took all the
romance out of travelling, somehow."
He squinted at the barrels and baskets piled in the back seat.
"Got some vegetables?" he asked.
"Yup," said Ole. "Some sweet corn and early potatoes and a few baskets of tomatoes. Thought
maybe I could sell them."
Champ shook his head. "You won't, Ole. They won't buy them. Folks has got the notion that this
new hydroponics stuff is the only garden sass that's fit to eat. Sanitary, they say, and better flavoured."
"Wouldn't give a hoot in a tin cup for all they grow in them tanks they got," Ole declared,
belligerently. "Don't taste right to me, somehow. Like I tell Martha, food's got to be raised in the soil to
have any character."
He reached down to turn over the ignition switch.
"Don't know as it's worth trying to get the stuff to town," he said, "the way they keep the roads. Or
the way they don't keep them, rather. Twenty years ago the state highway out there was a strip of good
concrete and they kept it patched and ploughed it every winter. Did anything, spent any amount of money
to keep it open. And now they just forgot about it. The concrete's all broken up and some of it has
washed out. Brambles are growing in it. Had to get out and cut away a tree that fell across it one place
this morning."
"Ain't it the truth," agreed Champ.
The car exploded into life, coughing and choking. A cloud of dense blue smoke rolled out from under
it. With a jerk it stirred to life and lumbered down the street.
Gramp clumped back to his chair and found it dripping wet. The automatic mower, having finished its
cutting job, had rolled out the hose, was sprinkling the lawn.
Muttering venom, Gramp stalked around the corner of the house and sat down on the bench beside
the back porch. He didn't like to sit there, but it was the only place he was safe from the hunk of
machinery out in front.
For one thing, the view from the bench was slightly depressing, fronting as it did on street after street
of vacant, deserted houses and weed-grown, unkempt yards.
It had one advantage, however. From the bench he could pretend be was slightly deaf and not hear
the twitch music the radio was blaring out.
A voice called from the front yard.
"Bill! Bill, where be you?"
Gramp twisted around.
"Here I am, Mark. Back of the house. Hiding from that dadburned mower."
Mark Bailey limped around the corner of the house, cigarette threatening to set fire to his bushy
whiskers.
"Bit early for the game, ain't you?" asked Grump.
"Can't play no game to-day," said Mark.
He hobbled over and sat down beside Grump on the bench.
"We're leaving," he said.
Cramp whirled on him. "You're leaving!"
"Yeah. Moving out into the country. Lucinda finally talked Herb into it. Never gave him a minute's
peace, I guess. Said everyone was moving away to one of them nice country estates and she didn't see
no reason why we couldn't."
Cramp gulped. "Where to?"
"Don't rightly know," said Mark. "Ain't been there myself. To north some place. Up on one of the
lakes. Got ten acres of land. Lucinda wanted a hundred, but Herb put down his foot and said ten was
enough. After all, one city lot was enough for all these years."
"Betty was pestering Johnny, too," said Gramp, "but he's holding out against her. Says he simply can't
 

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