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owe him."
The wagon wheels began to turn and the man flapped the reins again.
"Make yourself at home," he said. "We're glad to have you stay."
"Thank you, sir," said Richard Daniel. "I'm pleased you want me."
He stood aside and watched the wagons lumber past, their wheels lifting
and dropping thin films of powdered earth that floated in the air as an
acrid dust.
Make yourself at home, the man had said before he'd driven off. And the
words had a full round ring to them and a feel of warmth. It had been a long
time, Richard Daniel thought, since he'd had a home.
A chance for resting and for knowing - that was what he needed. And a
chance to serve, for now he knew that was the purpose in him. That was,
perhaps, the real reason he was staying - because these people needed him...
and he needed, queer as it might seem, this very need of theirs. Here on
this Earth-like planet, through the generations, a new Earth would arise.
And perhaps, given only time, he could transfer to the people of the planet
all the powers and understanding he would find inside himself.
And stood astounded at the thought, for he'd not believed that he had
it in him, this willing, almost eager, sacrifice. No messiah now, no robotic
liberator, but a simple teacher of the human race.
Perhaps that had been the reason for it all from the first beginning.
Perhaps all that had happened had been no more than the working out of human
destiny. If the human race could not attain directly the paranormal power he
held, this instinct of the mind, then they would gain it indirectly through
the agency of one of their creations. Perhaps this, after all, unknown to
Man himself, had been the prime purpose of the robots.
He turned and walked slowly down the length of village street, his back
turned to the ship and the roaring of the captain, walked contentedly into
this new world he'd found, into this world that he would make - not for
himself, nor for robotic glory, but for a better Mankind and a happier.
Less than an hour before he'd congratulated himself on escaping all the
traps of Earth, all the snares of Man. Not knowing that the greatest trap of
all, the final and the fatal trap, lay on this present planet.
But that was wrong, he told himself. The trap had not been on this
world at all, nor any other world. It had been inside himself.
He walked serenely down the wagon-rutted track in the soft, golden
afternoon of a matchless autumn day, with the dog trotting at his heels.
Somewhere, just down the street, the sick baby lay crying in its crib.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last-modified: Tue, 24-Aug-99 03:22:07 GMT
Title : So Bright the Vision
Author : Clifford D. Simak
Original copyright year: 1956
Genre : science fiction
Comments : to my knowledge, this is the only available e-text of this book
Source : scanned and OCR-read from a paperback edition with Xerox TextBridge Pro 9.0, proofread in MS Word
2000.
Date of e-text : February 15, 2000
Prepared by : Anada Sucka
Anticopyright 2000. All rights reversed.
======================================================================
So Bright the Vision
Clifford D. Simak
The showroom was in the decorous part of town, where Kemp Hart seldom found himself. It was a long way from his
usual haunts and he was surprised to find that he had walked so far. In fact, he would not have walked at all if his
credit had been good at the Bright Star bar where his crowd hung out.
As soon as he realized where he was he knew he should turn around and walk rapidly away, for he was out of place
in this district of swank publishers, gold-plated warrens and famous eateries. But the showroom held him. It would not
let him go. He stood in front of it in all his down-at-the-heels unkemptness, one hand thrust in a pocket, fugitively
rubbing between thumb and finger the two small coins that still remained to him.
Behind the glass the machines were shining-wonderful, the sort of merchandise that belonged on this svelte and
perfumed street. One machine in the corner of the showroom was bigger and shinier than the others and had about it a
rare glint of competence. It had a massive keyboard for the feeding in of data and it had a hundred slots or so for the
working tapes and films. It had a mood control calibrated more sensitively than any he had ever seen and in all
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