A FALL OF GLASS
By STANLEY R. LEE
Illustrated by DILLON
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine October 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The weatherman was always right:
Temperature, 59; humidity, 47%;
occasional light showers—but of what?
The pockets of Mr. Humphrey Fownes were being picked outrageously.
It was a splendid day. The temperature was a crisp 59 degrees, thehumidity a mildly dessicated 47%. The sun was a flaming orange ball ina cloudless blue sky.
His pockets were picked eleven times.
It should have been difficult. Under the circumstances it was amasterpiece of pocket picking. What made it possible was HumphreyFownes' abstraction; he was an uncommonly preoccupied individual. Hewas strolling along a quiet residential avenue: small private houses,one after another, a place of little traffic and minimum distractions.But he was thinking about weather, which was an unusual subject tobegin with for a person living in a domed city. He was thinking sodeeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too manypeople were bumping into him. He was thinking about Optimum DomeConditions (a crisp 59 degrees, a mildly dessicated 47%) when a boguspostman, who pretended to be reading a postal card, jostled him. In theconfusion of spilled letters and apologies from both sides, the postmanrifled Fownes's handkerchief and inside jacket pockets.
He was still thinking about temperature and humidity when a pretty girlhappened along with something in her eye. They collided. She got hisright and left jacket pockets. It was much too much for coincidence.The sidewalk was wide enough to allow four people to pass at one time.He should surely have become suspicious when two men engaged in aheated argument came along. In the ensuing contretemps they emptied hisrear pants pockets, got his wristwatch and restored the contents of thehandkerchief pocket. It all went off very smoothly, like a game of putand take—the sole difference being that Humphrey Fownes had no idea hewas playing.
There was an occasional tinkle of falling glass.
It fell on the streets and houses, making small geysers of shiny mist,hitting with a gentle musical sound, like the ephemeral droppings ofa celesta. It was precipitation peculiar to a dome: feather-lightfragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Domeweevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed thehuge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing.
Humphrey Fownes strode through the puffs of falling glass stillintrigued by a temperature that was always 59 degrees, by a humiditythat was always 47%, by weather that was always Optimum. It was thisrather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tightsurveillance on him, a surveillance that went to the extent of gettinghis fingerprints off the postman's bag, and which photographed, X-rayedand chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returningthem. Two blocks away from his home a careless housewife spilled afive-pound bag of flour as he was passing. It was really plaster ofParis. He left his shoe prints, stride measurement, height, weight andhandedness behind.
By the time Fownes reached his front door an entire dossier completewith photographs had been prepared and was being read