The Ghost of a Model T and Other Stories by Clifford D. Simak Read Free Book Online Page B

took a pinch and put it in her mouth.
    He watched her closely, smiling. She looked for all the world as if she had taken poison. But soon she settled back in her chair, apparently convinced it was not some lethal trick.
    â€œI don’t believe,” she said, “I’ve ever tasted anything quite like it.”
    â€œYou never have. Other than myself, you may well be the only human that has ever tasted it. I get it from a friend of mine who lives on one of the far-out stars. His name is PugAlNash and he sends it regularly. And he always includes a note.”
    He looked in the drawer and found the latest note.
    â€œListen to this,” he said.
    He read it:
    Der Fiend: Grately injoid latter smoke you cent me. Ples mor of sam agin. You du knot no that I profetick and wach ahed for you. Butt it be so and I grately hapy to perform this taske for fiend. I assur you it be onely four the beste. You prophet grately, maybee.
    Your luving fiend,
    PugAlNash
    He finished reading it and tossed it on the desk.
    â€œWhat do you make of it?” he asked. “Especially that crack about his being a prophet and watching ahead for me?”
    â€œIt must be all right,” the widow said. “He claims you will profit greatly.”
    â€œHe sounds like a gypsy fortune-teller. He had me worried for a while.”
    â€œBut why should you worry over that?”
    â€œBecause I don’t want to know what’s going to happen to me. And sometime he might tell me. If a man could look ahead, for example, he’d know just when he was going to die and how and all the –”
    â€œMr. Packer,” she told him, “I don’t think you’re meant to die. I swear you are getting to look younger every day.”
    â€œAs a matter of fact,” said Packer, vastly pleased, “I’m feeling the best I have in years.”
    â€œIt may be that leaf he sends you.”
    â€œNo, I think most likely it is that broth of yours.”
    They spent a pleasant afternoon—more pleasant, Packer admitted, than he would have thought was possible.
    And after she had left, he asked himself another question that had him somewhat frightened.
    Why in the world, of all people in the world, had he shared the leaf with her?
    He put the box back in the drawer and picked up the note. He smoothed it out and read it once again.
    The spelling brought a slight smile to his lips, but he quickly turned it off, for despite the atrociousness of it, PugAlNash nevertheless was one score up on him. For Pug had been able, after a fashion, to master the language of Earth, while he had bogged down completely when confronted with Pug’s language.
    I profetick and wach ahed for you.
    It was crazy, he told himself. It was, perhaps, some sort of joke, the kind of thing that passed for a joke with Pug.
    He put the note away and prowled the apartment restlessly, vaguely upset by the whole pile-up of worries.
    What should he do about the Griffin offer?
    Why had he shared the leaf with the Widow Foshay?
    What about that crack of Pug’s?
    He went to the bookshelves and put out a finger and ran it along the massive set of Galactic Abstracts. He found the right volume and took it back to the desk with him.
    He leafed through it until he found Unuk al Hay . Pug, he remembered, lived on Planet X of the system.
    He wrinkled up his forehead as he puzzled out the meaning of the compact, condensed, sometimes cryptic wording, bristling with fantastic abbreviations. It was a bloated nuisance, but it made sense, of course. There was just too much information to cover in the galaxy—the set of books, unwieldy as it might be, would simply become unmanageable if anything like completeness of expression and description were attempted.
    X-lt.kn., int., uninh. hu., (T-67), tr. intrm. (T-102) med. hbs., leg. forst., diff. lang …
    Wait a second, there!
    Leg. forst.
    Could that be legend of foresight?
    He read it again, translating as he