The Big Front Yard and Other Stories by Clifford D. Simak Page B

is my house and there isn’t anyone who has the right to start tearing it apart.”
    â€œFat chance,” the colonel said. “What I would like to know, Taine, what is that stuff that we couldn’t break through?”
    â€œNow you take it easy, Hiram,” cautioned Henry. “We have a big new world waiting for us out there –”
    â€œIt isn’t waiting for you or anyone,” yelled Taine.
    â€œAnd we have to explore it and to explore it we need a stockpile of gasoline. So since we can’t have a storage tank, we’re getting together as many gas cans as possible and then we’ll run a hose through here –”
    â€œBut, Henry –”
    â€œI wish,” said Henry sternly, “that you’d quit interrupting me and let me have my say. You can’t even imagine the logistics that we face. We’re bottlenecked by the size of a regulation door. We have to get supplies out there and we have to get transport. Cars and trucks won’t be so bad. We can disassemble them and lug them through piecemeal, but a plane will be a problem.”
    â€œYou listen to me, Henry. There isn’t anyone going to haul a plane through here. This house has been in my family for almost a hundred years and I own it and I have a right to it and you can’t come in highhanded and start hauling stuff through it.”
    â€œBut,” said Henry plaintively, “we need a plane real bad. You can cover so much more ground when you have a plane.”
    Beasly went banging through the kitchen with his cans and out into the living room.
    The colonel sighed. “I had hoped, Mr. Taine, that you would understand how the matter stood. To me it seems very plain that it’s your patriotic duty to co-operate with us in this. The government, of course, could exercise the right of eminent domain and start condemnation action, but it would rather not do that. I’m speaking unofficially, of course, but I think it’s safe to say the government would much prefer to arrive at an amicable agreement.”
    â€œI doubt,” Taine said, bluffing, not knowing anything about it, “that the right of eminent domain would be applicable. As I understand it, it applies to buildings and to roads –”
    â€œThis is a road,” the colonel told him flatly. “A road right through your house to another world.”
    â€œFirst,” Taine declared, “the government would have to show it was in the public interest and that refusal of the owner to relinquish title amounted to an interference in government procedure and –”
    â€œI think,” the colonel said, “that the government can prove it is in the public interest.”
    â€œI think,” Taine said angrily, “I better get a lawyer.”
    â€œIf you really mean that,” Henry offered, ever helpful, “and you want to get a good one – and I presume you do – I would be pleased to recommend a firm that I am sure would represent your interests most ably and be, at the same time, fairly reasonable in cost.”
    The colonel stood up, seething. “You’ll have a lot to answer, Taine. There’ll be a lot of things the government will want to know. First of all, they’ll want to know just how you engineered this. Are you ready to tell that?”
    â€œNo,” said Taine, “I don’t believe I am.”
    And he thought with some alarm: They think that I’m the one who did it and they’ll be down on me like a pack of wolves to find out just how I did it. He had visions of the FBI and the state department and the Pentagon and, even sitting down, he felt shaky in the knees.
    The colonel turned around and marched stiffly from the kitchen. He went out the back and slammed the door behind him.
    Henry looked at Taine speculatively.
    â€œDo you really mean it?” he demanded. “Do you intend to stand up to them?”
    â€œI’m getting