Time Is the Simplest Thing by Clifford D. Simak Page A

There’s something queer with him. You can’t get into his brain. It’s like a shining mirror. It—”
    The rest of what she said was drowned out in the rising clamor of the crowd, which began moving forward—not rapidly, but foot by foot—edging along toward the two against the wall, as if it might be fearful and reluctant but pushed along by a civic duty that was greater than its fear.
    Blaine put his hand into his jacket pocket and his fingers closed around the gun he’d scooped up in Charline’s kitchen. But that was not the way, he knew. That would only make it worse. He pulled his hand out of the pocket and let it dangle at his side.
    But there was something wrong—he was standing all alone, just his human self. There was no Pinkness in him, no stir inside his brain. He was a naked human and wondered wildly, for a moment, if he should be glad or not. And then he caught it peeping out of one corner of his brain and he waited for it, but nothing happened and the questioning segment of it pulled out of consciousness again.
    There was fury and loathing in the faces that floated atop the mass of human bodies moving in the street. Not the night-shrouded baying of the mob, but the slantwise, daylight slinking of a pack of wolves, and in the forefront of the press, borne along on the edge of this wave of human hatred, was the withered crone who had pointed with her finger to set the pack in motion.
    â€œStand still,” Blaine said to Harriet. “That is our only chance.”
    Any moment now, he knew, the situation could hit a crisis point. The mob would either lose its nerve and waver, or some slight incident, some smallest motion, some spoken word, would send it forward with a rush.
    And if that happened, he knew, he would use the gun. Not that he wanted to, not that he intended to—but it would be the one thing left to do.
    But for the moment, in the little interval before violence could erupt, the town stood petrified—a sleepy little town with shabby, two-story business buildings, all in need of paint, fronting on a sun-baked street. Scraggy trees stood at infrequent intervals, and there were faces at the upstairs windows, staring out in astonishment at the potential animal padding in the street.
    The mob moved closer, circling, still cautious, and mute; all its murmur quieted, all its hate locked tight behind the savage masks.
    A foot clicked sharply on the sidewalk, then another foot, and still another one—the rugged, steady sound of someone’s stolid walking.
    The footsteps came closer, and Blaine turned his eyes a second to catch out of the corner of them the sight of a tall, angular, almost cadaverous man who strode along deliberately, for all the world as if he were out for a morning stroll.
    The man reached Blaine and stood to one side of him and then he turned and faced the mob. He never said a word; he just stayed standing there. But the crowd came to a halt and stood there in the street in a dreadful quietness.
    Then a man said: “Good morning to you, Sheriff.”
    The sheriff didn’t stir; he didn’t say a word.
    â€œThem is parries,” said the man.
    â€œWho says so?” asked the sheriff.
    â€œOld Sara, she says so.”
    The sheriff looked at the crone: “How about it, Sara?”
    â€œTom is right,” Old Sara screeched. “That one there, he has a funny mind. It bounces back at you.”
    â€œAnd the woman?” asked the sheriff.
    â€œShe is with him, ain’t she?”
    â€œI am ashamed of you,” the sheriff said, as if they all were naughty children. “I have a mind to run you in, every one of you.”
    â€œBut them is parries!” yelled a stricken voice. “You know we don’t allow no parries here.”
    â€œNow, I tell you what,” the sheriff said. “You all get back to business. I’ll take care of this.”
    â€œThe both of them?” a voice