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

monitors), he had heard that hateful metallic voice break out in a scream of fright and indignation.
    â€œAlden Street is ill!” it screamed. “Everybody stay away from Alden Street. He is ill—don’t anyone go near him!”
    The bells had rung and the siren blown and the rockets been shot off, and from atop the grocery store a great red light was flashing.
    He had turned to run, knowing the dirty trick that had been played upon him. They had switched one of the monitors to the grocery, or they had installed a third.
    â€œStay where you are!” the monitor had shouted after him. “Go out into the middle of the street away from everyone.”
    And he had gone. He had quit his running and had gone out into the middle of the street and stayed there, while from the windows of the business houses white and frightened faces had stared out at him. Had stared out at him—a sick man and a criminal.
    The monitor had kept on with its awful crying and he had cringed out there while the white and frightened faces watched and in time (perhaps a very short time, although it had seemed long), the disciplinary robots on the medic corps had arrived from the county seat.
    Things had moved swiftly then. The whole story had come out. Of how he had neglected to have his physicals. Of how he had been fined for several misdemeanors. Of how he had not contributed to the little league programs. Of how he had not taken part in any of the various community health and sports programs.
    They had told him then, in wrath, that he was nothing but a dirty slob, and the wheels of justice had moved with sure and swift precision. And finally he had stood and stared up at the high and mighty man who had pronounced his doom. Although he could not recall that he had heard the doom. There had been a blackness and that was all that he could remember until he had awakened into a continuation of the blackness and had seen two balloon-like faces leaning over him.
    He had been apprehended and judged and sentenced within a few short hours. And it was all for the good of men—to prove to other men that they could not get away with the flouting of the law which said that one must maintain his fitness and his health. For one’s health, said the law, was the most precious thing one had and it was criminal to endanger it or waste it. The national health must be viewed as a vital natural resource and, once again, it was criminal to endanger it or waste it.
    So he had been made into a horrible example and the story of what had happened to him would have appeared on the front pages of every paper that was published and the populace thus would be admonished that they must obey, that the health laws were not namby-pamby laws.
    He squatted by the water’s edge and stared off across the swamp and behind him he heard the muted sounds which came from that huddled camp just a short ways down the island—the clang of the skillet or the pot, the thudding of an axe as someone chopped up firewood, the rustle of the breeze that flapped a piece of canvas stretched as a door across a hut, the quiet murmur of voices in low and resigned talks.
    The swamp had a deadly look about it—and it waited. Confident and assured, certain that no one could cross it. All its traps were set and all its nets were spread and it had a patience that no man could match.
    Perhaps, he thought, it did not really wait. Maybe it was just a little silly to imagine that it waited. Rather, perhaps, it was simply an entity that did not care. A human life to it was nothing. To it a human life was no more precious than a snake’s life, or the life of a dragonfly, or of a tiny fish. It would not help and it would not warn and it had no kindness.
    He shivered, thinking of this great uncaring. An uncaring that was even worse than if it waited with malignant forethought. For if it waited, at least it was aware of you. At least it paid you the compliment of some slight