Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net Old Rambling House By FRANK HERBERT _All the Grahams desired was a home they could call their own ... but what did the home want?_ Illustrated by JOHNSON On his last night on Earth, Ted Graham stepped out of a glass-walled telephone booth, ducked to avoid a swooping moth that battered itself in a frenzy against a bare globe above the booth. Ted Graham was a long-necked man with a head of pronounced egg shape topped by prematurely balding sandy hair. Something about his lanky, intense appearance suggested his occupation: certified public accountant. He stopped behind his wife, who was studying a newspaper classified page, and frowned. "They said to wait here. They'll come get us. Said the place is hard to find at night." Martha Graham looked up from the newspaper. She was a doll-faced woman, heavily pregnant, a kind of pink prettiness about her. The yellow glow from the light above the booth subdued the red-auburn cast of her ponytail hair. "I just _have_ to be in a house when the baby's born," she said. "What'd they sound like?" "I dunno. There was a funny kind of interruption--like an argument in some foreign language." "Did they sound foreign?" "In a way." He motioned along the night-shrouded line of trailers toward one with two windows glowing amber. "Let's wait inside. These bugs out here are fierce." "Did you tell them which trailer is ours?" "Yes. They didn't sound at all anxious to look at it. That's odd--them wanting to trade their house for a trailer." "There's nothing odd about it. They've probably just got itchy feet like we did." He appeared not to hear her. "Funniest-sounding language you ever heard when that argument started--like a squirt of noise." * * * * * Inside the trailer, Ted Graham sat down on the green couch that opened into a double bed for company. "They could use a good tax accountant around here," he said. "When I first saw the place, I got that definite feeling. The valley looks prosperous. It's a wonder nobody's opened an office here before." His wife took a straight chair by the counter separating kitchen and living area, folded her hands across her heavy stomach. "I'm just continental tired of wheels going around under me," she said. "I want to sit and stare at the same view for the rest of my life. I don't know how a trailer ever seemed glamorous when--" "It was the inheritance gave us itchy feet," he said. Tires gritted on gravel outside. Martha Graham straightened. "Could that be them?" "Awful quick, if it is." He went to the door, opened it, stared down at the man who was just raising a hand to knock. "Are you Mr. Graham?" asked the man. "Yes." He found himself staring at the caller.