Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net WRONG ANALOGY BY JOSEPH SHALLIT _The Pied Piper who had promised them Paradise and led them across half the universe had changed his tune. But this time it was the Piper who had to pay...._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Ruth was standing at the vast window of the spaceport, her body taut and eager, the luggage piled high around her. When Harvey Flanders came out of the ship carrying the last two suitcases, she darted to him. "Harvey, it's a dream--it's heavenly!" she cried, catching hold of his arm. "Did you imagine--did you possibly ever imagine it would be like this?" Harvey's eyes followed the sweep of his wife's hand, out at the dazzling expanse of fields and orchards, green and gold under this magnificent sun. The fantastic vegetation stretched in lush undulations to a distant purple horizon, the sweep broken only by the brown streaks of roads, the winding ribbons of sapphire-tinted water, and, here and there, the pastel pink and blue roofs of the settlers' houses. Exultation filled his chest. He fought it down, deliberately, grimly. "There were places on Earth that were like this before the blight came. California ... Florida ... looked like this." "Like this?" Ruth exclaimed. "Harvey! Look at those giant fruit trees. Look at them." Harvey caught her shoulder in a tight grip. "Honey, we just can't let ourselves go overboard till we're sure everything's okay," he said quietly. "We've had our hopes built up and slapped down so many times." He looked down into her brown eyes. "Kitten, do you remember the time old man Reeber came climbing over the fence, yelling that the blight was going, it was moving off his cornfield, and we believed, we actually believed some miracle had happened, and we went chasing after him and found it was just a sunbeam breaking through a cloud bank. What a mirage that was!" "Harvey," Ruth said softly, "do you really think that this"--her hand traced the horizon--"is a mirage?" "I want to get a closer look, honey--I want to feel it and taste it before I believe it," he said. But when he glanced again at the landscape, his breath quickened and a tingle rode over his skin. "No, honey," he said quickly, "I don't think it's a mirage. I think it's what we've been dreaming about a long, long time." Ruth gave a relieved cry and flung her arms around him. He held her, patting her gently. "Now take it easy," he said. She looked up abruptly, her eyes wet. "The first thing, you've got to get some color back," she said fiercely. "You've gotten so awfully pale!"