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to."
    â€œSure is crazy."
    â€œYeah, it gets that way sometimes.” The man extended his hand. “Name's Dalton. Cleveland Dalton. Cleve, if you like."
    Jeremy shook his hand. “Jeremy Hochstader."
    â€œFine old German name, Hochstader. Used to have a client by that name. Never went anywhere—wrote fantasy, if memory serves."
    The man in knickers went harumphing past, apparently still upset about the muffed shot.
    Dalton said, “That's Thaxton. Don't mind him. Golf's not his game, and I won't play tennis with him."
    â€œWhere the hell is this place?” Jeremy blurted.
    Dalton shrugged. “This place? Nobody knows. Some world, in some time or space, somewhere. Just one of the worlds accessible via the castle."
    â€œBut where's the castle?” Jeremy demanded.
    â€œNobody really knows that, either. But it's real, son. It's real. Don't make the mistake of thinking it's all a dream."
    â€œYeah, I gave up on that yesterday."
    â€œGet anything to eat yet?"
    Jeremy nodded. “Uh-huh. They fed me."
    â€œGood,” Dalton said. “By the way, did you ever caddy?"
    Â 

 

 
    City
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    Gene had chosen a high tower as his residence, staking out an apartment on a high floor. Above this level lay only a few small chambers, some containing building machinery. There was water in a storage tank on the roof; as for food, the city had given him all he wanted, when he had asked for it.
    He had very soon found out that the city was alive, or at least was a conscious entity of some sort. He had walked right in through an open gate. Looking around, he heard a quasi-human voice speaking a strange language. After searching for the source, he eventually realized that the voice had been that of the city itself, or of some artificial intelligence that was part of the city's computer control system. As for other intelligent inhabitants, the place was as deserted as it looked, and very old.
    The city had learned colloquial English very quickly, from Gene, mostly; its only other source was a tattered paperback Gene had been carrying, a science fiction novel with a futuristic trailer truck on the cover. It still spoke with the machine equivalent of an accent, slurring its syllables occasionally. Otherwise the city was quite intelligible.
    The city had a name: Zond.
    â€œI see that your genetic makeup is quite divergent from the beings who built me,” Zond told Gene.
    â€œPerceptive of you,” Gene told the city. “Does that change anything?"
    â€œNope."
    â€œReally. Why? Weren't you designed to serve whoever it was who built you?"
    â€œThat's true, but my original programming also includes instructions about showing hospitality to visitors. You're a visitor; you get hospitality."
    â€œNice and friendly, your builders. What was the name you called them again?"
    â€œThe Umoi."
    â€œFunny name."
    â€œWhat's funny about it?"
    â€œSorry, didn't mean to offend."
    â€œNo, I was just asking,” Zond said. “I haven't had a good laugh in centuries."
    He had many conversations like this one over the next several weeks. He learned something about the Umoi, who had been a squat, reptilelike race, somewhat resembling terrestrial toads. They had had a long and complex history, culminating in the building of a small number of these self-contained, fully sentient cities. By that time the Umoi population had shrunk to a tiny fraction of what it was in earlier periods. Then—Gene did not know exactly what had happened. The Umoi died off gradually, after deserting the cities. History had simply petered out at some point. Gene had a little trouble converting Umoi time scales into Earth equivalents, but it looked as though the Umoi had become extinct between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago. Anyway, it was a long time since the Umoi had walked this world. The city's main domes had weathered and faded, but for the most part the city was still intact and functioning.
    His