“Sure. They don’t care.”

Gordon smiled. “That’s okay then. The Postal Service has always carried mostly fantasies, anyway.”

The boy looked at him, puzzled. But Gordon set his cap on his head and said nothing more.

Since departing the shards of Minnesota, so long ago, Gordon had seen few villages as prosperous and apparently happy as Cottage Grove. The farms now brought in a surplus most years. The militia was well drilled and — unlike at Oakridge — unoppressive. As hope of finding true civilization faded, Gordon had slowly reduced the scope of his dreams until a place like this seemed almost like Paradise.

It was ironic, then, that the very hoax that had taken him safely this far through the suspicious mountain hamlets now kept him from remaining here. For in order to maintain his illusion, he had to keep moving.

They all believed in him. If his illusion failed now, even the good people of this town would certainly turn on him.

The walled village covered one comer of prewar Cottage Grove. Its pub was a large, snug basement with two big fireplaces and a bar where the bitter local homebrew was served in tall clay steins.

Mayor Peter Von Kleek sat in a corner booth talking earnestly with Eric Stevens, Johnny’s grandfather and newly appointed Postmaster of Cottage Grove. The two men were poring over a copy of Gordon’s “Federal Regulations” as he and Johnny stepped into the pub.

Back in Oakridge, Gordon had run off a few score copies on a hand-cranked mimeograph machine he had managed to get working in the old, deserted post office. A lot of thought and care had gone into those circulars. They had to have the flavor of authenticity, and at the same time present no obvious threat to local strongmen — giving them no reason to fear Gordon’s mythical Restored United States … or Gordon himself.

So far those sheets had been his most inspired prop.

Tall, gaunt-faced Peter Von Kleek stood and shook Gordon’s hand, motioning him to a seat. The bartender hurried over with two tall steins of thick brown beer. It was warm, of course, but delicious — like pumpernickel bread. The Mayor waited, puffing nervously on his clay pipe, until Gordon put his stein down with a lip-smacking sigh.

Von Kleek nodded at the implied compliment. But his frown remained fixed. He tapped the paper in front of him. “These regulations here aren’t very detailed, Mr. Inspector.”

“Call me Gordon, please. These are informal times.”

“Ah, yes. Gordon. Please call me Peter.” The Mayor was clearly uncomfortable,

“Well, Peter,” Gordon nodded. “The Restored U.S. Government has learned some hard lessons. One has been not to impose rigid standards on far-flung localities who have problems St. Paul City can’t even imagine, let alone regulate.”

Gordon launched into one of his prepared pitches.

“There’s the question of money, for instance. Most communities dropped prewar currency soon after the food center riots. Barter systems are the rule, and they usually work just fine, except when debt service turns into a form of slavery.”

That much was all true. In his travels Gordon had seen versions of feudal serfdom rising all over. Money was a joke.

“The federal authorities in St. Paul have declared the old currency moot. There are just too many bills and coins out there for sparse rural economies.

“Still, we’re trying to encourage national commerce. One way is by accepting old-time two-dollar bills to pay postage for letters carried by U.S. Mail. They never were very common, and are impossible to forge with present-day technology. Pre-1965 silver coins are also acceptable.”

“We’ve already taken in over forty dollars’ worth!” Johnny Stevens interjected. “Folks are hunting ail over for those old bills and coins. And they’ve started usin’ them to pay off barter debts too.”

Gordon shrugged. It had started already. Sometimes the little things he added to his tale, simply in order to lend verisimilitude, took off by themselves in ways he had never expected. He couldn’t see how a little money put back into circulation, given value by a local myth in the “Restored U.S.,” could hurt these people much.

Von Kleek nodded. He moved on to the next item.

“This part here about no ‘coercion’ without elections—” He tapped the paper. “Well, we do have sort of regular town meetings, and people from the surrounding hamlets take part when something big is up. But I can’t rightly say I or my militia chief were ever really voted for … not in a real secret ballot, like it says here.”

He shook his head. “And we’ve had to do some pretty drastic things, especially during the early days. I hope we’re not going to have that held too hard against us Mr. Inspe — Gordon. We really have been doin’ our best.

“We have a school, for instance. Most of the younger kids attend after harvest. And we can make a start salvaging machines and voting like it says here—” Von Kleek wanted reassurance; he was trying to catch Gordon’s eye. But Gordon lifted his beer mug in order not to meet his gaze.

One of the major ironies he had found in his travels had been this phenomenon — that those who had fallen the least far into savagery were those who seemed the most ashamed of having fallen at all.

He coughed, clearing his throat.

“It seems… it seems to me you’ve been doing a pretty good job here, Peter. The past doesn’t matter as much as the future, anyway. I don’t think you have to worry about the federal government interfering at all.”

Von Kleek looked relieved. Gordon was sure there would be a secret ballot election here within weeks. And the people of this area would deserve what they got if they elected anyone as their leader but this gruff, sensible man.

“One thing bothers me.”

It was Eric Stevens who spoke. The spry oldster had been Gordon’s obvious choice as postmaster. For one thing, he ran the local trading post, and was the best-educated man in town, with a prewar college degree.

Another reason was that Stevens had appeared the most suspicious when Gordon rode into town several days before, proclaiming a new era for Oregon under the “Restored U.S.” Appointing him postmaster seemed to persuade him to believe, if only for his own prestige and profit.

Only incidentally, he would also probably do a good job — as long as the myth lasted, at least.

Old Stevens turned his beer stein on the table, leaving a broad oval ring. “What I can’t figure out is why nobody’s been out here from St. Paul City before.

“Sure, I know you had to cross a helluva lot of wild country to get here, almost all of it on foot, you say. But what I want to know is why didn’t they just send somebody out in an airplane?”

There was a brief silence at the table. Gordon could tell that townsmen nearby were listening in, as well.

“Aw gramps!” Johnny Stevens shook his head in embarrassment for his grandfather. “Don’t you realize how bad the war was? All the airplanes and complicated machines were wrecked by that pulse thing that blasted all the radios and such right at the beginning of the war! Then, later on, there wouldn’t have been anybody around who knew how to fix ‘em. And there’d be no spare parts!”

Gordon blinked in brief surprise. The kid was good! He had been born after the fall of industrial civilization, yet he had a grasp of the essentials.

Of course everyone knew about the electromagnetic pulses, from giant H-bombs exploded high in space, that had devastated electronic devices all over the world on that deadly first day. But Johnny’s understanding went beyond that to the interdependence of a machine culture.

Still, if the kid was bright he must have gotten it from his grandfather. The older Stevens looked at Gordon archly. “That right, Inspector? No spares or mechanics left?”