Frank Herbert - The Santaroga Barrier

The Santaroga Barrier

Frank Herbert

1968

First published in a shorter version in Amazing Stories magazine, 1967.

Chapter 1

The sun went down as the five-year-old Ford camper-pickup truck ground over

the pass and started down the long grade into Santaroga Valley. A

crescent-shaped turn-off had been leveled beside the first highway curve.

Gilbert Dasein pulled his truck onto the gravel, stopped at a white barrier

fence and looked down into the valley whose secrets he had come to expose.

Two men already had died on this project, Dasein reminded himself. Accidents.

Natural accidents. What was down there in that bowl of shadows inhabited by

random lights? Was there an accident waiting for him?

Dasein's back ached after the long drive up from Berkeley. He shut off the

motor, stretched. A burning odor of hot oil permeated the cab. The union of

truckbed and camper emitted creakings and poppings.

The valley stretching out below him looked somehow different from what Dasein

had expected. The sky around it was a ring of luminous blue full of sunset

glow that spilled over into an upper belt of trees and rocks.

There was a sense of quiet about the place, of an island sheltered from

storms.

What did I expect the place to be? Dasein wondered. He decided all the maps

he'd studied, all the reports on Santaroga he'd read, had led him to believe

he knew the valley. But maps were not the land. Reports weren't people.

Dasein glanced at his wristwatch: almost seven. He felt reluctant to

continue.

Far off to the left across the valley, strips of green light glowed among

trees. That was the area labeled "greenhouses" on the map. A castellated

block of milky white on an outcropping down to his right he identified as the

Jaspers Cheese Cooperative. The yellow gleam of windows and moving lights

around it spoke of busy activity.

Dasein grew aware of insect sounds in the darkness around him, the

swoop-humming of air through nighthawks' wings and, away in the distance, the

mournful baying of hounds. The voice of the pack appeared to come from beyond

the Co-op.

He swallowed, thinking that the yellow windows suddenly were like baleful eyes

peering into the valley's darker depths.

Dasein shook his head, smiled. That was no way to think. Unprofessional.

All the ominous nonsense muttered about Santaroga had to be put aside. A

scientific investigation could not operate in that atmosphere. He turned on

the cab's dome light, took his briefcase from the seat beside him. Gold

lettering on the brown leather identified it: "Gilbert Dasein -- Department

of Psychology -- University of California -- Berkeley."

In a battered folder from the case he began writing: "Arrived Santaroga

Valley approximately 6:45 p.m. Setting is that of a prosperous farm community

. . ." Presently, he put case and folder aside. Prosperous farm community,

he thought. How could he know it was prosperous? No-prosperity wasn't what

he saw. That was something he knew from the reports.

The real valley in front of him now conveyed a sense of waiting, of quietness

punctuated by occasional tinklings of cowbells. He imagined husbands and

wives down there after a day of work. What did they discuss now in their

waiting darkness?

What did Jenny Sorge discuss with her husband -- provided she had a husband?

It seemed impossible she'd still be single -- lovely, nubile Jenny. It was

more than a year since they'd last seen each other at the University.

Dasein sighed. No escaping thoughts of Jenny -- not here in Santaroga. Jenny

contained part of Santaroga's mystery. She was an element of the Santaroga

Barrier and a prime subject for his present investigation.

Again, Dasein sighed. He wasn't fooling himself. He knew why he'd accepted

this project. It wasn't the munificent sum those chain stores were paying the

university for this study, nor the generous salary provided for himself.

He had come because this was where Jenny lived.

Dasein told himself he'd smile and act normal, perfectly normal, when he met

her. He was here on business, a psychologist detached from his usual teaching

duties to make a market study in Santaroga Valley.

What was a perfectly normal way to act with Jenny, though? How did one

achieve normalcy when encountering the paranormal?

Jenny was a Santarogan -- and the normalcy of this valley defied normal

explanations.

His mind went to the reports, "the known facts." All the folders of data, the

collections of official pryings, the second-hand secrets which were the stock

in a trade of the bureaucracy -- all this really added up to a single "known

fact" about Santaroga: There was something extraordinary at work here,

something far more disturbing than any so-called market study had ever tackled

before.

Meyer Davidson, the soft looking, pink fleshed little man who'd presented

himself as the agent of the investment corporation, the holding company behind

the chain stores paying for this project, had put it in an angry nutshell at

the first orientation meeting: "The whole thing about Santaroga boils down to

this -- Why were we forced to close our branches there? Why won't even one

Santarogan trade with an outsider? That's what we want to know. What's this

Santaroga Barrier which keeps us from doing business there?"

Davidson wasn't as soft as he looked.

Dasein started the truck, turned on his headlights, resumed his course down

the winding grade.

All the data was a single datum.

Outsiders found no houses for rent or sale in this valley.

Santaroga officials said they had no juvenile delinquency figures for the

state's statistics.

Servicemen from Santaroga always returned when they were discharged. In fact,

no Santarogan had ever been known to move out of the valley.

Why? Was it a two-way barrier?

And the curious anomalies: The data had included a medical journal article by

Jenny's uncle, Dr. Lawrence Piaget, reputedly the valley's leading physician.

The article: "The Poison Oak Syndrome in Santaroga." Its substance:

Santarogans had a remarkable susceptibility to allergens when forced to live

away from their valley for extended periods. This was the chief reason for

service rejection of Santaroga's youths.

Data equaled datum.

Santaroga reported no cases of mental illness or mental deficiency to the

State Department of Mental Hygiene. No Santarogan could be found in a state

mental hospital. (The psychiatrist who headed Dasein's university department,

Dr. Chami Selador, found this fact "alarming.")

Cigarette sales in Santaroga could be accounted for by transient purchasers.

Santarogans manifested an iron resistance to national advertising. (An

un-American symptom, according to Meyer Davidson.)

No cheese, wines or beers made outside the valley could be marketed to

Santarogans.

All the valley's businesses, including the bank, were locally owned. They

flatly rejected outside investment money.

Santaroga had successfully resisted every "pork barrel" government project the

politicians had offered. Their State Senator was from Porterville, ten miles

behind Dasein and well outside the valley. Among the political figures Dasein

had interviewed to lay the groundwork for his study, the State Senator was one

of the few who didn't think Santarogans were "a pack of kooks, maybe religious

nuts of some kind."

"Look, Dr. Dasein," he'd said, "all this mystery crap about Santaroga is just

that -- crap."

The Senator was a skinny, intense man with a shock of gray hair and red-veined

eyes. Barstow was his name; one of the old California families.

Barstow's opinion: "Santaroga's a last outpost of American individualism.

They're Yankees, Down Easters living in California. Nothing mysterious about

'em at all. They don't ask special favors and they don't fan my ears with

stupid questions. I wish all my constituents were as straightforward and

honest."

One man's opinion, Dasein thought.

An isolated opinion.

Dasein was down into the valley proper now. The two-lane road leveled into a

passage through gigantic trees. This was the Avenue of the Giants winding

between rows of sequoia gigantea.

There were homes set back in the trees. The datum-data said some of these

homes had been here since the gold rush. The scroll work of carpenter gothic

lined their eaves. Many were three stories high, yellow lights in their

windows.

Dasein grew aware of an absence, a negative fact about the houses he saw: No

television flicker, no cathode living rooms, no walls washed to skimmed-milk

gray by the omnipresent tube.

The road forked ahead of him. An arrow pointed left to "City Center" and two

arrows directed him to the right to "The Santaroga House" and "Jaspers Cheese

Co-op."

Dasein turned right.

His road wound upward beneath an arch: "Santaroga, The Town That Cheese

Built." Presently, it emerged from the redwoods into an oak flat. The Co-op

loomed gray white, bustling with lights and activity behind a chain fence on

his right. Across the road to his left stood Dasein's first goal here, a long

three-storey inn built in the rambling 1900 style with a porch its full

length. Lines of multipaned windows (most dark) looked down onto a gravel

parking area. The sign at the entrance read: "Santaroga House -- Gold Rush

Museum -- Hours 9 a.m. to 5 p.m."

Most of the cars nosed to a stone border parallel to the porch were well-kept

older models. A few shiny new machines were parked in a second row as though

standing aloof.

Dasein parked beside a 1939 Chevrolet whose paint gleamed with a rich waxy

gloss. Red-brown upholstery visible through the windows appeared to be

hand-tailored leather.

Rich man's toy, Dasein thought.

He took his suitcase from the camper, turned to the inn. There was a smell of

new mown lawn in the air and the sound of running water. It reminded Dasein

of his childhood, his aunt's garden with the brook along the back. A strong

sense of nostalgia gripped him.

Abruptly, a discordant note intruded. From the upper floors of the inn came

the raucous sound of a man and woman arguing, the man's voice brusk, the

woman's with a strident fishwife quality.

"I'm not staying in this godforsaken hole one more night," the woman screamed.

"They don't want our money! They don't want us! You do what you want; I'm

leaving!"

"Belle, stop it! You've . . ."

A window slammed. The argument dimmed to a muted screeching-mumbling.

Dasein took a deep breath. The argument restored his perspective. Here were

two more people with their noses against the Santaroga Barrier.

Dasein strode along the gravel, up four steps to the porch and through

swinging doors with windows frosted by scroll etching. He found himself in a

high-ceilinged lobby, crystal chandeliers overhead. Dark wood paneling,

heavily grained like ancient charts enclosed the space. A curved counter

stretched across the corner to his right, an open door behind it from which

came the sound of a switchboard. To the right of this counter was a wide

opening through which he glimpsed a dining room -- white tablecloths, crystal,

silver. A western stagecoach was parked at his left behind brass posts

supporting a maroon velvet rope with a "Do Not Touch" sign.

Dasein stopped to study the coach. It smelled of dust and mildew. A framed

card on the boot gave its history: "Used on the San Francisco-Santaroga route

from 1868 to 1871." Below this card was a slightly larger frame enclosing a

yellowed sheet of paper with a brass legend beside it: "A note from Black

Bart, the Po-8 Highwayman." In sprawling script on the yellow paper it read:

"So here I've stood while wind and rain

Have set the trees a-sobbin'

And risked my life for that damned stage

That wasn't worth the robbin'."

Dasein chuckled, shifted his briefcase to his left arm, crossed to the counter

and rang the call bell.

A bald, wrinkled stick of a man in a black suit appeared in the open doorway,

stared at Dasein like a hawk ready to pounce. "Yes?"

"I'd like a room," Dasein said.

"What's your business?"

Dasein stiffened at the abrupt challenge. "I'm tired," he said. "I want a

night's sleep."

"Passing through, I hope," the man grumbled. He shuffled to the counter,

pushed a black registry ledger toward Dasein.

Dasein took a pen from its holder beside the ledger, signed.

The clerk produced a brass key on a brass tag, said: "You get two fifty-one

next to that dang' couple from L.A. Don't blame me if they keep y' awake

arguing." He slapped the key onto the counter. "That'll be ten dollars . . .

in advance."

"I'm hungry," Dasein said, producing his wallet and paying. "Is the dining

room open?" He accepted a receipt.

"Closes at nine," the clerk said.

"Is there a bellboy?"

"You look strong enough to carry your own bag." He pointed beyond Dasein.

"Room's up them stairs, second floor."

Dasein turned. There was an open area behind the stagecoach. Scattered

through it were leather chairs, high wings and heavy arms, a few occupied by

elderly men sitting, reading. Light came from heavy brass floor lamps with

fringed shades. A carpeted stairway led upward beyond the chairs.

It was a scene Dasein was to think of many times later as his first clue to

the real nature of Santaroga. The effect was that of holding time securely in

a bygone age.

Vaguely troubled, Dasein said: "I'll check my room later. May I leave my bag

here while I eat?"

"Leave it on the counter. No one'll bother it."

Dasein put the case on the counter, caught the clerk studying him with a fixed

stare.

"Something wrong?" Dasein asked.

"Nope."

The clerk reached for the briefcase under Dasein's arm, but Dasein stepped

back, removed it from the questing fingers, met an angry stare.

"Hmmmph!" the clerk snorted. There was no mistaking his frustration. He'd

wanted a look inside the briefcase.

Inanely, Dasein said: "I . . . uh, want to look over some papers while I'm

eating." And he thought: Why do I need to explain?

Feeling angry with himself, he turned, strode through the passage into the

dining room. He found himself in a large square room, a single massive

chandelier in the center, brass carriage lamps spaced around walls of dark

wood paneling. The chairs at the round tables were heavy with substantial

arms. A long teak bar stretched along the wall at his left, a wood-framed

mirror behind it. Light glittered hypnotically from the central chandelier

and glasses stacked beneath the mirror.

The room swallowed sounds. Dasein felt he had walked into a sudden hush with

people turning to look at him. Actually, his entrance went almost unnoticed.

A white-coated bartender on duty for a scattering of customers at the bar

glanced at him, went back to talking to a swarthy man hunched over a mug of

beer.

Family groups occupied about a dozen of the tables. There was a card game at

a table near the bar. Two tables held lone women busy with their forks.

There was a division of people in this room, Dasein felt. It was a matter of

nervous tension contrasted with a calmness as substantial as the room itself.

He decided he could pick out the transients -- they appeared tired, more

rumpled; their children were closer to rebellion.

As he moved farther into the room, Dasein glimpsed himself in the bar mirror

-- fatigue lines on his slender face, the curly black hair mussed by the wind,

brown eyes glazed with attention, still driving the car. A smudge of road

dirt drew a dark line beside the cleft in his chin. Dasein rubbed at the

smudge, thought: Here's another transient.

"You wish a table, sir?"

A Negro waiter had appeared at his elbow -- white jacket, hawk nose, sharp

Moorish features, a touch of gray at the temples. There was a look of command

about him all out of agreement with the menial costume. Dasein thought

immediately of Othello. The eyes were brown and wise.

"Yes, please: for one," Dasein said.

"This way, sir."

Dasein was guided to a table against the near wall. One of the carriage lamps

bathed it in a warm yellow glow. As the heavy chair enveloped him, Dasein's

attention went to the table near the bar -- the card game . . . four men. He

recognized one of the men from a picture Jenny had carried: Piaget, the

doctor uncle, author of the medical journal article on allergens. Piaget was

a large, gray-haired man, bland round face, a curious suggestion of the

Oriental about him that was heightened by the fan of cards held close to his

chest.

"You wish a menu, sir?"

"Yes. Just a moment . . . the men playing cards with Dr. Piaget over there."

"Sir?"

"Who are they?"

"You know Dr. Larry, sir?"

"I know his niece, Jenny Sorge. She carried a photo of Dr. Piaget."

The waiter glanced at the briefcase Dasein had placed in the center of the

table. "Dasein," he said. A wide smile put a flash of white in the dark

face. "You're Jenny's friend from the school."

The waiter's words carried so many implications that Dasein found himself

staring, open-mouthed.

"Jenny's spoken of you, sir," the waiter said.

"Oh."

"The men playing cards with Dr. Larry -- you want to know who they are." He

turned toward the players. "Well, sir, that's Captain Al Marden of the

Highway Patrol across from Dr. Larry. On the right there, that's George Nis.

He manages the Jaspers Cheese Co-op. The fellow on the left is Mr. Sam

Scheler. Mr. Sam runs our independent service station. I'll get you that

menu, sir."

The waiter headed toward the bar.

Dasein's attention remained on the card players, wondering why they held his

interest so firmly. Marden, sitting with his back partly turned toward

Dasein, was in mufti, a dark blue suit. His hair was a startling mop of red.

He turned his head to the right and Dasein glimpsed a narrow face,

tight-lipped mouth with a cynical downtwist.

Scheler of the independent service station (Dasein wondered about this

designation suddenly) was dark skinned, an angular Indian face with flat nose,

heavy lips. Nis, across from him, was balding, sandy-haired, blue eyes with

heavy lids, a wide mouth and deeply cleft chin.

"Your menu, sir."

The waiter placed a large red-covered folder in front of Dasein.

"Dr. Piaget and his friends appear to be enjoying their game," Dasein said.

"That game's an institution, sir. Every week about this hour, regular as

sunset -- dinner here and that game."

"What do they play?"

"It varies, sir. Sometimes it's bridge, sometimes pinochle. They play whist

on occasion and even poker."

"What did you mean -- independent service station?" Dasein asked. He looked

up at the dark Moorish face.

"Well, sir, we here in the valley don't mess around with those companies

fixin' their prices. Mr. Sam, he buys from whoever gives him the best offer.

We pay about four cents less a gallon here."

Dasein made a mental note to investigate this aspect of the Santaroga Barrier.

It was in character, not buying from the big companies, but where did they get

their oil products?

"The roast beef is very good, sir," the waiter said, pointing to the menu.

"You recommend it, eh?"

"I do that, sir. Grain fattened right here in the valley. We have fresh corn

on the cob, potatoes Jaspers -- that's with cheese sauce, very good, and we

have hot-house strawberries for dessert."

"Salad?" Dasein asked.

"Our salad greens aren't very good this week, sir. I'll bring you the soup.

It's borscht with sour cream. And you'd like beer with that. I'll see if I

can't get you some of our local product."

"With you around I don't need a menu," Dasein said. He returned the

red-covered folder. "Bring it on before I start eating the tablecloth."

"Yes, sir!"

Dasein watched the retreating black -- white coated, wide, confident.

Othello, indeed.

The waiter returned presently with a steaming bowl of soup, a white island of

sour cream floating in it, and a darkly amber mug of beer.

"I note you're the only Negro waiter here," Dasein said. "Isn't that kind of

type casting?"

"You asking if I'm their show Negro, sir?" The waiter's voice was suddenly

wary.

"I was wondering if Santaroga had any integration problems."

"Must be thirty, forty colored families in the valley, sir. We don't rightly

emphasize the distinction of skin color here." The voice was hard, curt.

"I didn't mean to offend you," Dasein said.

"You didn't offend me." A smile touched the corners of his mouth, was gone.

"I must admit a Negro waiter is a kind of institutional accent. Place like

this . . ." He glanced around the solid, paneled room. " . . . must've had

plenty of Negro waiters here in its day. Kind of like local color having me

on the job." Again, that flashing smile. "It's a good job, and my kids are

doing even better. Two of 'em work in the Co-op; other's going to be a

lawyer."

"You have three children?"

"Two boys and a girl. If you'll excuse me, sir; I have other tables."

"Yes, of course."

Dasein lifted the mug of beer as the waiter left.

He held the beer a moment beneath his nose. There was a tangy odor about it

with a suggestion of cellars and mushrooms. Dasein remembered suddenly that

Jenny had praised the local Santaroga beer. He sipped it -- soft on the

tongue, smooth, clean aftertaste of malt. It was everything Jenny had said.

Jenny, he thought. Jenny . . . Jenny . . .

Why had she never invited him to Santaroga on her regular weekend trips home?

She'd never missed a weekend, he recalled. Their dates had always been in

midweek. He remembered what she'd told him about herself: orphaned, raised

by the uncle, Piaget, and a maiden aunt . . . Sarah.

Dasein took another drink of the beer, sampled the soup. They did go well

together. The sour cream had a flavor reminiscent of the beer, a strange new

tang.

There'd never been any mistaking Jenny's affection for him, Dasein thought.

They'd had a thing, chemical, exciting. But no direct invitation to meet her

family, see the valley. A hesitant probing, yes -- what would he think of

setting up practice in Santaroga? Sometime, he must talk to Uncle Larry about

some interesting cases.

What cases? Dasein wondered, remembering. The Santaroga information folders

Dr. Selador had supplied were definite: "No reported cases of mental

illness."

Jenny . . . Jenny . . .

Dasein's mind went back to the night he'd proposed. No hesitant probing on

Jenny's part then -- Could he live in Santaroga?

He could remember his own incredulous demand: "Why do we have to live in

Santaroga?"

"Because I can't live anywhere else." That was what she'd said. "Because I

can't live anywhere else."

Love me, love my valley.

No amount of pleading could wring an explanation from her. She'd made that

plain. In the end, he'd reacted with anger boiling out of injured manhood.

Did she think he couldn't support her any place but in Santaroga?

"Come and see Santaroga," she'd begged.

"Not unless you'll consider living outside."

Impasse.

Remembering the fight, Dasein felt his cheeks go warm. It'd been finals week.

She'd refused to answer his telephone calls for two days . . . and he'd

refused to call after that. He'd retreated into a hurt shell.

And Jenny had gone back to her precious valley. When he'd written, swallowed

his pride, offered to come and see her -- no answer. Her valley had swallowed

her.

This valley.

Dasein sighed, looked around the dining room, remembering Jenny's intensity

when she spoke about Santaroga. This paneled dining room, the Santarogans he

could see, didn't fit the picture in his mind.

Why didn't she answer my letters? he asked himself. Most likely she's

married. That must be it.

Dasein saw his waiter come around the end of the bar with a tray. The

bartender signaled, called: "Win." The waiter stopped, rested the tray on

the bar. Their heads moved close together beside the tray. Dasein received

the impression they were arguing. Presently, the waiter said something with a

chopping motion of the head, grabbed up the tray, brought it to Dasein's

table.

"Doggone busybody," he said as he put the tray down across from Dasein, began

distributing the dishes from it. "Try to tell me I can't give you Jaspers!

Good friend of Jenny's and I can't give him Jaspers."

The waiter's anger cooled; he shook his head, smiled, put a plate mounded with

food before Dasein.

"Too doggone many busybodies in this world, y' ask me."

"The bartender," Dasein said. "I heard him call you 'Win.'"

"Winston Burdeaux, sir, at your service." He moved around the table closer to

Dasein. "Wouldn't give me any Jaspers beer for you this time, sir." He took

a frosted bottle from the tray, put it near the mug of beer he'd served

earlier. "This isn't as good as what I brought before. The food's real

Jaspers, though. Doggone busybody couldn't stop me from doing that."

"Jaspers," Dasein said. "I thought it was just the cheese."

Burdeaux pursed his lips, looked thoughtful. "Oh, no, sir. Jaspers, that's

in all the products from the Co-op. Didn't Jenny ever tell you?" He frowned.

"Haven't you ever been up here in the valley with her, sir?"

"No." Dasein shook his head from side to side.

"You are Dr. Dasein -- Gilbert Dasein?"

"Yes."

"You're the fellow Jenny's sweet on, then." He grinned, said: "Eat up, sir.

It's good food."

Frank Herbert - The Santaroga Barrier

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