Hobbies

City series

Story, first published: Astounding Science Fiction, Nov. 1946


At the beginning of ... "Hobbies" a thousand years have passed. Most of the human race has departed for Jupiter, except for a little colony of five thousand still living in Geneva. All of the old respected institutions have vanished with the humans: government, law, commerce, religion, and even the family. Under the influence of Juwainism, people have lost their sense of purpose, their desire for achievement, and are busy following hobbies instead of work. Jon Webster leads such a useless life, writing the history of Geneva in despair for the human condition. His former wife, Sara, announces her intention to pursue an alternative to this boring, senseless paradise by taking the Sleep, a state of suspended animation, hoping to awake sometime in a better future. Webster's son, Tom, has returned to the woods and lives off the land.
Webster pays a visit to his ancestral home where the dogs and Jenkins, now two thousand years old, are delighted to serve a Webster again. Jenkins brings Webster up to date. The dogs have developed psychic powers and are listening for Cobblies, fearful creatures from another dimension. (One of the dogs, Ebenezer, cures Webster's warts.) Wild robots are building machines for some unknown purpose, and the mutants are holed up in their castles. Jenkins confesses that dogs and robots need human leadership once again to build a civilization based on the brotherhood of animals.
Webster, however, no longer considers his species worthy to lead the dogs on their new path, "it must not be tainted by the stale breath of man's thinking." Before he goes into the Sleep himself for eternity, Webster activates the mechanism isolating the remnant of the human race in Geneva, giving the dogs their chance.

Ewald, Robert J.: When the Fires Burn High and the Wind is from the North, p.45