Ye of Little Faith Part 10

He had been on the wrong track. His beautiful theory of belief that spread downward into the subconscious, then down lower and lower into the basic matrix that held a person in this reality, was wrong. The evidence he had based it on was still there, but it was evidence of something else.

Of what?

The eastern horizon was suffused with light. It grew stronger, dimming the light of the moon.

From somewhere in the depths of his being rose a feeling that soon he would know, and when he did he would be close to crossing the threshold.

He unclasped his arms and straightened out his legs, feeling stabs of pain in his weary muscles. He got to his feet, tingling with weariness.

By the side of the road, he could see the police car he had stolen--infinite ages ago. He walked toward it, and when he reached it he climbed in and closed the door.

"Beautiful morning," Captain Waters said, starting the motor.

Fred awoke and opened his eyes. Across the room the French doors were open. Sunlight was filtering through the copper screens. A breeze was playing gently with the drapes. For a moment the flight, the long walk into the country, his rendezvous with Aloneness, Captain Water's coming to bring him back, all seemed the stuff of dreams. He had the feeling that he had never left this enormous bed.

Then it returned. Reality. The miracle of his reorientation to belief, the new vistas that went with it. The full realization of the true nature of the vanishments.

He became aware of a figure in the doorway, watching him. It was Mrs.

Waters. "Awake?" she asked cheerfully.

"Yes," Fred said.

"Want some breakfast?"

He nodded. She went away.

He raised his head and looked about the room, at the homey touches, the family pictures on the dresser and the walls, the hand sewed knickknacks and frills. This was probably the Waters' own bedroom that they had given up for him.

He could vanish while Mrs. Waters was away. She would come in with the breakfast tray and find him gone.

When would the _moment of reorientation_ come?

He frowned in thought. That had stirred up something about what he had dreamed, or thought, while he was asleep. Something that had the flavor of being very important.

"Here you are!" Mrs. Waters said, sweeping into the room with the tray and its Swedish design dishes and steaming coffee and hot cereal. As she bent over to set the tray on the bed, there came the sound of the front door opening. "There's Pa, home already." She smiled worriedly at Fred.

"Will you be all right? I'll tell Pa to come in and keep you company while I fix his supper."

"Yes ma'am," Fred said, eyeing the food hungrily. "Only--" She was at the door. She stopped and looked around questioningly. "I--I think I'd like to be alone while I eat."

"All right," she said, and hurried away.

But Captain Waters had brushed in without giving her a chance to tell him to stay away. "h.e.l.lo, son," he said warmly. "Have a good sleep?"

Mrs. Waters said, "You let him alone while he eats."

"It's all right," Fred said hastily.

"Sure it's all right," the police captain said. He sat down and took out his pipe. He concerned himself with filling it and lighting it, saying nothing.

Fred picked up a piece of golden toast and bit into one corner absently.

The thoughts he had had during sleep were filtering into consciousness.

He recalled how his mother had looked. There had been a fleeting expression just before she had vanished. She had been going to say something. _She had changed her mind and had vanished instead!_

And Curt--he had had his reorientation at least several seconds before vanis.h.i.+ng. He had had it, and then, with his new perspective, had said, "So _that's_ it!"

It was as though the new orientation made everything else unimportant.

One common factor stood out in every case, those two he had personally witnessed, and the others he hadn't seen. One common factor. Vanis.h.i.+ng, or whatever happened that produced the vanis.h.i.+ng, had been an impulse.

There had been time for thought. For example, Curt might have considered the practicality of telling Fred what had happened to him. But he might have reflected that eventually Fred would discover what he had just discovered, so why bother?

In the office Curt had told him of a whole city of a million people vanis.h.i.+ng, leaving empty houses and streets. Had the cause been the same? A true orientation?

Fred looked at Captain Waters, sitting quietly, puffing slowly on his pipe. With deliberation Waters uncrossed his legs and leaned forward.

"You know, son, when you get around to it--that is, if you feel up to it sometime--I wish you'd tell me about it. What it is that's troubling you. I'll try to understand."

"You'll try--?" Fred echoed. And the police captain's words started a train of thought. The others--had the place they'd gone been a heaven or a h.e.l.l? So many of them--. Fred started suddenly. "The book!" he cried.

"What book?"

"I've got to see the publisher about my father's book. It's very important."

"It can wait until you're feeling better," Waters said.

"No. I've got to see Mr. Browne!"

"Why?"

"I--I can't tell you."

"All right." Captain Waters gave in. "I'll take you down and bring you back."

It was half an hour later, in the reception room at the publis.h.i.+ng company. Fred stared numbly at the big poster on the wall advertising his father's book.

"Mr. Browne will see you," the receptionist said.

"Wait here," Fred told Captain Waters. "I want to talk to him alone." He went to the door and opened it, stepping inside and closing it behind him.

"Fred Grant?" Browne said, getting up from his desk and coming toward him, hand outstretched. "What can I do for you? Need some money?"

Fred was shaking his head. "I don't want any money," he said. "I want you to stop my father's book. You can't publish it."

"Now wait," Browne said. "We aren't going through that again, are we?"

"You can't!" Fred said. "People will read it and vanis.h.!.+"