The Mighty Dead Part 4

The fat man left, closing the door behind him. Arnold looked Doak over from head to feet and came back up. "It's about time. Your credentials?"

Doak handed over his wallet. There was, he saw, no chair in the room.

Evidently, he was supposed to stand through the interview.

The old man handed the wallet back. "The place is right up that road to the south. First house, only house in sight."

Doak put his wallet in his pocket. "Just what kind of business do you think is going on up there, Senator?"

The old man seemed to spit the word. "Readers."

Doak exhaled, saying nothing.

"And maybe more," the old man said and his eyes were unholy. "Maybe--I wouldn't be surprised if they're--they're _printing_ something up there." He coughed.

Sweat poured off Doak as the glowing hynrane heater made an oven of the windowless room.

The old man closed his eyes. "In my home town, the vermin, in my own town! They always laughed at me here but, by G.o.d, that was before the state saw fit to send me to the Senate. The last laugh's been mine.

But now--right under my nose, you might say!" He opened his eyes and glared at Doak.

"Subversive reading, you think?" Doak asked.

The old man stared at him. "Is there another kind? I shouldn't have to ask that of a Security Officer. What kind of men is the Department hiring these days?"

Doak thought of something to say and decided not to. He said, "I wondered about how dangerous they were. If I'd need additional men."

"For readers? Young man, there must be some red blood in your veins.

By G.o.d, if I was two years younger, I'd go along just for the joy of smas.h.i.+ng them." He was trembling, leaning forward in his chair. "Go now, go and trap the filthy sc.u.m."

Doak went. He left the hot and odorous room and went out through the cool and odorous room to the front hall and out the front door. There his nausea quieted a little under the sun-warmed air from the east.

Behind the wrought-iron fence the dogs s...o...b..red and watched, only their heads moving. As he went down the gravel drive to the heavy gate he was conscious of their stares and a coldness moved through him. The gates opened when he was twenty feet away.

It was growing dark and the breeze seemed stronger. On the road to the south, the Range Road, the house identified as the old Fisher place revealed one light in a first-floor room. There were two cars in the yard.

Doak turned back toward town but paused over the crest of the hill and sought cover. There was a small grove of hickory and oak to his left.

He walked into their shelter until he was out of any pa.s.serby's range of vision.

Readers wouldn't be any trouble. But printers? If the old mummy was right in his guess Doak could have more trouble than one man could handle.

He put his back up against the rough bark of an oak tree and sat hugging his knees, waiting for the darkness. _Studious let me sit...._ Oh, yes.

Printers--and what would they print? Had any poets been born since the Arnold Law, any writers? Was there some urge to write in a readerless world? In the Russian homes, he'd heard, under the machine G.o.ds, the old religion persisted, from parent to child, by word of mouth.

But writers without an audience? An art that persisted without followers?

That girl, that lovely poised girl-creature had been quick to identify Thomson and he wasn't one of the giants. If there were others with equally fertile memories, and they got together, it would be like a small--what was the word?--a small library.

They could write or print or type the remembered offerings of all the readers and have a book. Or at least a pamphlet.

It grew darker and he thought of June and wondered, if her memory were searched, just what would be dredged up. He'd bet it would be one word--_no_.

And now it was dark enough and he rose and made his way back over the hill, toward the Fisher place, following the field instead of the road, keeping to the tall gra.s.s, conscious of the crickets and the night breeze and the light in the first floor room of the Fisher place.

There was another car in the drive now and he could see a few people in the room. He could see Martha and next to her an aged man with a beard like snow. He went past the window and around in back of the house.

There was an unlatched rear door and he entered a dark rear hall and put on his infra-scope. Now he could see the three steps leading to an open door and he went up the steps to the kitchen. There he could hear their voices.

Martha was talking. "As Dan has told you there's nothing to fear from an injection of lucidate. It's a perfectly harmless drug with no serious aftereffects that promotes total recall. Total recall is what we need unless we get a much larger group of donors than we have presently.

"Readers are no problem. We've had more requests for our magazine than we can fill. Our biggest problem, more important than getting memory donors, is to find someone who can contribute significant original work. For that kind of man we're still searching. Or woman."

Doak moved quietly, very slowly, past the kitchen sink and along the short hall that led to the dining room. There was a swinging door here, closed, but the upper half was gla.s.s and he could see through the dining room into the lighted living room. He took off the infra-scope gla.s.ses.

Nine people were in the room, seven men and two women. The men ranged in age from about twenty-three to the old gent with the beard, who seemed ageless. The other woman was a gray-haired lady of about fifty with fine features and a rich contralto voice.

She was saying, "I'd like to be the first to go under the lucidate."

Next to a maple fireman's chair a man who looked about forty nodded and the woman came forward to sit in the chair. He had a hypodermic in his hand and she extended her arm.

On the far side of the room Martha was wheeling up a small recording machine.

Now the woman's eyes were closed and the others sat back, watching her. The contralto voice was clear and resonant.

"'... 'tis but thy name that is my enemy Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.

What's Montague? It is nor hand nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What's in a name? that which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet...'"

The rich voice, the flowing rhythm, the silence--was it Burns she quoted? No--he knew all of Burns--but this was some giant of the past; this was almost up to vintage Burns.

He left his vantage point and went quietly back to the kitchen, donning his infra-scope once more. In some of these old houses there was a back steps, leading to the second floor.

Another door leading off the kitchen, another hall--and the steps.

They would undoubtedly creak. But they might not creak loudly enough to disturb that circle of mesmerized individuals listening to the contralto magic.

There was only one small creak, halfway up.

Three rooms led off a narrow hall. One held a cot and a dresser and a straight-backed chair. The second room he entered had a strange smell.

A smell he didn't recognize. Ink? Was that a mimeograph machine?

Something stirred in his memory, some picture he had seen of a duplicating machine somewhere. This other dingus was undoubtedly a typewriter--and this small gadget on the desk a stapler.

And here, on a small pine table, was a sheaf of four mimeographed pages, stapled together.

The heading read, _The Heritage Herald_.

That was the name of their magazine. Printers, under the technical interpretation of the law. A typewriter and a duplicating machine and stencils and ink--and words.

Shakespeare, whoever he was, and Robert W. Service and Milton and an original by S. Crittington Jones.