some local feud? Doak went along the platformto the single step that led to the street.
There was a breeze from the east, cooling the warm air. He turned inat the drug store and could scarcely believe his eyes.
Bent wire chairs and marble-topped tables with bent wire legs. Notoasters, video sets, geiger counters, ray guns or portable garbagedetergents.
But dim and cool and with a high marble fountain. "A lime-ade," Doaksaid, "with a sprig of mint."
The man behind the fountain wore a blue jacket over his white shirt.He had a thin face and a high-domed head and intelligent blue eyes.
Doak sat on one of the high wire stools and lighted a cigarette. "Hotday, was it?"
"Hot enough. But we get the night breeze. Stranger in town?"
"From Milwaukee," Doak said. "Out to visit Senator Arnold."
"Oh." The man set the drink in front of Doak.
"Trying to talk him into leaving some money to the University," Doakadded. "Guess he's a pretty hard man to get money from."
"I hear he is. I wouldn't know about it. He--doesn't shop in town."
The drink was freshly flavorful, cool as springwater. Doak rubbed thebeaded moisture with a thumb. "Pretty town," he said. "Pretty countryaround here."
"Peaceful," the man agreed. "I've never been anywhere else, so Icouldn't judge it right, I guess--but then I've never had the urge togo anywhere else, so it must be all right."
"These days," Doak said, "a man doesn't need to go anywhere else. Theybring the world right to you."
"I guess. Hear they're having a hard time getting Venus populated. Iguess people aren't as rootless as the planners figured."
By "the planners" the man undoubtedly meant THAT WASHINGTON CROWD.Doak finished his drink and went up the street to the grey house withthe blue shutters on the curve.
There was a woman sitting on the front porch, a short and heavy womanwith dark hair and brown eyes. She smiled at him and said, "Goodevening," without rising.
"Mrs. Klein?" Doak asked and she nodded. He said, "The station agenttold me you rented rooms and served meals. My name is Doak Parker."
"A pleasure, Mr. Parker. If you'll go through the living room and takethat door at the east end of it, you'll come to a hall. The room atthe back of the hall's the one, if you'd like to look at it." Shedidn't move from her chair.
He went into the dim living room and through the door and down thehall. A mahogany bed with a patchwork quilt for a spread, a mahoganydresser and a huge wicker chair, upholstered in a bright chintz. Itwas a chintzy house.
* * * * *
He looked out the back window and saw a neat lawn, bordered withflowering shrubs. He put his grip on the floor and came back to theliving room.
There were windows along the front of this room and they were open. Hecould see Mrs. Klein in her chair and a girl standing next to her.
There was no reason for him to pause but he did. He'd heard Mrs.Klein say, "Another meeting tonight, Martha?"
"Yes." The girl's voice was defensive.
"Why--why, Martha? Don't you realize the danger of--oh, Martha!"
"Mother, please. There's no danger. We're careful."
Doak coughed and walked out again onto the porch. The girl standingthere was as dark as her mother but slim and long-legged and vividlybeautiful.
Mrs. Klein said, "My daughter Martha, Mr. Parker. You liked the room?"
"It's fine," he said and to Martha, "How do you do?"
"How do you do, Mr. Parker? You've had supper?"
He nodded and lied, "In Milwaukee. I'm up here to try and get somemoney out of Senator Arnold. I wonder if this might be a good time tosee him."
Mrs. Klein said, "I doubt if anytime is a good time to see him. You'rea salesman, Mr. Parker?"
"No, no. It's philanthropy I'm concerned with. Mr. Arnold's old enoughto start thinking about his benefactors."
"He'll probably leave it all to the dogs," Mrs. Klein said. "And yoube careful of them, Mr. Parker."
"That I will," Doak said. "I think I'll walk up there now. Not much ofa walk, I understand. Just over the hill, isn't it?"
It was the girl who answered. "That's right. I'm going that waymyself. I'll be glad to show you the house."
Mrs. Klein said, "You're leaving so soon, Martha?"
"Right now. I'll be home early. Don't fret about me, Mother."
They went down the walk together, Doak and Martha, and he hadforgotten June and the Department and all the girls who would be out,looking, tonight in Washington.
She walked easily at his side, poised and quiet.
He said, "Do you work in town?"
She nodded. "For an attorney. I was going to law school myself untilDad died."
"Oh," he said.
He wondered at his lack of words, and the strange sense of--almost ofinferiority glimmering in him. She hadn't said anything or doneanything to place him at a disadvantage but he knew this was no lassfor the casual pitch.
They came to the crest of the hill and saw the dying sun low in thewest. The quiet was almost absolute. About a hundred yards on theother side of the ridge was a road leading off to the south. On theright side of this road was the big house with the high stone fence.
Doak said quietly, "There's a few sentences that have been botheringme all day. I wonder if you'd recognize them. They're, 'Studious, letme sit and hold high converse with the mighty dead.' One of the Scotchpoets probably."
"Thomson," she said, "from his _Seasons_." She looked straight ahead.
"I'm not sure I understand exactly what he meant," Doak said.
"He meant--reading." She turned to look at him. "This is SenatorArnold's house, Mr. Parker. You might ask him what Thomson meant."
Her smile was brief and cool. She walked on.
Behind the fence, the dogs started to bark. In the huge gatepost was apair of paneled doors about three feet high, the lower edges aboutfour feet from the ground. A sign read, _Visitors, kindly use thisphone_.
Doak opened the double doors and lifted the phone. As he did so ascanning light went on in the weatherproof niche. Someone said, "Yes?"
"Officer Parker of Security. I believe I'm expected."
"One moment, sir."
Silence, except for the sniffing dogs. And then the sniffing stoppedand he heard the pad of their feet, as they raced for the house andthe voice in the phone said, "The gates will be open soon, Mr.Parker."
They opened in less than a minute. At the far end of the gravel drivea turreted monstrosity loomed, a weathered wooden structure that hadundoubtedly once been white.
It was now as ashen as the face of Senator Arnold, bleak against theskyline, set back on a dandelion-covered lawn. Behind the wrought-ironfence, to the right of the house, the dogs watched him approach.
They were German Boxers, formidable creatures and great slobberers.They drooled as he walked up to the low porch but uttered not a sound.
The man who opened the door was fat and needed a shave. He wore ashiny, duraserge suit. "Follow me, please, Mr. Parker."
III
Doak followed him through a high musty living room into a small roomoff this. There was a small hynrane heater in here, and the room wasstifling.
Senator Arnold sat in a wheel chair, his feet elevated. He wore agreasy muffler around his thin neck and a heavy reefer buttoned allthe way up.
The fat man left, closing the door behind him. Arnold looked Doak overfrom head to feet and came back up. "It's about time. Yourcredentials?"
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 roadto the south. First house, only house in sight."
Doak put his wallet in his pocket. "Just what kind of business do youthink is going on up there, Senator?"
The old man seemed to spit the word. "Readers."
Doak exhaled, saying nothing.
"And m
aybe more," the old man said and his eyes were unholy. "Maybe--Iwouldn't be surprised if they're--they're _printing_ something upthere." He coughed.
Sweat poured off Doak as the glowing hynrane heater made an oven ofthe windowless room.
The old man closed his eyes. "In my home town, the vermin, in my owntown! They always laughed at me here but, by God, that was before thestate 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 andglared at Doak.
"Subversive reading, you think?" Doak asked.
The old man stared at him. "Is there another kind? I shouldn't have toask that of a Security Officer. What kind of men is the Departmenthiring these days?"
Doak thought of something to say and decided not to. He said, "Iwondered 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 God, if I was two years younger, I'd go along just for the joy ofsmashing them." He was trembling, leaning forward in his chair. "Gonow, go and trap the filthy scum."
Doak went. He left the hot and odorous room and went out through thecool and odorous room to the front hall and out the front door. Therehis nausea quieted a little under the sun-warmed air from the east.
Behind the wrought-iron fence the dogs slobbered and watched, onlytheir heads moving. As he went down the gravel drive to the heavy gatehe was conscious of their stares and a coldness moved through him. Thegates opened when he was twenty feet away.
It was growing dark and the breeze seemed stronger. On the road to thesouth, the Range Road, the house identified as the old Fisher placerevealed one light in a first-floor room. There were two cars in theyard.
Doak turned back toward town but paused over the crest of the hill andsought cover. There was a small grove of hickory and oak to his left.He walked into their shelter until he was out of any passerby's rangeof vision.
Readers wouldn't be any trouble. But printers? If the old mummy wasright in his guess Doak could have more trouble than one man couldhandle.
He put his back up against the rough bark of an oak tree and sathugging his knees, waiting for the darkness. _Studious let me sit...._Oh, yes.
Printers--and what would they print? Had any poets been born since theArnold Law, any writers? Was there some urge to write in a readerlessworld? In the Russian homes, he'd heard, under the machine gods, theold religion persisted, from parent to child, by word of mouth.
But writers without an audience? An art that persisted withoutfollowers?
That girl, that lovely poised girl-creature had been quick to identifyThomson and he wasn't one of the giants. If there were others withequally fertile memories, and they got together, it would be like asmall--what was the word?--a small library.
They could write or print or type the remembered offerings of all thereaders and have a book. Or at least a pamphlet.
It grew darker and he thought of June and wondered, if her memory weresearched, just what would be dredged up. He'd bet it would be oneword--_no_.
And now it was dark enough and he rose and made his way back over thehill, toward the Fisher place, following the field instead of theroad, keeping to the tall grass, conscious of the crickets and thenight breeze and the light in the first floor room of the Fisherplace.
There was another car in the drive now and he could see a few peoplein the room. He could see Martha and next to her an aged man with abeard like snow. He went past the window and around in back of thehouse.
There was an unlatched rear door and he entered a dark rear hall andput on his infra-scope. Now he could see the three steps leading to anopen door and he went up the steps to the kitchen. There he could heartheir voices.
Martha was talking. "As Dan has told you there's nothing to fear froman injection of lucidate. It's a perfectly harmless drug with noserious aftereffects that promotes total recall. Total recall is whatwe need unless we get a much larger group of donors than we havepresently.
"Readers are no problem. We've had more requests for our magazine thanwe can fill. Our biggest problem, more important than getting memorydonors, is to find someone who can contribute significant originalwork. For that kind of man we're still searching. Or woman."
Doak moved quietly, very slowly, past the kitchen sink and along theshort hall that led to the dining room. There was a swinging doorhere, closed, but the upper half was glass and he could see throughthe dining room into the lighted living room. He took off theinfra-scope glasses.
Nine people were in the room, seven men and two women. The men rangedin age from about twenty-three to the old gent with the beard, whoseemed ageless. The other woman was a gray-haired lady of about fiftywith 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 noddedand the woman came forward to sit in the chair. He had a hypodermic inhis hand and she extended her arm.
On the far side of the room Martha was wheeling up a small recordingmachine.
Now the woman's eyes were closed and the others sat back, watchingher. 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 shequoted? 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 therewas 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 enoughto disturb that circle of mesmerized individuals listening to thecontralto magic.
There was only one small creak, halfway up.
Three rooms led off a narrow hall. One held a cot and a dresser and astraight-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 aduplicating machine somewhere. This other dingus was undoubtedly atypewriter--and this small gadget on the desk a stapler.
And here, on a small pine table, was a sheaf of four mimeographedpages, stapled together.
The heading read, _The Heritage Herald_.
That was the name of their magazine. Printers, under the technicalinterpretation of the law. A typewriter and a duplicating machine andstencils and ink--and words.
Shakespeare, whoever he was, and Robert W. Service and Milton and anoriginal by S. Crittington Jones.
The original was a short-short tale about a wrestler and a cowboy anda video comedian, a space-farce. There was a piece headed _Editorial_by Martha Klein. It had a sub-heading--_For Those Who Are Willing ToFight_.
It was a stirring and vigorous call to arms against the Arnold Law. Itwas as subversive as anything Doak had seen in his Department career.
He folded the magazine, and put it into an upper jacket pocket. Hewent to the third room and saw the paper stacked there and the bottlesof ink and new stencils.
He went back to the stairs, and quietly down them. From the livingroom, he heard--
"'... From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her loved at home, revered abroad; Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, An honest man's the noblest work of God!'"
This was more like it, except for that last line the bard hadborrowed. This was the true giant, and who was quoting him? It wasnot the contralto voice. Who?
He moved out to the kitchen and back to his vantage point. He took offthe infra-scope and looked into the living room. It was the old gent,wit
h the beard. And who else could it be? For wasn't he the cream ofthe lot, the most obvious scholar, the most evident gentleman?Scholarship and breeding seemed to flow from every hair in his beard.
"O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! From whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blessed with health and peace and sweet content! And, O, may heaven their--"
Doak felt a stirring in him and tears moved down his cheeks and heturned, quickly and silently, and went out the back door. He was nochild at his mother's knee, he was no mewling kitten--he was aSecurity Officer and this was subversion.
Outside the stars were bright in a black sky. He stood in the backyard, breathing heavily, ashamed at the sudden surge of feeling thathad moved through him. Some streak of adolescence, he thought, stirredby the words he had remembered from his mother's lips.
He walked slowly back toward town. He could call in local help andround up the gang back there in the house. He could wash this uptonight and be back in Washington tomorrow morning. With June.
The prospect of being with June had lost its flavor somehow. And ifthis was a widely published magazine, he had a larger duty than merelyapprehending the gang. All of the magazine's readers were breaking thelaw and a real operative comes in with a complete, clean case.
Mrs. Klein still sat on her front porch. "Any luck?" she asked, as hecame up to sit on the glider near her chair.
"Some. I'll see him again tomorrow."
Her voice was dry. "One of our most prominent citizens, the Senator.The other's Glen Ryder. I guess you know who he is."
He stiffened, trying to see her face in the dark. "Ryder? Oh, yes, inthe Security Department."
"That's right. Glen isn't anything to be ashamed of really. But thatSenator Arnold--my, the stories my mother told me about him!"
"I've heard," Doak said, "he was pretty wild as a young man."
"Wild?" Mrs. Klein sniffed. "Degraded would be a better word. If hisfather didn't have all the money in the county he'd have gone to jailmore than once, that man. And then the people of this state sendinghim to the Senate."
Doak said nothing, staring out at the quiet night.
"Would you like a little snack?" Mrs. Klein asked. "I've some bakedham and rolls out in the kitchen."
"No thanks," Doak said. "I'm not very hungry. Was Glen Ryder a friendof Senator Arnold's?"
"Not until Glen went to work for the government. I don't think theSenator had any friends except those who could profit by it."
"This Ryder was something of an--opportunist?"
"If that means what it sounds like, I guess that would describe Glen.He wasn't one to overlook any opportunity to better himself and he cutit pretty thin at times."
Doak looked over but could not see her face in the darkness. He saidslowly, "I guess we all have to look out for ourselves and the deviltake the hindmost."
"I suppose," she said placidly. "Though it would depend on what youwanted out of life. Here in Dubbinville I think we're a little moreneighborly than that."
"It's a nice town," Doak said. "A real nice town."
In front a car was stopping on the other side of the road. Someone gotout from the door on the far side and the car moved on.
"That would be Martha, I guess," Mrs. Klein said. "She'll want some ofthat ham, I know. You may as well have a cup of coffee with usanyway."
IV
Doak had some coffee and some rolls and ham. And some talk with bothof them in the bright comfortable kitchen. They talked about theridiculous price of food in the city and how cool the house was afterthe heat of the day and what was it like on Venus?
Neither of the women had ever been to Venus. Doak told them about thelakes, the virgin timber, the glareless warmth that came from thegenerative earth.
And about the lack of communication facilities.
"There isn't enough commerce to make any video installationsworthwhile," he explained, "and the only information transmission isby amateur radio operators. But nobody seems to miss it. It's gotenough vacation facilities without video."
Martha looked at him evenly. "The--Arnold Law applies there, too,doesn't it?"
Doak met her gaze. "Of course." And then, "Why do you ask?"
She smiled. "I was thinking it would be a good place to curl up with abook." Her chin lifted. "Or establish a newspaper."
He didn't answer. He took another roll and buttered it.
Mrs. Klein said, "Martha's too young to know what a newspaper is--or abook. And so are you, Mr. Parker. I say we're not missing much."
He grinned at her. "Bad, were they?"
"There was a paper in Chicago so bad you'd think I was lying if Itried to describe it to you. And all the books seemed to be concernedwith four-letter words."
He carefully put a piece of ham between the broken halves of the roll."Even Bobbie Burns? From what my mother told me he was quite a lad."
"He was dead before your mother was born," Mrs. Klein said. "All thegood ones were, all the ones who tried to entertain instead of shockor corrupt."
Martha said lightly, "Mama's an admirer of Senator Arnold, the way itsounds."
"I'll thank you not to mention his name while I'm eating," Mrs. Kleinsaid acidly. "And I'm not forgetting why _he_ hated the printed word.But that's looking a gift horse in the mouth."
Doak sipped his coffee. His voice was casual. "Why did he hate theprinted word?"
"He couldn't read anything but the simplest words. The tutors hisfather hired and fired to get some learning into that man! He was justhopeless, that's all."
Doak smiled. "Well, he seems to have done all right without it. I'dlike to have his money."
"And his brain?" Martha asked.
"Just his money," Doak said. "And maybe I'll get some of it before Igive up on him."
He happened to glance at Martha after he finished saying that. Herface was coldly skeptical and he had an uncomfortable feeling that hislie hadn't registered with her at all.
In his room, as he undressed, as he hung his clothes in the smallcloset, he felt the folded thickness of the dupligraphed magazine inhis jacket pocket.
What more did he need? Tomorrow he'd take the first train back toMilwaukee and the first plane from Milwaukee. Here was evidence and herealized now it wasn't something he would be wise to tackle alone. Afew weeks' work by a half dozen operatives and the entirepublisher-reader organization would be spotted and ready for oneunified move.
Local authorities were subject to local loyalties and one leak couldscare off the whole organization. He could be back in Washingtonbefore noon, which would give him a full day and a half of free time,of June time. To say nothing of the nights.
Why should he hang around this whistle stop for a wasted week-end,holding kitchen conversations with the unmighty living?
But that Martha, that lovely, that proud and knowing gal.... Thecrickets helped him to Dreamland.
The morning sun was bright on the quilted bedspread when he opened hiseyes. There was no sound of meal preparation in the house, nodialogue. Was it early?
It was ten o'clock. Not since he was a child had he enjoyed as longand satisfying a sleep as this.
When he came out of the bathroom Mrs. Klein was in the hall. "Aboutfive minutes?" she asked.
"Make it two," he told her and winked. "I'm starving."
Martha had already gone to work. Doak sat down alone to popovers andoatmeal, eggs and Canadian bacon. And real coffee. He had an almostanimal sense of well being. His decision to go back to Washington,which had seemed so final last night, was fading under the Dubbinvillespell.
After breakfast he walked down to the station and inquired aboutMilwaukee-bound trains.
"There's one due at noon," the agent told him. "Stops on signal. Youwant me to stop it?"
"That's kind of early," Doak said. "When's the next?"
"At six tonight. A local. Doesn't need a signal."
That would be soon enough. Doak left and walked slowly up the mainstreet
of Dubbinville. He was walking past the bank when the beardcaught his gaze.
* * * * *
It was the Burns quoter of last night. He was sitting behind thebiggest desk in the open portion of the bank, and there was a sign onhis desk.
The sign read, _Malcolm S. Sutherland--President_.
Lordy, Lordy, Lordy--the president of the bank! That showed the stratathis subversion was reaching. Didn't the man realize what a risk hewas taking?
In the drugstore he saw another of the faces he had seen last night.It was the man who had administered the hypodermic. He was talking tothe druggist. Doak turned and went in.
"All right, Doctor," the druggist said. "I'll have it about oneo'clock. Will that be all right?"
"Fine," the doctor said. He went out.
Doak bought a package of cigarettes. "Was that Doctor Ryan by anychance?"
"No. Doctor Helgeson. I don't recall a Doctor Ryan. Doctor Helgeson'sthe only medical doctor in town."
"This Ryan's a Ph.D." Doak said. "Senator Arnold told me about him.Beautiful day, isn't it?"
"Beautiful," the druggist agreed.
Walking back to the house Doak wondered if this couldn't be handledwithout punitive measures being taken. The only doctor in town and thepresident of the bank--and they were probably only a small part of thepicture. It could disrupt this town if Senator Arnold had his way.
And what was their crime? Reading. A law as stupid as the ancientprohibition law had been, pushed through a bewildered Congress undermuch the same conditions. Supported by a strange blend of the divineand ridiculous, the naive and the clever, the gullible and theknowing.
Well, was it his business? _He_ didn't make the laws--he only helpedto enforce them. It was a logical answer and why didn't it satisfyhim?
He had a job, a good job at the public trough in a woman-heavy city, asecurity that was as solid as his country.
The Mighty Dead Page 3