"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
vanishing. 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. Vanishing,
or whatever happened that produced the vanishing, 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
vanishing, 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 hell? 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 publishing
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 vanish!"
"Huh?"
"People will read it and vanish! You've got to believe me. _The cause of
those disappearances is in that book!_"
Browne stared for a moment, then dragged over a notepad, wondering how
his publicity boys had missed this one. He stood up and came around his
desk. "You leave it to me," he said. "You won't have a thing to worry
about. I'll take care of everything."
"Then you won't publish it?"
Browne was guiding him toward the door. "You leave it to me. Drop in
again soon. If you need money just drop in any time and I'll fix you
up."
Fred found himself outside the door, not quite sure what Mr. Browne had
promised.
Inside, Browne went back to his desk, muttering, "What a killing! Have
to tell Nichols about it tomorrow at lunch. That vanishing stuff is a
terrific publicity angle."
* * * * *
"You still don't want to tell me what's troubling you?" Police Captain
Waters said wistfully.
A frown crossed Fred's features and vanished into a smile. "Nothing's
troubling me," he lied. "I'm all right. I'll be all right."
"You'll stay with us a while longer?"
"Sure. Sure. You make me feel--okay. I'm just going out for a ride. Be
back for supper."
* * * * *
It had been two months now since his mother and Curt had vanished. In
that two months he had come to realize something. He didn't quite know
how to express it even in his thoughts.
It wasn't that he didn't want to vanish. He would, some day. But he had
given up trying. It was the wrong way. The others hadn't tried. It had
just come to them out of a clear sky.
Some day it would come to him that way, and he would welcome it.
He drove downtown and parked. A block away was a show he wanted to see.
He started toward it. Abruptly he stopped. In front of him was a
bookstore. In its window was a large display, and every book had his
father's picture on the front under the title THEORY FOR THE MILLIONS.
In back of the display was a large poster with a still larger picture,
and the teaser--(DO YOU DARE READ THIS BOOK?)
Anger flamed in Fred's mind. The anger died as abruptly as it had come.
It was replaced by a homesickness, a longing. Unconsciously his
footsteps carried him into the store.
A man had the book in his hands.
"You aren't going to buy _that_, George," the woman beside him was
saying.
"And why not?" the man asked, laughing. "I've never turned down a dare
in my life!" He looked at the girl waiting on him. "Do you think I'll
vanish, Miss?"
The clerk smiled. "I wouldn't know. I have strict orders not to read the
book."
A solemn-faced man appeared out of nowhere and thrust a copy of the book
at the clerk. "I want this, please," he said.
"I'll be with you in a moment, sir," the clerk said.
Others were waiting also.
Fred stumbled from the store, bumping into someone in the doorway as he
went through, and too confused and frightened to stop and apologize.
There was no way of stopping it. Maybe the police would become alarmed
at the disappearances.
"What's wrong with me?" he mumbled, walking blindly in the crowds on the
sidewalks. "Maybe I do lack the ability to believe. I _think_ I believe.
What have I missed?"
Only he, of all those who had learned the theory, had not vanished. Was
faith, then, something so common, and yet impossible for he, himself, to
reach?
Ahead was another bookstore. In its windows were the same displays.
He stopped. People were pushing through the doors. Inside they were
picking up the book and looking for a clerk.
The clerks were smiling and saying things Fred couldn't hear, and
wrapping the books and handing them to their new owners--people who
would take them home and read--and vanish.
Into what? Something they would see, and smile at, and say, "Why, of
course!" And with a simple acceptance they would enter it.
He watched them.
And from the depths of his being Fred longed to be one of them; to be
able to go in and buy the book, and read it, and....
* * * * *
On the other side of the window, in the store, a clerk was waiting on a
customer. The customer turned to look at him, with his nose flattened
against the glass. He didn't see them. In his eyes was a faraway look, a
startled light.
"Why of course!" he said in quiet wonder.
There was just a little blur, where a nose had pressed against the
window, and the customer frowned and said to the clerk, "That young man
outside--he--he--"
"Three-fifty, please," the clerk said.
"Ah--oh. Oh, sure."