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 God, 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 God, if I was two years younger, I'd go along just for the joy of
smashing them." He was trembling, leaning forward in his chair. "Go
now, go and trap the filthy scum."
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 slobbered 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 passerby'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 gods, 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 grass, 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 glass and he could see through
the dining room into the lighted living room. He took off the
infra-scope glasses.
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.