The Fireman (10 page)

"Be seeing you!"

And Montag was out the door, running lightly, with the half empty case. Behind him, he saw and felt and heard the garden sprinkler system jump up, filling the dark air with synthetic rain to wash away the smell of Montag. Through the back window, the last thing he saw of Faber was the older man ripping up the carpet and cramming it in the wall incinerator.

Montag ran.

Behind him, in the night city, the Electric Hound followed.

HE STOPPED now and again, panting, across town, to watch through the dimly lighted windows of wakened houses. He peered in at silhouettes before television screens and there on the screens saw where the Electric Hound was, now at Elm Terrace, now at Lincoln Avenue, now at 34th, now up the alley toward Mr. Faber's, now at Faber's!

"No, no!" thought Montag. "Go on past! Don't turn in, don't!"

He held his breath.

The Electric Hound hesitated, then plunged on, leaving Faber's house behind. For a moment the t-v camera scanned Faber's home.

The windows were dark. In the garden, the water sprinkled the cool air, softly.

THE Electric Hound raced ahead, down the alley.

"Good going, Professor." And Montag was gone, again, racing toward the distant river, stopping at other houses to see the game on the t-v sets, the long running game, and the Hound drawing near behind. "Only a mile away now!"

As he ran he had the Seashell at his ear and a voice ran with every step, with the beat of his heart and the sound of his shoes on gravel. "Watch for the pedestrian! Look for the pedestrian! Anyone on the side-walks or in the street, walking or running, is suspect! Watch for the pedestrian!"

How simple in a city where no one walked. Look, look for the walking man, the man who proves his legs. Thank God for good dark alleys where men could run in peace. House lights flashed on all about.

Montag saw faces peering street-ward as he passed behind them, faces hid by curtains, pale, night-frightened faces, like odd animals peering from electric caves, faces with gray eyes and gray minds, and he plunged ahead, leaving them to their tasks, and in another minute was at the black, moving river.

He found what he was looking for after five minutes of running along the bank. It was a row-boat drawn and staked to the sand. He took possession.

The boat slid easily on the long silence of river and went away downstream from the city, bobbing and whispering, while Montag stripped in darkness down to the skin, and splashed his body, his arms, his legs, his face with raw liquor. Then he changed into Faber's old clothing and shoes. He tossed his own clothing into the river with the suitcase.

He sat watching the dark shore. There would be a delay while the pursuit rode the Electric Hound up and down stream to see where a man named Montag had stepped ashore.

Whether or not the smell of Faber would be strong enough, with the aid of the alcohol, was something else again. He pulled out a handkerchief he had saved over, doused it with the remainder of the liquor. He must hold this over his mouth when stepping ashore.

The particles of his breathing might remain in an electronically detectable invisible cloud for hours after he had passed on.

He couldn't wait any longer. He was below the town now, in a lonely place of weeds and old railway tracks. He rowed the boat toward shore, tied the handkerchief over his face, and leaped out as the boat touched briefly.

The current swept the boat away, turning slowly.

"Farewell to Mr. Montag," he said. "Hello, Mr. Faber." He went into the woods.

HE FOUND his way along rail-road tracks that had not been used in years, crusted with brown rust and overgrown with weeds. He listened to his feet moving in the long grass. He paused now and then, checking behind to see if he was followed, but was not.

Firelight shone far ahead. "One of the camps," thought Montag. "One of the places where the hobo intellectuals cook their meals and talk!" It was unbelievable.

Half an hour later he came out of the weeds and the forest into the half light of the fire, for only a moment, then he hid back and waited, watching the group of seven men, holding their hands to the small blaze, murmuring. To their right, a quarter mile away, was the river. Up the stream a mile, and still apparent in the dark, was the city, and no sound except the voices and the fire crackling.

Montag waited ten minutes in the shadows. Finally a voice called: "All right, you can come out now."

He shrank back.

"It's okay," said the voice. "You're welcome here."

He let himself stand forth and then he walked tiredly toward the fire, peering at the men and their dirty clothing.

"We're not very elegant," said the man who seemed to be the leader of the little group. "Sit down. Have some coffee."

He watched the dark steaming mixture poured into a collapsible cup which was handed him straight off. He sipped it gingerly. He felt the scald on his lips. The men were watching him. Their faces were unshaved but their beards were much too neat, and their, hands were clean. They had stood up, as if to welcome a guest, and now they sat down again. Montag sipped. "Thanks," he said.

The leader said, "My name is Granger, as good a name as any. You don't have to tell us your name at all." He remembered something. "Here, before you finish the coffee, better take this." He held out a small bottle of colorless fluid.

"What is it?"

"Drink it. Whoever you are, you wouldn't be here unless you were in trouble. Either that, or you're a Government spy, in which case we are only a bunch of men traveling nowhere and hurting no one. In any event, whoever you are, an hour after you've drunk this fluid, you'll be someone else. It does something to the perspiratory system — changes the sweat content. If you want to stay here you'll have to drink it, otherwise you'll have to move on. If there's a Hound after you, you'd be bad company."

"I think I took care of the Hound," said Montag, and drank the tasteless stuff. The fluid stung his throat. He was sick for a moment; there was a blackness in his eyes, and a roaring in his head. Then it passed.

"THAT'S better, Mr. Montag," said Granger, and snorted at his social error. "I beg your pardon —" He poked his thumb at a small portable t-v beyond the fire. "We've been watching. They videoed a picture of you, not a very good resemblance. We hoped you'd head this way."

"It's been quite a chase."

"Yes." Granger snapped the t-v on. It was no bigger than a handbag, weighing some seven pounds, mostly screen. A voice from the set cried:

"The chase is now veering south along the river. On the eastern shore the police helicopters are converging on Avenue 87 and Elm Grove Park."

"You're safe," said Granger. "They're faking. You threw them off at the river, but they can't admit it. Must be a million people watching that bunch of scoundrels hound after you. They'll catch you in five minutes."

"But if they're ten miles away, how can they...?"

"Watch."

He made the t-v picture brighter.

"Up that street there, somewhere, right now, out for an early morning walk. A rarity, an odd one. Don't think the police don't know the habits of queer ducks like that, men who walk early in the morning just for the hell of it. Anyway, up that street the police know that every morning a certain man walks alone, for the air, to smoke. Call him Billings or Brown or Baumgartner, but the search is getting nearer to him every minute. See?"

In the video screen, a man turned a corner. The Electric Hound rushed forward, screeching. The police converged upon the man.

The t-v voice cried, "There's Montag now! The search is over!"

The innocent man stood watching the crowd come on. In his hand was a cigaret, half smoked. He looked at the Hound and his jaw dropped and he started to say something when a god-like voice boomed, "All right, Montag, don't move! We've got you, Montag!"

By the small fire, with seven other men, Mr. Montag sat, ten miles removed, the light of the video screen on his face.

"Don't run, Montag!"

The man turned, bewildered. The crowd roared. The Hound leaped up.

"The poor son of a bitch," said Granger, bitterly.

A dozen shots rattled out. The man crumpled.

"Montag is dead, the search is over, a criminal is given his due," said the announcer.

The camera trucked forward. Just before it showed the dead man's face, however, the screen went black.

"We now switch you to the Sky Room of the Hotel Lux in San Francisco for a half hour of dawn dance music by — "

GRANGER turned it off. "They didn't show the man's face, naturally. Better if everyone thinks it's Montag."

Montag said nothing, but simply looked at the blank screen. He could not move or speak.

Granger put out his hand. "Welcome back from the dead, Mr. Montag." Montag took the hand, numbly. The man said, "My real name is Clement, former occupant of the T. S. Eliot Chair at Cambridge. That was before it became an Electrical Engineering School. This gentleman here is Dr. Simmons from U.C.L.A."

"I don't belong here," said Montag, at last, slowly. "I've been an idiot, all the way down the line, bungled and messed and tripped myself up."

"Anger makes idiots of us all, I'm afraid. You can only be angry so long, then you explode and do the wrong things. It can't be helped now."

"I shouldn't have come here. It might endanger you."

"We're used to that. We all make mistakes, or we wouldn't be here ourselves. When we were separate individuals, all we had was rage. I struck a fireman in the face, once. He'd come to burn my library back about forty years ago. I had to run. I've been running ever since. And Simmons here..."

"I quoted Donne in the midst of a genetics class one afternoon. For no reason at all. Just started quoting Donne. You see? Fools, all of us."

They glanced at the fire, self-consciously.

"So you want to join us, Mr. Montag?"

"Yes."

"What have you to offer?"

"Nothing. I thought I had the Book of Job, but I haven't even got that now."

"The Book of Job would do very well. Where was it?"

"Here." Montag touched his head.

"Ah," said Granger-Clement. He smiled and nodded.

"What's wrong? Isn't that all right?" said Montag.

"Better than all right — perfect! Mr. Montag, you have hit upon the secret of, if you want to give it a term, our organization. Living books, Mr. Montag, living books. Inside the old skull where no one can see." He turned to Simmons. "Do we have a Book of Job?"

"Only one. A man named Harris in Youngstown."

"Mr. Montag." The man grasped Montag's shoulder firmly. "Walk slowly, be careful, take your health seriously. If anything should happen to Harris, you are the Book of Job. Do you see how important you are?"

"But I've forgotten it!"

"Nonsense, nothing is ever forgotten. Mislaid, perhaps, but not forgotten. We have ways, several new methods of hypnosis, to shake down the clinkers there. You'll remember, don't fear."

"I've been trying to remember."

"Don't try. Relax. It'll come when we need it. Some people are quick studies but don't know it. Some of God's simplest creatures have the ability called eidetic or photographic memory, the ability to memorize entire pages of print at a glance. It has nothing to do with I.Q. No offense, Montag. It varies. Would you like, one day, to read Plato's Republic?"

"Of course."

Granger nodded to a man who had been sitting to one side.

"Mr. Plato, if you please."

THE man began to talk. He looked at Montag idly, his hands filling a corncob pipe, unaware of the words tumbling from his lips. He talked for two minutes without a pause or stumble.

Granger made the smallest move of his fingers. The man cut off.

"Perfect word-for-word memory, every word important, every word Plato's," said Granger.

"And," said the man who was Plato, "I don't understand a damned word of it. I just say it. It's up to you to understand."

"Don't you understand any of it?" asked Montag.