Ye of Little Faith Part 9

There were two cars parked at the curb. One was a police car, the other a black Chrysler sedan, probably the doctor's car. The police car had the key in the ignition. Fred didn't hesitate. He jerked open the door and slid behind the wheel. Mrs. Waters' anxious voice sounded, calling, "Fred! Where are you?" Then the starter was whirring. The motor caught.

As he shot away from the curb, Fred caught a glimpse in the rear view mirror of Captain Waters running down the walk from the house.

As he took the first corner, touching the siren b.u.t.ton briefly, he wondered why he had run. It had been an impulse. Maybe it was the wrong one. Maybe he could accomplish what he had to do better in some kind of inst.i.tution. Maybe not.

He compressed his lips grimly. The die was cast now. He would abandon the police car someplace, then slip quietly out of town on foot. He would be caught if he tried to go home. He had no money except a few dollars in change.

Maybe this was all part of the new pattern that seemed to possess him.

He kept the siren going, not trusting his ability to avoid traffic. Its mad scream blended into his thoughts. He was the hunted. He was sane, but the truth would brand him as insane. Or was he sane? Had anyone vanished? Was his father at home, sitting in his chair in his study, expounding his theories to his colleagues? Was his mother at home, in the kitchen, preparing dinner?

His lip trembled. Homesickness welled up in him.

He was near a bus line that went to the outskirts of the city. He shut off the siren and slowed down. After a few blocks and two turns he felt safe in ditching the car. He pulled quietly to the curb. He tied his shoelaces, b.u.t.toned his s.h.i.+rt, combed his hair. Then he got out. No one paid any attention to him.

He walked to the corner. Two minutes later the bus stopped.

The night sky was clear. The moon was a lesser sun whose light made things visible and somehow unreal and mysterious. In the ditch to the right of the road two bright points of light blinked on, held for a moment, and vanished. A cat.

A silent dog appeared out of the gloom, wagged its tail and half of its body in friendliness. "Nice doggy," Fred said nervously. It sniffed his trouser leg, lost interest, and moved off into the darkness.

It was after midnight. How long after, he didn't know. Once a police car had come speeding by, its red lights ogling insanely, its spotlight weaving into the bushes at the side of the road. He had lain very still in the ditch until it pa.s.sed. It hadn't slowed down. Later it had come back and he had again pressed his body into the earth beside the road.

Off to the right now he saw the silhouette of the giant tree that had been the landmark of the picnic spot. A few minutes later he could see the gate that led to the meadow.

He squeezed through it and picked out the path worn by the cars the day before. Some winged creature dipped down, s.h.i.+ed away from him, and swept off into the darkness.

A soft gurgling sound became audible. The brook. The spot where his mother and Curt had vanished, was ahead.

He reached it. He wasn't quite sure until he studied the ground and went back in memory to check on little details. Then he was certain.

He had reached his goal.

He knew why he had come, of course. Here he was closer to his mother than anyplace else. Here, in some unguessed way, he might get to her.

What would he do when morning came? He sat down and pulled his knees up under his chin, wrapping his arms around them. Morning was far away. It might never come--for him. If and when it did he would cope with it.

"Mom," he whispered. "Mom...."

_Crrroak!_ The sound of the frog broke the silence. The croak of a frog that was part of the universe--the universe that was basically illogical. More....

Fred sobbed.

The universe was insane. Police looking for you. Doctors with their standards of sanity and insanity. Right now they were looking for him to protect him from himself. They didn't want to know why things were done.

To them even the reason would be part of the insanity. They dealt in tags. Words. Their science was an illusion within an illusion.

Meaningless inside a universe of meaninglessness.

_Crrroak_, the frog said cautiously. And a night creature came down on silent wings, to weave back into the darkness.

That was the reason for pragmatism. He could see it now. He had always thought his father made pragmatism his G.o.d because it was the intellectual thing to do. But now he could see the reason for it.

Reality was a jungle in which Reason had to cope with Unreason, and there was no criterion except workability. Belief was an instinctive way of thought. It was like the appendix. Scientists claimed that long ago man ate tree bark. And the appendix had had a use. If so, that use was gone, but the appendix remained. Before surgery had become a common thing, thousands of people died from appendicitis. The organ that had once been necessary had become a hazard to living. Belief was something like that.

He jerked out of his thoughts to listen to a car on the road. It slowed down. It stopped by the gate. A car door slammed. A man appeared briefly in the light of the headlamps. Captain Waters--alone.

He loomed a moment later inside the pasture in the light of a flashlight. He occasionally flashed it on his face so he would be recognizable.

Fred felt an impulse to slip away into the darkness. He hadn't been seen. Captain Waters was just hoping he might be here.

A stronger impulse made him remain as he was. The entire pattern of Captain Waters' approach indicated understanding--or at least the willingness to understand.

The bobbing flashlight came closer. It speared out and touched him; then abruptly went out. Footsteps approached. A dark form emerged from the gloom.

"h.e.l.lo, Fred," Captain Waters said quietly. "I came to keep you company.

I'll just sit quiet and not bother you."

"Okay," Fred said.

There were movements. A small flame illuminated Captain Waters' features as he lit his pipe. The flame went out. Then, only the occasional glow of the pipe, briefly illuminating the police Captain's face.

_Crrroak!_ The frog greeted this newest arrival in his domain.

Fred could not think. He was too conscious of the man sitting near him.

He fought down the impulse to jump up and run away into the darkness. He fought the desire to scream at the man to leave him alone.

Perhaps the police captain sensed this, or perhaps he could see Fred's expression when the coal in his pipe glowed brightest. "Tell you what,"

he said suddenly, "You maybe would feel better alone. I'll wait in the car. When you get ready you can come home. No more doctors. Mom gave me a good talking to. She wants you to come back."

Waters got up and walked away into the night. Minutes later there was the sound of a car door slamming shut. Fred was alone again.

Alone. It was a feeling, almost an emotion. Intellectually he knew that nearby was a frog. A block away across the meadow was the police captain sitting in his car.

Abruptly, without warning, a flash of insight spread through his entire mind. He knew suddenly what belief was. He knew it instinctively and without question.

And knowing it, he knew that his foundations of unbelief were a semantic illusion that had been built up within him. The panorama of his mind, his entire life, stood clearly before him.

The cute little tags of probability were superficial. They had a pragmatic value in keeping the mind open, but their function was to guide the judgment in tagging thoughts with belief or disbelief.

He retreated into his aloneness until there was nothing but himself. He marveled at the unfoldment of this new understanding. He could see things in this new light of understanding.

But then.... A question loomed. If that were so, why hadn't he vanished like the others? Belief was an automatic process. Why hadn't it permeated to the basic matrix of his mind as it had with the others?

Was he, then, still on the wrong track?

But there _was_ no other!

He saw the trap he had set for himself. He had believed with all his being that belief was the key he was searching for!