Why Call Them Back from Heaven

19

The faint lighting of the eastern sky served notice that dawn was near at hand.

Daniel Frost stood unsteadily in the street, still numb from the impact of what had happened in the courtroom, still held in the dying grip of drug, filled with a strange blend of desperation, of anger, fear, and pity for himself.

There was something very wrong about all of it, he knew—not only the fact that he could not have been convicted as they had said he'd been convicted, but wrong about the hour, a trial in the dead of night, and in the fact that there had been no other persons in the court but the judge and bailiff. If in fact they had been judge and bailiff.

A put-up job, he thought. The long arm of Marcus Appleton reaching out for him. And reaching out most desperately. There must, he told himself, be something in that paper that Appleton would go to any lengths to hide.

But he was in no position at the moment—if he ever were to be in position—to do anything about it. There was no one who would listen.to him. There was no one he would dare to talk with. There is no appeal, the ghostly face had said. And that was right; there was no way to appeal.

Ann Harrison, he thought.

Good Lord, there was Ann Harrison.

Had she been the trigger, her coming up to see him, that had brought this all about?

And had he said anything about her? Had he said she had the paper—if she really had the paper?

If he had been questioned under drug, he undoubtedly had implicated her. But it seemed impossible to believe that he had been so questioned, for if he had (and the court had really been a duly constituted court) he'd not have been convicted.

He stood shaky in the night just before the dawn and the questions and the doubts and the fumbling for an understanding went on roaring through his brain.

No longer a member of the human race.

No longer anything.

Just a blob of protoplasm tossed out in the street-naked of possessions and of hope.

With but one single right remaining—the human right to die.

And that, of course, was what Appleton had planned.

That was what he counted on—that with no other right, a man would exercise that one remaining right.

"I won't do it, Marcus," said Daniel Frost, talking to himself and to the night and to the world and to Marcus Appleton.

He turned from where he stood and went fumbling down the street, for he had to get away, before the light could come he must find a place to hide. To hide from the mockery and the anger and the callous cruelty that would greet him if he should happen to be seen. For now he was no longer of the world, but an enemy. Every hand would be raised against him and he'd have no protection beyond the protection of the dark and hidden place. He was, henceforth, his own protector, for there was no law nor right that he could claim.

Within him grew a cold hard knot of anger and of viciousness that wiped out the self-pity that remained. A knot of hard, cold anger that such a thing as had happened to him could be allowed to happen. It was not civilized—but who had ever claimed that the human race was civilized? It could probe through the cosmos for other earthlike planets, it could pry at the lid of time, it could conquer death and aim at eternal life, but it was still a tribe.

There had to be a way to beat this vicious tribe, there had to be a way to square accounts with Apple-ton—and if there were a way he would seek it out and use it and use it without pity. But not right now.

Right now he must find a place to hide. He would be all right, he knew, being honest with himself, so long as he was able to hang onto that knot of anger which twisted in his belly. The one thing that he must never do was to give way to a slobbering pity of himself.

He reached an intersection and hesitated, wondering which way he should go. From far off, somewhere on another street, came the thin whining of an electric motor—a cruising cab, perhaps.

To the river, he thought—that would be the place where he would be most likely to find a place where he could hide, perhaps even get some sleep if he could manage sleep. And after that, he told himself, would come the problem of locating food.

He shivered, thinking of it. Was this what life was to be from this moment forward—a seeking of a place to hide and sleep, the eternal hunt for food? In a little while, with the threat of winter, he'd have to start drifting south, wandering (at night, when he'd be unobserved) down through that great complex of coastal cities which really was one city.

The light was growing in the east and he must be on his way. But he felt a strange reluctance to turn in the direction of the river. He wasn't really running yet and he didn't want to run—except for the tattoos on bis face there was no reason that he should. But the first step that he took toward the river, he would be in flight, and he shrank from flight, for it seemed that once Jie took that first step he'd never stop his running.

He stood looking up and down the empty street. There might be some other way, he thought. Perhaps he should not even try to hide. There must be someplace where be could demand the justice that was coming to him, but even as he thought of it he knew what the answer would be: That he had had his justice.

It was a ridiculous thing to think about, he knew. He had no chance at all. He would not be heard. The evidence of his status and his crime was upon his face for everyone to see. And he had no rights.

Wearily he turned in the direction of the river. If he had to run, he'd better start the running before it was too late.

A voice spoke to him: "Daniel Frost."

He spun around.

A man who apparently had been standing in the shadow at the base of the building on the corner stepped out onto the sidewalk—a hunched, misshapen figure with a large cap squashed flat upon his head and with tatters hanging from his coat sleeves.

"No," said Frost, uncertainly. "No…"

"It's all right, Mr. Frost. You're to come with me."

"But," said Frost, "you don't know what I am. You don't understand."

"Of course we do," said the man with the tattered sleeves. "We know that you need help and that is all that matters. Please stay very close behind me."