But hands chained by a phobia that grew out of this quiet life. Decadence—a strangely beautiful—and deadly—decadence.
Man had forsaken the teeming cities, the huddling places, two hundred years ago. He had done with the old foes and the ancient fears that kept him around the common campfire, had left behind the hobgoblins that had walked with him from the caves.
And yet—and yet—
Here was another huddling place. Not a huddling place for one’s body, but one’s mind. A psychological campfire that still held a man within the circle of its light.
Still, Webster knew, he must leave that fire. As the men had done with the cities two centuries before, he must walk off and leave it. And he must not look back.
He had to go to Mars—or at least start for Mars. There was no question there, at all. He had to go.
Whether he would survive the trip, whether he could perform the operation once he had arrived, he did not know. He wondered vaguely, whether agoraphobia could be fatal. In its most exaggerated form, he supposed it could.
He reached out a hand to ring, then hesitated. No use having Jenkins pack. He would do it himself—something to keep him busy until the ship arrived.
From the top shelf of the wardrobe in the bedroom, he took down a bag and saw that it was dusty. He blew on it, but the dust still clung. It had been there for too many years.
As he packed, the room argued with him, talked in that mute tongue with which inanimate but familiar things may converse with a man.
“You can’t go,” said the room. “You can’t go off and leave me.”
And Webster argued back, half pleading, half explanatory. “I have to go. Can’t you understand? It’s a friend, an old friend. I will be coming back.”
Packing done, Webster returned to the study, slumped into his chair.
He must go and yet he couldn’t go. But when the ship arrived, when the time had come, he knew that he would walk out of the house and toward the waiting ship.
He steeled his mind to that, tried to set it in a rigid pattern, tried to blank out everything but the thought that he was leaving.
Things in the room intruded on his brain, as if they were part of a conspiracy to keep him there. Things that he saw as if he were seeing them for the first time. Old, remembered things that suddenly were new. The chronometer that showed both Earthian and Martian time, the days of the month, the phases of the moon. The picture of his dead wife on the desk. The trophy he had won at prep school. The framed short snorter bill that had cost him ten bucks on his trip to Mars.
He stared at them, half unwilling at first, then eagerly, storing up the memory of them in his brain. Seeing them as separate components of a room he had accepted all these years as a finished whole, never realizing what a multitude of things went to make it up.
Dusk was falling, the dusk of early spring, a dusk that smelled of early pussy willows.
The ship should have arrived long ago. He caught himself listening for it, even as he realized that he would not hear it. A ship, driven by atomic motors, was silent except when it gathered speed. Landing and taking off, it floated like thistledown, with not a murmur in it.
It would be here soon. It would have to be here soon or he could never go. Much longer to wait, he knew, and his high-keyed resolution would crumble like a mound of dust in beating rain. Not much longer could he hold his purpose against the pleading of the room, against the flicker of the fire, against the murmur of the land where five generations of Websters had lived and died.
He shut his eyes and fought down the chill that crept across his body. He couldn’t let it get him now, he told himself. He had to stick it out. When the ship arrived he still must be able to get up and walk out the door to the waiting port.
A tap came on the door.
“Come in,” Webster called.
It was Jenkins, the light from the fireplace flickering on his shining metal hide.
“Had you called earlier, sir?” he asked.
Webster shook his head.
“I was afraid you might have,” Jenkins explained, “and wondered why I didn’t come. There was a most extraordinary occurrence, sir. Two men came with a ship and said they wanted you to go to Mars.”
“They are here,” said Webster. “Why didn’t you call me?”
He struggled to his feet.
“I didn’t think, sir,” said Jenkins, “that you would want to be bothered. It was so preposterous.”
Webster stiffened, felt chill fear gripping at his heart. Hands groping for the edge of the desk, he sat down in the chair, sensed the walls of the room closing in about him, a trap that would never let him go.
“I had a rather strenuous time, sir,” said Jenkins. “They were so insistent that finally, much as I disliked it, I resorted to force. But I finally persuaded them you never went anywhere.”
To Walk a City’s Street
“To Walk a City’s Street” was originally written for the anthology Infinity Three, which was published in 1972 by Lancer Books. For some reason, the story has not appeared in print very often. Its greatest implausibility involves members of Congress not seeking control of Ernie’s mutant powers. Too bad.
Joe stopped the car.
“You know what to do,” he said.
“I walk down the street,” said Ernie. “I don’t do nothing. I walk until someone tells me it is time to stop. You got the other fellows out there?”
“We have the fellows out there.”
“Why couldn’t I just go alone?”
“You’d run away,” said Joe. “We tried you once before.”
“I wouldn’t run away again.”
“The hell you wouldn’t.”
“I don’t like this job,” said Ernie.
“It’s a good job. You don’t have to do anything. You just walk down the street.”
“But you say which street. I don’t get a pick of streets.”
“What difference does it make what streets you walk?”
“I can’t do anything I want, that’s the difference that it makes. I can’t even walk where I want to walk.”
“Where would you want to walk?”
“I don’t know,” said Ernie. “Any place you weren’t watching me. It used to be different. I could do what I wanted.”
“You’re eating regular now,” said Joe. “Drinking regular, too. You have a place to sleep each night. You got money in your pocket. You have money in the bank.”
“It don’t seem right,” said Ernie.
“Look, what’s the matter with you? Don’t you want to help people?”
“I ain’t got no beef against helping people. But how do I know I help them? I only got your say-so. You and that fellow back in Washington.”
“He explained it to you.”
“A lot of words. I don’t understand what he tells me. I’m not sure I believe what he tells me.”
“I don’t understand it, either,” said Joe, “but I have seen the figures.”
“I wouldn’t know even if I seen the figures.”
“Are you going to get started? Do I have to push you out?”
“No, I’ll get out by myself. How far you want I should walk?”
“We’ll tell you when to stop.”
“And you’ll be watching me.”
“You’re damned right we will,” said Joe.
“This ain’t a nice part of town. Why do I always have to walk the crummy parts of all these crummy towns?”