Why Call Them Back from Heaven Read online

  So here he was, beside this river, with the campfire burning and the lament of the whippoorwill sounding from the hollow-the only man in the world who knew (or knew approximately, at least) where the stolen jadelay buried. Perhaps, at this late date, one of the very few who knew about the theft at all.

  Even now, he told himself, the jade probably could not be safely placed upon the market. For there would be records still and the museum still existed. But five hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, it could be safely sold. For by then the very fact of the theft would have been forgotten or so deeply buried in the ancient records that it could not be found.

  It would make, he told himself, a satisfactory stake for the second life—if he could only find it. Diamonds, he thought, or rubies would be scarcely worth the effort. But jade was different. It would keep its value, as would any work of art. The converters could turn out diamonds by the bushel and they could, in fact, turn out jade as well, by the ton if need be. But they could not turn out carven jade or paintings. Art objects still would retain their value, perhaps appreciate in value. For while the converters could turn out the raw material, any kind of raw material, they could not duplicate a piece of craftsmanship or art.

  A man, he told himself, had to use some judgment in selecting what he meant to cache away against Revival Day.

  The tobacco had burned out and the pipe made gurgling noises as he sucked at it. He took it from his mouth and tapped out the ash against his boot heel.

  Tomorrow morning there'd be fish on the lines that he had set and he still had flour and other makings for a plate of flapjacks. He got up from the ground and went down to the canoe to get his blanket roll.

  A good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast and he'd be on his way again—looking for the island with a sandbar at its point shaped somewhat like a fishhook and the two pines just landward of the sandbar. Although, he knew, the sandbar's shape might well have changed or been wiped out entirely. The one hope that he had were the two pine trees, if they still survived.

  He stood at the water's edge and glanced up at the sky. The glitter of the stars was unmarred by any cloud and the moon, almost full, hung just above the eastern cliffs. He sniffed the breeze and it was clean and fresh, with a hint of chill in it. Tomorrow, he told himself, would be another perfect day.

  18

  Daniel Frost stood on the sidewalk and watched the lights of Ann Harrison's car go down the street until it turned a corner and disappeared from sight.

  Then he turned and started up the worn stone steps that led back into the apartment building. But halfway up he hesitated and then turned about and walked down the steps to the street again.

  It was too nice a night, he told himself, to go back into his room. But even as he told it to himself, he knew that it was not the beauty of the night, for here, in this ramshackle neighborhood, there was nothing that held any claim to beauty. It was not, he knew, the attractiveness of the night that had turned him back, but a strange reluctance to go back into the room. Wait a while, perhaps, and its emptiness might wear off a little, or his memory might become slightly dulled so that he could accept the emptiness the better.

  Until this night he had never known how empty and how drab and colorless and mean that room had been— not until he had come back from the park where he had met Joe Gibbons. And then, for a little time, it had come to a fullness of color, warmth, and beauty with Ann Harrison within the four small walls. There had been some candles and a dozen roses—and the price he'd paid for the roses had seemed to him outrageous—but it was neither the candles nor the roses, or the both of them together, that had transformed the place. It had been Ann who had brought the miracle.

  The room had been mean and empty and it had never been before. It had been simply sensible to live in a place like that, a door for privacy, a roof for shelter, a single window to let in the light and one window was enough. A place for eating and for sleeping, a place to spend his time when he wasn't working. There was no need for larger quarters, no thought of greater comfort. For whatever comfort he might need came from the knowledge that week by week he added to the competence he'd take with him when he died.

  Why had the room seemed so mean and small when he'd come back to it that evening? Was it, perhaps, because his life likewise suddenly had become mean and small? That the room was empty because his life was empty? And how could his life be empty when he faced the almost certain prospect of immortality?

  The street was in shadow, with only a streetlamp here and there. The rundown structures on each side of the roadway were gaunt specters from the past, old somber residential buildings that long ago had outlived any former pride they may have held.

  His footsteps rang like hollow drumbeats on the pavement as he walked slowly down the street. The houses mostly were dark, with only here and there a lighted window. There appeared to be no one else abroad.

  No one else abroad, he thought, because there was no reason to go anywhere. No cafes, no plays, no concerts— for all of these took money. And if one were to prepare for that second life, he must hold tight to all his money.

  A drab, deserted street and a drab and empty room — was this all that the present life could offer to a man? Could he have been wrong? he wondered. Could he have been walking in a dream, blinded by the glory of the life to come?

  All alone, he thought—alone in life and alone upon the street.

  Then a man stepped out of a recessed doorway. "Mr. Frost?" he asked. "Yes," said Frost. "What can I do for you?" There was something about the man that he didn't care for, a faint hint of impertinence, a sense of insolence in the way he spoke.

  The man moved a step or two closer, but said nothing. "If you don't mind," said Frost, "I have…" Something stung him in the back of the neck, a vicious, painful sting. He lifted a hand to smite at whatever might have stung him, but his hand was heavy, and half lifted, it would lift no further. He seemed to be falling, over on one side, in a slow, deliberate fall, not from any blow, not from any violence, but as if he'd tried to lean against something that had not been there. And the curious thing about it was that he didn't seem to care, for he knew that he was falling so slowly he'd not be hurt when he struck the sidewalk.

  The man who had spoken to him still was standing. on the sidewalk, and now there was another man as well, someone, Frost realized, who had come up behind him. But they were faceless men, enshrouded in the shadow of the buildings and they were no one that he knew.

  17

  He was in a dark place and he seemed to be silting in a chair and in the darkness of the place a light he could not see shone on the metallic structure of a strange machine.

  He was comfortable and drowsy and he felt no desire to move, although it bothered him that he did not recognize the place. It was somewhere, he was certain, he had never been before.

  He closed his eyes again and sat there, the hardness of the chair beneath him, across his back and seat, and the hardness of the floor underneath his feet the one reality. He listened and there seemed to be a sort of humming, an almost silent hum, the sort of noise that an idle piece of equipment might make while it waited for a task to be assigned to it.

  There was a burning on each cheek and a burning on his forehead, a tingling sensation with a little fire ir it and he wondered what had happened and where he was and how he'd gotten there, but he was so comfortable, so very close to sleep, that he didn't really mind

  He sat quietly and now it seemed that in addition to the machinelike hum, he could hear the ticking oi time as it went flowing past him. Not the ticking of a clock, for there was no sound of a clock, but the tick of time itself. And that was strange, he thought, for time should have no sound.

  Embarrassed by the thought of the tick of time, he stirred a little in the chair and lifted a hand to feel the tingle in his cheek.

  "Your Honor," said a voice out of the darkness all around him, "the defendant is awake."

  Frost's eyes came open and he strug
gled to get out of the chair. But his legs seemed to have no power in them and his arms were rubbery and all he really wanted was to stay sitting in the chair.

  But the man had said Your Honor and something about a defendant now awake and that was startling enough to make him want to find out where he was.

  Another voice asked, "Can he stand?"

  "It appears he can't, Your Honor."

  "Well," His Honor said, "it doesn't matter much, one way or the other.

  Frost managed to hitch around so he was sitting side-wise in the chair and now he saw the light, a little shielded light, on a level somewhat above his head, and just above the light, half in shadow, half in light, hung a ghostly face.

  "Daniel Frost," asked the ghostly face, "can you see me?"

  "Yes, I can," said Frost.

  "Can you hear and understand me?"

  "I don't know," said Frost. "It seems I just woke up and I can't get out of the chair…"

  "You talk too much," said the other voice in the room.

  "Leave him be," said the ghostly face. "Give him a little time. This must be a shock to him."

  Frost sat limply in the chair and the others waited.

  He had been walking on a street, it seemed, when a man had stepped from a doorway and had spoken to him. Then something stung his neck and he'd tried to reach the thing that stung him, but he couldn't reach it. And then he had fallen very slowly, although he could not remember that he'd ever hit the street, and there had been two men, not one, standing on the sidewalk, watching as he fell.

  Your Honor, the other man had said, and that must mean a court and if it were a court, the machine would be.the Jury, and the place where His Honor sat, with the little shielded light, would be the judge's bench.

  But it all was wrong. It was a fantasy. For what reason would he find himself in court?

  "You feeling better now?" His Honor asked.

  "Yes, I seem to," said Frost, "but there is something wrong. It seems I'm in a courtroom."

  "That," said the other voice, "is exactly where you are."

  "But there is no reason for me to be in…"

  "If you'll shut up for a minute," said the other, "His Honor will explain."

  When he finished saying it, he snickered and the snicker ran all about the room on little, dirty feet.

  "Bailiff," said the face that hung above the bench, "that is the last I want to hear from you. This man is unfortunate, indeed, but he is not a subject for your ridicule."

  The other man said nothing.

  Frost struggled to his feet, hanging to the chair to hold himself erect.

  "I don't know what is going on," he said, "and I have a right to know. I demand…"

  A ghostly hand waved beside the ghostly head to cut off what he meant to say.

  "You have the right," said the face, "and if you'll listen, I'll inform you."

  A pair of hands, reaching from behind him, grasped Frost beneath the armpits, hauled him straight, and held him on his feet. Slowly Frost reached out to grasp the back of the chair to hold himself erect.

  "I'm quite all right," he said to the man behind him.

  The hands released him and he stood alone, propped up by the chair.

  "Daniel Frost," said the judge, "I'll make this brief and to the point. There is no other way.

  "You have been seized and brought to this court and have undergone a narco-trial. You have been found guilty of the charge and sentence already has been passed and executed, according to the law."

  "But that's ridiculous," Frost cried out. "What have I done? What was the charge?"

  "Treason," said the judge.

  "Treason. Your Honor, you are crazy. How could I…" "Not treason to the state. Treason to humanity." Frost stood rigid, his hands gripping the wood of the chair so hard that the grasp was painful. A tumult Of fear went surging through him and his brain seemed curdled. Words came churning up, but he did not say them. He kept his mouth clamped shut.

  For this was not the time, said one tiny corner of his mind that still stayed sane, for the rush of words, for an outpouring of emotion. Perhaps he akeady had said more than he should have. Words were tools and must be used to their best advantage.

  "Your Honor," he finally said, "I challenge you on that. There is no provision…"

  "But there is," said the judge. "Think of it and you'd realize that there had to be. There has to be provision against the sabotage of the plan to prolong human life. I can quote you…"

  Frost shook his head. "No need to, although I've never heard of it. But even so, there has been no treason on my part. I've worked for that very plan; I've worked for Forever Center…"

  "Under narco-questioning," said the judge, "you admitted to conniving with various publishers, using your position, for motives of your own, to prejudice the plan." "It's a lie!" yelled Frost. "That was not the way it was."

  The ghostly head shook slowly, sadly.

  "It must have been the way it was. You told of it yourself. You testified against yourself. You would not lie about yourself and to your discredit."

  "A trial!" Frost said bitterly. "In the middle of the night. Struck down in the street and carried here. No arrest. No attorney. And, I would suppose, no chance to

  appeal."

  "You are right," said the judge. "There is no appeal. Under law, narco-trial results and judgments stand final. After all, it is the most equable approach to justice. It does away with all impediments to the course of justice." "Justice!"

  "Mr. Frost," said the judge, "I have been patient with you. Because of your former position of trust and honor and your long record with Forever Center, I have given you more latitude in your remarks than conforms with the dignity of this court. I can assure you that the trial was conducted properly and by the only means that a trial for treason can be conducted under law, that you have been found guilty of the charge and that sentence has been passed. I now will read the sentence to you." A phantom hand reached into the darkness where a pocket was and, bringing out a pair of spectacles, placed them on the ghostly face. "The seemingly detached hand picked up a sheaf of papers and the papers rustled. "Daniel Frost," said the judge, reading from the paper, "you have been adjudged, after due legal process, guilty of the charge of treason against all humankind in that you attempted willingly and willfully to obstruct the administrative functions and processes aimed at the bringing of immortality not only to all presently living persons but to all the others who are dead, with their bodies held in preservation.

  "It is the sentence of this court, in accordance with the penalty set out by the statutes, that you, Daniel Frost, shall be ostracized from the human race, that you shall be forbidden…"

  "No!" yelled Frost. "No, you can't do that to me. I didn't…"

  "Bailiff," roared the judge.

  A hand reached out of the darkness and the fingers ground into Frost's shoulder.

  "You shut up," said the bailiff, grinding his teeth, "and listen to His Honor."

  "… that you shall be forbidden," the judge went on, "to have any intercourse, commerce, or communication, in any manner whatsoever, with any other member of the human race, and that any other member of the human race, under duly set forth penalties, shall be forbidden to have any intercourse, commerce, or communication with you. That you shall have stripped from you all personal possessions except, for the sake of decency, the very clothes you stand in, and that all other of your possessions shall be confiscated. Likewise you are stripped of all rights except the one final right of having your body preserved, in accordance with the law, and by the mercy of this court.

  "And it is hereby directed that, in order all men may recognize your ostracism and so refrain from any contact with you, you be branded, by the means of a tattoo, upon your forehead and each cheek with an O outlined in red."

  The judge kid down the paper and took off his glasses.

  1 have one thing to add," he said. "As a matter of mercy, the tattooing already has been done, while you s
till were under drug. It is a rather painful process and it is not the purpose of this court to cause you unnecessary agony or greater humiliation than is unavoidable.

  "And a warning. The court is aware that by various means these tattoo marks may be covered or disguised, or even removed. Do not, under any circumstance, be tempted to resort to such deception. The penalty for such an act is the cancellation of the one right you still have left, the preservation of your body."

  He glared at Frost. "Sir," he asked, "do you understand?"

  "Yes," Frost mumbled. "Yes, I understand,"

  The judge reached for his gavel and banged it. The sound rang hollowly in the almost-empty room.

  "This case is closed," he said. "Bailiff, escort him to the street and throw him—I mean, turn him loose."

  18

  In the night, the cross blew down again.

  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.