He broke off with: “Go home, Creel. We’ll see to it that they sell no weapons in this town.”
He watched the slender woman-shape move off into the shadows. She was halfway across the street when a thought occurred to Fara. He called, “And if you see that son of ours hanging around some street corner, take him home. He’s got to learn to stop staying out so late at night.”
The shadowed figure of his wife did not turn; and after watching her for a moment moving along against the dim background of softly glowing street lights, Fara twisted on his heel, and walked swiftly toward the shop. The crowd was growing larger every minute and the night pulsed with excited voices.
Beyond doubt, here was the biggest thing that had ever happened to the village of Glay.
The sign of the weapon shop was a normal-illusion affair. No matter what his angle of view, he was always looking straight at it. When he paused finally in front of the great display window, the words had pressed back against the store front, and were staring unwinkingly down at him.
Fara sniffed once more at the meaning of the slogan, then forgot the simple thing. There was another sign in the window, which read:
A spark of interest struck fire inside Fara. He gazed at that brilliant display of guns, fascinated in spite of himself. The weapons were of every size, ranging from tiny little finger pistols to express rifles. They were made of every one of the light, hard, ornamental substances: glittering glassein, the colorful but opaque Ordine plastic, viridescent magnesitic beryllium. And others.
It was the very deadly extent of the destructive display that brought a chill to Fara. So many weapons for the little village of Glay, where not more that two people to his knowledge had guns, and those only for hunting. Why, the thing was absurd, fantastically mischievous, utterly threatening.
Somewhere behind Fara, a man said: “It’s right on Lan Harris’ lot. Good joke on that old scoundrel. Will he raise a row!”
There was a faint titter from several men, that made an odd patch of sound on the warm, fresh air. And Fara saw that the man had spoken the truth. The weapon shop had a forty-foot frontage. And it occupied the very center of the green, gardenlike lot of tight-fisted old Harris.
Fara frowned. The clever devils, the weapon shop people, selecting the property of the most disliked man in town, coolly taking it over and giving everybody an agreeable titillation. But the very cunning of it made it vital that the trick shouldn’t succeed.
He was still scowling anxiously when he saw the plump figure of Mel Dale, the mayor. Fara edged toward him hurriedly, touched his hat respectfully, and said, “Where’s Jor?”
“Here.” The village constable elbowed his way through a little bundle of men. “Any plans?” he said.
“There’s only one plan,” said Fara boldly. “Go in and arrest them.”
To Fara’s amazement, the two men looked at each other, then at the ground. It was the big constable who answered shortly, “Door’s locked. And nobody answers our pounding. I was just going to suggest we let the matter ride until morning.”
“Nonsense!” His very astonishment made Fara impatient. “Get an ax and we’ll break the door down. Delay will only encourage such riffraff to resist. We don’t want their kind in our village for so much as a single night. Isn’t that so?”
There was a hasty nod of agreement from everybody in his immediate vicinity. Too hasty. Fara looked around puzzled at eyes that lowered before his level gaze. He thought: “They are all scared. And unwilling.” Before he could speak, Constable Jor said, “I guess you haven’t heard about those doors or these shops. From all accounts, you can’t break into them.”
It struck Fara with a sudden pang that it was he who would have to act here. He said, “I’ll get my atomic cutting machine from my shop. That’ll fix them. Have I your permission to do that, Mr. Mayor?”
In the glow of the weapon shop window, the plump man was sweating visibly. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He said, “Maybe I’d better call the commander of the Imperial garrison at Ferd, and ask them.”
“No!” Fara recognized evasion when he saw it. He felt himself steel; the conviction came that all the strength in this village was in him. “We must act ourselves. Other communities have let these people get in because they took no decisive action. We’ve got to resist to the limit. Beginning now. This minute. Well?”
The mayor’s “All right!” was scarcely more than a sigh of sound. But it was all Fara needed.
He called out his intention to the crowd; and then, as he pushed his way out of the mob, he saw his son standing with some other young men staring at the window display.
Fara called, “Cayle, come and help me with the machine.”
Cayle did not even turn; and Fara hurried on, seething. That wretched boy! One of these days he, Fara, would have to take a firm action there. Or he’d have a no-good on his hands.
The energy was soundless — and smooth. There was no sputter, no fireworks. It glowed with a soft, pure white light, almost caressing the metal panels of the door — but not even beginning to sear them.
Minute after minute, the dogged Fara refused to believe the incredible failure, and played the boundlessly potent energy on that resisting wall. When he finally shut off his machine, he was perspiring freely.
“I don’t understand it,” he gasped. “Why — no metal is supposed to stand up against a steady flood of atomic force. Even the hard metal plates used inside the blast chamber of a motor take the explosions in what is called infinite series, so that each one has unlimited rest. That’s the theory, but actually steady running crystallizes the whole plate after a few months.”
“It’s as Jor told you,” said the mayor. “These weapons shops are — big. They spread right through the empire, and they don’t recognize the empress.”
Fara shifted his feet on the hard grass, disturbed. He didn’t like this kind of talk. It sounded — sacrilegious. And besides it was nonsense. It must be. Before he could speak, a man said somewhere behind him, “I’ve heard it said that that door will open only to those who cannot harm the people inside.”
The words shocked Fara out of his daze. With a start, and for the first time, he saw that his failure had had a bad psychological effect. He said sharply, “That’s ridiculous! If there were doors like that, we’d all have them. We—”
The thought that stopped his words was the sudden realization that he had not seen anybody try to open the door; and with all this reluctance around him it was quite possible that—
He stepped forward, grasped at the doorknob and pulled. The door opened with an unnatural weightlessness that gave him the fleeting impression that the knob had come loose in his hand. With a gasp, Fara jerked the door wide open.
“Jor!” he yelled. “Get in!”
The constable made a distorted movement — distorted by what must have been a will to caution, followed by the instant realization that he could not hold back before so many. He leaped awkwardly toward the open door — and it closed in his face.
Fara stared stupidly at his hand, which was still clenched. And then, slowly, a hideous thrill coursed along his nerves. The knob had — withdrawn. It had twisted, become viscous and slipped amorphously from his straining fingers. Even the memory of that brief sensation gave him a feeling of abnormal things.