Sneak into the Confirmation Rooms, sabotage the machines? They’d fly new ones in the next day, and how often could he do that before he was caught?
Break the Walls down, somehow … no use, the Walls were only a symbol; it was the angels that kept men from crossing over.
Bass started, and went over that thought again carefully. If that was true —and it was—why had the Walls been built of brick when boards would do?
For one thing, he realized; they were afraid of fires starting in the wasteland. It had happened already, or else the wasteland had been burnt deliberately, to prevent it… .
The wind was still rising. It pressed solidly against his back, flapped his cape and his trouser-cuffs around him.
… But the wasteland was too narrow now, he thought. A really big fire would jump the gap.
If a man, Bass asked himself slowly, stood facing that Wall, with an angel’s fiery sword in front of him and a burning city behind—which way would he jump?
For an instant a heart-quickening, vision rose up before him; then it vanished. There was just one thing wrong with it: the citizens of Stamford were all inside the massive, modern, fireproof Store, and would still be there, in all probability, an hour after Bass was dead…
Bass lurched through the doorway of the empty filling station, caught himself by grasping the edge of a desk, and let himself slide down into its shadow. He sat there, head down, until his laboring breath began to come more evenly. It had taken him what seemed like almost an hour, running when he could, forcing his stiff muscles into a fast walk when he couldn’t, to find this place:
It was hard to get up again, but he did it. He picked up the phone, pressed the stud marked “Operator,” and waited, trying to control his breathing.
“Operator,” said a woman’s voice. Bass said, “Get me Guard Headquarters.”
“Your credit card number, please.”
“This is an emergency call,” Bass said. “Put it through, Operator.”
“Yes, sir.”
A pause; a hum. Then: “Guard H. Q., Sergeant Santos. Go ahead.”
Bass took a deep breath. “Listen to me carefully,” he said. “I’m the demon you’re looking for. I’ve—”
The Guardsman’s voice blurted something incomprehensible, tremulously. “Listen, you fool!” Bass said sharply. “I’ve planted an explosive device in the Store. It’s set to go off exactly thirty minutes from now. If you agree to let me go back across the Wall, I’ll tell you where it is. Tell your—”
Another voice broke in. “What’s that? Say that again.”
Bass repeated it. He finished, “It will take me ten minutes to get to another telephone. At the end of that time, if I see that you’re withdrawing your men from the Wall, I’ll tell you where the explosive is hidden. If not, you won’t hear from me again.” He put down the phone, cutting off the man’s voice in mid-syllable.
OUTSIDE, he picked up the five-gallon can he had filled at the pump. The wind was still growing, roaring down to meet him as he climbed the hill again. A ruder gust came as he reached the crest, nearly knocking him off his feet; his hat lifted from his head and went bounding away into darkness.
Back at his starting point, Bass set the can down—its weight had grown fantastically with every step he took—and leaned against a tree until the worst of his weakness and nausea passed. To the east, the winking lights of the advancing barricade had vanished; the Guardsmen were out of sight in the hollow between the two hills. In the other direction, as he watched, the lights along the Wall began to blink out. Bass turned his attention to the orange wedges of light that spilled from the doorways of the Store.
After a moment, they began to flicker.
The Guardsmen were falling back from the Wall—no doubt to form another, less conspicuous line a block or two away—but they were also evacuating the Store.
Bass lifted the can and carried it into the nearest house. In the darkness, he felt his way around the crouching bulks of tables, the spidery traps of tubular-metal chairs; passed through a doorway and went straight to the huge wardrobe closet, crammed with dresses, capes, trousers, so tightly pressed that they were like one solid mass. He pulled out an armload of them, carried them back into the living room, heaped them against an inner wall. He splashed them sparingly with gasoline from the can.
Before he left, he raised a window in the front room and another in the kitchen, and propped open the door between.
At the next house but one he did the same, and so on down the deserted street, working his way southward, until his gasoline was gone. He stood panting raggedly in the living room of the last one; it had taken him a long time, and he had not dared stop to rest. By now more than half of the congregation would be outside the Store, spreading out, filling the streets. There was little time left.
He struck a match from the box he’d found in the kitchen, dropped it onto the piled garments, watched them flare up. He waited until he was sure the flame had caught, then hurried out, down the street, into the next house with an open window. Another match; another pale blossom of fire.
When he came out of the eighth house, he saw a golden tongue of flame rise over the rooftops, down the way he had come.
Coming out of the fourteenth, he heard the faint wail of a siren; then another. Too soon! He had hoped that the choked streets would delay them longer. He ran on grimly, the pavement jolting his body from feet to skull, breath burning his throat; into a house, lighting the match, dropping it, out again without waiting to see that it caught, on to the next.
Three-quarters of the way back to his starting-point, the matches gave out. Bass groped wildly in the dark kitchen for another box, gave it up, snatched the book out of the pocket in his cape, wrenched out a handful of pages before he realized that he could never keep them alight in the gale outside—dropped them and the remainder of the book, mumbling absurdly, “Now I’ll never know if it’s the same text“—plucked a blazing, gasoline-soaked vest out of the fire and ran with it down to the next house.
It worked, but it delayed him. When he came out of the last house, the sirens were very near. Also, a copter was parked in the middle of the street. Two red-masked men were climbing out of it, running toward him.
VII
BASS whirled and ran back into the house, past the flames that were beginning to curl up the wall, through the dark kitchen. Footsteps pounded after him.
He burst through the outside door, crossed the yard in three strides, and heard the door slam again as he leaped the hedge into the yard behind. He swerved to the right, barely avoiding a child’s wagon that lay upturned on the ground, then forward again into the deep shadow along the side of the next house. Behind him he heard a crash and an explosive curse.
Chest straining, Bass reached the front of the house, turned left to the door, opened and closed it soundlessly after him. The desperate energy of the last few moments was already fading; he knew he was no match for anyone in an open chase. He mounted the dark stairs, keeping close to the bannister. He paused at the top, listened, heard nothing but the wild pounding of his own heart.
Light flared in the room below an instant after he stepped away from the landing.
They knew he was in the house. One of them must have circled it the other way, and they had met in front… .
Footsteps thudded faintly in the rooms below; he heard a door open and shut directly below him, then another farther away.
Bass took off his shoes. Carrying them, he moved cautiously into the front bedroom and closed the door. He put the shoes under the bed. The left-hand window was stuck, and he dared not force it. He pushed carefully at the other one, forcing it up a fraction of an inch at a time, dreading the shriek of wood on wood. Finally the space was high enough to let him out.