Friend or foe? he wondered—although out on the street (how many blocks from here?) the man who'd been his guide had indicated friend. You need help, he'd said, and that is all that matters.
The man who'd guided him walked forward toward the group seated by the lantern. Frost stayed where he was. His feet hurt from all the walking and he was tired clear through and the effects of the drug, he thought, might not have entirely worn off. The needle, or the dart, or whatever it had been that had struck him in the neck must have been really loaded.
He watched the guide squat down and whisper with the others seated by the lantern and he wondered where he was. It was somewhere on the waterfront, for his nose had told him that much, and probably was a cellar or a basement, because they had gone down several flights of stairs before they had arrived. A hideout of some sort, he guessed, the very kind of place he would have hunted on his own.
"Mr. Frost," said an old-man voice, "why don't you come over here and sit down with us. I suspect that you are tired."
Frost stumbled forward and sat down on the floor near the lantern and the voice. His eyes were becoming
somewhat accustomed to the darkness and now the hump5 were human and the faces were white blurs.
"I thank you, sir," he said. "I am a little tired."
"You had a bitter night," said the man.
Frost nodded.
"Leo tells me you've been ostracized."
"Ill leave if you want me to," said Frost. "Just let me rest a little."
"There is no need of that," said the man. "You now are one of us. We are all ostracized."
Frost jerked up his head and stared at the man who spoke. He had a grizzled face, the jowls and chin shining with a two-day stubble of white whiskers.
"I don't mean we wear the mark," the old man said. "But we still are ostracized. We are non-conformists and today you cannot afford to fail to conform. We don't believe, you see. Or, perhaps, on the other hand, you might say that we believe too much. But in the wrong things, naturally."
"I don't understand," said Frost.
The old man chuckled. "It is clear to see you don't know where you are."
"Of course I don't," Frost said testily, impatient with this baiting. "I have not been told."
"You're in a den of Holies," said the man. "Take a good look at us. We are those dirty and unthinking people who go out at night and paint the signs on walls. We are the ones who preach on street corners and in parks, we are the ones who hand out all those filthy and non-Forever tracts. That is, until the cops come and run us all away."
"Look," Frost said, wearily, "I don't mind who you are. I am grateful to you for taking me in, for if you hadn't, I don't know what I'd have done. I was about to look for a place to hide, for I knew I had to hide, but I didn't know how to go about it. And then this man came along and…"
"An innocent," said the old man. "A sheltered innocent thrown out in the street. Of course you wouldn't have known what to do. You'd have gotten into all sorts of trouble. But there really was no need to worry. We've been watching over you." "Watching over me? Why should you do that?" "Rumors," said the man. "There were all sorts of rumors. And we hear all the rumors that there are. We make it our business to hear every sort of rumor anr; to sort them out."
"Let me guess," said Frost. "The rumor said someone was out to get me."
"Yes. Because you knew too much. About something, incidentally, we could not determine."
"You must," said Frost, "watch over many people."
"Not so many," said the grizzled man. "Although we keep well informed about Forever Center. We have some pipelines there."
I bet you do, thought Frost. For somehow, despite his rescue, he didn't like this man.
"But you are tired," said the man, "and likely also hungry."
He rose and clapped his hands. Somewhere a door came open and a shaft of light spread into the room.
"Food," said the man, speaking to the woman who stood in the crack of doorway. "Some food for our guest."
The door closed and the man sat down again, this time close to Frost, almost side by side with him.
The odor of an unwashed body poured out from him. He held his hands limply in his lap and Frost could see that the hands were grimy, the nails untrimmed and with heavy dirt embedded underneath them.
"I would imagine," said the man, "that you may be somewhat chagrined in finding yourself with us. I wish, however, you would not feel that way. We really are good-hearted people. We may be dissenters and protes-tants, but we have a right to make our voice heard in any way we can."
Frost nodded. "Yes, of course, you have. But it seems to me there might have been better ways for you to get a hearing. You've been at it for—how long has it been, fifty years or more?"
"And we haven't gotten very far. That's the point you wdsh to make?"
"I suppose it is," said Frost.
"We know, of course," said the other, "that we will not win. There is no way of winning. But our conscience tells us that we must bear witness. So long as we can continue to make our feeble voice heard in the wilderness, we will not have failed."
Frost said nothing. He felt his body sinking into a comfortable lethargy and he had no wish to try to pull it out. The man reached out a dirty hand and laid it on
Frost's knees.
"You read the Bible, son?"
"Yes, off and on. I've read most of it."
"And why did you read it?"
"Why, I don't know," said Frost, startled at the question. "Because it's a human document. Perhaps in hope of some spiritual comfort, although I can't be sure of that. Because, I suppose, in many ways, it is good literature."
"But without conviction?"
"I suppose you're right. Without any great conviction."
"There was a time when many people read it with devout conviction. There was a day when it was a light shining in the darkness of the soul. Not too long ago it was Me and hope and promise. And now the best that you can say of it is that it's good literature.
"It's your talk of physical immortality that has brought all this about. Why should people read the Bible any more or believe in it or believe in anything at all if they have the legal—not the spiritual, mind you, but the legal—promise of immortality? And how can you promise immortality? Immortality means going on forever and forever and no one can promise that, no mortal man can promise forever and forever."
"You're mistaken," said Frost. "I have not promised it."
"I'm sorry. I speak too generally. Not you, personally, of course. But Forever Center."
"Not entirely Forever Center, either," said Frost. "Rather man himself. If there had been no Forever Center, man still would have sought immortality. It is a thing that, in the very nature of him, he could not have ignored. It's not in man's nature to do less than he can. He may fail, of course, but he'll always try."
"It's the devil in him," said the grizzled man. "The forces of darkness and corruption work in many ways to thwart man's inherent godliness."
Frost said: "Please, I don't want to argue with you. Some other time, perhaps. But not right now. You must understand that I am grateful to you, and…"
"Would anyone else in all this land," the man demanded, "have held out a hand of fellowship to you at a moment such as this?"
Frost shook his head. "No, I don't imagine there is anyone who would."
"But we did," said the man. "We, the humble ones. We, the true believers."
"Yes," said Frost, "I give you that. You did."
"And you don't ask yourself why we may have done it?"
"Not yet," said Frost, "but I suppose I will." "We did it," said the man, "because we value not the man, not the mortal body, but the soul. You read in old historical writings that a nation numbers not so many people, but so many souls. And this may seem quaint and strange to you, but those old writings are a reflection of how men thought in those days, when the human animal always was aware of God and of the life hereafter and was less concerned with worldliness and the present moment."