Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

leave the farm. If he stayed where he was, the Census would come, and with it, death.

Leave the farm, then. But where would he go?

There was the—what was it, a hospital?—in Chica. They had taken care of him before. And why? Because he had been a medical “case.” But wasn’t he still a case? And he could talk now; he could give them the symptoms, which he couldn’t before. He could even tell them about the Mind Touch.

Or did everyone have the Mind Touch? Was there any way he could tell? . . . None of the others had it. Not Arbin or Loa or Grew. He knew that. They had no way of telling where he was unless they saw or heard him. Why, he couldn’t beat Grew in chess if Grew could—

Wait, now, chess was a popular game. And it couldn’t be played if people had the Mind Touch. Not really.

So that made him a peculiarity—a psychological specimen. It might not be a particularly gay life, being a specimen, but it would keep him alive.

And suppose one considered the new possibility that had just arisen. Suppose he were not an amnesiac but a man who had stumbled through time. Why, then, in addition to the Mind Touch, he was a man from the past. He was a historical specimen, an archaeological specimen; they couldn’t kill him.

If they believed him.

Hmm, if they believed him.

That doctor would believe. He had needed a shave that morning Arbin took him to Chica. He remembered that very well. After that his hair never grew, so they must have done something to him. That meant that the doctor knew that he—he, Schwartz—had had hair on his face. Wouldn’t that be significant? Grew and Arbin never shaved. Grew had once told him that only animals had hair on their face.

So he had to get to the doctor.

What was his name? Shekt? . . . Shekt, that was right.

But he knew so little of this horrible world. To leave by night or cross-country would have entangled him in mysteries, would have plunged him into radioactive danger pockets of which he knew nothing. So, with the boldness of one with no choice, he struck out upon the highway in the early afternoon.

They wouldn’t be expecting him back before suppertime, and by that time he would be well away. They would have no Mind Touch to miss.

For the first half hour he experienced a feeling of elation, the first such sensation he had had since all this had started. He was finally doing something; he was making an attempt to fight back at his environment. Something with a purpose, and not mere unreasoning flight as that time in Chica.

Ah, for an old man he wasn’t bad. He’d show them.

And then he stopped—He stopped in the middle of the highway, because something obtruded itself upon his notice, something he had forgotten.

There was the strange Mind Touch, the unknown Mind Touch; the one he had detected first when he had tried to reach the shining horizon and had been stopped by Arbin; the one that had been watching from the Ministerial Ground.

It was with him now—behind him and watching.

He listened closely—or, at least, he did that which was the equivalent of listening with regard to the Mind Touch. It came no closer, but it was fastened upon himself. It had within it watchfulness and enmity, but not desperation.

Other things became clear. The follower must not lose sight of him, and the follower was armed.

Cautiously, almost automatically, Schwartz turned, picking apart the horizon with eager eyes.

And the Mind Touch changed instantly.

It became doubtful and cautious, dubious as to its own safety, and the success of its own project, whatever that was. The fact of the follower’s weapons became more prominent, as though he were speculating upon using it if trapped.

Schwartz knew that he himself was unarmed and helpless. He knew that the follower would kill him rather than allow him to get out of sight; kill him at the first false move. . . . And he saw no one.

So Schwartz walked on, knowing that his follower remained close enough to kill him. His back was stiff in the anticipation of he knew not what. How does death feel? . . . How does death feel? . . . The thought jostled him in time to his steps, jounced in his mind, jiggled in his subconscious, until it went nearly past endurance.

He held onto the follower’s Mind Touch as the one salvation. He would detect that instant’s increase in tension that would mean that a weapon was being leveled, a trigger being pulled, a contact being closed. At that instant he would drop, he would run—

But why? If it were the Sixty, why not kill him out of hand?

The time-slip theory was fading out in his mind; amnesia again. He was a criminal, perhaps—a dangerous man, who must be watched. Maybe he had once been a high official, who could not be simply killed but must be tried. Perhaps his amnesia was the method used by his unconscious to escape the realization of some tremendous guilt.

And so now he was walking down an empty highway toward a doubtful destination, with death walking at his back.

It was growing dark, and the wind had a dying chill to it. As usual, it didn’t seem right. Schwartz judged it to be December, and certainly sunset at four-thirty was right for it, but the wind’s chill was not the iciness of a midwestern winter.

Schwartz had long decided that the reason for the prevalent mildness was that the planet (Earth?) did not depend on the sun entirely for its heat. The radioactive soil itself gave off heat, small by the square foot but huge by the million square miles.

And in the darkness the follower’s Mind Touch grew nearer. Still attentive, and keyed up to a gamble. In the darkness, following was harder. He had followed him that first night—toward the shiningness. Was he afraid to take the risk again?

“Hey! Hey, fella—”

It was a nasal,