The Golden Apples of the Sun Read Free Page A

incense puttering from their exhausts, skimmed homeward to the far directions. But now these highways, too, were like streams in a dry season, all stone and bed and moon radiance.
    He turned back on a side street, circling around toward his home. He was within a block of his destination when the lone car turned a corner quite suddenly and flashed a fierce white cone of light upon him. He stood entranced, not unlike a night moth, stunned by the illumination, and then drawn toward it.
    A metallic voice called to him:
    "Stand still. Stay where you are! Don't move!"
    He halted.
    "Put up your hands!"
    "But—" he said.
    "Your hands up! Or we'll shoot!"
    The police, of course, but what a rare, incredible thing; in a city of three million, there was only one police car left, wasn't that correct? Ever since a year ago, 2052, the election year, the force had been cut down from three cars to one. Crime was ebbing; there was no need now for the police, save for this one lone car wandering and wandering the empty streets.
    "Your name?" said the police car in a metallic whisper. He couldn't see the men in it for the bright light in his eyes.
    "Leonard Mead," he said.
    "Speak up!"
    "Leonard Mead!"
    "Business or profession?"
    "I guess you'd call me a writer."
    "No profession," said the police car, as if talking to itself. The light held him fixed, like a museum specimen, needle thrust through chest.
    "You might say that," said Mr. Mead. He hadn't written in years. Magazines and books didn't sell any more. Everything went on in the tomb-like houses at night now, he thought, continuing his fancy. The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multi-colored lights touching their faces, but never really touching them.
    "No profession," said the phonograph voice, hissing. "What are you doing out?"
    "Walking," said Leonard Mead.
    "Walking!"
    "Just walking," he said simply, but his face felt cold.
    "Walking, just walking, walking?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "Walking where? For what?"
    "Walking for air. Walking to see ."
    "Your address!"
    "Eleven South Saint James Street."
    "And there is air in your house, you have an air conditioner , Mr. Mead?"
    "Yes."
    "And you have a viewing screen in your house to see with?"
    "No."
    "No?" There was a crackling quiet that in itself was an accusation.
    "Are you married, Mr. Mead?"
    "No."
    "Not married," said the police voice behind the fiery beam. The moon was high and clear among the stars and the houses were gray and silent.
    "Nobody wanted me," said Leonard Mead with a smile.
    "Don't speak unless you're spoken to!"
    Leonard Mead waited in the cold night.
    "Just walking , Mr. Mead?"
    "Yes."
    "But you haven't explained for what purpose."
    "I explained; for air, and to see, and just to walk."
    "Have you done this often?"
    "Every night for years."
    The police car sat in the center of the street with its radio throat faintly humming.
    "Well, Mr. Mead," it said.
    "Is that all?" he asked politely.
    "Yes," said the voice. "Here." There was a sigh, a pop. The back door of the police car sprang wide. "Get in."
    "Wait a minute, I haven't done anything!"
    "Get in."
    "I protest!"
    "Mr. Mead."
    He walked like a man suddenly drunk. As he passed the front window of the car he looked in. As he had expected, there was no one in the front seat, no one in the car at all.
    "Get in."
    He put his hand to the door and peered into the back seat, which was a little cell, a little black jail with bars. It smelled of riveted steel. It smelled of harsh antiseptic; it smelled too clean and hard and metallic. There was nothing soft there.
    "Now if you had a wife to give you an alibi," said the iron voice. "But—"
    "Where are you takimg me?"
    The car hesitated, or rather gave a faint whirring click, as if information, somewhere, was dropping card by punch-slotted card under electric eyes. "To the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies."
    He got in. The door shut with a soft thud. The police car