Ye of Little Faith Read online

I didn't want her to, and now she has.And nothing happened that I could use."

  Curt blinked at him, absorbing this new bit of information. "You wanted_me_ to vanish?" he echoed. "Yes, I can see that now. I didn't know. Itseemed too absurd. I thought you were just imagining things. Yes, I wentout while you were at school and spent the whole morning teaching herevery step. It was fairly easy. We had planned on coaxing you to explainit to her. Knowing it ahead of time she could pretend to grasp it thatmuch more easily. We were planning on coaxing you into a more socialrelationship. Actually, she had already read the theory in your father'sbook she was reading for the publisher." A glassy look came into hiseyes. "The book. If the theory is at the root of the disappearances thebook shouldn't be published. Yes, by God. That's what your father wasdriving at. Your mother told me the publisher had told her your fathertried to get him not to publish it."

  "The book has the theory in it?" Fred said. "It mustn't get published.Why--thousands of people would read it and vanish. We've got to stopthem!"

  Curt was shaking his head in bewilderment. "But we can't be sure. Itmust be something else, though what I don't know."

  "No," Fred said bitterly.

  There was a long silence. Curt broke it by saying, "What did you expectto accomplish by my vanishing?"

  Fred told him of Horace's shouting to his wife, "Ethel! I've got it!",and the others seeming to have a flash of divination or insight justbefore they vanished.

  "I wanted," he explained dully, "to be with you when it happened, in thehopes I could get something more than I have to go on. In that way Imight be able to find out something so I could bring my father back. AndMom." He began to cry.

  "I see," Curt said, calm and a little subdued. "It's possible that maycome. After what I've seen happen I can admit it as a possibility."

  "Then you will make every effort to tell me?" Fred asked.

  Curt smiled wryly. "You make it sound inevitable. But--yes, I will."

  Fred's eyes were large and round. "I've got to find the mechanism. I'vegot to go where they've vanished to and show them how to get back!" Heturned his eyes on Curt. "Don't you hate me?" he pleaded. "I'm just thesame as a murderer!"

  "No, my son," Curt said gently. "Wherever your father is, your mother iswith him now. If--" A startled expression appeared on his face. "So_that's_ it," he almost whispered.

  "_What's_ it?" Fred asked. "Tell me. Please tell me. I've got to know,you know. You promised!"

  Curt frowned in a visible effort to jerk himself back. His eyes, holdinga faraway look, rested on Fred's face, looked at it, and through it.

  "You promised!" Fred screamed. "Tell me!"

  Curt opened his mouth as though to speak. His lips smiled.

  And--he was no longer there.

  Fred was alone, with the picnic lunch on the white square of tablecloth,with the gleaming Cadillac a few yards away, with the two white andblack spotted cows grazing a short distance away, with the noisy littlebrook nearby.

  Alone....

  * * * * *

  He became aware of a police siren growing louder. He became aware he wasbehind a wheel, that there were cars in front of him veering wildly outof his way. The speedometer needle pointed at ninety.

  How had he arrived here? He took his foot off the gas. He was driving aCadillac. Curt's. But Curt was gone. That was it! He had started out tolook for the police.

  He pulled over to the side of the road as the police car came screamingup. Shakily he told them about the disappearances. Any doubts they mighthave had were held in reserve by the obvious sincerity of his grief.

  He led them back to the picnic grove. The tablecloth with the food on itwas still there, untouched. One of the cows was grazing beside it.

  They listened while he told again of his mother and Curt vanishingbefore his eyes. Their reserved skepticism was thrust out of their mindswhen he identified himself as the son of Dr. Martin Grant, who haddisappeared.

  They used their car radio. In a surprisingly short time several othercars were coming through the gate into the pasture.

  Fred, his mind paralyzed with grief, stood forlornly near the Cadillac.He answered the questions they put to him. He wasn't aware of the newscameras that took shots of him which were to appear in the eveningpapers all over the country.

  Eventually it was over. The police gathered up the picnic lunch, hismother's purse, and everything else. A gray-haired man in a dark brownsuit who introduced himself as Captain Waters told him to get into theCadillac. "I'll drive," Waters said.

  Entirely submissive, Fred obeyed. On the way into town Captain Waterssaid he would take Fred home if he wanted to go there, but it would bereally better if he accepted an invitation to stay at the Waters homefor a few days until things were straightened out.

  "All right," Fred said.

  Eternities later he was in a house with comfortable furnishings. Amotherly old lady was hovering around him. Captain Waters was on thephone calling someone.

  There was a steaming dinner on blue design Swedish dishes. Under coaxingFred nibbled. Door chimes sounded. Captain Waters pushed back his chairand went away. He came back with another gray-haired man who pressed athumb against Fred's cheek, listened to words Captain Waters was saying,then ordered Fred to roll up his sleeve.

  He swabbed a spot with alcohol and inserted a hypo needle. Fred watchedwith listless eyes.

  "Get him undressed and to bed," the doctor said. "Poor kid. Sufferingfrom shock. Have to watch him the next few days...."

  _Shock_.... Fred tried to concentrate on the meaning of the word.

  The bed was an enormous expanse of fresh smelling sheets and luxuriousblankets. The pillows were mountainous ... and so soft....

  The sun was streaming in through open French doors, filtered throughbronze screen doors. An electric clock on the dresser pointed ateleven.

  He lay there without moving, remembering everything that had happenedthe day before. And he had a feeling that, in his sleep, he had beendoing a lot of thinking. Or was it dreaming?

  "Poor boy," a melodious voice purred.

  He opened his eyes. It was the motherly woman, with a tray of toast andeggs and steaming coffee. The sight of it made him aware that there wasa huge emptiness in his stomach.

  He ate, gratefully. Mrs. Waters busied herself about the room, hummingsoft tunes, smiling at him whenever he looked at her. When he hadfinished, she took the tray.

  "You just relax and sleep some more," she said. "The bathroom is throughthat door over there. If you want me for anything just call. I'll hearyou. And if you want to get up and wander about the house just do so."She departed, leaving the door part way open in invitation.

  Fred sighed and closed his eyes. In that moment of relaxation thethinking he had done during the night rose into consciousness.

  For he knew now what he had to do. There was no other avenue ofexploration. It might not even be possible. But if it was possible hewas going to do it.

  He was going to vanish.

  * * * * *

  There alone lay the solution. He should have realized it. Once hevanished as had the others, he would have experience with the mystery.Personal experience. He would have all the data he required, instead ofjust data from the world he was in. If he had the ability to solve theproblem of reappearance he would then be able to return, and go backagain and show the others how to return.

  The key to vanishing was belief, that quality of thought which hisfather had systematically weeded from his mind since earliest infancy.It might take time to overcome that, but it should be possible.

  Already he believed some things. Or did he? Was it merely a realizationthat those things had a probability that approached certainty?

  His patterns of thinking were too ingrained. His mind was too wellintegrated. If he became irritated the irritation immediately brought upthe memories of the factors that made him react that way. If he becamehappy he consciously knew the pattern, stret
ching back to early infancy.It was ingrained within him.

  He began to realize with a sinking sensation that he didn't actuallyknow what belief was. If, in some way, it was present anywhere in hismakeup, he didn't know how to recognize it.

  His mental pattern was one of unbelief. Not disbelief, the believingthat something isn't true; but unbelief, the using of something in thepragmatic sense for its workability.

  He let his thoughts wander in the past. He could remember vaguely amoment when he had felt unreasoning terror, a sense of being lost. Hecould remember his father saying many times, "Belief is the lazyassuming that something is true." It is or it isn't, and the fundamentalpostulate of inductive logic tells us that its truth or lack of it isforever