I slid the door open and walked inside, dazed. I was in a part of the huge store that had clothing in it. All of it looked new, fresh, wrapped in some kind of clear plastic that must have kept it sealed for hundreds of years.

My own clothes were worn and frayed, and I began to find myself new ones.

And then, when I was trying to determine how to take the plastic covering off a blue jacket that seemed as though it would fit me, I happened to look at the tiled floor at my feet.

There were muddy footprints all over the tile, and they looked fresh.

I kneeled and reached out my hand and touched the mud. It was slightly damp.

I found myself standing up and looking all around me. But I saw nothing but the racks upon racks of clothing and beyond them shelves of brightly colored goods of all descriptions-shelves after shelves as far as I could see. But nothing moved. Then I looked down at the floor again and saw that the footprints were everywhere-some fresh, some old. And they had been made by different-sized shoes and had different shapes.

Biff had wandered off somewhere and I called for her, but she did not come. I began looking, walking down aisles with apprehension. What if the makers of the footprints were still about? But, then, what did I have to fear from another human being? Or from a robot, for that matter, since none had followed me from prison and there had been no sign of any Detector or anything else searching for me. Still, I was afraid-or "spooked," as the Dictionary of American Slang would have it.

I found Biff eventually, greedily eating from a box of dried beans that had been opened and left on a counter top alongside hundreds of similar but unopened boxes. Biff was purring mightily and I could hear her teeth crunching into the beans. I picked up one of the unopened boxes from next to her; she did not even bother to look up at me. The box-unlike food boxes I had known before-had writing on it: IRRADIATED AND STABILIZED PINTO BEANS.

SHELF LIFE SIX CENTURIES.

NO ADDITIVES.

There was a picture of a steaming plate of beans, with a slice of bacon on top of them, on the side of the box. But the beans Biff was still devoting her entire attention to looked dry, withered, and unappetizing. I reached into her box and took a small handful. Biff looked up at me and bared her teeth for a moment, but turned her attention back to the eating. I put one of the beans into my mouth and chewed it. It was not really bad, and I was hungry. I popped the rest of the handful into my mouth and, chewing, studied one of the sealed boxes, trying to determine how to get it open. There were directions at the top, about pressing a white dot and then pulling on a red tab, while twisting. I tried all the combinations I could think of, but the box wouldn't open. By this time I had finished the beans I had, and Biff's were all gone too. My appet.i.te had been aroused and I was becoming furious with the apparently unopenable box. Here I was, the only man on earth able to read the directions for opening a box of beans, and it was no help.

Then I remembered pa.s.sing an aisle where various tools were displayed. I went to it. My anger and hunger had made me forget my former apprehensions and I strode over, walking firmly and loudly. I found a hatchet, much like the one in Wife Killer Loose, except that it was wrapped in plastic, and I could not get it open either.

I was becoming furious, and the fury increased my appet.i.te for those beans. I tried to bite into the plastic on the hatchet so that I could tear it; but it was too tough for my teeth. Then I saw a gla.s.s case holding some kind of small boxes, on another aisle, and went over there, raised the hatchet, brought it down, and crashed open the gla.s.s. Some jagged pieces were left in the frame of the case and I hooked a point of one on the plastic, and pulled. The plastic began to tear and, finally, I was able to twist it away from the hatchet.

Then I went back to the beans and began to chop away at the top of the box until it tore open and the beans came spilling out. I set the hatchet down on the counter and began to eat.

And it was while I was chewing my third mouthful that I heard a deep voice behind me saying, "What the h.e.l.l are you doing, mister?"

I spun around and saw two large people, a dark-bearded old man and a large woman, standing there staring at me. Each held a leash in one hand, with a large dog, and in the other hand each was carrying a long butcher knife. The dogs were staring at me as intently as the people were. The dogs were white-albinos, I think -and their eyes were pinkish.

Beside me Biff had arched her back and was showing her teeth toward the dogs and I realized that it was probably not me but Biff beside me that they were staring at.

The people were older than I, as well as larger. Their stares were well past the limits of Privacy, but more curious than hostile. But their knives were long and frightening.

My mouth was still half full of the beans. I chewed a moment and then said, "I'm eating. I was hungry."

"What you're eating," the man said, "belongs to me."

The woman spoke up. "To us," she said. "To the family."

Family. I had never heard anyone use that word, except in a film.

The man ignored her. "Which town are you from, mister?"

"I don't know," I said. "I'm from Ohio."

"He could be from Eubank," the woman said. "He looks like he might be a Dempsey. They're all kind of thin."

I managed to swallow the last of the beans in my mouth.

"Or a Swisher," the man said. "Out of Ocean City."

Suddenly Biff turned from the dogs and leapt across the counter she was standing on and ran-faster than I had ever seen her rundown the counter tops away from us. The dogs had turned to follow with their eyes, straining at their leashes. The man and woman ignored her.

"Which of the seven towns do you come from?" the man said. "And why are you breaking the law by eating our food?"

"And," the woman said, "violating our sanctuary in here?"

"I've never heard of the seven towns," I said. "I'm a stranger, pa.s.sing through. I was hungry and when I found this place I came in. I didn't know it was a ... a sanctuary."

The woman stared at me. "You don't know a church of the living G.o.d when you see one?"

I looked around me, at the aisles covered with plastic-sealed merchandise, at the racks of colored clothing and electronic equipment and rifles and golf clubs and jackets.. "But this is no church," I said. "This is a store."

They said nothing for quite a long while. One of the dogs, apparently tired of staring after the direction Biff had left in, settled itself down on the floor and yawned. The other began sniffing at the man's feet.

Then the man said, "That's blasphemy. You've already blasphemed by eating holy food without permission."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I had no idea . . ."

Abruptly he stepped forward and took me by the arm in what was an extremely strong grip and he held the point of his knife to my stomach. While he was doing this the woman, moving very quickly for her size, stepped over to the counter and took the hatchet I had been using. She had, I suppose, expected me to try defending myself with it.

I was terrified and said nothing. The man put his knife in his belt, stepped behind me, brought my arms together behind my back, and told the woman to get him some rope. She went over to a counter several rows away where there was a large roll of Synlon cord and cut off a piece with her knife, leaving the hatchet there. She brought it to him and he tied my hands together. The dogs watched all this languidly. I was beginning to pa.s.s beyond fear into some sort of calmness. I had seen things of this sort on television, and I was beginning to feel that the situation was one that I was merely watching, as though there were no real danger to me. But my heart was pounding wildly and I could feel myself trembling. Yet somehow my mind had moved above this and I felt a calmness. I wondered what had become of But-and what would become of her.

"What are you going to do?" I said.

"I am going to fulfill the scripture," he said. "He who blasphemes my holy place shall be cast into the lake of fire that burneth forever."

"Jesus Christ!" I said. I don't know why I said that. Possibly it was the Bible language that the man had used.

"What did you say?" the woman said.

"I said, *Jesus Christ.'"

"Who told you that name?"

"I learned it from the Bible," I said. I did not mention Mary Lou, nor did I mention the man who, burning in immolation, had shouted the name of Jesus.

"What Bible?" she said.

"He's lying," the man said. And then to me, "Show me that Bible."

"I don't have it anymore," I said. "I had to leave it. . ."

The man just stared at me.

Then they took me out into the grand hallway of the Mall where the fountain was, past stores and restaurants and meditation parlors and a place with a sign that said: JANE'S PROSt.i.tUTION.

As we pa.s.sed a large shop with a sign that read: DISPENSARY, the man slowed down and said, "The way you're shaking, mister, I guess you could use some help." He pushed open the door of the shop and we came into a place with rows and rows of large sealed jars filled with pills of all sizes and shapes. He walked up to one that said "SOPORS: Non-addictive. Fertility-inhibiting" on it, reached into his pants pocket and took out a handful of old and faded credit cards, selected a blue card from the pack, and slipped it into the mechanical slot at the bottom of the jar on the counter.

The gla.s.s jars were some kind of primitive dispenser-certainly not as sleek and quick as the store machinery I was accustomed to -such as in the place on Fifth Avenue where I had bought Mary Lou that yellow dress. It took it at least a minute of clicking over the card before returning it, and then a half minute before the metal door in the base opened and dispensed a handful of blue pills.

The man scooped them up and said, "How many sopors you want, mister?"

I shook my head. "I don't use them," I said.

"You don't use them? What in h.e.l.l do you use?"

"Nothing," I said. "Not for a long time."

The woman spoke up. "Mister, in about ten minutes you're going into the lake of fire that burneth forever. I'd take ever d.a.m.n one of them pills."

I said nothing.

The man shrugged. He took one of the pills himself, handed one to the woman, and put the rest in his pocket.

We walked out of the shop, leaving its rows of hundreds of bottles and jars of pills, and as we left, the automatic lighting in the shop went off behind us.

We turned a corner and a new fountain came on, with lights and with new, softer music. It was, if anything, larger than the first.

On either side of us now were stainless-steel walls, with occasional doorways. Over each doorway was a sign that read: SLEEPING CHAMBER B.

CAPACITY: 1,600.

or SLEEPING CHAMBER D.

CAPACITY: 2,200.

"Who sleeps in those places?" I said.

"n.o.body," the woman said. "They was for the ancients. Those of old."

"How ancient?" I said. "How old?"

The woman shook her head. "The ancient of days. When they was giants in the earth and they feared the wrath of the Lord."

"They feared the rain of fire from Heaven," the man said. "And they didn't trust Jesus. The rain of fire never come, and the ancients died."

We pa.s.sed by more and more sleeping quarters, and by at least a half mile of stainless-steel walls merely marked STORAGE, and then, finally, we came to the dead end of the corridor, where there was a ma.s.sive door with a sign in red: POWER SOURCE: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

The man had taken a small metal plate from his pocket. He held it against a matching rectangle in the center of the door and said, "The key to the Kingdom."

The door slid open and a soft light came on.

Inside was a smaller corridor, and the air in it was distinctly warm. The dogs were left outside and we walked down it, toward another door. It became warmer as we walked. I was beginning to perspire and would have liked to wipe my forehead but my hands were still tied behind me.

We came to the door. The sign on it was in large orange letters: YOU ARE APPROACHING AN ARTIFICIAL SUN.

'FUSION PROJECT THREE: MAUGRE.

The man held a different card to this door and when it opened the heat was palpable and intense. There was another door just inside this one and the man this time put yet another card into a slot beside it and the door opened about two feet wide. There was a brilliant orange glow behind it that illuminated some kind of enormous room. A room without a floor. Or with a floor of orange light. The heat was overwhelming.

Then the man's voice said, "Behold the eternal fire." And I felt myself being pushed from behind, and my heart almost stopped beating and I could not speak. I looked down and was able to hold my eyes in a squint for only a split second, but long enough to see that a great circular pit was directly in front of my feet and that down, incalculably far down in that pit, was a fire like that of the sun.

And then I was pulled back, limp, and the man's hands turned my body around to face his and he said, quietly, "Do you have any last words?"

I looked at his face. It was impa.s.sive, quiet, sweating. "I am the resurrection and the life," I said. "He that believeth in me, though he die, yet shall he live."

The woman shrieked, "My G.o.d, Edgar! My G.o.d!"

The man looked at me firmly. "Where did you learn those words?" he said.

I groped for something to say, and finally found only the truth- which I felt that he would not understand. But I said it anyway. "I have read the Bible."

"Read?" the woman said. "You can read scripture?"

I felt that I would die from the heat at my back if I did not get away in less than a minute, I could see that the man's face was showing pain from the heat, or doubt.

"Yes," I said. "I can read scripture." I looked him directly in the eyes. "I can read anything."

The man stared at me with his broad face twisted for one more horrible moment and then, abruptly, he pulled me forward, away from the fire, and pushed me through the outer door and then closed it. Then we went through the second door, and it closed itself, and the air was bearable. "All right," the man said. "We'll go to the book and see if you can read it."

Then he took his knife and cut the ropes that held my hands.

"I must find Biff first," I said.

And I found her, halfway to Sears, and took her up in my arms.

We had pa.s.sed another fountain on my frightened way to the Lake of Fire; returning to Sears, as we approached the fountain again a scene from an ancient film came into my mind: in King of Kings the actor H. B. Warner asks a man named John to "baptize" him, by wetting him in a river. It is clearly a moment of great mystical significance. My steps down the wide and empty corridor of the Mall seemed light. The man and woman flanked me, but this time without restraint; they had untied me. Their dogs were silent and submissive; all that could be heard was the regular pattern of our footsteps and the music that came from invisible speakers and bathed us in airy sound. And louder now came the splashing of the fountain water, returning to the pool from its graceful arcing toward the high ceiling.

I thought of Jesus, bearded and serene, in the Jordan River. Abruptly I stopped and said, "I want to be baptized. In this fountain." My voice was clear and strong. I was staring at the water in the great circular pool beside me and there was a light spray in my face.

Out of the side of my vision I saw the woman, as if in a dream, sink to her knees, her long, full denim skirt slowly ballooning around her as she did so. And her voice, weak now, was saying, "My G.o.d. The Holy Spirit told him to speak them words."

Then I heard the man's voice saying, "Get up, Berenice. He could have been told about that. Not everybody keeps church secrets."

I turned to watch her as she got up from her knees, pulling her blue sweater back down over her broad hips. "But he knew the fount when he saw it," she said. "He knew the place of holy water."

"I told you," the man said, but with doubt in his voice. "He could of heard from anybody in the other six towns. Just because Baleens don't backslide don't mean the Graylings don't. Manny Grayling could of told him. h.e.l.l, he might be Grayling-one they been hiding from Church."

She shook her head. "Baptize him, Edgar Baleen," she said. "You can't refuse the Sacrament."

"I know that," he said quietly. He began taking off his denim jacket. He looked at me, his face grave. "Sit down. On the edge."

I seated myself on the edge of the fountain and the woman kneeled and took off my shoes and then my socks. She rolled up my pantlegs. Then she sat on one side of me, and the man, jacketless now, on the other side, and they both took off their shoes and socks. They had released the dogs and the two white animals just stood there patiently, watching us and watching Biff, who had curled herself on the floor.

"All right," the man said. "Step into the fount."