REVOLT IN 2100 By ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

I hurried down the street and reached the church just as eleven o’clock services were starting. Sighing with relief I slipped into a back pew and actually enjoyed the services, just as I had as a boy, before I had learned what was back of them. I felt peaceful and secure; in spite of everything I had made it safely. I let the familiar music soak into my soul while I looked forward to revealing myself to the priest afterwards and then let him do the worrying for a while.

To tell the truth I went to sleep during the sermon. But I woke up in time and I doubt if anyone noticed. Afterwards I hung around, waited for a chance to speak to the priest, and told him how much I had enjoyed his sermon. He shook hands and I gave him the recognition grip of the brethren.

But he did not return it. I was so upset by that that I almost missed what he was saying. ‘Thank you, my boy. It’s always good news to a new pastor to hear that his ministrations are appreciated.’ I guess my face gave me away. He added, ‘Something wrong?’

I stammered, ‘Oh, no, reverend sir. You see, I’m a stranger myself. Then you aren’t the Reverend Baird?’ I was in cold panic. Baird was my only contact with the brethren short of New Jerusalem; without someone to hide me I would be picked up in a matter of hours. Even as I answered I was making wild plans to steal another ship that night and then try to run the border patrol into Mexico.

His voice cut into my thoughts as if from a great distance. ‘No, I’m afraid not, my son. Did you wish to see the Reverend Baird?’

‘Well, it wasn’t terribly important, sir. He is an old friend of my uncle. I was to look him up while I was here and pay my respects.’ Maybe that nice Indian woman would hide me until dark?

‘That won’t be difficult. He’s here in town. I’m just supplying his pulpit while he is laid up.’

My heart made a full turn at about twelve gee; I tried to keep it out of my face. ‘Perhaps if he is sick I had better not disturb him.’

‘Oh, not at all. A broken bone in his foot-he’ll enjoy a bit of company. Here.’ The priest fumbled under his robes, found a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote out the address. ‘Two streets over and half a block down. You can’t miss it.’

Of course I did miss it, but I doubled back and found it, an old vine-grown house with a suggestion of New England about it. It was set well back in a large, untidy garden-eucalyptus, palms, shrubs, and flowers, all in pleasant confusion. I pressed the announcer and heard the whine of an old-style scanner; a speaker inquired: ‘Yes?’

‘A visitor to see the Reverend Baird, if he so pleases.’

There was a short silence while he looked me over, then: ‘You’ll have to let yourself in. My housekeeper has gone to the market. Straight through and out into the back garden.’ The door clicked and swung itself open.

I blinked at the darkness, then went down a central hallway and out through the back door. An old man was lying in a swing there, with one foot propped up on pillows. He lowered his book and peered at me over his glasses.

‘What do you want of me, son?’

‘Light.’

An hour later I was washing down the last of some superb enchiladas with cold, sweet milk. As I reached for a cluster of muscatel grapes Father Baird concluded his instructions to me. ‘Nothing to do until dark, then. Any questions?’

‘I don’t think so, sir. Sanchez takes me out of town and delivers me to certain others of the brethren who will see to it that I get to General Headquarters. My end of it is simple enough.’

‘True. You won’t be comfortable however.’

I left Phoenix concealed in a false bottom of a little vegetable truck. 1 was stowed like cargo, with my nose pressed against the floor boards. We were stopped at a police gate at the edge of town; I could hear brusque voices with that note of authority, and Sanchez’s impassioned Spanish in reply. Someone rummaged around over my head and the cracks in the false bottom gleamed with light.