Fahrenheit 451 - Pages 1-25

fahrenheit 451 by ray bradbury written in 1952 part one the hearth and the salamander it was a pleasure to burn it was a special pleasure to see things eaten to see things blackened and changed with the brass nozzle in his fists with his great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world the blood pounded in his head and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history with his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his solid head and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black he strode in a swarm of fireflies he wanted above all like the old joke to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house while the books went up and sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame he knew that when he returned to the firehouse he might wink at himself a minstrel man burnt corked in the mirror later going to sleep he would feel the fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles in the dark it never went away that smile it never ever went away as long as he remembered he hung up his black beetle colored helmet and shined it he hung his flame proof jacket neatly he showered luxuriously and then whistling hands and pockets walked across the upper floor of the fire station and fell down the hole at the last moment when disaster seemed positive he pulled his hands from his pockets and broke his fall by grasping the golden pole he slid to a squeaking halt the heels one inch from the concrete floor downstairs he walked out of the fire station and along the midnight street toward the subway where the silent air-propelled train slid soundlessly down its lubricated flue in the earth and let him out with a great puff of warm air onto the cream-tiled escalator rising to the suburb whistling he let the escalator waft him into the still night air he walked toward the corner thinking little at all about nothing in particular before he reached the corner however he slowed as if a wind had sprung up from nowhere as if someone had called his name the last few nights he had had the most uncertain feelings about the sidewalk just around the corner here moving in the starlight toward his house he had felt that a moment prior his making the turn someone had been there the heir seemed charged with a special calm as if someone had waited there quietly and only a moment before he came simply turned to a shadow and let him through perhaps his nose detected a faint perfume perhaps the skin on the backs of his hands on his face felt the temperature rise at this one spot where a person standing might raise the immediate atmosphere 10 degrees for an instant there was no understanding it each time he made the turn he saw only the white unused buckling sidewalk with perhaps on one night something vanishing swiftly across the lawn before he could focus his eyes or speak but now tonight he slowed almost to a stop his inner mind reaching out to turn the corner for him had heard the faintest whisper breathing or was the atmosphere compressed merely by someone standing very quietly there waiting he turned the corner the autumn leaves blew over the moonlit pavement in such a way as to make the girl who was moving there seen fixed to a sliding walk letting the motion of the wind and the leaves carry her forward her head was half bent to watch her shoes stir the circling leaves her face was slender and milk white and then it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless curiosity it was a look almost of pale surprise the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no move escaped them her dress was white and it whispered he almost thought he heard the motion of her hands as she walked and the infinitely small sound it now the white stir of her face turning when she discovered she was a moment away from a man who stood in the middle of the pavement waiting the trees overhead made a great sound of letting down their dry rain the girl stopped and looked as if she might pull back and surprise but instead stood regarding montag with eyes so dark and shining and alive that he felt he had said something quite wonderful but he knew his mouth had only moved to say hello and then when she seemed hypnotized by the salamander on his arm in the phoenix disc on his chest he spoke again of course he said you're our new neighbor aren't you and you must be she raised her eyes from his professional symbols the firemen her voice trailed off how oddly you say that i'd have known it with my eyes shut she said slowly what oh the smell of kerosene my own wife always complains he laughed you never wash it off completely no you don't she said in awe he felt she was walking in a circle about him turning him end for end shaking him quietly and emptying his pockets without once moving herself kerosene he said because the silence had lengthened is nothing but perfume to me does it seem like that really well of course why not she gave herself time to think of it i don't know she turned to face the sidewalk going toward their homes do you mind if i walk back with you i'm clarice mcclellan clarice guy montag come along what are you doing out so late wandering around how old are you they walked in the warm cool blowing night on the silvered pavement and there was the faintest breath of fresh apricots and strawberries in the air and he looked around and realized this was quite impossible so late in the year there was only the girl walking with him now her face bright as snow in the moonlight and he knew she was working his questions around seeking the best answer she could possibly give well she said i'm 17 and i'm crazy my uncle says the two always go together when people ask your age he said always say 17 and insane isn't this a nice time of night to walk i like to smell things and look at things and sometimes stay up all night walking and watch the sun rise they walked on again in silence and finally she said thoughtfully you know i'm not afraid of you at all he was surprised why should you be well so many people are afraid of firemen i mean but you're just a man after all he saw himself in her eyes suspended in two shining drops of bright water himself dark and tiny in fine detail the lines about his mouth everything there as if her eyes were two miraculous bits of violet amber that might capture and hold him intact her face turned to him now was fragile milk crystal with a soft and constant light in it it was not the hysterical light of electricity but what but the strange comfortable and rare and gently flattering light of the candle one time as a child in a power failure his mother had found and lit a last candle and there had been a brief hour of rediscovery of such illumination that space lost its vast dimensions and drew comfortably around them and they mother and son alone transformed hoping that the power might not come on again too soon and then clarice mcclellan said do you mind if i ask how long have you been working at being a fireman since i was 20 10 years ago do you ever read any of the books you burn he laughed that's against the law oh of course it's fine work monday burn malay wednesday whitman friday faulkner burn them to ashes and then burn the ashes that's our official slogan they walked still further and the girls said is it true that long ago firemen put fires out instead of going to start them no houses have always been fireproof take my word for it strange i heard once that a long time ago houses used to burn by accident and they needed firemen to stop the flames he laughed she glanced quickly over why are you laughing i don't know he started to laugh again and stopped why well you laugh when i haven't been funny and you answer right off you never stop to think what i've asked you he stopped walking you are an odd one he said looking at her having you any respect i don't mean to be insulting it's just i love to watch people too much i guess well doesn't this mean anything to you he tapped the numerals four five one stitched on his char-colored sleeve yes she whispered she increased her pace have you ever watched the jet cars racing on the boulevards down that way you're changing the subject i sometimes think drivers don't know what grasses or flowers because they never see them slowly she said if you showed a driver a green blur oh yes he'd say that's grass a pink blur that's a rose garden white blurs our houses brown blurs or cows my uncle drove slowly on a highway once he drove 40 miles an hour and they jailed him for two days isn't that funny and sad too you think too many things said montag uneasily i rarely watch the parlor walls or go to races or fun parks so i have lots of time for crazy thoughts i guess have you seen the 200 foot long billboards in the country beyond town did you know that once billboards were only 20 feet long but cars started rushing by so quickly they had to stretch the advertising out so it would last i didn't know that montag laughed abruptly but i know something else you don't there's dew on the grass in the morning he shouldn't suddenly couldn't remember if he had known this or not and it made him quite irritable and if you look she nodded at the sky there's a man in the moon he hadn't looked for a long time they walked the rest of the way in silence hers thoughtful his a kind of clenching and uncomfortable silence in which he shot her accusing glances when they reached her house all its lights were blazing what's going on montag had rarely seen that many house lights oh just my mother and father and uncle sitting around talking it's like being a pedestrian only rarer my uncle was arrested another time did i tell you for being a pedestrian oh we're most peculiar but what do you talk about she laughed at this good night she started up her walk then she seemed to remember something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity are you happy she said am i what he cried but she was gone running in the moonlight her front door shut gently happy of all the nonsense he stopped laughing he put his hand into the glove hole of his front door and let it know his touch the front door slid open of course i'm happy what does she think i'm not he asked the quiet rooms he stood looking up at the ventilator grill in the hall and suddenly remembered that something lay hidden behind the grill something that seemed to peer down at him now he moved his eyes quickly away what a strange meeting on a strange night he remembered nothing like it saved one afternoon a year ago when he had met an old man in the park and they had talked montag shook his head he looked at a blank wall the girl's face was there really quite beautiful in memory astonishing in fact she had a very thin face like the dial of a small clock seen faintly in a dark room in the middle of a night when you awaken to see the time and see the clock telling you the hour and the minute and the second with a white silence and then a glowing all certainty and knowing what it has to tell of the night passing swiftly on toward further darkness but moving also toward a new son what ass montag of that other self the subconscious idiot that ran babbling at times quite independent of will habit and conscience he glanced back at the wall how like a mirror to her face impossible for how many people did you know that refracted your own light to you people were more often he searched for a simile found one in his work torches blazing away until they whiffed out how rarely did other people's faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression your own innermost trembling thoughts what incredible power of identification girl had she was like the eager watcher of a marionette show anticipating each flicker of an eyelid each gesture of his hand each flick of a finger the moment before it began how long have they walked together three minutes five yeah how large that time seemed now how immense a figure she was on the stage before him what a shadow she threw on the wall with her slender body he felt that if his eye itched she might blink and if the muscles of his jaw stretched imperceptibly she would yawn long before he would why he thought now that i think of it she almost seemed to be waiting for me there in the street so damned late at night he opened the bedroom door it was like coming into the cold marbled room of a mausoleum after the moon has set complete darkness not a hint of the silver world outside the windows tightly shut the chamber a tomb world where no sound from the great city could penetrate the room was not empty he listened the little mosquito delicate dancing hum in the air the electrical murmur of a hidden wasp snug in his special pink warm nest the music was almost loud enough so he could follow the tune he felt his smile slide away melt fold over and down on itself like a tallow skin like the stuff of a fantastic candle burning too long and now collapsing and now blown out darkness he was not happy he was not happy he said the words to himself he recognized this as the true state of affairs he wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with a mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back without turning on the light he imagined how this room would look his wife stretched on the bed uncovered in cold like a body displayed on the lid of a tomb her eyes fixed to the ceiling by invisible threads of steel immovable and in her ears the little seashells the thimble radios tamped tight an electronic ocean of sound of music and talk and music and talk coming in coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind the room was indeed empty every night the waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound floating her wide-eyed toward mourning there had been no night in the last two years that mildred had not swum that sea had not gladly gone down in it for the third time the room was cold but nonetheless he felt he could not breathe he did not wish to open the drapes and open the french windows for he did not want the moon to come into the room so with the feeling of a man who will die in the next hour for lack of air he felt his way toward his open separate and therefore cold bed an instant before his foot hit the object on the floor he knew he would hit such an object it was not unlike the feeling he had experienced before turning the corner and almost knocking the girl down his foot sending vibrations ahead received back echoes of the small barrier across its path even as the foot swung his foot kicked and the object gave a dull clink and slid off in darkness he stood very straight and listened to the person on the dark bed in the completely featureless night the breath coming out of the nostrils was so faint it stirred only the furthest fringes of life small leaf a black feather a single fiber of hair he did not want outside light he pulled out his igniter felt the salamander etched on its silver disk gave it a flick two moonstones looked up at him in the light of his small hand held fire two pale moonstones buried in a creek of clear water over which the life of the world ran not touching them mildred her face was like a snow-covered island upon which rain might fall but it felt no rain over which clouds might pass their moving shadows but she felt no shadow there was only the singing of the thimble wasps and her tamped shut ears and her eyes all glass and breath going in and out softly faintly in and out her nostrils and her not caring whether it came or went winter came the object he had sent tumbling with his foot now glinted under the edge of his own bed the small crystal bottle of sleeping tablets which earlier today had been filled with 30 capsules and which now lay uncapped and empty in the light of the tiny flare as he stood there the sky over the house screamed there was a tremendous ripping sound as if two giant hands had torn ten thousand miles of black linen down the seam montag was cut in half he felt his chest chopped down and split apart the jet bombers going over going over going over one two one two one two six of them nine of them twelve of them one and one and one and another and another and another did all the screaming for him he opened his own mouth and let their shriek come down and out between his bare teeth the house shook the flare went out in his hand the moonstones vanished he felt his hand plunge toward the telephone the jets were gone he felt his lips move brushing the mouthpiece of the phone emergency hospital a terrible whisper he felt that the stars had been pulverized by the sound of the black jets and that in the morning the earth would be covered with their dust like a strange snow that was his idiot thought as he stood shivering in the dark and let his lips go on moving and moving they had this machine they had two machines really one of them slid down into your stomach like a black cobra down an echoing well looking for all the old water in the old time gathered there and i drank up the green matter that flowed to the top in a slow boil did a drink of the darkness did it suck out all the poisons accumulated with the ears it fed in silence with an occasional sound of inner suffocation and blind searching it had an eye the impersonal operator of the machine could by wearing a special optical helmet gaze into the soul of the person of whom he was pumping out now what did the eye see he did not say he saw but did not see what the eye saw the entire operation was not unlike the digging of a trench in one's yard the woman on the bed was no more than a hard stratum of marble that they had reached you know go on anyway shove the boar down slush up the emptiness if such a thing could be brought out in the throb of the suction snake the operator stood smoking a cigarette the other machine was working too the other machine operated by an equally impersonable fellow in non-stainable reddish-brown coveralls this machine pumped all the blood from the body and replaced it with fresh blood and serum got to clean them out both ways said the operator standing over the silent woman no use getting the stomach if you don't get to clean the blood you'll leave that stuff in the blood and the blood hits the brain like a mallet bang a couple thousand times and the brain just gives up just quits stop it said montag i was just saying said the operator are you done said montag they shut the machines up tight we're done his anger did not even touch them they stood with the cigarette smoke curling around their noses and into their eyes without making them blink or squint that's 50 bucks first why don't you tell me if she'll be all right sure she'll be okay we got all the mean stuff right in our suitcase here they can't get at her now as i said you take out the old and you put in the new and you're okay neither of you is an nd why didn't they send an md from emergency hell the operator's cigarette moved on his lip we get these cases nine or ten and a night you know got so many starting a few years ago we had the special machines built with the optical lens of course that was new the rest is ancient you don't need an md case like this all you need is two handymen clean up the problem in half an hour look he started for the door we gotta go just had another call on the old thimble ear thimble ten blocks from here someone else just jumped off the cap of a pillbox call if you need us again keep her quiet we got a contraceptive in her she'll wake up hungry so long and the men with the cigarettes in their straight-lined mouths the men with the eyes of puff adders took up their load of machine and tube their case of liquid melancholy in the slow dark sludge of nameless stuff and strolled out the door montag sent down into a chair and looked at this woman her eyes were closed now gently and he put out his hand to feel the warmness of breath on his palm mildred he said it last there are too many of us he thought there are billions of us and that's too many nobody knows anyone strangers come and violate you strangers come and cut your heart out strangers come and take your blood good god who were those men i never saw them before in my life half an hour passed the bloodstream in this woman was new and it seemed to have done a new thing to her her cheeks were very pink and her lips were very fresh and full of color and they looked soft and relaxed someone else's blood there if only someone else's flesh and brain and memory if only they could have taken her mind along to the dry cleaners and emptied the pockets and steamed and cleansed it and re-blocked it and brought it back in the morning if only he got up and put the back the drapes and open the windows wide to let the night air in it was two o'clock in the morning was it only an hour ago clarice mcclellan in the street and him coming in in the dark room and his foot kicking the little crystal bottle only an hour but the world had melted down and sprung up in a new and colorless form laughter blew across the moon colored lawn from the house of clarice and her father and mother and the uncle who smiled so quietly and so earnestly above all their laughter was relaxed and hearty and not forced in any way coming from the house that was so brightly lit this late at night while all the other houses were kept to themselves in darkness montag heard the voices talking talking talking giving talking weaving re-weaving their hypnotic web montag moved out through the french windows and crossed the lawn without even thinking of it he stood outside the talking house in the shadows thinking he might even tap on their door and whisper let me come in i won't say anything i just want to listen what is it you're saying but instead he stood there very cold his face a mask of ice listening to a man's voice the uncle moving along at an easy pace well after all this is the age of the disposable tissue blow your nose on a person wad them flush them away reach for another blow wad flush everyone using everyone else's coattails how are you supposed to root for the home team when you don't even have a program or know the names for that matter what colored jerseys are they wearing as they trot out on the field montag moved back to his own house left the window wide checked mildred tucked the covers about her carefully and then lay down with the moonlight on his cheekbones and on the frowning ridges in his brow with the moonlight distilled in each eye to form a silver cataract there one drop of rain clarice another drop mildred a third the uncle a fourth the fire tonight one clarice two mildred three uncle four fire one mildred two clarice one two three four five clarice mildred uncle fire sleeping tablets men disposable tissues coattails blow wide flush clarice mildred uncle fire tablets tissue blow wad flush one two three one two three rain the storm the uncle laughing thunder falling downstairs the whole world pouring down the fire gushing up in a volcano all rushing on down around in and spouting roar and rivering stream toward mourning i don't know anything anymore he said and let asleep lozenge dissolve on his tongue at nine in the morning mildred's bed was empty montage got up quickly his heart pumping and ran down the hall and stopped at the kitchen door toast popped out of the silver toaster was seized by a spidery metal hand that drenched it with melted butter mildred watched the toast delivered to her plate she had both ears plugged with electronic bees that were humming the hour away she looked up suddenly saw him and nodded you all right he asked she was an expert at lip reading from 10 years of apprenticeship at seashell ear thimbles she nodded again she set the toaster clicking away at another piece of bread montag sat down his wife said i don't know why i should be so hungry you i'm hungry last night he began didn't sleep well feel terrible she said god i'm hungry i can't figure it last night he said again she watched his lips casually what about last night don't you remember what did we have a wild party or something feel like i have a hangover god i'm hungry who is here a few people he said that's what i thought she too chewed her toast sore stomach but i'm hungry as all get out hope i didn't do anything foolish at the party no he said quietly the toaster spidered out a piece of buttered bread for him he held it in his hand feeling obligated you don't look so hot yourself said his wife in late afternoon it rained and the entire world was dark gray he stood in the hall of his house putting on his badge with the orange salamander burning across it he stood looking up at the air-conditioned vent in the hall for a long time his wife in the tv parlor paused long enough from reading her script to glance up hey she said the man's thinking yes he said i wanted to talk to you he paused you took all the pills in your bottle last night oh i wouldn't do that she said surprised the bottle was empty i wouldn't do a thing like that why would i do a thing like that she said maybe you took two pills and forgot and took two more and forgot again and took two more and were so dopey you kept right on until you had 30 or 40 of them in you heck she said what would i want to go and do a silly thing like that for i don't know he said she was quite obviously waiting for him to go i didn't do that she said never in a billion years all right if you say so he said that's what the lady said she turned back to her script what's on this afternoon he asked tiredly she didn't look up from the script again well this is a play comes on the wall-to-wall circuit in 10 minutes they mailed me my part this morning i sent in some box tops they write the script with one part missing it's a new idea the homemaker that's me is the missing part when it comes time for the missing lines they all look at me out of the three walls and i say the lines here for instance the man says what do you think of the whole idea helen and he looks at me sitting here center stage see and i say i say she paused and ran her finger under a line on the script i think that's fine and then they go on with the play until he says do you agree to that helen and i say i sure do isn't that fun guy he stood in the hall looking at her it's sure fun she said what's the play about well i just told you there are these people named bob and ruth and helen oh it's really fun it'll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed how long you figure before we save up enough to get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall tv put in it's only two thousand dollars that's one third of my yearly pay it's only two thousand dollars she replied and i should think you'd consider me sometimes if we had a fourth wall why it'd just be like this room wasn't ours at all but all kinds of exotic people's rooms we could do without a few things we're already doing without a few things to pay for the third wall it was put in only two months ago remember is that all it was she looked at him for a long moment well goodbye dear goodbye he said he stopped and turned around does it have a happy ending well i haven't read that far he walked over read the last page nodded folded the script and handed it back to her he walked out of the house and into the rain the rain was thinning away and the girl was walking in the center of the sidewalk with her head up and the few drops falling on her face she smiled when she saw montag hello he said hello and then said what are you up to now i'm still crazy but rain feels good i love to walk in it i don't think i'd like that he said well you might if you tried i never have she licked her lips rain even tastes good what do you go around trying everything once he asked sometimes twice she looked at something in her hand what do you got there he said yeah i guess it's the last of the dandelions this year i didn't think i'd find one on the lawn this late have you ever heard of rubbing it under your chin look she touched her chin with the flower laughing why well if it rubs off it means i'm in love has it well he could hardly do anything else but look well she said you're yellow under there fine let's try you now well it won't work for me here before he could move she had put the dandelion under his chin he drew back and she laughed hold still she peered under his chin and frowned well he said what a shame she said you're not in love with anyone yes i am it doesn't show i am very much in love he tried to conjure up a face to fit the words but there was no face i am oh please don't look that way it's that dandelion he said you've used it all up on yourself that's why it won't work for me of course that must be it oh now i've upset you i can see i have i'm sorry really i am she touched his elbow no no he said quickly i'm all right i've got to be going so say you forgive me i don't want you to be angry with me i'm not angry upset yes well i've got to go see my psychiatrist now they make me go i make up things to say and i don't know what he thinks of me he says i'm a regular unkin i keep him busy peeling away the layers i'm inclined to believe you need the psychiatrist said montag you don't mean that he took a breath and let it out and at last said no i don't mean that well the psychiatrist wants to know why i go out and hike around in the forest and watch the birds and collect butterflies i'll show you my collection someday good they want to know what i do with all my time i tell them that sometimes i just sit and think but i won't tell them what i've got them running and sometimes i tell them i like to put my head back like this and let the rain fall in my mouth it tastes just like wine have you ever tried it no i you have forgiven me haven't you yes you thought about it yes i have god knows why you're peculiar you're aggravating you're easy to forgive you say you're 17 well next month how odd how strange and my wife 30 and yet you seem so much older at times i can't get over it you're peculiar yourself mr montag sometimes i even forget you're a fireman now may i make you angry again go ahead how did it start how did you get into it how did you pick your work and how did you happen to think to take the job you have you're not like the others i've seen a few i know when i talk you look at me when i said something about the moon you looked at the moon last night the others would never do that the others would walk off and leave me talking or threaten me no one has time anymore for anyone else you're one of the few who put up with me that's why i think it's so strange you're a fireman it just doesn't seem right for you somehow he felt his body divide into itself into a hotness and a coldness a softness and a hardness a trembling in the not trembling the two halves grinding one upon the other you better run on to your appointment he said and she ran off and left him standing there in the rain only all after a long time did he move and then very slowly as he walked he tilted his head back in the rain for just a few moments and opened his mouth the mechanical hound slept but did not sleep lived but did not live in its gently humming gently vibrating softly illuminated kennel in a back dark corner of the firehouse the dim light of one in the morning the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window touched here and there on the brass and the copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently gently its eight legs spidered under it on rubber padded paws montag slid down the brass pole he went out to look at the city in the clouds and cleared away completely and he lit a cigarette and came back to bend down and look at the hound it was like a great bee come home from some field where the honey is full of poison wildness of insanity and nightmare its body crammed with that over rich nectar and now it was sleeping the evil out of itself hello whispered montag fascinated as always with the dead beast the living beast nights when things got dull which was every night the men slid down the brass poles and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound and let loose rats in the firehouse area way and sometimes chickens and sometimes cats that would have to be drowned anyway and there would be bedding to see which of the cats or chickens or rats the hound would seize first the animals were turned loose and three seconds later the game was done the rat cat or chicken caught half across the area way gripped in gentling paws while a four inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the probiscus of the hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine pawn was then tossed into the incinerator and a new game begun montag stayed upstairs most nights when this went on there had been a time two years ago when he had bet with the best of them and lost a weak salary and faced mildred's insane anger which showed itself in veins and blotches but now nights he lay in his bunk face turned to the wall listening to the whoops of laughter below in the piano string scurry of rat feet the violin squeaking of mice and the great shadowing motioned silence of the hound leaping out like a moth in the raw light folding holding its victim inserting needle and going back to its kennel to die as if a switch had been turned montag touched the muzzle the hound growled montag jumped back the hound half rose in its kennel and looked at him with green blue neon light flickering in its suddenly activated eye bulbs it growled again a strange rasping combination of electrical sizzle a frying sound a scraping of metal a turning of cogs that seemed rusty and ancient with suspicion no no no no boy said montag his heart pounding he saw the silver needle extend upon the air an inch pull back extend pull back the growl simmered in the beast and it looked at him montag backed up the hound took a step from its kennel montage grabbed the brass pole with one hand the pole reacting slid upward and took him through the ceiling quietly he stepped off in the half-lit deck of the upper level he was trembling and his face was green white below the hound had sunk back down upon its eight incredible insect legs and was humming to itself again its multifaceted eyes at peace montag stood letting the fears pass by the drop hole behind him four men at a card table under a green lidded light in the corner glanced briefly but said nothing only a man with the captain's hat and the sign of the phoenix on his hat at last curious his playing cards in his thin hand talked across the long room mom tag it doesn't like me said montag what the hound the captain studied his cards come off it it doesn't like or dislike it just functions it's like a lesson in ballistics it has a trajectory we decide on for it it follows through it targets itself hones itself and cuts off it's only copper wire storage batteries and electricity montag swallowed its calculators can be set to any combination so many amino acids so much sulfur so much butter fat and alkaline right yeah we all know that all of those chemical balances and percentages on all of us are here in the house and are recorded in the master file downstairs it would be easy for someone to set up a partial combination on the hound's memory you know a touch of amino acids perhaps that would account for what the animal did just now reacted toward me hal said the captain irritated but not completely angry just enough memory set up in it by someone so it growled when i touched it who would do a thing like that ask the captain you haven't any enemies here guy none that i know of we'll have the hound checked by our technicians tomorrow this isn't the first time it's threatened me said montag last month it happened twice we'll fix it up don't worry but montag did not move and only stood thinking of the ventilator grill in the hall at home and what lay hidden behind the grill if someone here in the firehouse knew about the ventilator then might they tell the hound the captain came over to the drop hole and gave montag a questioning glance i was just figuring said montag what does the hound think about their down the on nights is it coming alive on us really it makes me cold it doesn't think anything we don't want it to think that's sad said montag quietly because all we put into it is hunting and finding and killing what a shame if that's all it can ever know baby snorted gently oh it's a fine bit of craftsmanship a good rifle that can fetch its own target and guarantees the bullseye every time that's why said montag i wouldn't want to be its next victim why you got a guilty conscience about something montag glanced up swiftly beatty stood there looking at him steadily with his eyes while his mouth opened and began to laugh very softly

Channel: Christopher Schaus

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Id: OYb70mHfPTY

Length: 51min 38sec (3098 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 07 2020