The Ask and the Answer Read Online Free PDF Page A

leads the army.
    I can hear him now, calling out marching words to keep everyone in time together. The foot, he's yelling to the rhythm of the march.
    The foot.
    The foot upon the neck.
    They march into the square and turn down its side, cutting twixt the men and the women like an unstoppable force. Mr. Hammar's close enough so I can see the smile, a smile I know full well, a smile that clubs, a smile that beats, a smile that dominates.
    And as he gets closer, i grow more sure.
    It's a smile without Noise.
    Someone, one of those men on horseback maybe, has gone out to meet the army on the road. Someone carrying the cure with him. The army ain't making a sound except with its feet and with its chant.
    The foot, the foot, the foot upon the neck.
    They march round the side of the square to the platform. Mr. Hammar stops at a corner, letting the men start to make up formayshuns behind the platform, lining up with their backs to me, facing the crowd now turned to watch them.
    I start to reckernize the soldiers as they line up. Mr. Wallace. Mr. Smith the younger. Mr. Phelps the storekeeper. Men from Prentisstown and many, many more men besides.
    The army that grew as it came.
    I see Ivan, the man from the barn at Farbranch, the man who secretly told me there were men in sympathy. He stands
    45
    at the head of one of the formayshuns and everything that proves him right is standing behind him, arms at attenshun, rifles at the ready.
    The last soldier marches into place with a final chant.
    The foot upon the NECK!
    And then there ain't nothing but silence, blowing over New Prentisstown like a wind.
    Till I hear the doors of the cathedral open down below me.
    And Mayor Prentiss steps out to address his new city.
    "Right now," he says into the microphone, having saluted Mr. Hammar and climbed his way up the platform steps, "you are afraid."
    The men of the town look back up at him, saying nothing, making no sound of Noise nor buzzing.
    The women stay in the side streets, also silent.
    The army stands at attenshun, ready for anything.
    I realize I'm holding my breath.
    "Right now," he continues, "you think you are conquered. You think there is no hope. You think I come up here to read out your doom."
    His back is to me but from speakers hidden in the four corners, his voice booms clear over the square, over the city, probably over the whole valley and beyond. Cuz who else is there to hear him talk? Who else is there on all of New World that ain't either gathered here or under the ground?
    Mayor Prentiss is talking to the whole planet.
    46
    "And you're right," he says and I tell you I'm certain I hear the smile. "You are conquered. You are defeated. And I read to you your doom."
    He lets this sink in for a moment. My Noise rumbles and I see a few of the men look up to the top of the tower. I try to keep it quiet but who are these people? Who are these clean and comfortable and not-at-all-hungry people who just handed theirselves over?
    "But it is not I who conquered you," the Mayor says. "It is not I who has beaten you or defeated you or enslaved you."
    He pauses, looking out over the crowd. He's dressed all in white, white hat, white boots, and with the white cloths covering the platform and the afternoon sun shining on down, he's practically blinding.
    "You are enslaved by your idleness," says the Mayor. "You are defeated by your complacency. You are doomed"--and here his voice rises suddenly, hitting doomed so hard half the crowd jumps-"by your good intentions!"
    He's working himself up now, heavy breaths into the microphone.
    "You have allowed yourselves to become so weak, so feeble in the face of the challenges of this world that in a single generation you have become a people who would surrender to RUMOR!"
    He starts to pace the stage, microphone in hand. Every frightened face in the crowd, every face in the army, turns to watch him move back and forth, back and forth.
    I'm watching, too.
    "You let an army walk into your town and