It would have been like no fire any City man had ever seen. Even the water in the can would be poison to a City man. When he came in the airlocks the guards would make him throw it away.
"Why the lock?" he'd demand, coming into a City. "Why the lock and why the plastic bubble over all and why the guards? There's no pollution. Am I not alive?"
The guards would touch his hump and make circular motions at the sides of their heads and raise their eyebrows as if to say, "Yes, you're alive. But are you not crazy?"
Still they would admit him, the only nonresident to walk between the Domed Cities of the Plains and enter all of them; the only man to pass unharmed through the camps of the Outsiders who lived in the open on the Plains at the heart of the North American Continent of Earth.
And Old Arch would go to the residence buildings and he'd knock on someone's door—any door, chosen at random—and he'd say, "Have you seen the sky and do you know it's blue? Have you felt the soft kiss of the breezes? I can show you where to breathe fresh air."
Maybe the people would say, "Phew! Does it smell like you, this fresh air?" and slam the door in his face.
Or maybe they'd say, "Come on around to the back, Old Man, and we'll find you something to eat."
Then Old Arch would shoulder his bed and pick up his billy can and his staff and walk down the stairs and go around to the back and walk up the stairs to the rear door.
It might be an hour before he appeared there—it might be two. When he did, the people would ask, "Why didn't you say something? You should have known they wouldn't let you in the elevator! And twenty flights down and twenty flights up again is too much for a man of your years."
Then, the next time he came they would do the same thing again.