by C. L. Moore
"When I heard the siren I started out," the young man said. "A couple of blocks away two men closed in on me. One of them had a hypodermic. I slapped it out of his hand just in time. Some of the boys saw us fighting and got there just in time."
Elaine nodded. "Brewster, take charge of rounding up as many as you can to patrol the streets and watch for arrests. Try to recapture our people if you can."
A thickset man said, "I'll try, but I'm afraid it's too late."
"Well, try!"
He nodded and turned quickly to the door, beckoning to people as he passed them. I had a sudden thought.
"Wait a minute," I said loudly. "Hold on. About the theater troupe—nobody in the play had any idea what they were doing. You've got to understand that."
The words seemed to fall very flat. Nobody spoke. There was a small silence and then Brewster said, "Come on," and went out with his own group. I looked at Elaine.
"What about my troupe?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. I've got a lot to think about, Rohan. They can look after themselves."
Before I could protest a commotion near the door resolved itself into a woman with her hair wildly wind-blown. She was talking in gasps, as if she had been running.
"Johnny says you want to know—about the monument," she said. "I was just—up there." She paused to catch her breath. "All around the outskirts—in the fields—I've never seen so many machines. Tanks. Prowlers. Hedgehoppers. A ring of 'em, right around the town. A mouse couldn't slip through. They must have been waiting in the woods. They've got—radar set up, too. We're—locked in."
I said, "What about my troupe?" Nobody paid any attention.
"What are the machines doing?" Elaine asked. "Just sitting there?" The woman nodded, pushing the wild hair off her forehead.
There was a muffled shout on the stairs. Footsteps thudded. An elderly man came in, his face grayish. He pushed directly through the crowd to Elaine.
"Ferguson," he said. "Dead. He got the ring to his mouth as they took him up the steps to the Comus Building. But Beardsley" He paused, shaking his head. "Sam couldn't make it," he said. "They've got him."
"Alive?"
The old man nodded.
Elaine said, "Couldn't he reach his ring?"
"He had it up to his mouth. I saw him. And then he—I don't know—he just let it drop again. He couldn't quite make it when the chips were down."
Silence. Then Elaine said, "Where is he now?"
"They're questioning him at Comus headquarters."
"Under direct television hookup with Nye's office, I suppose," Elaine said. Her shoulder sagged a little. "Well, that's that."
"How bad is it?" someone asked.
Elaine said softly, "I was sure Sam would use the poison if he had to." She looked down at her own ring. "I guess we never really know," she said, "until we have to do it ourselves." She was silent a moment longer.
"It's bad," she said. "Sam knows what town the Anti-Com's in. Not the exact location, but the town. It could be worse."
"Isn't that enough? As soon as they mind-scan Beardsley can't they just move in on that town——"
Elaine said, "Maybe. Remember, though, Nye wants the Anti-Com intact if he can get it. As long as he doesn't know what it is or how it works he's vulnerable. Even if he blew up this one, we might still build another."
"But he won't risk our turning it on!"
Elaine laughed shortly. "We aren't going to turn it on. That's something Beardsley doesn't know."
There was a dead silence. Somebody said thinly:
"Why aren't we going to turn it on?"
Elaine said with sudden fierceness, "Because it isn't safe! Because yesterday Comus raided a distribution center and we had to destroy the only safety device we had for the Anti-Com. That's why we won't use it."
A voice said after a moment's shock silence, "I thought it was all finished. All ready to operate."
"It is," Elaine said less angrily. "It's finished. It'll work. It'll knock out Comus. But we got to one of the calculators for the first time last week and we found out it'll do something else, too—something we hadn't realized. There's going to be tremendous amount of energy released. It'll knock out Comus, all right, but it can bounce right back on us, too. It could blow the state clear off the map and gouge another bay out of the Pacific."
"It could," somebody said, "or it would?"
Elaine shrugged. "There's a chance it wouldn't. I'd hate to take the chance. We did have a safety device that would channel off the energy harmlessly. Since we lost it yesterday morning we've been working right around the clock on a new one. It's nearly done. But it isn't attached to the Anti-Com. If it were——" She shrugged delicately. "If it were, Comus would end. Right then, at that moment."
We all looked at each other, I with wild speculations. What was it that could put an end to Comus in the wink of an eye?
"Where is the safety?" someone asked.
Elaine shook her head. "I'd better not say. There's still a chance. A pretty slim one, but a chance."
In the silence as everyone thought that over, the distant trickle of gunfire sounded from far off, near the edge of town. Someone near the door said stolidly, "If it was me, I'd take a chance. I'd use the Anti-Com and let it blow if it wanted to. We're done for either way. We might as well take Comus with us. If we've got any chance at all, I'd say take it."
There was a brief babble of talk, most of it in agreement. Elaine said, "We'd never know what happened if that's what they decided at the Anti-Com when the time comes."
"If it blows," the stolid voice insisted.
Elaine nodded. "If it blows."
"What's going to happen then?"
"Right now," Elaine said, "Nye is probably questioning Beardsley on the Comus channel from New York. As soon as he talks they'll know what town the Anti-Com is in and they'll start a house-to-house search for it. Sooner or later they'll find us. If we're lucky, the Anti-Com will go on, Comus will——" She hesitated. "Well, Comus will end. And all over the country rebel groups will rise take over."
"How will they know?"
Elaine smiled. "They'll know. If the Anti-Com goes on, nobody in the country will have any doubt what's happened. At best, it'll work fine. At worst, the explosion might light up half the continent for a minute or two. Oh, they'll know, all right."
"But what are we going to do?" a voice demanded impatiently. "There must be something we can do!"
"There is," Elaine said. "We're doing it. I ought to hear from the workshop where the safety fuse is being finished within the next half hour. Then it'll be a matter of getting the fuse to the Anti-Com before the Comus forces find it. There's just one thing to remember now—be sure you're all armed and be sure you put up a strong resistance if Comus tries to take over Carson City. I know those are standing orders. I just wanted to remind you it's more important than ever now."
I said mildly. "Why?"
"That's how we drove Comus out of California," Elaine said. "It's how we'll keep them out as long as we still have a chance to turn on the Anti-Com."
A man with a torn shirt and a scratched face said, "After all, Andrew Raleigh's still President. The old man could still kick Nye out—and he would, if we raised enough trouble. If the lid blows off here, it'll blow all over the state, and Nye can't hush that up even with the Comus walls. He's still afraid of Raleigh."
"Comus will have to move in on the town where the Anti-Com is," I reminded them.
"And there'll be fighting. We've got strong forces there and lots of ammunition and weapons. But Nye's got a good! excuse for that kind of trouble. After all, if he knows the Anti-Com's there not even Raleigh could object."
Elaine added, "Nye won't do anything drastic. That's why we're waiting this out. If Comus can infiltrate the Anti-Com town he'll do it. Remember he wants the Anti-Com in one piece, so his technicians can find a defense against it There's only one thing we've got to do now." She glanced around the room.
"Johnny, get your group together and find some way out of town. We've got to get past the Comus ring."
Johnny shook his head doubtfully. "They're only passing out their own cars," he said. "But we'll try." He beckoned to several of the bystanders and they went out together.
I said to Elaine, keeping my voice quiet, "Have you thought why the town's boxed in like this? Do you know what they're still looking for?"
She met my eyes calmly. "Yes, I know."
"They're looking for you," I said.
She spread out her hand as if she were admiring the blue stone of her ring. I knew she was wondering if when the moment came she, like Sam Beardsley, might falter in doing what had to be done. But in my own mind I knew she would not falter.
"Not only me," she said. "Anyone who knows more than Sam about the Anti-Com. We've got to find some way out of town."
Somebody was running up the stairs outside. For no reason I found myself thinking again of the Swann Players, isolated in the besieged and probably hysterical town. I started to say, "The troupe ought to be looked after, Elaine. They didn't know what they were doing. I wish——"
But then the door burst open and a young man came in, breathless, saying before he had fully entered the room, "They're through with Beardsley. I heard most of it. He spilled everything he knew—you'd better clear out of here fast. They know this is headquarters. They're on their way."
The crowd eddied wildly for a moment. Then Elaine's voice, pitched high, sounded over the brief uproar. She was giving orders quickly and calmly. Looking at her, I saw the way the pulse beat in her throat, and her hands were trembling, but you wouldn't have known how scared she was by anything in her voice. I hoped her thinking was straight She was telling them where to scatter and naming the next meeting place. And in the next few minutes the room filled with orderly regrouping and then the quick tide of their dispersing swept me down the stairs with the rest.
Outside the streets were almost dark. Glass from the street lights gritted underfoot. Somebody had decided against too much illumination, and he had been quite right. It was easier to scatter here in the dimness.
Elaine's hand was on my arm. "I want to finish talking to you, Rohan," she said. "Wait with me. You know too much now and I don't want you picked up——"
Down one of the dark streets the sound of purring motors came swelling, nearer and louder by the second. 'Hoppers, I thought, Or even a Prowler or two. I hadn't seen a Prowler's big crimson bulk since I crossed the border into this rebel land. It made me chill a little to remember how their great swollen sides loom over you as they come.
Somebody said, "That's them! Run! Scatter!"
And we ran.
When I stopped at last, out of breath, in a pocket between two old wooden buildings in a dark street, I found I was alone.
I stood there quiet, fighting to get my breath back, listening. Far off I could hear outbursts of shouting now and then, but no footsteps sounded near me. I could smell dust and old wood and the damp scent of dew-wet grass from some unseen lawn. If there was anyone in these buildings he was as still as I was, listening and waiting. I couldn't see any motion in the street at all.
After a while I lit a cigarette and asked myself what next. But I knew the answer to that one without thinking. Until I was sure the troupe was safe I couldn't relax enough to take the next step, whatever it might be. There was no reason at all behind this feeling I had. The troupe had disowned me. At least, Guthrie had. But the sense of responsibility I had taken up for the little group I'd worked with wasn't something I could lay down again at will.
I studied street signs to orient myself. I looked up for the Dipper in the starry dark and found the North Star weakly blinking. The theater had been set up at the south side of town. I started off cautiously, keeping in the shadows.
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CHAPTER XXIV
I HAD BEEN WALKING for maybe ten minutes when I heard the first church bell begin to toll. It startled me. It didn't sound like an alarm, but seconds later another bell began to sound, and beyond that another, far off at the north edge of town. One bell was big and deep, one rang slightly flat, the third had a tenor note to its tone. They didn't ring very well together, and probably they weren't trying. All they meant to do was fill the night with the solemn sound of their tolling. I wondered if somewhere men were pulling and releasing the ropes that turned them, or are church bells rung mechanically? And either way—why? Why tonight is this besieged and frightened town? I walked faster.
I passed furtive pedestrians now and then, and stayed out of their sight when I could. I didn't want anything to do with either rebel or Comus forces yet. The bells tolled on. I knew there was probably a big public-address screen somewhere near the center of town, and there might be news on it I needed to know. But it would have to keep.
I passed the little dark park where I had spent my bad time alone. I passed the pool and the tree and turned the corner into the street where the theater had been set up. In the faint light of the nearest unbroken street lamp I could see the bleachers still standing, looking gaunt and deserted in the empty street.
On the far side of the bleachers the big square bulk of the round truck sat silent. Its round loud-speakers yawned up at the sky. The cab was empty. The troupe—had it gone? I stood there feeling foolish in the deserted street, the church bells knelling slowly in deep eddies of sound that filled the air around me. Naturally the troupe would have taken shelter somewhere, and fast, when the sirens first began to blow the Hey, Charlie, and the crowds scattered. But where would they have gone?
On the verge of turning away, I paused to listen. Voices? A muffled sound, curiously resonant, but voices speaking, and not very far off. I laughed suddenly at myself and started across the street toward the sound truck. The pavement at the edge of the grandstands was littered with the debris of the escaping audience—dropped handkerchiefs and hats, one shoe, several handbags turned inside out by provident looters. I kicked through the Utter ad reached up to tap at the door in the flat rear of the truck. I could hear the sound reverberate inside, and there was a sudden hush of the muffled voices, except for one that spoke on imperviously. I couldn't hear the words.
After a moment there was a sound of footsteps inside and Guthrie's voice said, "What is it?"
"Rohan," I called. "Let me in."
A pause. Then, "You alone?"
"Yes. Open up."
Very cautiously the door opened a narrow crack. I could see Guthrie's cheek and one eye, and just below his face the single eye of a Comus pistol looking straight at me. There was another pause. Then Guthrie grunted and pushed the door open. "Come in," he said.
The inside of the truck looked cavernous without the tightly packed and folded grandstands taking up most of the space. Standing up in the middle of emptiness on one side were the banks of instruments that had operated the lie-detector devices. At right angles to them, flat against the front wall, stood the television apparatus. The screen was lighted and a man was speaking portentously. The rest of the troupe, gathered at the screen, turned to look at me in surprise, and as I glanced from face to face, seeing Polly and Roy together, the Henkens and Cressy, I also saw Ted Nye's little dark excited face in the group and for a moment of surprise that rocked me back on my heels I thought again Ted was here in the truck.
Then common sense took over. It was Ted on the television screen. It was Ted speaking in the portentous voice. He wore a black band around his sleeve and his face looked self-consciously grave, but I knew the elation that shone just behind the gravity of his look.
"... the period of national mourning," he was saying. "Messages are already beginning to arrive from the heads of foreign states, and it is good to know that the world mourns with us the loss of the greatest man of modern times. The President's body will lie in state from ..."
The realization of what had happened hit me belatedly and not with great surprise. Ever since I heard the church bells tolling I must have known with a part of my mind
what that knell was sounding for. But the jolt was strong just the same. For a timeless moment I stopped hearing Ted Nye's voice at all. I stopped perceiving anything around me.
So much was going on in my mind. Awe and incredulity. The unthinkable idea of a nation without Raleigh. I couldn't remember a time when that strong, calm face hadn't dominated the whole continent. The nation itself was the very shape and substance of the man Raleigh, and it didn't seem conceivable that we could continue without him. And along with the solemn personal loss, because he was so strong when we needed him, a long time ago. Because he did so much for us that no other man alive had been able to do.
I looked at the faces turned toward mine. On all of them the same look of stunned incredulity was strong. This was an idea that would take getting used to. All of us had known it was coming. But when the moment really came, its impact was hard.
I looked at Guthrie, and then looked again, closer, shocked at the gray, desperate blankness of his face. He didn't look like a man sharing a national loss with two hundred million fellow countrymen. He looked like somebody with a stunning private shock and grief he had not shared with anybody. At first I thought the death of Raleigh had just hit him harder than most. But then I realized there had to be more to it than that. I saw his gaze move to the group by the television screen and fall upon Cressy's softly curved cheek turned away from him, the pale curls shining in the colored light of the screen.
"Where's the man who took my part?" I asked over the sound of Ted Nye's voice. I had to know where we stood, what had happened. I had the feeling that time might be running out on us.
"He left," Guthrie said shortly.
"Ran like a rabbit," Polly added with obscure satisfaction. "What happened to you, Rohan?"
I started to answer, but the scene on the television screen changed then and we all turned to watch. Nye had gone off camera briefly, and a long, panning shot moved with impressive slowness from left to right above the roofs of nighttime. New York. I could see the lights in solid, glittering banks. Everyone was aroused and listening and stunned by the news of the nation's bereavement. Across three thousand miles I could hear the solemn tolling of church bells as the east coast mingled its knell with the tolling in the town around us. The nation was awake and all through this summer night history was on the turn.