The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works 1911-1987

by C. L. Moore

  Polly said again, "Where were you, Rohan? I thought I saw——"

  I shook my head at her sharply. If Guthrie didn't already know the part I'd played in breaking up the play he didn't need to know now.

  I said, "I just got here. What happened?"

  Cressy smiled up at me. "The show broke up, that's what. There was a lot of yelling and we made it into the truck just in time. They bounced stones off the sides until Guthrie took a few shots outside. Do you know what happened?"

  "Whatever it was, it's all clear out there now," I told her. I didn't look directly at her when I spoke. The likeness to Miranda was too poignant.

  Guthrie put his hand on my arm. "Rohan, I want to talk to you." His face was haggard in the dim light from the television screen. "Come outside if it's safe to. What do you think?"

  "It's safe right now," I said, "but——"

  The panorama of New York flickered sidewise off the screen and a voice said with enormous solemnity:

  "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Robert Dudley, the Vice-President of the United States, has an important announcement. Mr. Robert Dudley."

  The Vice-President's pale, unfamiliar face looked out at us unhappily. A nerve twitched under his eye and television make-up couldn't entirely hid how wan he looked. He said in a voice that shook just a little:

  "Ladies and gentlemen, I—pending action on the part of Congress, I——" He swallowed and then got it out in a rush. "I feel it my duty to surrender office in favor of Mr. Theodore Nye, recently named Secretary of State and coordinator for Comus."

  Guthrie's hand on my arm pulled stronger. His voice was shaking a little too. "Outside," he said, reaching for the door. "Come on."

  It was cool and still down in the street except for the continuous heavy tolling of the distant bells. Guthrie looked around nervously. "I thought for a while we were set up for a lynching," he said. "They've gone to the big news screen to listen now, but they'll be back. Rohan, things are bad. I want you to do a job for me."

  "You can't trust me," I said. "Remember?"

  He brushed that aside. "Hell is going to pop," he said. "Right here in Carson City. Any minute." He jerked his head toward the truck and the sound of the voice from New York. "I knew this was coming," he said, "but I didn't expect it so soon. I——"

  "You knew Raleigh was going to die?" I heard my own voice going thin with disbelief. "You knew——"

  He said wearily, "Rohan!" There was infinite cynicism in the way he said it. I felt a flush of sudden embarrassment at my own naiveté hot in my face. Maybe it takes a Comus man to know when Comus is lying.

  I said, "So they've found the Anti-Com."

  "Not quite, from what I'm told," Guthrie said. "But they know the town it's in. A place called Corby, about twenty-five miles from here. They may have the thing by now."

  I stood there hardly listening, staring up at the stars that twinkled through the naked girders of the grandstand and thinking what a fool I was. What a fool the whole nation was if it believed that Raleigh had died tonight.

  Guthrie knew better. I wondered how many others knew, or had leaped to the same conclusion Guthrie had. It was much too pat. How long ago had the old man really died then? Days ago? Weeks? But Nye hadn't dared release the news until he thought he had his hands on the Anti-Com. If Raleigh had been a safety fuse that held Nye in control Raleigh too had been a safeguard for Nye. As long as the President lived the nation would respect his government. Nye was part of it. If Raleigh died before Nye could be sure Comus could hold the nation steady, then Nye might be done for.

  But now Nye felt secure. Now he could announce the death. Now he could shove Vice-President Dudley out and seize the power in name that he had held in fact for so long. Now there was nothing to restrain him. Now——

  "You get it?" Guthrie said urgently. "While Raleigh was alive Comus didn't dare clamp down hard on California and risk an open rebellion. This means Nye's ready to strike. It's coming, Rohan. Any minute it's going to break."

  "What is?" I asked. "What's going to happen?"

  "For one thing, I think Nye will blow Corby right off the map. If he has to. He's got to stop the Anti-Com one way or another. I think the Comus forces are closing in now on Carson City. We know there are rebels here who know things we still have to find out. There's a lot of rebel ammunition and a lot of rebel forces right here in this town. We're going to see the kind of fighting in California tonight the country hasn't seen since the Five Days' War. Rohan——" He leaned forward and shook my arm urgently.

  "Rohan, I want you to help me. I want you to get Cressy out of town before the trouble starts."

  I looked at him blankly. "Cressy?" I said.

  He grimaced in the thin darkness. "Cressy is—she's my responsibility," he said. "I told you. I've got to stay. This is my job and I'm going to follow orders the way I always have. But Cressy—she deserves something better. My wife and I never had a daughter, Rohan, but I—I kind of feel if we had she'd be just like Cressy. She's a good girl and she's going to have her chance. She needs help. I want you to see she gets it."

  "Nobody can get out of town," I said.

  "With the right pull, I can manage things. They're passing Comus cars in and out. I think I can work it."

  I said, "Wait a minute, Guthrie. Use your head. I'll go if you can get a pass for us. But I'll take the whole troupe with me."

  He looked at me suspiciously. 'The whole troupe?"

  "I can't leave them here!" I said. "They'll be lynched. Besides, once we're outside Carson City, what then? The country's full of renegades. The more of us there are the safer. You'll have to get us some guns. Pod Henken and Roy can use them. I'll bet Polly can too. And we'll need all the defense we can get."

  Guthrie said doubtfully, "I don't know, Rohan. I'm not sure I can——"

  "It's the whole troupe or none," I told him.

  He hesitated a moment longer. Then he gave in quite suddenly. "All right, have it your way. There isn't time to argue. Get back in the truck and wait for me. I'll have to move fast. It shouldn't take more than half an hour at the most. Be ready to move when I say so."

  He turned and ran off heavily down the dark street.

  I watched him go. My heart was pounding with deep, uneasy thuds and my hands had begun to shake again. I was as scared as I'd ever been in my life. Because I knew what I was going to do—or try to do—and the risk was so great I didn't dare think about it.

  I remember the meeting place Elaine had assigned for the rebels to gather next. I wondered if there was time enough to do what I had to do. I heard the heavy tolling to the church bells. I looked up at the stars winking in the dark. I asked myself how much longer before the white glare of explosion would light up the nation from the spot where California used to be.

  -

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE SCHOOLHOUSE HAD a big ornate AR for Andy Raleigh over the door. The schools, like almost everything else in the nation, were a part of Comus. They're Communications, aren't they? Looking up at the big AR as I went up toward the unlit building, I wondered how the Anti-Com could possibly knock out anything as diversified and as powerful as the thing Ted Nye had made of Comus. I didn't think it could be done. But the gamble had to be made.

  A classroom with knee-high chairs and kindergarten tables seemed like a very strange, incongruous place for the meeting of revolutionaries. Or maybe appropriate, after all. Here where the first seeds of acquiescence had been planted in the minds of the newly schooled, maybe the fruits of rebellion were about to be harvested. It was anybody's guess at this point.

  In the dim room lit only by street lights shining through the window walls I couldn't at first pick Elaine out of the crowd. There was a lot of going and coming, quite orderly. Everything seemed superficially under control, but the air of hysteria was building in the room, and I knew they were finding out how tight the ring had been drawn around Carson City. Maybe they guessed as Guthrie had guessed what was about to happen next.

 
; I got Elaine by the arm as Guthrie had taken me. When she saw who it was she came willingly, with just a flash of that old, intensely personal look which had passed between us before now, then times were not so ruinous. But the flash went by and was past, and everything was strictly business out there in the hall that smelled of chalk and children.

  "I got to talk fast," I said. "Don't argue. First—you said the Anti-Com isn't in Carson City. I wasn't sure before. Now I believe you. Is it in a town called Corby, about twenty minutes from here?"

  The look of slightly dazzled dismay she turned to me was answer enough. "All right," I said. "Next question—is that safety fuse here in Carson City? I need to know because I think I'm going to be able to leave town in the next half hour. Don't fence with me. If the thing's here—if it's finished and if it's portable—I'll take it to Corby for you. Yes or no?"

  She gave me a look of desperation. "I can't answer you, Rohan! I haven't the authority. Even if I had I wouldn't dare. I——"

  I said harshly, "Face it, Elaine! How could things be worse? Comus is searching Corby right now for the Anti-Com. What have you got to lose? There's nothing you can tell me now about the Anti-Com that Comus and Nye won't know within the next hour anyhow, when they find it. The worst I could do would be to take your safety fuse and run to the nearest Comus cop with it. How could that hurt anything now? The best thing that could happen would be to get the fuse to Corby before the Anti-Com blows the lid off California. I'll do it if you'll let me. How about it?"

  She looked up searchingly into my face, hesitated a moment longer, and then sighed a very deep sigh and said, "Wait." I saw her dark outlines merge with the outlines of the shifting crowd. I saw her stop a passing man, speaking urgently in a whisper, and measure something large and square in mid-air between her outstretched palms.

  When she came back she took me by the arms, her hands cold and unsteady, and stood looking up into my face again, still with that anxious, uncertain stare. She drew a deep breath and began to speak quite fast in a very low voice.

  "The Anti-Com's in Corby. In the basement of the Methodist church. You can't miss the stone tower from anywhere in town. I've sent for the safety fuse. If you can get it to the Anti-Com crew they can wire it into the circuit in less than a minute." She paused. "You know the chance you're taking," she said.

  I nodded. "If I think about it I'll get too scared to go," I told her frankly. "How soon can I start?"

  "Five minutes," she said. "Maybe less. They're boxing it for you now."

  I said, "What is the Anti-Com, Elaine? How does it work?"

  She started to shake her head. Then she laughed unsteadily. "I'm so used to keeping it a secret," she said. "Actually it doesn't matter now. Either we get the fuse to Corby in time or we don't. Nothing else matters. Rohan, all the Anti-Com has to do is operate thirty seconds, and every Comus mechanism that uses a transformer goes dead all over the nation."

  "Thirty seconds!" I said.

  "It's awfully simple. We've found a way to induce permanent resonance in practically every transformer in the country."

  "Permanent resonance?"

  "I don't understand it completely, of course. The Anti-Com will broadcast two particular frequencies in a certain order that will set up a sort of circular process in the transformers. Energy input and energy output rates will be identical, and no outside force can break the cycle. When it happens the transformers are no good at all. And that means that everything using electricity will stop dead."

  I said, "Everything? But——"

  "I know. Hospitals and homes, planes in the air—there'll be casualties. But not for long. Our people all over the country are ready and waiting. Comus is spread pretty thin in man power because it's so well organized. You know how intricate its system of communications is. And all its power depends on the network of communications and transportation. Knock out that organization and—well, there's a lot more of us than them." She drew another of those deep, unsteady breaths. "That's the story," she said. "Now you know."

  I started to say, "Elaine——" but I stopped again, because she couldn't hear me. She had closed her eyes and she was shivering uncontrollably from head to foot. I closed my arms around her and she leaned her forehead against my shoulder and let the deep, strong shudders go over her unresisted. I stood there holding her fast.

  The fit didn't last long. Then she laughed with a sound more like grief than amusement and pushed herself back from me.

  "It's just reaction," she said. "It's such a relief, Rohan, to pass the responsibility on!"

  "You've done a fine job," I told her. "Now your part's done. I'll get the fuse to Corby if anybody can. If I can't—what's your guess, Elaine? Will the crew turn on the Anti-Com anyhow and take the chance of its blowing?"

  The bright, dark eyes met mine levelly. "I think they will. I think maybe I would if I had to make the decision. There's never been a chance against Comus before. There may never be again. Either way it's a terrible decision to have to make. But I think they'll turn it on."

  Down the hall the sound of hurrying feet came nearer. Two men rounded a corner, carrying between them a square case about the size of a portable typewriter box, with handles on two sides. I looked at it dubiously.

  "How am I going to smuggle that thing into the sound truck?" I asked Elaine. Then I realized I hadn't explained to her how I expected to pass the Comus cordon, and I told her the story in quick sentences.

  She frowned a little. "It isn't really heavy," she said. "But it's clumsy. And conspicuous, unless there's someplace you can put it in the truck where it might seem to fit in. Will they search the truck?"

  "I don't know. Maybe not. So far I don't think they know there's anything vital to search for. You say Beardsley didn't know about the safety fuse?"

  "That's right." She thought it over briefly. "Go on back to the truck then. Some of the boys will go with you. We'll manage a diversion just before you reach the line-up at the check station. Be at the back of the truck and we'll hand the box in to you. I can't think of anything better, can you?"

  I said, "It ought to work. Okay then, let's go."

  She held out her hand. It was cold and still unsteady in mine. I said, "Elaine there's going to be a bad time in Carson City tonight. Now that Raleigh's dead the safety controls are off Nye. You realize that?"

  She nodded.

  "Keep under cover, will you?" I said. "If we ever come out of this——" I paused, smiling at her. "I'll come back and find you."

  "I'll expect you," she told me quite impersonally.

  We let it go at that. Maybe it was as far as it would ever go. Who knows?

  -

  CHAPTER XXVI

  GUTHRIE GLANCED AROUND the anxious faces in the truck for one last time. His eyes lingered for a moment on Cressy's face.

  "You'll be okay," he said reassuringly. "Rohan, I've made all the arrangements. Once you're outside, head for Truck Station 33, north on the highway about ten miles. They'll be expecting you. They're fortified well enough and you'll be safe. Okay?"

  Cressy smiled at him. "Stop worrying," she said. "We'll live to tell our grandchildren about it." She was sitting on the floor with her feet tucked under the bright pink skirts of her last-act costume. The make-up was smeared a little on her face and the mascara had run down to streak her cheeks, so I thought she must have cried. Maybe when the mob bombarded the truck and a lynching seemed like the next thing the troupe might expect. Whatever it was, she had got her courage back now.

  Polly said, "Guthrie, you're sure we'll get our pay and the bonus? We only gave three performances, but——"

  "You'll get it," Guthrie told her. "We did our job. Don't worry."

  Polly nodded and gave Roy a cold glance. He sat beside Cressy, examining the pistol Guthrie had handed him, and he didn't meet his wife's look at all. They were not, apparently, on speaking terms this evening.

  Pod Henken said, "Good luck, Guthrie. Look out for yourself. You sure you won't come with us?"r />
  "I've got my orders," Guthrie told him.

  Mrs. Henken, sitting on the floor beside Pod, her feet out straight before her, reached up and removed from her wild tangle of white curls a single carnation which she must have picked from somebody's garden on the way to the theater tonight. She twirled it between her fingers and in some perfectly mysterious way managed to rivet every eye in the truck upon it. Her old scene-stealing techniques were flawless, as usual, even when there seemed neither need nor point.

  She said to me calmly, ignoring everyone else, "Rohan, do you remember The Mouse-trap?" and before I could answer, went smoothly on into the familiar lines from Hamlet.

  -

  "I have heard

  That guilty creatures sitting at a play

  Have by the very cunning of the scene

  Been struck so to the soul that ..."

  -

  She broke off. "How does it go, do you remember?"

  Guthrie said hastily. "You'd better get moving. I'll see you all later on. Good luck. Good-by." He swung down to the ground and the door closed behind him.

  I grinned at Mrs. Henken and shook my head. I wondered how long she had known the theater was akin to Hamlet's Mouse-trap. It didn't matter now, but I wondered.

  "Pod," I said, "will you drive?"

  The distraction I'd been expecting came right on schedule. A block away from the tail of the line-up at the check station a thrown rock bounced thunderously off the front wall of the truck. An outburst of yells and flung stones drew every eye to the road before us. Pod threw on the air brakes and stopped us with shattering suddenness. I never did know why. Maybe a log thrown across the street.

  The moment we stopped I opened the door at the rear of the truck very quietly. Hands out of the darkness held up a square case, the handle ready for my grasp. I had it inside the truck and set down in the spot I'd picked out for it while the shouts and reverberations of rocks on the metal walls still echoed deafeningly in our ears.