Randy said, “You haven’t seen Dan Gunn, have you?”
“No. Not today. Why?”
“He hasn’t come home.”
“Missing, eh? That sounds ungood, Randy.”
“If he comes home while we’re out Helen or Bill will ring the bell. Can we hear it in here?”
“Yes indeed, so long as the window’s open. It always startles me.”
Randy saw that the Admiral had been working. The Admiral was writing something he called, without elaboration, “A Footnote to History.” A portable typewriter squatted in the center of a ring of books. Research, Randy supposed. He recognized Durant’s Caesar and Christ, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, and Von Kriege by Clausewitz, indicating a footnote to ancient history. Randy said, “Any poop this evening?”
“I suppose you heard the Civil Defense broadcast.”
“I caught part of it. Then my batteries quietly expired.” The Admiral gave his attention to the radio. He turned the knob changing frequencies. “I’ve been listening for a station in the thirty-one meter band. Claims to be in Peru. I heard it for the first time last night. It put out some pretty outlandish stuff. It doesn’t seem to be on yet, so we’ll try for it again later. I’ve just switched to five point seven megacycles. That’s an Air Force frequency I can tap sometimes. You’ve never heard it, Randy. Interesting, but cryptic.”
The speaker squealed and whined. “Somebody’s transmitter is open,” the Admiral interpreted. “Something’s coming.”
A voice boomed with shocking loudness in the small room: “Sky Queen, Sky Queen. Do not answer. Do not answer. This is Big Rock. This is Big Rock. Applejack. Repeat, Applejack. Authentication X-Ray.”
Lip spoke, excitedly, “What is it? What does it mean?” Hazzard smiled. “I don’t know. I’m not up on Air Force codes and jargon. I’ve heard that Sky Queen call two or three times in the past month. Sky Queen could be a bomber, or a patrol plane, or a whole wing or air division. Big Rock—whoever that is—could be telling Sky Queen—whatever she may be—any number of things. Proceed to target, orbit, continue patrol, come home all is forgiven. I can’t even make an informed guess. However, I do know this. That was a good American call and so we’re still in business.” The smile departed. “On the other hand, it indicates that the enemy is still in business too.”
“How do you figure?” Randy asked.
“That ‘Do not answer’ phrase. Why does Big Rock order Sky Queen to be silent? Because if Sky Queen acknowledges the call then somebody might be able to take a radio fix on her, estimate speed and course, and vector fighters—or launch ground-to-air rockets to shoot her down.”
Randy considered this. “Then Sky Queen is probably stooging around over enemy territory.”
“That’s good deduction but we can’t be certain. For all we know, Sky Queen may be hunting a sub off Daytona. It makes me wild, listening to the damn Air Force—you will please pardon me, Lib—but if the enemy is listening on this frequency it must make them wild too.”
Lib asked, “What did that ‘Authentication X-Ray’ stand for?”
“X-Ray is simply international code for the letter X. My guess is that before every mission they change the authentication letter so that the enemy can’t take over the frequency and give Sky Queen a false heading, or phony instructions.”
“You know, I enjoyed hearing that,” Lib said. “It gave me a nice feeling. Big Rock has a solid Midwest accent.”
Sam Hazzard moved a candle so that better light fell on his dials. “Big Rock won’t be back again tonight,” he said. “I’ve never heard him more than once a night. He makes his call and that’s it. I’ll try the thirty-one meter band again.”
In the candlelight Hazzard’s hands shone with the silky, translucent patina of age and yet they were remarkably deft. They discovered a fascinating squeal. His fingers worked the band spreader delicately as a master cracksman violating a safe and he pressed his face forward as if he expected to hear tumblers click. Very gradually, a faint voice replaced the squeal. He turned up the power. They heard, in English with an indefinite accent:
“Continuing the news to North America.
“The representative of the Argentine has informed the South American Federation that two ships with wheat have sailed for Nice, in southern France, responding to radio appeals from that city. The appeals from Nice say that several hundred thousand refugees are camped in makeshift shelter on the Cote d’Azure. Many are starving. The casino at Monaco and the Prince’s palace have been converted into hospitals.
“In a Spanish-language broadcast heard here today, Radio Tokyo announced that the Big Three meeting in New Delhi has approved preliminary plans for flying desperately needed vaccines and antitoxins to uncontaminated cities in Europe, North America, and Australia.”
“Big Three!” Randy said. “Who’s the Big Three?”
“Sh-h!” said the Admiral. “Maybe we’ll find out.”
The announcer continued:
“China, where ‘Save Asia First’ sentiment is strong, urged that first priority for vaccine aerial shipments go to the Soviet Union’s maritime provinces, where typhus is reported. India and Japan felt that the smallpox epidemic on the West Coast of the United States, Canada, and in Mexico should receive equal priority. The universal shortage of aviation gasoline will make any quick aid difficult, however…”
The squeal insinuated itself into the voice and subdued it. Hazzard caressed the band-spreader. “The atmospherics have been crazy ever since The Day.” Abruptly he asked Randy: “Do you believe it?”
“It’s weird,” Randy said. “Maybe it’s a Soviet bloc propaganda station pretending to be South American, set up to confuse us and start rumors. I’ll admit I’m confused. I thought the Chinese were in it, on the other side.”
“The Chinese never liked Russia’s preoccupation with the Med,” Hazzard said. “Maybe they opted out, which would be smart of them. It could be simpler. If they didn’t have nuclear capability we wouldn’t bother hitting them on The Day, and without nuclear weapons they wouldn’t dare stick their noses into a real war. If that was it, they were lucky.”
“I noticed that station quoted Tokyo? How is it you didn’t hear Tokyo?”
“I’ve never been able to pick up any Asiatic stations. I used to get Europe fine—London, Moscow, Bonn, Berne. Africa, too, especially the Voice of America transmitter in the Tangier. Not any more. Not since The Day.”
The signal cleared. They heard:
“…but as yet the Big Three have been unable to reopen communications with Dmitri Torgatz. According to Radio Tokyo, Torgatz headed the Soviet government while the Soviet Union’s capital was in Ulan Bator in Outer Mongolia. The medium-wave station operation from Ulan Bator is no longer heard.”
“That doesn’t sound like Soviet propaganda to me,” Randy said. “Who is Dmitri Torgatz?”
The Admiral glanced up at a shelf of reference works. He selected a slender book, Directory of Communist Leaders, found the name, and read: “Torgatz, Dmitri; born Leningrad 1903? Married, wife’s name unlisted; children unlisted; Director Leningrad Agitprop 1946–49; Candidate member Presidium 1950–53; Director water works, Naryan Mar, Siberia, since fall of Malenkov.”
“Looks like they had a shakeup,” Randy said. “Looks like they had to reach way down and find a minor league bureaucrat.”
“Yes. It’s surprising that Torgatz should be running Russia,” the Admiral said, “until you consider that a female, last on the list of Cabinet members, is running the United States.”
Randy could see that Lib wasn’t listening. She was staring at the tassel of a sword resting on pegs behind his head, her lips parted, eyes unblinking. Her thoughts, he had discovered, frequently raced ahead of his or sped down dark and fascinating byways. When she concentrated thus she left the party. She murmured, “Smallpox.”
Not understanding that Lib, mentally, was no longer in the room with them, Sam Hazzard inquired, “What about smallpox?”
“Oh!” Lib shook her head. “I think of smallpox as something out of the Middle Ages, like the Black Plague. It’s true that every so often it cropped up, but we always slapped it down again. What happens now without vaccine? What about diphtheria and yellow fever? Will they start up again? Without penicillin and DDT, where are we? All good things came to us automatically. We were born with silver spoons in our mouths and electric dishwashers to keep them sanitary and clean. We relaxed, didn’t we? What happened to us, Admiral?”
Sam Hazzard disconnected the radio’s batteries and pulled his chair around to face them. “I’ve been trying to find the answer.” He nodded at his typewriter and the books massed on his desk. “I’ve been trying to put it down in black and white and pass it along. Up to now, no bottom. All I’ve found out was where I myself—and my fellow professionals—failed. I’ll explain.”
He opened a drawer and drew out a folder. “I called this ‘A Footnote to History.’ You see, I was in the Pentagon when we were having the big hassles on roles and missions and it occurred to me that I might be one of the few still alive who knew the inside of what went on and how the decisions were reached and I thought that future historians might be interested. So I set it all down factually. I set down all the arguments between the big carrier admirals and the atomic seaplane admirals and the ICBM generals and pentomic division generals and heavy bomber generals and manned missile generals. I told how we finally achieved what we thought was a balanced establishment.
“When I finished I read it over and realized it was a farce.” He tossed the manuscript on the desk as if he were discarding unwanted fourth class mail.
“You see, I confused the tactical with the strategic. I think we all did. The truth is this. Once both sides had maximum capability in hydrogen weapons and efficient means of delivering them there was no sane alternative to peace.
“Every maxim of war was archaic. The rules of Clausewitz, Mahan, all of them were obsolete as the Code Duello. War was no longer an instrument of national polity, only an instrument for national suicide. War itself was obsolete. So my ‘Footnote’ deals with tactical palavers of no real importance. We might as well have been playing on the rug with lead soldiers.”
The admiral rose and unkinked his back. “I think most of us sensed this truth, but we could not accept it. You see, no matter how well we understood the truth it was necessary that the Kremlin understand it too. It takes two to make a peace but only one to make a war. So all we could do, while vowing not to strike first, was line up our lead soldiers.”
“That was all you could do?” Lib asked.
“All. The answer was not in the Pentagon, or even in the White House. I’m looking elsewhere. One place, here.” He tapped Gibbon. “There are odd similarities between the end of the Pax Romana and the end of the Pax Americana which inherited Pax Britannica. For instance, the prices paid for high office. When it became common to spend a million dollars to elect senators from moderately populous states, I think that should have been a warning to us. For instance, free pap for the masses. Bread and circuses. Roman spectacles and our spectaculars. Largesse from the conquering proconsuls and television giveaways from the successful lipstick king. To understand the present you must know the past, yet it is only part of the answer and I will never discover it all. I have not the years.”
Randy saw that the Admiral was tired. “I guess we’d better get back,” he said. “Thanks for an entertaining evening.”
“Next time you come over,” Hazzard said, “I want you to look at my invention.”
“Are you inventing something too? Everybody’s inventing something.”
“Yes. It’s called a sailboat. It is a means of propulsion that replaces the gasoline kicker. I sacrificed my flagpole and patio awning to make it. The cutting and sewing was done by Florence Wechek and Missouri and Hannah Henry. I can now recommend them as experienced sailmakers.”
“Thanks, Sam.” Randy grinned. “That’s a wonderful invention and will become popular. I know I’m going to get one right away, and I will use your firm of sailmakers.”
They walked to the path along the river bank. Swinging at its buoy Randy saw the Admiral’s compact little cruiser with covered foredeck, useless kicker removed, a slender mast arcing its tip at a multitude of stars. There were many sailboats on Florida’s lakes, but Randy had seen very few in the upper reaches of the St. Johns, or on the Timucuan.
“I love the Admiral,” Lib said. “I worry about him. I wonder whether he gets enough to eat.”
“The Henrys see that he eats. And Missouri keeps his place neat. The Henrys love him too.”
“As long as we have men like that I can’t believe we’re so decadent. We won’t go like Rome, will we?”
He didn’t answer. He swung her around to face him and circled her waist with his hands. His fingers almost met, she was so slim. He said, “I love you. I worry about you. I wonder whether I tell you enough how I love you and want you and need you and how I am diminished and afraid when you are not with me and how I am multiplied when you are here.”
His arms went around her and he felt her body arch to him, molding itself against him. “There never seems to be enough time,” he said, “but tonight there is time. When we get home.”
She said, “Yes, Randy.” They walked on, his arm around her waist. “This is a bad time for love,” she said. “Oh, I don’t mean tonight is a bad time, I mean the times. When you love someone, that should be what you think of most, the first thing when you wake in the morning and the last thing before you sleep at night. Before The Day that’s how I thought of you. Did you know that? First in the morning, last at night.”
Randy knew, without her saying it, that it must be the same for her as it was for him. At day’s end a man was exhausted physically, mentally, emotionally. Each sun heralded a new crisis and each night he bedded with old, relentless fears. He awoke thinking of food and fell onto his couch at night still hungry, his head whirling with problems unsolved and dangers unparried. The Germans, in their years of methodical madness, had discovered in their concentration camps that when a man’s diet fell below fifteen hundred calories his desire and capacity for all emotions dwindled. Randy guessed that he managed to consume almost fifteen hundred calories each day in fish and fruit alone. His vigor was being expended in survival, he decided. That, and worry for the lives dependent upon him. Even now, he could not exclude worry for Dan Gunn from his mind.
The hodgepodge outlines of the Henry place loomed out of the darkness above them. They were within fifty yards of the barn and Ben Franklin was somewhere in that shadow, shotgun over his knees, enjoined to silence, alert to shoot anything that moved; and they were moving, silhouetted against the star-silvered river. He stopped and held Lib fast. “Ben!” he called. “Ben Franklin! Do not answer. Do not answer. This is Randy. We’re on our way home.”
They walked on.
“You know, you sounded just like that radio call on the Air Force frequency,” Lib said.
“I did sound like that, didn’t I?” He smiled in the darkness, snapped his fingers, and said, “I think I know now what was going on. It wasn’t the way Sam thought. It was just the other way around. Big Rock was the plane, and Sky Queen the base. Big Rock had been somewhere and was coming home and was telling Sky Queen not to shoot, just like I told Ben Franklin.”
“Perhaps you’re right. Not that it matters to us. I’ve heard them up there on still nights, but they never come low enough to see. The Admiral hears them talk on the radio but they never have a word for us. Maybe they’ve forgotten us. Maybe they’ve forgotten all the contaminated zones. We’re unclean. It makes me feel lonely and, well, unwanted. Isn’t that silly? Does it make you feel like that?”
“They’ll come back,” he said. “They have to. We’re still a part of the United States, aren’t we?”
They came to the path that led though their grove from house to dock. “Let’s go out on the dock,” Lib said. “I like it out there. No sound, not e
ven the crickets. Just the river whispering around the pilings.”
“All right.”
They turned left instead of right. As their feet touched the planking the ship’s bell spoke. It clanged three times rapidly, then twice more. It kept on ringing. “Oh, damn it to hell!” Randy grabbed her hand and they started the run for the house, an uphill quarter mile in sand and darkness. After a hundred yards she released his hand and fell behind.
By the time he reached the back steps Randy couldn’t climb them. He was wobbling and his knees had jellied, but before The Day he could not have run the distance at all. He paused, sobbing, and waited for Lib. The Model-A wasn’t in the driveway or the garage. He concluded that Dan hadn’t returned and something frightful had happened to Helen, Peyton, or Bill McGovern.
He was wrong. It had happened to Dan. Dan was in the dining room, a ruined hulk of man overflowing the captain’s chair, arms hanging loose, legs outstretched, shirt blood-soaked, beard blood-matted. Where his right eye should have been, bulged a blue-black lump large as half an apple. His nose was twisted and enlarged, his left eye only a slit in swollen, discolored flesh. He’s wrecked the car, Randy thought. He went through the windshield and his face took along the steering wheel.
Helen laid a wet dish towel over Dan’s eyes. Peyton, face white and pinched, stood behind her mother with another towel. It dripped. Except for Dan’s choked breathing, the dripping was for a moment the only sound in the room.
Dan spoke. The words came out slowly and thickly, each an effort of will. “Was that you, Randy, who came in?”
“It’s me, Dan. Don’t try to talk yet.” Shock, Randy thought, and probably concussion. He turned to Helen. “We should get him into bed. We have to get him upstairs.”
“I don’t know if he can make it,” Helen said. “We could hardly get him this far.” Helen’s dress and Bill McGovern’s arms were blood stained.
Alas, Babylon Page 24