Dark Yesterday [The Classic Tomorrow Trilogy]

by Arthur Leo Zagat

  "This is the thing that kills,” he shouted. “Without it I cannot kill,” and then he flung the little gun from him, flung it hard so that it went up on the roof of the Boys’ House and stayed there.

  "Now I cannot kill,” Dikar shouted. “No more than any of you."

  "Stone him,” Tomball yelled. “Stone him, Bunch. He is none of us and we will have none of him.” And Dikar saw the Bunch stoop to pluck up stones. Spraddle-legged, bronze-skinned in the sun, he saw this, and his heart within him died, but he would not move.

  "No!” It was a high, wild cry in his ear, and it came from Marilee, and Marilee's was beside Dikar. “I cry no fair. I cry the Bunch no fair, all of you against this one."

  "He fought no fair,” Tomball shouted, “and so has no right to call for fairness. Stand aside, Marilee, and let the Bunch stone him."

  "I will not stand aside,” Marilee answered. “Be you Boss or not, till you tell the Bunch why you said you would kill Jimlane if he told his tale to anyone, an’ would kill anyone he told the tale to. If you still thought Dikar had fought no fair, why were you afraid to let the Bunch hear Jimlane's tale and judge for themselves?"

  Now Tomball's little eyes seemed to have grown even smaller, and his mouth was drawn very tight.

  "She's right,” someone yelled. “Why, Tomball, did you not let us judge for ourselves?"

  "Jimlane lies,” Tomball answered. “He never told me this tale, and I never—"

  "It is you who lie,” Dikar cut in. “I say you lie, Tomball. I cry you a liar, Tomball, an’ I dare you to fight me whether you lie or not. I cry that I fought fair, an’ I dare you to fight me whether I fought fair or not. I dare you to fight me who shall be Boss of the Bunch. I cry us equal-matched, an’ if you refuse to fight me I will cry you a liar and yellow an’ not fit to be Boss of the Bunch an’ not fit to be one of the Bunch. Will you fight, Tomball, bare fists?"

  There was only one answer Tomball could make. “I fight you bare fists, Dikar. I fight you here an’ now."

  And then they were fighting, were clubbing at each other with fisted arms, lips drawn back from white teeth, eyes hating. But Dikar was gaunt and hard-bitten, and toughened by the life he had led since he'd been stoned from the Bunch, and Tomball was fat and slow, and short-winded, and so the fight did not last long. Dikar beat Tomball down, laid him rolling at his feet, and there was scarcely a mark on Dikar when he stood above his beaten enemy and heard the shouts of the Bunch.

  "Hurray for Dikar. Hurray for the Boss. Hurray and hurray and hurray."

  Dikar scarcely heard the hurrays. He was peering about for Marilee and he saw her, and he motioned commandingly for her to come to him. She came to him, her white and slender body shining in the sun, her eyes shining more brightly than the sun, and then she was beside Dikar, and Dikar's arm was around her, and he was holding her close to his side.

  Under the thunder of the hurrays, Dikar spoke to Marilee. “Marilee,” he said. “In the time I have been alone in the woods I have learned many thing—an’ one of the things I have learned is that each creature has his mate, the birds an’ the small beasts of the woods, an’ the deer. I learned that He who made all things meant this to be so, an’ meant that we too, each of us, shall have his mate. Marilee, I want you for my mate.” He was looking down into her face, and now he waited, with a tightness growing in him that was both keen happiness and fear.

  Marilee's red lips spoke. “Oh, Dikar. This that you have learned only now, I have known always. Dikar, always I have wanted you for my mate."

  A great joy leaped within Dikar, and he raised his hand and roared, “Shut up! Shut up, all of you.” And the hurrays died away, and the Bunch was hushed, and Dikar was talking into that smiling hush.

  "There are many things I have to say to you, an’ many Rules I shall have to change. All this will come later. Just now I have something to say, but not to you, though I wish all the Bunch to hear it, all the Bunch, an’ Another."

  Then, in that hush, Dikar turned to the giant oak, and to the forest beyond the oak, and his voice was low, and slow, and awed.

  "You Whose voice is the whisper of the wind in the trees, an’ the ripple of the water in the streams an’ the song of the insects in the night! You, who watch over us by day, an’ by night! You to Whom we say our Now-I-lay-mes at BedTime! Sir! Look upon me and upon this Girl, an’ hear me. In your sight an’ your hearin’ I take this Girl to be my mate, an’ none other than this Girl, an’ to You an’ to her I promise that all my life I will take care of her an’ let no harm come near her. I promise that all my life she shall be bone of my bone an’ flesh of my flesh, all my life an’ all her life, an’ always an’ always."

  "Hear me, Sir!” Marilee's clear, young voice rang out. “I shall be this Boy's mate, an’ none other's, an’ he shall be bone of my bone, an’ flesh of my flesh, always an’ always."

  And it seemed to Dikar that a soft hand stroked his hair, though it might have been the wind. How could it be the wind, though, that said in his ear, in sweet, low tones, “The Lord bless you, my son, an’ the Lord bless my daughter."

  Dikar had climbed to the topmost branch of the tallest tree in the forest, and Marilee had climbed there with him. For a long time, clasped in each other's arms, they had gazed out on the green land that stretched, fold on fold, to the sky, while Dikar told Marilee of his dream that was not a dream, and of the terrible things he had seen down there.

  "Some day, Marilee,” Dikar ended. “I shall lead the Bunch down there. I have to, because down there is the America of which the man spoke, an’ this is the Tomorrow he talked about, an’ we are the children of yesterday who will reconquer those green and pleasant fields for democracy, and liberty, and freedom."

  And all at once there was a light shining on the land down there, a great and golden light that cast no shadows.

  PART TWO

  CHILDREN OF TOMORROW

  CHAPTER I: NIGHT WINGS

  "Dikar,” Marilee said, low-voiced.

  "Of all the day between sunrise and sunrise, I am most happy in this quiet hour just before bedtime.” Lying on the grass beside him, the warmth of her love enfolded Dikar like the warmth of the fire behind them and the scent of her in his nostrils was sweet and clean as the breath of the woods that enclosed the wide, long clearing. “I am so happy that I'm afraid,” Marilee went on. “Something out there in the night hates to see me so happy."

  Dikar's great paw tightened on the slim, small hand of his mate, but he said nothing. “I'm afraid,” Marilee's gray eyes widened, “that someday it will take you away from me, and leave me all empty."

  Dikar's high forehead was deeply lined with thought, his lips pressed tightly together within his blond, silken beard. From the logs on the Fire Stone the crackling flames leaped high, reaching always for the leafy canopy a giant oak held above them, never quite touching it. The ruddy light of the flames filled the clearing, from the long Boys’ House on one side to the Girls’ House on the other, from the Fire Stone at this end to the table and benches under the pole-upheld roof of the eating place at the other. The light played on the brown, strong limbs of the Boys of the Bunch, on the slender bodies of the Girls, as they walked slowly or lay, like Dikar and Marilee, in pairs on the grass, murmuring.

  Over the clearing the purple-black Mountain hung, and the forest enclosed the clearing with night. The forest was silent with its own queer silence that is made up of countless little noises; the piping of insects, the chirp of nesting birds, the scurry of small beasts in the brush, the babble of streamlets hurrying to leap over the edge of the Drop.

  Dikar thought of the Drop, of how its high wall of riven rock completely circled the Mountain, so barren of foothold that no living thing could hope to scale it unaided. He thought of the tumbled stones below the Drop, stones big as the Boys’ House and bigger, and of how the water of the streamlets foamed white and angry between the stones, and of how beneath stones and water slept the Old Ones who brought the Bunch to the Mountain in th
e Long-Ago Time of Fear that none of the Bunch remembered clearly, most not at all.

  "Dikar!” As Marilee's head rolled to him, a gap formed in the rippling mantle of her soft, brown hair and a round, naked shoulder peeped through. “You won't let it take you away from me, will you? Will you, Dikar?"

  Beyond the tumbled stones, as far as Dikar could see from the topmost bough of the tallest tree on top of the Mountain, stretched the far land where they lived from whom the Old Ones had hidden the Bunch on this Mountain.

  "Why don't you answer me, Dikar?” There was sharpness in Marilee's voice. “Don't you hear me? Dikar! What are you thinking about?"

  Dikar smiled slowly, his blue eyes finding Marilee. “I am boss of the Bunch, Marilee,” he rumbled. “And I've a lot to think about. You know that."

  "Yes,” she whispered. “I know. But sometimes you could think about me."

  "I do. Always.” Dikar loosed his hand from Marilee's and, sliding it under her supple waist, drew her close to his great body. “Whatever else I think about, I am always thinking about you too.” The trouble within him was a little eased as he looked into her bright and lovely face. “Do I have to tell you that?"

  "No,” she murmured, nesting warm against him. “You don't have to tell me.” She sighed with contentment. Her eyelids drooped drowsily, but Dikar's remained open as his gaze returned to the Boys and the Girls in the clearing.

  All the Boys had grown in the long years since the Old Ones brought them here, their cheeks and chins fuzzed, their flat muscles banding torsos naked save for small aprons of green twigs split and plaited. Slim the Girls had grown, slim as the white birches in the woods, and graceful as the fawns that bedded in the forest.

  Their loose hair fell rippling and silken to their ankles but as they moved Dikar glimpsed lean flanks, firm thighs brushed by short skirts woven from reeds, ever-deepening breasts hidden by circlets woven of leaves for the unmated, of gay flowers for each who had taken a Boy as mate.

  Near the middle of the clearing three or four of the younger Boys knelt, playing with small, round stones the game called aggies. They were beardless as yet, their faces rashed with small pimples, and as they argued about the game their voices were now deep as Dikar's own, now broke into thin squeals.

  Abruptly their chatter hushed, and then one of them was on his feet, was running towards where Dikar lay. He was Jimlane, thin-faced, puny, but keenest-eared of all the Bunch.

  Dikar put Marilee out of his arms and was rising when Jimlane got to him. “I hear one, Dikar!” the kid gasped. “It's far away, but I hear it."

  "Shut up, everybody!” the boss called aloud. “Listen."

  There was no sound in the clearing, save for the crackle of the fire. For a long time Dikar heard no sound except the crackle of the flames behind him, the tiny noises from the woods. And then there was another sound, so faint that he was not quite certain he heard it. In the star-prickled sky, it was a buzz like the buzz of a bee although no bee flies at night.

  "There!” Jimlane pointed. Where he pointed a star moved, a sparkle of light like a star. “See it?"

  "I see it,” Dikar said, quietly. Then, more loudly but just as calmly. “Out the fire, Bunch. Quick."

  They came running toward him, the Boys and the Girls, and past him into the edge of the woods and then out again, and now each had in his hands a birch bark bucket of earth. Marilee snatched a burning stick from the fire and darted with it into the woods, and the others threw earth on the fire, till the flames flickered and were gone, and the clearing was dark as the forest.

  Dikar stared into the sky.

  The buzzing was louder now, and nearer. The dot of light came nearer and nearer, moving among the stars, and about it the stars blotted out, and shone again behind it, and now Dikar could make out a black shape in the sky.

  "In the houses, Bunch,” he ordered, and he heard swift movement in the darkness, the padding of many feet. He was alone, standing under the canopy of the great oak, with the hot smell of burned wood in his nostrils and of baking earth.

  The noise in the sky was no longer a buzz but a great roaring and the black shape was very distinct now; its spread wings, its long body, the yellow light at its very tip. Like a bird, it was, but larger than any bird. Its wings lay flat and without motion, like a soaring bird's, but no bird soared so long without wing flap, no bird soared so straight. It was a plane and there were men in it, and it was flying straight toward the Mountain. At the height it flew, it would just clear the tall tree that stood on the tip of the Mountain.

  The roar of the plane beat at Dikar. The plane was almost overhead now and Dikar was afraid.

  Dikar was afraid as he was in the dream that so often came to him in his sleep, dream of the dark Time of Fear when was a very little boy called Dick Carr, and the sky over the city would fill with screaming of sirens, and he would run hand in hand with his mother to crouch in the subway, the ground heaving and rolling under their feet. A dream it was, but also a memory so vague Dikar could not be sure which was memory, which dream. But this was no dream, this rattling thunder that clubbed at him out of the sky.

  "It will go by,” he said to himself. “They always go by."

  * * * *

  Every once in awhile a plane would fly over the Mountain. At the first sound of it the Bunch would hide—if at night, first outing the fire. The Bunch knew, not quite knowing how, what the planes were, but they were not afraid of the planes. They hid from them because it was one of the musts the Old Ones had left, and the musts of the Old Ones must be obeyed.

  No more than the rest of the Bunch Dikar had been afraid of the planes until the day not long ago when he had gone down into the far land from which they came.

  Dikar had gone far and wide that day, a shadow flitting through the fields and the woods, a silent shadow none saw; but who had seen white men and women huddled within fences of thorn-covered wire, had seen them beaten by yellow men till the blood ran. He had seen a thing, dried and gray, swing from a tall pole at the end of a rope, and the rags that fluttered about the thing had told him it once had been a man. He had seen white men and women working, thin and sunken-eyed and so weak they could hardly stand; when they fell, had seen them lashed to work again by men dressed in green, black men with yellow faces.

  Dikar had seen many terrible things that day, and he had learned how terrible they were who ruled the far land that had seemed so pleasant from his perch on the Mountain's tallest tree.

  It was they who rode in the planes, and Dikar knew what it would mean to the Bunch if they found out the Bunch lived on the Mountain, and this was why Dikar was afraid when there was a roar in the sky and a plane flew overhead. But this plane was now hidden from Dikar by the oak's canopy, and the roar in the sky was lessening.

  "It's gone by,” he said to himself, “like they always—” The roar in the sky was loud again, the plane, lower now was again blotting out the stars—A white light blazed in the sky, a great white light like the sun! It floated down, making the woods green, filling the clearing with brightness!

  Terror was ice in Dikar's veins.

  This too was out of his dream, a white light floating down out of the sky, a noise like hundreds of sticks rattling along a hundred fences, screams and crashes, the screams of kids who were fleeing a destroyed city, the crashes of the trucks in which they fled. The truck in which was eight-year-old Dick Carr, in which were Mary Lee and the other kids who now were the Bunch, rocking to a halt on a tree-roofed side road. The two Old Ones stiff with terror on the front seat of the truck...

  That white light floating down, showed only an empty clearing, weather-grayed houses about which there was no sign of life. The light was fading. The black plane was turning again to its course, was blotting the stars no longer, itself was blotted by the purple-dark Mountain. The roar in the sky became the buzz of a monstrous bee. Dikar wiped cold sweat from his forehead with the edge of his hand.

  From the plane, held high by the tall forest and ste
ep slope, they had seen nothing of life in the blaze of their white light and they had flown away. But why had they turned back? Why had they lit the clearing with their white light? Always before the planes had flown straight on, over the Mountain.

  The bee-buzz in the sky faded to nothingness. The shrilling of insects in the woods began again. Dikar cupped hands about his mouth and called, “Come out. Come out wherever you are."

  Forms began to come out of the doors of the houses. Dikar turned to face the woods. “Come out, Marilee,” he called through his cupped hands. “M-a-a-arilee."

  His shout rolled away into the purple-dark woods, seeking the cave where Marilee hid with the burning stick that must light the fire again, as was her job when a plane came in the night. “M-a-a-rilee.” Behind Dikar the Bunch chattered, but no light from Marilee's flaming stick moved among the black tree trunks.

  "Ma-a-rilee,” Dikar called again, sending his shout into the whispering night of the woods. The woods sent his shout back to him. “Ma-arilee,” hollow and mocking, and that was all the answer that came to his shout.

  CHAPTER II: TO FIGHT NO-FAIR

  Breath pulled in between Dikar's teeth and he was lunging past the oak's enormous bole, plunging into the dark woods. Earth was cold and wet to the soles of his feet. Cold, wet-earth smell was in his nostrils and the green smell of the woods and the smell of mouldering leaves and of the pale things that overnight grew among the leaves. Faintly in his nostrils, too, was the sharp tang of smoke, and that could only be from the stick Marilee had carried off to the cave.

  Even to Dikar's eyes, keen as they were, there was no light here, but he moved swiftly, never stumbling, avoiding tree trunks and bushes with the sure deftness of the small woods creatures, no more aware than they how he did so. The ground lifted under his feet, and then there was no longer ground under his feet but rock.

  Dikar stopped, sensing walls about him, a roof above him, and so knowing he was in the cave he sought. “Marilee,” he called into the sightless blackness. “Marilee. Where are you?"