The Day the Machines Stopped

by Christopher Anvil

  That night, it was warm, and they could hear the rushing of streams filling up with the run-off from the melted snow. They fed the horses at roofed-over sheds where hay was piled to feed cattle. They slept in the hay, and for food, they added water to some of the mixture of ground dried corn and sugar that the women had put in their pockets. The next day dawned sunny and hot, and that night the two boys “karbed it” at a farmer’s smokehouse, returning with enough meat to keep them contented for a few days of travel. Then days and nights blurred together until all they knew was that they were headed north and west, and finally they were out of the Duke’s territory. No identifiable sign told them that, but there seemed to be something in the air—a feeling of freedom that Brian had forgotten existed.

  It was a little later that they crossed the brow of a hill, and Smitty said, “Look back there.”

  Brian turned around.

  Behind them, far back, were a dozen little dots, spread out over the country in two staggered files, and coming toward them fast.

  The Duke’s men had found the trail.

  Chapter 12

  After studying the distance between themselves and their pursuers, and the speed at which the pursuers came, young Barnaby made a suggestion. Instead of a desperate attempt to gain distance, they went at a pace that would spare the horses, moving fast and easily as the Duke’s men drove their mounts to ever greater exertions and steadily whittled down the distance. The country was more broken now, and here and there were rocky stretches where a trail was hard to follow. At one of. these places, the Duke’s men thundered off in the wrong direction, and when they discovered their mistake and turned back, their winded horses began to give out. By nightfall, Brian and the others had more than their lead. The next day, they saw only occasional distant signs of pursuit, and that night, they were confident.

  The next morning, the Duke’s men were right behind them, and there was nothing to do but make a run for it. But the Duke’s men had faster horses. Ahead of them, as they plunged down a hillside, Brian could see a pair of shining railroad tracks, and, off in the distance, a peculiar tower-like structure. Something moved at its peak, and swung back again. What it was, he didn’t know and then there was no time to think of it.

  Now they were part way up the side of the mountain, and a tumble of rocks offered some refuge so they sprang off to crouch behind the rocks and the four Springfields brought two of their pursuers from the saddles. The others split and raced right and left, swinging up the hill to come at them from opposite sides.

  Smitty said, “We could go downhill, while they’re split—”

  “No future in it,” said Brian. “We’ve got to shoot the horses. It’ll be hard to get us out of here then.”

  A few minutes later the Duke’s men were rushing "them, racing downhill from left and right. The bullets zinged off the rocks and over their heads, fortunately missing them, but they, in turn, hit nothing. As they half rose to fire at the retiring horsemen, the bullets filled the air around them like angry bees.

  “They’re uphill of us!” shouted young Schmidt, and Brian saw the trick that almost finished them. A few of the Duke’s men were armed with semi-automatic weapons, and two of these men had dropped off uphill when the charge started. There they’d waited for their opponents to turn their backs, and only good luck had saved Brian and the others. And now, the siege began.

  The sun glared down as the Duke’s men crept from cover to cover, a few of them always on horseback, ready to rush in if the chance presented itself. The enemy’s ammunition seemed inexhaustible. Young Barnaby got a bullet through the arm. Sharp fragments or rocks brought the blood streaming from Smitty’s forehead. Schmidt, crazed by thirst as the afternoon wore on, rose up screaming at the Duke’s men, and a steel-jacketed bullet went in one cheek and out the other, leaving him suddenly sober and glaringly conscious that the next piece of insanity would be his last. Brian, deaf from the incessant gunfire, was still unhurt, but aware of his dwindling stock of ammunition and of a growing sense of detachment from reality. The afternoon slid by, and the white sun blazed down from a declining angle. The Duke’s men began to work around to take advantage of that angle, knowing that just at sunset, Brian and others would be blinded from that direction.

  Brian, roasted by the still-hot sun, his throat parched, lay ’in the waves of heat reflected from the rocks, and breathed in the odor of gunsmoke and hot horseflesh. He counted his ammunition again. He had three dips left. That was fifteen rounds, plus two shots in his gun. He thought he’d done well to have that much left. But it wasn’t going to be enough. And the enemy’s ammunition seemed endless.

  Somewhere through the heat and the ringing in his ears came a distant wail. The Duke’s men pointed, and those more distant squirmed away from the fight and ran to get their horses.

  Brian twisted to look out between two rocks.

  Down the mountainside, a locomotive thundered around the bend, drawing three freight care. Atop the front engine fluttered an oblong of cloth, its red and white stripes, and white stars against a blue background, bringing a sudden lump to Brian’s throat.

  Then the Duke’s men were racing on horseback toward the engine, waving their guns and firing warning shots. The train slowed, came to a stop. The whine of a bullet over Brian’s head warned him that some of the Duke’s men were still on hand to keep Brian and the others pinned down. Brian crouched lower, determined to do what he could for the helpless train.

  To his astonishment, several of the Duke’s men lifted in their saddles, twisted and fell. A machine-gun rattle drifted up from the train.

  The remaining horsemen returned the fire.

  The sides of the freight cars slammed up and in. There was one concerted motion, and mounted cavalrymen were beside the train. The remainder of the Duke’s men fell from their horses, and now the cavalry came up the hill, in two wide arcs, and the pair of the Duke’s men who had stayed to pin Brian and the others down were on their feet and running. Brian, Smitty and the two farm boys saw one of their tormentors fall, and the other one stagger, then throw up his hands as suddenly the cavalrymen caught up. Then the cavalry turned and rode to where Brian and the others stood up, swaying with exhaustion and still clutching their guns. The leader of the cavalry, a thin dark man with captain’s bars and “U.S.” at his lapel, said something to Brian.

  Brian heard a faint sound, but pointed to the guns, the rocks, and his deafened ears. The captain spoke again, louder.

  “Where are you from? The Duchy?”

  Brian nodded, tried to speak, and couldn’t. He saw the world begin to sway, and reached out to steady himself against a boulder. The captain turned to one of his men, who dismounted and gave Brian a drink from his canteen.

  “You were,” said the captain, his face expressionless, “in the Duke’s service”

  Brian didn’t move,"studying the captain’s expressionless face. He tried his voice, and the captain said, “Just nod for ‘yes.’ ”

  “We were prisoners,” said Brian hoarsely. “These two boys were forced labor on a farm. My friend and I were at the Duke’s headquarters under guard.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Whatever the Duke told us. We did it or we died of thirst.”

  “What did he tell you to do?”

  “Repair steam engines and steam cars, armor them, work on signals systems and factory repair.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Since last spring.”

  “And this was your first chance to escape?”

  “We tried once before and didn’t make it.”

  The captain studied them. “Raise your right hands. Face the flag on the locomotive. Repeat after me. ‘Before God, I swear allegiance to the flag—’ ”

  Brian and the others steadily repeated the words.

  When the oath was completed, the captain relaxed and took out a small leather bound book, and said, “Names?” Brian said, “Brian Philips.”

  Smitty and the othe
rs gave their names, then the captain blinked. “Brian Philips,” he murmured, flipped back through the book, and said, “Lieutenant, take charge of the burial and prisoner-interrogation details. Stay alert and in view of the lookout station. Troopers Quincy and Howe, dismount and help these two gentlemen into the saddle. All right, Mr. Philips, you and Mr. Smith follow me.”

  Brian, with no idea what was happening, barely able to cling to the saddle, was rushed to the train and he and Smitty put aboard. The captain called to the trainmen. With a clank of couplings, the train began to back. It reached the base of the embankment below the tall tower

  Brian had seen from a distance. The captain sprang from the locomotive to a ladder up the bank, climbing a ladder up the heavy timbers and vanished into the tower. At its peak, big semaphore arms swung up to attention, dropped wide, then swung up again. Then the tower was out of sight as the locomotive backed around a curve onto a track connecting at an angle, dropped off the two rear cars, pulled forward on a second track that curved to rejoin the line they’d been on originally, and then backed up again to the ladder. A few minutes later the captain climbed down and shouted, “Take them all the way to Butte! We’ll clear the track in front of you!”

  The engineer waved his hand and the train began to move.

  A trainman climbed back, heaved on the lever that slammed the long side door shut, then gave each several drinks from a canteen. Brian and Smitty, exhausted, found a pile of loose hay in a wooden pen, sank down in it and immediately were sound asleep.

  A loud wailing blast, repeated again and again, woke Brian up sometime after dark. From somewhere far ahead, the blast was answered in kind, a distant wail that was repeated over and over. The engine picked up speed, the heavy chuffs becoming faster and faster, weaving a rhythmic pattern that sent Brian off to sleep again. When he next woke up, the engine was silent, and men were shining the beam of acetylene hand-lamps around the car.

  Still half awake, Brian was rushed out into a street lit by widely spaced, soft gaslights, into a big building that trembled continuously underfoot. From somewhere came the scream and grind of machinery, then they went through a huge room where piles of coal glistened in the dim light. They passed a door from behind which came a clang and scrape of metal, walked along beside huge, asbestos-wrapped steam pipes, and then again were in a hallway, then rattling up in an elevator to a hall, high up in the building. Here the tremble and shake was less pronounced, the throb of coal-fed steam power just a murmur in the background, and one of the guards was knocking at a door lettered: “James Cardan, President.”

  “Come in,” said the musical voice of Cardan’s receptionist, Barbara Bowen.

  Brian looked at her as in a dream, saw her smile, heard her say, “The chief’s waiting,” and a moment later saw the familiar broad, tugged figure behind the desk. The guards left, and Brian was abruptly wide-awake. He glanced around. Smitty was gone. A cigar rested in a tray on Cardan’s desk, a thin wisp of smoke climbing up in the lamplight.

  Cardan eyed Brian in silence for a moment. “What kept you from leaving with the rest of us?”

  “A crack on the head.”

  Cardan’s eyes seemed to drill into his, boring, seeking, probing. It occurred to Brian that he might not be believed. Suddenly angry, Brian glared back.

  Cardan, his voice without intonation, said, “That’s the story you told before.”

  “It’s a story I’ll never tell a third time.”

  Cardan looked at him a long moment, searching out his meaning, then suddenly he began to smile. He picked up the cigar, grinned, drew on it, and blew out a long puff of smoke.

  “How did it happen this time?”

  Brian described it.

  Cardan shook his head.

  “What happened then? What did you do?”

  Brian told him the whole story. Before it was over, Cardan had gotten out a map and was checking the location of the Duke’s installations. By the time they’d finished, the sky was growing light in the east, and Cardan said, “I guess it’s time I gave you some information now.”

  ’He drew a rough outline map of the North American continent, penciled in several small ovals along the Eastern Seaboard, and marked the rest of the coastal area with heavy black strokes.

  “The heavily settled places are gone—starvation, riots, epidemics, chaos. There are just a few enclaves here and there that held out. Canada came through pretty well, though Quebec split off on its own—it’s New France now. The central part of the U.S., we don’t know much about, but there’s talk of a seaborne expedition through the Panama Canal—which we still hold—and up the Mississippi to find out.”

  Cardan drew several large ovals. “To the south, there’s a colored state called ‘Freedom Land,’ and a lopsided Texas sandwiched between the ‘Apache Nation’ and a sort of bandit empire called ‘Herrero’s Kingdom.’ Further north, taking in parts of half a dozen Western and Middle western states, we have this damned Duchy. It blocks us off the others. It threatens to lock us up west of the Rockies. When I say ‘us,’ I mean what nearly everyone calls ‘America.’ That’s Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, large parts of the six adjoining states, and a section of Colorado.” He glanced at Brian. “You want to hear this?”

  Brian nodded. He had a vague feeling of letdown now that he was finally here, but there was a sense of grim satisfaction, too. He said curiously, “Do we know anything about the rest of the world?”

  “Quite a bit. A lot of ocean vessels are steam powered, and armed steamships can travel comparatively unharmed by the loss of electricity. We sent an expedition to try to reach the source of all the trouble, in Afghanistan. They crossed the oceans. But they weren’t able to make it all the way.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not very nice there. Starting at about one hundred eighty miles from the site of the Helmand laboratory, metal becomes increasingly brittle. At about one hundred fifty miles, metal cracks and shatters, and the same effect becomes noticeable with other materials. A heavy leather belt, for instance, can be snapped between the fingers. At around one hundred twenty miles, the same weaknesses noticeably affect the human body. A stumble can mean a broken leg. The bones are brittle. The hands- and feet become numb, as if from cold, thought is slow, and the release of energy by the chemistry of the body is slower yet. At a hundred miles, there’s a sort of desert. Vegetation is dead or stunted. There’s bare dirty sand, and crumbling rocks. The body has become exceptionally fragile, fatigue is continuous and breathing is very difficult—apparently because -the body just can’t assimilate the oxygen.

  All these difficulties seem traceable ultimately to a closer binding of elections. If this effect extends all the way to the Helmand laboratory itself, it’s hard to see why the lab hasn’t been destroyed by it. Maclane thinks there may be a belt of interference around the lab, in which the effects are less severe than they are further away. We don’t know. But distance makes a difference, and if you’ll look on the opposite side of the globe from Afghanistan, you’ll find a stretch of the South Pacific containing, among other little bits of real estate, Easter Island. This is about as far away from the Helmand project as you can get on Earth. There, electricity still works. America has taken those islands and heavily fortified them. Quite a few of our men are there. The hope is that we can work out a missile capable of traveling a large part of its flight without benefit of electrical devices, and land it on the Helmand lab. But it’s quite a problem.”

  There was a soft bonging noise, a rattle of wires, and a cylindrical capsule about six inches long and two and a half in diameter traveled along a track and came to rest back of Cardan’s desk. He reached out, flipped it open, and sat back to very carefully look through several typewritten sheets of paper. He wrote rapidly on a note pad, tore off the top sheet, folded it in the little capsule, and started it on its way back along the track.

  “Donovan and Maclane,” said Cardan, “have been grilling Smitty. He tells substantially the same s
tory you do. With this ‘Duke,’ we have to be careful.” Cardan put his cigar in the tray and leaned back, his hands clasped behind his neck, tie blew out a cloud of smoke.

  “I can offer you a job here or on Easter Island. They need another chemist out there. We need one here. The salary there is higher. But—” He smiled. “—There are other compensations here.”

  He got up, opened the door to the next room, and spoke quietly to Miss Bowen. He came back, sat down, and knocked the ash off the cigar.

  A few minutes later, the door opened.

  “Excuse me,” said Cardan, getting up. “I have something to say to Miss Bowen.”

  Brian turned around. Standing in the doorway, her blond hair shining in the early morning sunlight slanting through the window, her blue eyes smiling, stood Anne Cermak.

  Brian stood up, looking deep into her clear smiling eyes. Then the eyes changed.

  “Oh, Brian,” she said, and abruptly he was holding her close.

  Long moments later, she said, “Let me—let me show you around the building. We can’t stay here like this. Come on.” She took his hand, and then Brian was looking at ingenious devices being developed to substitute for electricity. There were miniature steam engines and turbines, flexible insulated lines for conveying steam from central boilers, oil lamps with improved mantles that gave a white clear light and refused to break, unlike the usual fragile mantles. A little device to partially replace the flashlight drew a multitude of flints across a rough steel surface, the many sparks creating a pale white light that an eager technician had Brian try out in a nearby darkroom. There were mechancial phonographs brought to a high state of refinement, and signal system that relied on fluctuations of hydraulic pressure in a long thin tube. To his astonishment, Brian saw substitutes for nearly every one of the simpler electrical devices he was used to. But the very number of the substitutes, and the ingenuity that had had to go into them, showed what a pillar of civilization electricity had been.