American Science Fiction Four Classic Novels 1953-56

by Gary K. Wolfe

  “Yes, sir,” said Esau. Sherman was not threatening or unpleasant. He was just used to giving orders, and the answer was automatic.

  He looked from Esau to Len, and asked, “Why did you want to come here?”

  Len bent his head and did not say anything.

  “Go ahead,” said Hostetter. “Tell him.”

  “How can I?” said Len. “All right. We thought it would be a place where people were different, where they could think about things and talk about them without getting into trouble. Where there were machines and—oh, all the things there used to be.”

  Sherman smiled. It made him no longer a cold-eyed blocky man used to giving orders, but a human being who had lived a long time and learned not to fight it. Like Hostetter. Like Pa. Len recognized him, and suddenly he felt that he was not entirely among strangers.

  “You thought,” said Sherman, “that we’d have a city, just like the old ones, with everything in it.”

  “I guess so,” said Len, and he was not angry now, only regretful.

  “No,” said Sherman. “All we have is the first part of what you wanted.”

  Erdmann said, “And we’re looking for the second.”

  “Oh yes,” said Gutierrez. His voice was thin and bitter like the rest of him. “We have a cause. You’ll understand about that —you young men have had a cause yourselves. Do you want me to tell them, Harry?”

  “Later,” Sherman said. He leaned forward and spoke to Len and Esau, and his eyes were hard again, and cold. “You have Hostetter to thank——”

  “Not entirely,” said Hostetter, breaking in. “You had your reason.”

  “A man can always find a reason to justify himself,” said Sherman cynically. “But all right, I admit I had one. However, most of it was Hostetter. Otherwise you would both be dead now, at the hands of the mob in that town—what’s the name——?”

  “Refuge,” said Len. “Yes, we know that.”

  “I’m not rubbing it in, merely getting the facts straight. We’ve done you a favor, and I won’t try to impress upon you what a very big favor it is because you won’t be able to understand until you’ve been here awhile. Then I won’t have to tell you. In the meantime, I’m going to ask you to repay it by doing as you’re told and not asking too many questions.”

  He paused. Erdmann cleared his throat nervously in the silence, and Gutierrez muttered, “Give them the shaft, Harry. Swift and clean.”

  Sherman turned around. “Have you been drinking, Julio?”

  “No. But I will.”

  Sherman grunted. “Well, anyway, what he means is this. You’re not to leave Fall Creek. Don’t do anything that even looks like leaving. We have a great deal at stake here, more than you can possibly imagine as yet, and we can’t risk it.”

  He finished simply with three words. “You’ll be shot.”

  20

  There was another silence. Then Esau said, just a little too loudly, “We worked hard enough to get here, we’re not likely to run away.”

  “People change their minds. It was only fair to tell you.”

  Esau put his hands on the table and said, “Can I ask just one question?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Where the hell is Bartorstown?”

  Sherman leaned back in his chair and looked hard at Esau, frowning. “You know something, Colter? I wouldn’t answer that, now or later, if there was any way to keep it from you. You boys have made us quite a problem. When strangers come in here we keep our mouths shut and are careful, and that isn’t much of a worry because there are very few strangers and they don’t stay long. But you two are going to live here. Sooner or later, inevitably, you’re going to find out all about us. And yet you don’t really belong here. Your whole life, your training, your background, your conditioning, are totally at odds with everything we believe in.”

  He glanced at Len, harshly amused. “No use getting red around the ears, young fellow. I know you’re sincere. I know you’ve gone through hell to get here, which is more than a lot of us would do. But—tomorrow is another day. How are you going to feel then, or the day after?”

  “I should think you’re pretty safe,” said Len, “as long as you have plenty of bullets.”

  “Oh,” said Sherman. “That. Yes. Well, I suppose so. Anyway, we decided to take a chance on you, and so we haven’t any choice. So you’ll be told about Bartorstown. But not tonight.” He got up and shoved his hand unexpectedly at Len. “Bear with me.”

  Len shook hands with him and smiled.

  Hostetter said, “I’ll see you, Harry.” He nodded to Len and Esau, and they went out again, into full dark and air that had a crisp edge of chill on it, and a lot of unfamiliar smells. They walked back through the town. Lamps were going on in every house, people were talking loud and laughing, and going from place to place in little groups. “There’s always a celebration,” said Hostetter. “Some of the men have been away a long time.”

  They wound up in a neat, solid log house that belonged to the Wepplos, the old man and his son and daughter-in-law, and the girl Joan. They ate dinner and a lot of people drifted in and out, saying hello to Hostetter and nipping out of a big jug that got to passing around. The girl Joan watched Len all evening, but she didn’t say much. Quite late, Gutierrez came in. He was dead drunk, and he stood looking down at Len so solemnly and for such a long time that Len asked him what he wanted.

  Gutierrez said, “I just wanted to see a man who wanted to come here when he didn’t have to.”

  He sighed and went away. Pretty soon Hostetter tapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, Lennie,” he said, “unless you want to sleep on Wepplo’s floor.”

  He seemed in a jovial frame of mind, as though coming home had not after all been as bad as he thought it would be. Len walked along beside him through the cold night. Fall Creek was quieter now, and the lamps were going out. He told Hostetter about Gutierrez.

  Hostetter said, “Poor Julio. He’s in a bad frame of mind.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s been working on this thing for three years. Actually, he’s been working on it most of his life, but this particular point of attack, I mean. Three years. And he’s just found out it’s no good. Clear the slate, try again. Only Julio’s beginning to think he isn’t going to live long enough.”

  “Long enough for what?”

  But Hostetter only said, “We’ll have to bunk in the bachelor’s shack. But that isn’t bad. Lots of company.”

  The bachelor’s shack turned out to be a long two-story frame building, part of the original construction of Fall Creek, with some later additions running out from it in clumsy wings. The room Hostetter led him into was at the back of one of these wings, with its own door and some stubby pine trees close by to scent the air and whisper when the breeze blew. They had brought their blanket rolls from Wepplo’s. Hostetter pitched his into one of the two bunks and sat down and began to take off his boots.

  “How do you like her?” he said.

  “Like who?” asked Len, spreading his blankets.

  “Joan Wepplo.”

  “How should I know? I hardly saw her.”

  Hostetter laughed. “You hardly took your eyes off her all evening.”

  “I’ve got better things to think about,” said Len angrily, “than some girl.”

  He rolled into the bunk. Hostetter blew out the candle, and a few minutes later he was snoring. Len lay wide awake, every surface of him exposed and sensitive and quivering, feeling and hearing. The bunk was a new shape. Everything was strange: the smells of earth and dust and pine needles and pine resin and walls and floor and cooking, the dim sounds of movement and of voices in the night, everything. And yet it was not strange, either. It was just another part of the world, another town, and no matter what Bartorstown turned out to be now it would not be anything at all that he had hoped for. He felt awful. He felt so awful, and he was so angry with everything for being as it was that he kicked the wall, and then he fel
t so childish that he began to laugh. And in the middle of his laughing, the face of Joan Wepplo floated by, watching him with bright speculative eyes.

  When he woke up it was morning, and Hostetter had already been out somewhere because he was just coming back.

  “Got a clean shirt?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, get busy and put it on. Esau wants you to stand up with him.”

  Len muttered something under his breath about it being late in the day for formalities like that, but he washed and shaved and put on the clean shirt, and walked up with Hostetter to Sherman’s house. The village seemed quiet, with not many people around. He got the feeling that they were watching him from inside the windows of the houses, but he did not mention it.

  The wedding was short and plain. Amity was wearing a dress somebody must have loaned her. She looked smug. Esau did not look any way at all. He was just there. The minister was a young man and quite short, with an annoying habit of bobbing up and down on his toes as though he were trying all the time to stretch himself. Sherman and his wife and Hostetter stood in the background, watching. When it was over Mary Sherman put her arms around Amity, and Len shook hands rather stiffly with Esau, feeling silly. He was ready to go then, but Sherman said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like you to stay awhile. All of you.”

  They were in a small room. He crossed it and opened the door into the living room, and Len saw that there were seven or eight men inside.

  “Now there’s nothing to worry about,” Sherman said, and motioned them through the door. “Those three chairs right there at the table—that’s right. Sit down. I want you to talk to some people.”

  They sat down, close together in a row. Sherman sat next to them, with Hostetter just beyond him, and the other men crowded in until they were all clumped around the table. There were pens and paper on it, and some other things, and in the middle a big wicker basket with the lid down. Sherman named over the men, but Len could not remember them all, except for Erdmann and Gutierrez, whom he already knew. They were nearly all middle-aged, and keen-looking, as though they were used to some authority. They were all very polite to Amity.

  Sherman said, “This isn’t an inquisition or anything, we’re just interested. How did you first hear of Bartorstown, what made you so determined to come here, what happened to you because of it, how did it all start. Can you start us off, Ed? I think you were in on the beginning.”

  “Well,” said Hostetter, “I guess it began the night Esau stole the radio.”

  Sherman looked at Esau, and Esau looked uncomfortable. “I guess that was wrong to do, but I was only a kid then. And they killed this man because they said he was from Bartors town —it was an awful night. And I was curious.”

  “Go on,” said Sherman, and they all leaned forward, interested. Esau went on, and pretty soon Len joined in, and they told about the preaching and how Soames was stoned to death, and how the radio got to be a fixation with them. And with Hostetter nudging them along here and there, and Sherman or one of the other men asking a question, they found themselves telling the whole story right up to the time Hostetter and the bargemen had taken them out of the smoke and anger of Refuge. Amity had something to tell about that too, and she made it graphic enough. When they were all through it seemed to Len that they had put up with a terrible lot for all they had found when they got here, but he didn’t say so.

  Sherman got up and opened another door on the far side of the room. There was a room there with a lot of equipment in it, and a man sitting in the midst of it with a funny-looking thing on his head. He took this off and Sherman asked him, “How did it go?” and he said, “Fine.”

  Sherman closed the door again and turned around. “I can tell you now that you’ve been talking to all of Fall Creek, and Bartorstown.” He lifted the lid of the wicker basket and showed what was inside. “These are microphones. Every word you said was picked up and broadcast.” He let the lid fall and stood looking at them. “I wanted them all to hear your story, in your own words, and this seemed like the best way. I was afraid if I put you up on a platform with four hundred people staring at you you’d freeze up. So I did this.”

  “Oh my,” said Amity, and put her hand over her mouth.

  Sherman glanced at the other men. “Quite a story, isn’t it?”

  “They’re young,” said Gutierrez. He looked sick enough to die with it, and his voice was weak, but still bitter. “They have faith, and trust.”

  “Let them keep it,” said Erdmann shrilly. “For God’s sake, let somebody keep it.”

  Kindly, patiently, Sherman said, “You both need a rest. Will you do us all a great favor? Go and take one.”

  “Oh no,” said Gutierrez, “not for anything. I wouldn’t miss this for the world. I want to see their little faces shine when they catch their first glimpse of the fairy city.”

  Looking at the microphones, Len said, “Is this the reason you said you had for letting us come?”

  “Partly,” said Sherman. “Our people are human. Most of them have no direct contact with the main work to keep them feeling important and interested. They live a restricted life here. They get discontented. Your story is a powerful reminder of what life is like on the outside, and why we have to keep on with what we’re doing. It’s also a hopeful one.”

  “How?”

  “It shows that eighty years of the most rigid control hasn’t been able to stamp out the art of independent thinking.”

  “Be honest, Harry,” said Gutierrez. “There was a measure of sentiment in our decision.”

  “Perhaps,” said Sherman. “It did seem like a betrayal of everything we like to think we stand for to let you get hung up for believing in us. Everybody in Fall Creek seemed to think so, anyway.”

  He looked at them thoughtfully. “It may have been a foolish decision. You certainly aren’t likely, either one of you, to contribute anything to our work, and you do constitute a problem out of all proportion to your personal importance. You’re the first strangers we’ve taken in for more years than I can remember. We can’t let you go again. We don’t want to be forced to do what I warned you we would do. So we’ll have to take pains, far more than with any of our own, to see that you’re thoroughly integrated into the fabric of our living, our thoughts, our particular goal. Unless we’re to keep a watch on you forever, we have to turn you into trustworthy citizens of Bartorstown. And that means practically a complete re-education.”

  He cast a sharp, sardonic glance at Hostetter. “He swore you were worth the trouble. I hope he was right.”

  He leaned over then and shook Amity by the hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Colter, you’ve been very helpful. I don’t think you’d find this trip interesting, so why don’t you come and have some lunch with my wife? She can help you on a lot of things.”

  He led Amity to the door and handed her over to Mary Sherman, who always seemed to be where she was wanted. Then he came back and nodded to Len and Esau.

  “Well,” he said, “let’s go.”

  “To Bartorstown?” asked Len. And Sherman answered, “To Bartorstown.”

  21

  The explanation was simple when you knew it. So simple that Len realized it was no wonder he hadn’t guessed it. Sherman led the way up the canyon, past the mine slope and on to the other side of the little dam. Gutierrez was with them, and Erdmann, and Hostetter, and two of the other men. The rest had gone about their business somewhere else. The sun was hot down here in the bottom of the valley, and the dust was dry. The air smelled of dust and cottonwoods and pine needles and mules. Len glanced at Esau. His face was kind of pale and set, and his eyes roved restlessly, as though they didn’t want to see what was in front of them. Len knew how he felt. This was the end, the solid inescapable truth, the last of the dream. He should have been excited himself. He should have felt something. But he did not. He had already been through all the feelings he had in him, and now he was just a man walking.

  They turned up the disused slope t
hat the rocks had rolled on. They walked between the rocks in the hot sun, up to the hole in the face of the cliff. It had a wooden gate across it, weathered but in good repair, and a sign above it saying DANGER MINE TUNNEL UNSAFE Falling Rock Keep Out. The gate was locked. Sherman opened it and they went through, and he locked it again behind him.

  “Keeps the kids out,” he said. “They’re the only ones that ever bother.”

  Inside the tunnel, as far as the harsh reflected sunlight showed, there was a clutter of loose rock on the tunnel floor and a crumbly look about the walls. The shoring timbers were rotted and broken, and some of the roof props were hanging down. It was not a place anybody would be likely to force his way into. Sherman said that every mine had abandoned workings, and nobody thought anything about it. “This one, naturally, is perfectly safe. But the mock-up is convincing.”

  “Too damn convincing,” said Gutierrez, stumbling. “I’ll break a leg here yet.”

  The light shaded off into darkness, and the tunnel bent to the left. Suddenly, without any warning, another light blazed up ahead. It was bluish and very brilliant, not like any Len had seen before, and now for the first time excitement began to stir in him. He heard Esau catch his breath and say, “Electric!” The tunnel here was smooth and unencumbered. They walked along it quickly, and beyond the dazzle of the light Len saw a door.

  They stopped in front of it. The light was overhead now. Len tried to look straight into it and it made him blind like the sun. “Isn’t that something,” Esau whispered. “Just like Gran used to say.”

  “There are scanners here,” said Sherman. “Give them a second or two. There. Go on now.”

  The door opened. It was thick and made of metal set massively into the living rock. They went through it. It closed quietly behind them, and they were in Bartorstown.