by Larry Niven
And again, later, there was a way to forget, the same way repeated, with the same frantic urgency. They were not drawn to each other, he thought; they were thrust against each other in their fear of what was outside them. They made love with their ears cocked for gunfire; but they made love. Even when it’s bad, it’s good.
Harvey woke before dawn. He was covered with the blanket from the back seat, but he couldn’t remember getting it. He lay awake, not moving, his thoughts confused.
“Hi,” Marie said softly.
“Hi yourself. I thought you’d be asleep.”
“Not for a while. You get some rest.”
Harvey tried. But there were twinges from muscles he’d overused last night, and twinges from his conscience, which apparently hadn’t been informed that he was a widower whose new girl had dropped him for an astronaut. To hell with that. But he still wasn’t sleeping. “Oh, well,” he said, and sat up. “We seem to have survived the night.”
“I didn’t work you that hard.”
There might have been something false in his own laugh, or… she’d known him a long time. She turned toward him in the dark. “You’re not worried about Gordie, are you? That’s all over. He’s got his new girl, and it doesn’t need a judge to say a marriage is over. We didn’t really need one before.”
Harvey hadn’t been thinking of Gordie. “What will you do now?” he asked. “When this is over? If?”
She laughed. “I won’t stay a cook. But thank you for bringing me to this valley. It’s been much better than anything I could have found for myself.” She was quiet for a moment, and they heard a sound outside: an owl, and the squeal of the rabbit it had caught. “It’s a man’s world now,” Marie said. “So I guess I’ll just have to marry an important one. I’ve always been a status-conscious bitch, and I don’t see any reason to change now. In fact, there’s more reason than ever. Muscle counts. I’ll find me a leader and marry him.”
“And who would that be?”
She giggled. “After yesterday you’re a leader. You’re an important man.” She slid across to him and put her arm around him. Then she laughed aloud. “What’s got you so tense? Am I that terrifying?”
“Certainly.” She was.
She laughed again. “Poor Harvey. I know exactly what you’re thinking. Obligation. You’ve seduced the girl, and you ought to marry her, and you know damn well you can’t resist if I really work at it… see?” Her hands moved to intimate places.
Living with Loretta hadn’t readied him for this kind of warfare. He kissed her hard (she couldn’t bluff Harvey Randall!) and maintained the kiss (because it felt so good, and hell, Maureen had her winged man) until she drew back.
“That wasn’t very nice of me,” she said. “Don’t worry, Harv, I’m really not after you. It wouldn’t work. You know me too well. No matter what we did, even if we really did learn to love each other, you’d always wonder about it. You’d wonder if it was all an act, wonder when I’d decide to drop it. And we’d fight, and play head games, and dominance games…”
“I was thinking something like that.”
“Don’t talk yourself into anything,” Marie said. “I don’t need that. I would like to be your friend.”
“Sure. I’d like that. Who’s your real target?’
“Oh, I’m going to marry George Christopher.”
Harvey was startled. “What? Does he know?”
“Of course not. He still thinks he’s got a chance with Maureen. He tells me about her every chance he gets. And I listen, too.”
“I just bet you do. What makes you think he won’t get Maureen?”
“Don’t be silly. With you and Johnny Baker to choose between? She’ll never marry George. If they hadn’t known each other forever, if he weren’t her first, she wouldn’t even consider him.”
“And me?”
“You got a chance. Baker has a better one.”
“Yeah. I suppose it would be silly to ask if you’re in love with George,” Harvey said.
Marie shrugged. He could feel that in the dark. “He’ll be sure I am,” she said. “And it won’t be anybody else’s business. There won’t be any repetitions of tonight, Harvey. This was… something special. The right man at the right time. I’ve always… Tell me, all those years we lived next door, weren’t you ever tempted to come over some afternoon when Loretta was out and Gordie was at the bank?”
“Yes. But I didn’t.”
“Good. Nothing would have happened, but it always worried me that you didn’t try. Good. Now let’s get some sleep.” She turned away and curled up in the blanket.
Poor George, Harvey thought. No. That’s not right. Lucky George. If I didn’t know her so damned well… Dammit, I’m still tempted. George, you don’t know it, but you’re about to be a happy man.
If you live long enough.
If Marie lives!
Dawn: a red smear in the Sierra. The winds blew fitfully, light airs. Mist rose from the San Joaquin Sea.
When the sun was high, they saw them: A hundred or more of the New Brotherhood had crossed during the night. They were concentrated near the old Lake Success bed, and they moved back toward the ruined bridge, sweeping aside the screen of Stronghold defenders. The Brotherhood’s mortars began to fire, forcing the defenders back up the valley and onto the ridges.
The withdrawal was orderly, but steady. “By noon they’ll have cleared the valley,” Harvey told Marie. “I thought — I hoped — they’d hold longer. At least they aren’t running like rabbits.”
She nodded, but went on reporting the enemy positions on the CB. There wasn’t anything else to do.
Alice sounded terrified whenever she spoke, but she demanded their reports anyway.
Useless, Harvey thought. It’s no good. He looked at the map, wondering if he could find a way into the Sierra that didn’t go back down and through the enemy — or where the New Brotherhood would be soon.
“They’re repairing the bridge,” Marie reported. “They’ve got big trees, and hundreds to carry them.”
“How long until they can get trucks across?” Alice asked.
“No more than an hour.”
“Stand by, I have to report that to Mr. Hardy,” Alice said. The radio went silent.
“It’s no good,” Harvey said. He tried to smile. “Looks like it’s you and me after all. Maybe we can get up there and find the boys. I don’t suppose I’ll have to fight Gordie for you—”
“Shut up and watch,” Marie said. She sounded scared, and Harvey couldn’t blame her.
The bridge took a little more than an hour; then a stream of trucks, led by the pickups with the machine guns, moved over them. They swept on up the valley roads. Other trucks brought the New Brotherhood mortars forward, while crews dug in emplacements for them. The Brotherhood army swarmed into the valley below, probed toward the ridges, fell back wherever opposed. They had plenty of time — and night would be on their side now. They could infiltrate men through the rocks, over the ridges, into the Stronghold itself.
The day became warmer, but not for Harvey and Marie. The rising air from the San Joaquin Sea drew a cold wind down from the Sierra. The enemy moved on forward in the cloudy bright day. Noon came, and they had reached the far end, were beginning to climb the ridges toward the last defenses.
“Stand by,” Alice said. She sounded excited now. Not afraid.
“Stand by for what?” Harvey demanded.
“To watch, and report,” Alice said. “That’s why you’re there. I can’t see…”
Something was happening on the ridge far below. Men had pushed something big, it looked like a wagon, to the brow of the ridge. They shoved, and it went over, tumbling down the ridge, rolling down until it came to rest a hundred yards from the repaired bridge. It sat, did nothing for thirty seconds… and exploded. A huge cloud burst from it and was carried downwind toward the bridge, across it, through the traffic jam at the bridgehead.
And everywhere along the ridge, objects came lobb
ing over, falling slowly. Men pushed heavy framework forward, boxes with long arms that spewed tiny black dots in an arcing trajectory.
“Catapults!” Harvey yelled.
They were. He didn’t know what powered them. Nylon cords, probably. Carthaginian women donated their hair; maybe…
The catapults didn’t have much range, but they didn’t need it. They threw jars that burst into yellow fog on impact. The wind carried the fog down through the valley, across the advancing enemy…
The New Brotherhood screamed in panic. They threw away weapons, ran in pain, tearing at their clothes, threw themselves into the river to be carried away by the rushing water. They fought to get across the bridge, and from the ridges rifles fired again and again, cutting the running men down as they fled. The catapults poured a continuous rain of bursting jars, renewing the deadly yellow fog.
Harvey’s voice broke as he screamed into the microphone. “They’re running! They’re dying! Good Lord, there must be five hundred of them down out there.”
“What is happening to those who didn’t cross the river?” The voice was Alice Cox, but the question had to be Al Hardy.
“They’re loading up the trucks.”
“What about their weapons? Are they getting those out?”
Harvey scanned with the binoculars. “Yes. They hadn’t brought all the mortars across… there goes one of their trucks.” Harvey shuddered. The pickup, with a load of men gasping in horror, drove down the road at high speed and didn’t slow when it reached the bridge. It flung a dozen off the bridge into the water and kept going, leaving behind those it had run down in its flight.
“There were two of their machine guns on that truck,” Harvey reported. “Looks like they got away.”
The gas didn’t cover the entire valley, and some of the New Brotherhood were able to escape. Many ran screaming without weapons, but Harvey saw others pause, look for a route, and leave carrying heavy weapons. Two of the mortars were carried away before the catapults closed off that escape route. Harvey grimly reported clear areas, and watched as minutes later the gas canisters dropped into them.
“Something’s happening upstream,” Harvey shouted. “I can’t see—”
“Don’t worry about it. Is the road down from the reservation clear of gas?” Alice demanded.
“Hold on a second… Yes.”
“Stand by.”
Moments later trucks came down that road. They carried Tallman’s Indian troops, and more ranchers. Harvey thought he recognized George Christopher in one of the trucks. They roared on in pursuit of the fleeing enemy, but were stopped at the top of the ridge beyond the road junction. Now it was the Stronghold’s turn to deploy and probe, search for weak spots, clear the roads…
While behind them the valley had become an alien world. Its unusual atmosphere was yellow-tinged, deadly to men without pressure-suits. Its native life was eerie to look upon: slow-moving quadrupeds and belly-crawlers, some armed with metallic stings, growing ever more torpid until most seemed to hibernate and only a few still moved. Like snails they crawled on their bellies, leaving trails of red slime, and they moved at snail’s pace downhill toward the river. River life thrashed about, incredibly active, then suddenly stopped moving, to float motionless with clumsy blunt fins wavering in the current.
When dark came, the silence was that of a dead, deserted world.
Aftermath
From the Far East — send you one single thought, one sole idea — written in red on every beachhead from Australia to Tokyo — “There is no substitute for victory.”
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur
It was too dark to see. A cold wind blew down from the Sierra. Harvey turned to Marie. “Victory.”
“Yes! We did it! My God, Harvey, we’re safe!” It was too dark to see her face, but Harvey knew she must be grinning like an idiot.
He started the TravelAII. Alice had told him to stay out of the valley, away from the main road. They’d have to drive to the Stronghold on the dirt cowpath. He put the car in gear and moved gingerly ahead. The headlamps showed the road ahead, smooth, untraveled, but the drop to the left was steep, and Harvey knew they were sinking deep into the mud surface. It would be easy to go over the edge. That was frightening — that they could be killed after the battle was over — but it was only a bad road, and he’d been on a lot of those; it wasn’t malevolent.
A wave of exhilaration swept over him. He had to fight an urge to gun the car. He had never been so aware of being alive. They rounded the mountain and crossed the ridge leading down to Senator Jellison’s house, and then he did let himself go, gunning the car forward and driving through the mud at high speed, dangerously fast over the ruts and potholes. The TravelAII leaped as if to share their joy.
He drove as if running away from something. He knew that, and knew that if he let himself think about it, about what he’d seen, he would not feel joy but an infinite sadness. Back in that valley of battle were hundreds, all ages, men, girls, women, boys, crawling with ruined lungs, leaving trails of blood that had been visible through binoculars until the merciful dark fell across the land: the dying, who had survived the end of the world.
“Harvey, you can’t think about them as people.”
“You too?”
“Yes. A little. But we’re alive! We’ve won!”
The TravelAII leaped upward at the top of a small hillock, all four wheels briefly leaving the ground. It was stupid driving at this speed, but Harvey didn’t care. “We’ve fought our last battle,” he shouted. “Ain’t gonna study war no more.” Euphoria again: The world was a lovely place for the living. Let the dead bury the dead. Harvey Randall was alive, and the enemy was defeated. “Hail the conquering heroes come. Wish I could remember the tune. Silly language. Hero. Hell, you’re more of a hero — heroine? — than I am. I’d have run like hell if you’d let me. But I couldn’t. Sexism — men can’t run while women are watching. Why am I babbling? Why aren’t you?”
“I’m not because you won’t give me a chancel” Marie shouted. There was laughter in her voice. “And you didn’t run, and neither did I, and it would have been so easy…” She laughed again, this time with a peculiar note in it. “And now, my friend, we go collect the traditional reward for heroes. Find Maureen. You’ve earned it.”
“Strange to say, I thought of that. But of course George will be coming back—”
“You leave George to me,” Marie said primly. “After all, I’ve got a reward coming, too. You leave George to me.”
“I think I’m jealous of him.”
“Too bad.”
The mood lasted only until they reached the Senator’s stone ranch house and went inside. There were many others there. Al Hardy, drunk but not with liquor, grinning like a fool while others pounded him on the back. Dan Forrester, exhausted, introspective and unhappy, and no one caring; they praised him and thanked him and let him have his mood, to enjoy or hate, be glad or sad. Magicians may do as they please.
Many were absent. They might be among the dead, they might have joined the pursuit; they might have fled, and be fleeing still, unaware that nobody was hunting them. The victors were too tired to think about them. Harvey searched until he found Maureen, and he went to her. There was no lust between them, only an infinite tenderness, concern; they touched each other like children.
There was no party, no celebration. Within minutes the gathering was finished. Some dropped into chairs and slept; some went to their own houses. Harvey felt nothing now; only the need to rest, to sleep, to forget everything that had happened that day. He had seen this before, in men returned from patrol in Vietnam, but he had not felt it himself: drained of energy, drained of emotion, not unhappy, able to rouse himself to brief moments of excitement only to have them slip away and leave him more exhausted than ever.
He woke remembering that they’d won. The details were gone; there had been dreams, vivid and mixed with memories of the past few days, and as the dreams faded so did the me
mories, leaving him only the word. Victory!
He was Iying on the floor of the front room, on a rug and covered with a blanket; he had no idea how he had come there. Perhaps he had been talking with Maureen and simply fallen to the floor. Anything was possible.
There were sounds in the house, people moving, smells of cooking food. He savored them all, the sounds and smells and sensations of life: The gray clouds outside the window seemed infinitely detailed, vivid and brilliant as sunlight; the bronze trophies on the walls were a marvel that needed investigation. He treasured each moment of life and what it might bring.
Gradually the mood faded. It left him desperately hungry. He got up, and saw that the living-room rug itself looked like a battlefield. They lay where fatigue had dropped them. Someone had lasted long enough to spread blankets… and had run short. Harvey spread his own blanket over Steve Cox, who was coiled into a ball against the cold, and followed his nose toward breakfast.
There was bright sunlight in the room. Maureen Jellison stared in disbelief. She was afraid to get out of bed; the bright sun might be a dream, and it was a dream she wanted to savor. Finally she convinced herself that she was awake. It was no illusion. The sun came in the window, warm and yellow and bright. It was over an hour high. She could feel its warmth on her arms when she threw back the covers.
Gradually she came to full wakefulness. Terror and blood and a fatigue like death itself, the memories of yesterday ran together like a too-fast movie film. There had been the horror of the morning, when the Stronghold forces had to hold fast, retreating slowly, letting the Brotherhood into the valley but never on the ridges; the gradual retreat that could not seem too obvious, with troops who couldn’t be told the battle plan for fear that they would be captured; finally the general panic, when they had all run.
“When you run they bunch up and follow,” Al Hardy had said. “Randall’s reports make that pretty clear. Their commander goes by the book. So will we, up to a point.”