The Sheep Look Up

by John Brunner

  “You’re killing kids?” Philip burst out

  “No. Saving them the trouble of dying by themselves.” Doug turned and faced him again. There was something in his eyes which might have been pity, but Philip wasn’t receptive to pity any more.

  His voice softened. “Look, I’ll do you another favor. Right now you can’t think straight. You may even have had a sub-clinical dose of the nerve gas—the hallucinogen. I’ll give you a note to say you won’t be well enough to report for duty until tomorrow. Think about Harold and Denise while you have the chance. It’s the only one you’ll get”

  Philip gazed at him without comprehension.

  “One more thing,” the sergeant said. “You got any food? Because we got to take away anything more than you need for tomorrow. They promised ration wagons the day after, with like soup and bread.”

  And that was too much. Philip turned away to the kitchen with a gesture and went to lean his forehead on a wall. It was covered with a film of greasy dirt, but it was at least cool. In the background he heard Denise saying, “What about Angie? And Millicent?”

  “My mother’s dead,” Doug answered. “But Angie’s okay. She was a nurse. She’s with another detail like this one.”

  When the door had closed Philip said, “If I could get my hands on the bastards responsible for this, I’d—I’d ...”

  And couldn’t think of anything bad enough.

  THE ROUGH DRAFT

  ... include prima facie but not ipso facto the following: (a) Homosexuality or gross indecency with another male person; (b) Possession of or trading in an illegal narcotic or other drug; (c) Living upon the earnings of prostitution; (d) Membership in the Communist Party or one of its front organizations (see schedule attached); (e) “Trainism”; (f) Advocating the violent overthrow of the government; (g) Slandering the President of the United States; (h) ...

  ACID TRIP

  Hugh was very sick. Sometimes he thought it must be blood-poisoning because he had these like sores on his face, right up to his mouth so when he licked around he tasted the foul sweetness of pus. Sometimes he thought it was something else he could have caught, a separate fever altogether. But most of the time he thought it was a trip he was taking, only he’d forgotten when he dropped the cap of acid. The world was all rubbery, especially his own limbs.

  But he knew where he was going, and he’d got there, despite dodging pigs and skunks and there not being any cars on the road to hitch a ride with. His own had quit on him, or he’d driven it into something, or something. He wasn’t thinking too good, what with the fever and the lack of food—he hadn’t eaten in days, though he’d found plenty of water.

  Water?

  A drop of rain on his hand. Shit. But at least he was in sight of home. These were the botanical gardens around the Bamberley house—weren’t they? He looked, bewildered, the darkness gathering. Real evening.

  Those trees. Too bare for this early in the fall and some of them not the kind to drop their leaves anyhow. Blight of some kind? He touched a trunk, found the bark come away at the brush of his hand.

  Shit Never mind trees. The house in that direction. More rain. It reminded him he was thirsty again, and he tilted his head to let the drops run on his tongue. His sense of taste was poor. Some sort of thick whitish mass had covered the inside of his mouth. Kitty had had it in her cunt, he remembered. Fungus. Thrush, they called it. Fucking stupid name. Everybody knew there were no more birds.

  The rain was sour. He stopped dead, not believing what his senses reported. Sour? Must be the stinking thrush or something. Rain isn’t sour. Only—

  “Christ,” he said aloud, and a shaft of terror went down his spine like an icicle. Battery acid! There was no doubt about it; he’d owned an electric car long enough to be certain.

  Raining acid!

  He screamed and ran headlong for the house, and under the next tree but two a sentry challenged him with a carbine. He stopped and looked at the man blankly.

  “Acid rain,” he said. “It’s impossible.”

  “Shut up,” the sentry said. “Who are you?”

  “I live here,” Hugh said. “It’s my home.”

  “Your name Bamberley?” The sentry cocked his head.

  “No—uh—no. I’m Hugh Pettingill.” There were papers in his pocket ... somewhere. He found something that felt right, handed it over.

  “You were in the Marines!” the sentry said. “Ah-hah! You’re going to be useful when you’re cleaned up.” He scrutinized Hugh’s face in the gathering dusk. “Bad sores on your face. You been laid up sick?”

  “Y-yeah.” When was I in the Marines?

  “But you’re reporting now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fine. Go straight on in and ask for Captain Aarons.” The sentry handed back the discharge certificate.

  “Where are the—the family? Maud and the rest?”

  “Huh? Oh, Mrs. Bamberley? Went crazy, I hear. A bit before the rest of them.” A sour grin. “So since the place was empty, and big, they put us in. Handy to Denver.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  The man shrugged. “Work gangs. Clearing the wreckage in the city. Dodgers, Trainites, people like that. Pacifists. Walk ’em into the city every morning, bring ’em back at night Get some honest work out of ’em. You better carry on to the house and report See you later, maybe.”

  “Yeah,” Hugh said dully, thinking: acid rain? Hell!

  One of the work gangs was being returned for the night as he reached the house. They were in chains.

  “This certificate’s a forgery,” Captain Aarons said curtly. “He was never in the Marines. Where is he right now?”

  Startled, the sergeant said, “I think he’s seeing the doctor, sir. Got like sores on his face.”

  “Get him out of there and put him on a work gang,” Aarons said. “Unless the doc says he’s not even fit to dig rubble.”

  WORK IN PROGRESS

  “Tom, this is Moses. Do you still not have anything we can use?”

  “No, damn it, I don’t! When the power went out the other night it was like—like hitting a man on the head with a blackjack! Sorting out the data after that isn’t being made any easier, either, by the way you keep pestering me! Goodbye!”

  HOMECOMING

  Gradually, this sense of adjustment to the strange new way of the world ... They had cleared this area now and officially declared it safe for habitation, but it was so—so empty!

  Even though it hadn’t been home for long, though, it was great to put her key in her own door, Jeannie thought. And they’d got off so lucky! The fires hadn’t come within a quarter-mile of here; the building hadn’t been shot up, or bombed, or anything.

  Though of course the Army had put them into a motel out of the city for the time being, and they’d worked at what they could, she tending the sick in spite of being not so well herself and Pete dealing with casualty registration forms and death certificates, the kind of thing he’d learned already in the police, easy.

  But it was so weird, so weird! Knowing the apartments upstairs were vacant, a whole building with like thirty homes in ... and the street, with the cars just standing there, no traffic, not even audible in the distance, except the rumble of Army trucks ... and the state of the country! Every fit man drafted, no excuses: loyal, to serve under military command, or disloyal, to serve in some other way like clearing ruins and carrying corpses to be buried. They were still unearthing corpses all the time.

  Home, though. Just to check whether she could bring Pete here tonight. They didn’t have gasoline for the car, but the Army was mounting regular patrols and so were the police, and Chappie Rice, this old friend of Pete’s, would fix it so they could ride to and from work every day. Until the crisis was over. Would it ever be over?

  She was thinking so hard about that she didn’t see him.

  “Don’t move. Put your hands— Christ, it’s Jeannie!”

  She cried out and spun around, and there he was loo
king at her over the back of their long chesterfield: Carl.

  But Carl changed, nearly out of recognition. He was so much older. His thin face was drawn into the lines of premature maturity; he wore a dirty black sweater with a bandolier crossing the shoulder, and held a sporting rifle leveled at her.

  He looked at her, then at the gun, and abruptly lost the extra years he’d acquired. Leaping to his feet, he dropped the gun and rushed to embrace her.

  “Oh, Carl! Carl, baby!” She was almost crying; she’d been sure her favorite brother must be dead. “What are you doing here?”

  “Hiding,” he said, and laughed cynically. “You? Is Pete with you?”

  “No—uh—we been put in this motel, see, but tomorrow ...” She explained rapidly.

  “All empty upstairs? Groovy. Then I can move into one of the other apartments.”

  “No, they’re going to use them to rehouse people whose homes got burnt.”

  “Ah, shit.” His face fell. “Am I ever a stupid bastard!”

  “What?”

  “See ...” His age returned to him; he moved away to sit down beside the rifle, his thin fingers caressing its stock. “See, I got to hide out, Jeannie. This killed a state border guard.”

  “Oh, Carl!” She pressed her hands tight together.

  “Had to. Him or me. I wanted to get by. And I don’t have this love of skunks anyhow ... See, I was out in Berkeley, but I had to split from where I was. And when I heard about this big thing here in Denver, I thought Christ, it’s the revolution and not before time and I’m damned if I miss out. See what I mean about being a stupid bastard?”

  She nodded, her face drawn.

  “So when I found out what the real scene was, I could’ve kicked myself back to Berkeley. I tried to find you, then. You wrote me, I got the letter, said you’d moved, and I knew the street though I forgot the number, so I just worked along till I found Goddard on the plate. Wasn’t hard; so few buildings left standing here.”

  He stared at nothing.

  “I did think it was the revolution. Really did. Guess I was out of touch.”

  “But what are you going to do now?” Jeannie cried.

  “God knows.” Suddenly weary. “I’m a dodger, in possession of a forged ID, killed a border guard ... I did have to, Jeannie. He called me a black motherfucker and put up his gun. Would’ve shot me. Only I got him. I guess I’ll have to lie low at least until they lift the martial law here, then try and sneak into Canada or something. They got an underground railway going over the border.”

  He hesitated. “That is, unless Pete gives me away first.”

  “He wouldn’t do that!”

  “No? He joined the pigs, didn’t he? Matter of fact, I think I may be crazy talking to you this way—you married him. Only I been so long without anyone to talk to.”

  “I—I know!” Inspiration. “Pete’s working in casualty administration. Got all kinds of official forms. I’ll sneak one, say you were hit with the nerve gas, still kind of on a trip, antidote hasn’t worked properly yet! We got dozens like that every day, people like found wandering.”

  “Ah-hah?” Interest woke in Carl’s eyes. “And—?”

  “And you pretend to be kind of woozy. Not all there. Act dumb, act stupid. You’ll have to get in on some kind of like work gang, but ... And hide the gun!”

  “I heard. They put a ban on private guns, didn’t they? Found a car with a radio that was still working, caught one of the official broadcasts.” He rose and came to embrace her again.

  “Jeannie, honey, if you weren’t my sister I’d kiss the hell out of you. Ten minutes ago I was thinking I should shoot myself.”

  All of a sudden the lights came on. They stared in sheer amazement for long seconds. Then Carl let go a yell of pure joy and did kiss her.

  She let him. It seemed only fair. Besides, he did it very well.

  MAKING A GOOD RECOVERY

  “The bastard’s faking it to evade retribution!”

  “No, Mr. Bamberley, I assure you. He’s genuinely ill. Suffered a massive kidney collapse. But he’s responding well to treatment and we should be able to set the trial for the first week of next month. I’m making the arrangements right now. Such as they are. He won’t cooperate, won’t nominate a lawyer, nothing. Still, that’s his lookout. How’s your son?”

  “Him? Raring to go. Wants to settle with that bastard—what do you think? By the way!”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t call me ‘mister.’ It’s Colonel Bamberley, even if I am only in the reserves. And come to that, why aren’t you in uniform?”

  EVEN KEEL

  ... restored this evening, and some areas of the city are due for resettlement tomorrow, though others where the fires were fiercest will have to be razed. Commenting on the speed of this return to more-or-less normal circumstances in Denver, the President said, quote, It will be a source of dismay to our enemies to see how rapidly we can get the ship of state back on an even keel. End quote. Pockets of Trainite and black militant resistance in city centers up and down the nation are collapsing as hunger and cold take their toll, and the illnesses which are everywhere rife. New smallpox warnings have been issued in Little Rock and Charleston, Virginia. Pressure to put Austin Train on trial continues to grow, as the long delay has encouraged his supporters who eluded the mass roundup of subversives to resume their sabotage attacks and propaganda. Jigra infestation has been reported in Canada and Mexico today. Now the weather. Over much of the West and Midwest acid rain has been falling, the result of atmospheric action on smoke containing sulphur, and ...

  THE LATE NEWS

  “Thanks,” Peg said to the driver of the truck. She’d ridden the last part of the way with one of the teams checking out the purity of the local water, making sure the last trace of poison had been flushed away before the pipes were reconnected. The man didn’t answer, but sneezed instead.

  She showed her authorization to the gate guards and was passed through toward the former Bamberley mansion. They were allowing a lot of privileges to the press; foreign propagandists were making hay of the use of chained prisoners in and around Denver, and she was supposed to write an objective piece about the situation. It was the usual technique, the same they’d used for Train when he was appearing regularly on TV and advising government committees, the same they’d meant to use in the case of Lucas Quarrey.

  But she’d taken the assignment purely for the sake of having a travel permit. After this stopover she was determined to get to California, legally or illegally. They’d taken Austin there, because Bamberley refused to bring his son to New York.

  In any case, that was where he had been held captive.

  A gang of prisoners was being marched the opposite way along the drive as she approached the house, and to her astonishment she recognized the last man in the line. Hugh. Hugh Pettingill. Horribly changed—his cheeks and lips covered in scabs, his expression slack as an imbecile’s. But it was Hugh all right.

  She exclaimed, and he turned, and the light of recognition dawned in his eyes. He stopped, and that pulled the chain taut, and the man ahead cursed, and the guard in charge swung around and for a moment Peg thought in horror Hugh was going to say, “Didn’t I meet you at the wat?”

  For the guard to know she had ever remotely sympathized with the Trainites would be fatal. Why she was still at large at all, she hadn’t known until a few days ago, and she still hardly credited the reason.

  It was thanks to Petronella Page.

  That hard-boiled bitch who had pilloried hundreds of better men and women on her show had been touched by Austin’s teaching; perhaps she was his only genuine convert up to now, perhaps she would remain unique. But she was using the leverage her show gave her to do Peg favors.

  She had called up and asked Peg to visit her office; reluctantly, Peg had complied, and there she had been shown a photostat copy of a detention order in the name of Margaret Mankiewicz.

  “I had it suspended,” Petronella said. />
  “How?” (Peg remembered the way her nails had bitten into her palms as she asked.)

  “Who do you think has the tape Austin made in case he was prevented from appearing on my show?”

  “What?”

  A slight smile. “Yes, that’s a point you’d probably overlooked. Before anyone else thought of claiming it from the safety deposit, I got my hands on it.” Turning them over to inspect the neglected state they were in, some nails cracked, all the lacquer growing away from the half-moons. Also she was wearing a sweater and old jeans, but that was instant fashion—we’re at war, so put on shabby clothes to prove you care.

  “It’s terrifying,” she said. “I’ve played it a dozen times. Made copies, too. At home. I have a good electronics setup. They’re in the proper hands. If anything happens to me, they’ll be used. The Trainites aren’t beaten, just held in check for the moment. Stunned.”

  Peg was almost beside herself. “But why haven’t you released the tapes? Had them broadcast? Published the text?”

  “Because Austin is still with us, isn’t he? And I guess he has a reason for what he’s doing, though I can’t for the life of me imagine what it is. Still ...” She hesitated. “I trust that man. The way you do, I guess.”

  When Peg didn’t answer, she raised her head sharply.

  “Don’t you?” she demanded.

  “He—he had a breakdown once. I wish he’d let me talk to him! I’m so afraid they could drive him insane! Permanently!”

  “You know, after the inquiry into the riot at the Bamberley hydroponics plant, I had some of the kids who gave evidence on the show. All of them said crazy was the only way to be. Maybe they were right.”

  But she was loose, at least, and freedom was too precious to be gambled with. By a miracle, Hugh realized. He let his face slump back to sullenness.

  “Stubbed my toe,” he told the guard, who drove the gang onward.