by Philip Wylie
Chicago could more or less be recognized, Ben mused, by the visible still-bluish shape of the lake edge. You could guess from that the specific location of any part of its flame-spattered, flood-strewn remains you had known.
It was old Paulus Davey, the butler, who now sobbed, almost without sound: just a little, sad rasp in his throat.
Ben began to wish that the broadcast would end.
And in consequence he felt gratefulness when the scene changed back to the studio in San José and showed the composed but tormented narrator. An alive man, Ben said to himself, with a relief like joy.
The Costa Rican now stood in front of a large map of North America. He held a pointer:
"The officers and men who took these remarkable pictures had found no base useable in the area thus far surveyed. They had heard some signals from what they thought to be a military base in Texas, so they headed that way." He traced the plane's course. "All the way south they found the same conditions prevailed in all major cities.
St. Louis and Dallas were burning. The base they had expected might be safe was a great, compound hole, like a volcano crater, such as the mile-wide one in my country's famous active volcano, Poas.
"By then, too, fuel was becoming a matter of concern. The commander realized that the only possible method of escape left, was to fly on south. He hoped at first to reach Panama. However, the crew feared that in spite of the United States agreement with the Panamanian government and the subsequent dismantling of all military emplacements there, the Canal and airfields might have been attacked. They were not, as a matter of fact. Russian visitors had, apparently, informed Moscow that Panama had been stripped of all weapons, and the U.S. agreement thus carried out to the letter. Panama is therefore unharmed.
"However, after consultation they finally determined that they would pass up nearer fields sufficiently large for landing, even providing such fields, in Mexico and Central American countries to the south, were still useable. They elected our largest field, on the outskirts of San José, the capital of Costa Rica, as their last but best hope, and they began radio requests for permission to land, explaining with great candor that their plane would be far too radioactive even to approach safely.
"With characteristic Tico courage, we bid them descend." Connie explained,
"Costa Ricans call themselves 'Ticos.''
Now they saw the plane come hurtling onto the great field that lies some twenty miles from the heart of San José, on undulant upland, between two mountain ranges. It made a perfect landing on the edge of the field, not using the recently-extended main airstrip. The plane bumped to a floppy-winged stop. Fire apparatus and trucks rushed toward it. Men in uniform began to emerge from it and to climb down a ladder they swiftly lowered from what had been a bomb bay and was converted to a shielded photo-reconnaissance chamber. They carried with them only some very heavy boxes which they dragged clear of the plane as the Costa Rican equipment approached. This approach the flight crew evidently feared, for they made waving motions to the vehicles to stop.
The scene changed to the portrait of the eight men and their airplane, in a weedy, end comer of the landing field. The announcer spoke again, and again Connie's voice manifestly echoed his in mournfulness:
"These are the men, then, who made that flight. This picture was taken from a long distance by a camera with a telephoto lens. The reason for that was very simple. The plane itself, having flown so far through such immensely radioactive atmosphere, could not be approached at all safely by an unprotected human being. The men, themselves, in spite of their effort to assume a look of"--Connie questioned her translation--"jaunti-ness?" she said, and then repeated it with conviction--"in spite of their jaunty look, and in spite of the shielding protecting them within the aircraft, knew well-indeed, knew almost to the roentgen--that they had received far more than fatal doses of radiation. They asked for nothing except that their film be recovered and developed and their plane buried by shielded bulldozers. They gave instructions about all that to an English-speaking airport official, who relayed them to our scientists, including the proper way to remove the film from its lead containers safely.
"Within an hour after the landing of their ship, one of the eight men collapsed.
Our brave medical people--doctors and nurses and others--insisted on trying to care for the victims. The still-able seven were asked to strip their clothes off. They were washed at a distance by hoses, and then taken to an improvised hospital, in spite of their protests of futility and of the danger even of touching them. All of them died within thirty-six hours. They were very brave men, those Norteamericanos!"
The announcer came again, and now he stood before a different map of North America, one where, from southern Canada into Mexico, the entire continent had been shaded, and in that shaded region, which included all of the United States, were some thousand or more black crosses.
"This map," Connie translated, "shows, in the shaded portion, where the very high sodium fallout had an intensity of at least ten thousand roentgens for at least a six-hour period. The crosses show where, to the best of our information, bombs of five to one hundred megatons struck. There were perhaps more hits than we here indicate. Much of the data on which this is based was given us by a United States aircraft carrier, gathered from monitoring gear in operation during the missile-fall and bomb-drop and from its own reconnaissance flights by unmanned planes, made some ten days to two weeks later.
As you see, the United States of America was obliterated as a nation of cities, and burned to death after that in all main urban areas, then smothered the same night in a death blanket which could be escaped only in the most elaborately-prepared shelters. Doubtless some few missile and other military sites survived. In chance canyons, mines, and so on, some may also still be alive.
"But there is no United States, as this map discloses.
"Next," the sensitive man continued, "we shall show some extraordinary pictures of people in a Southwestern city of the United States, taken in the hours after the Soviet first strike began but before this city was purged of life by the sodium blanket." He looked off, questioningly, toward what obviously were the control-room people and, as plainly, he was signaled to continue talking, owing to some technical delay in the running of the next film.
"For those who have recently tuned in," he said firmly, let me repeat:
"This telecast is given in the interests of the future. It has been determined by the federal authorities of the Republic of Costa Rica that the films shown and those to follow, although they came by chance into our hands, should become the property of the surviving world. They represent, so far as we now are aware, the most complete and perhaps even the only record of the fate of the United States. Other such films may exist and may have been conveyed safely to other areas by unknown persons, but if so, they apparently have not been displayed on a world-wide relay satellite.
"Our purpose in the display and in displaying any future film we may receive, is simple. The surviving world needs to know--must know--what happened to the world that is dead. That knowledge is essential if, in the years and the generations to come, men are ever again tempted to employ as a military means such instruments as have eradicated most of half of our planet. And it is our solemn belief that no better way exists than this for instilling into all men and women and children who will look, the truth about such otherwise indescribable war and its victims, their helplessness, the pity of that . . . and so, the total folly of the men on both 'sides' whose decades of arming and whose concomitant failure to resolve--even, to lessen--that ever-more-appalling situation, resulted in suicidal madness."
He looked off again; this time he nodded.
The camera moved closer to the nameless Costa Rican.
People in the audience stirred uneasily.
His face, Ben reflected, showed not just the empathy of an actor and an intense emotional expression, but it also suggested trained intelligence. The man was, perhaps, a scientist; almost c
ertainly, a professor or teacher; although, on further reflection, Ben acknowledged it was possible he was a politician.
After all, he mused, Costa Rica had spent half of its total budget, for decades, on education and public health. Meantime, three-quarters of all the federal funds of the United States had gone for armaments, for what had been called "defense," which had now wholly failed, and for debts incurred by older wars, along with bonuses and special bounties to the veterans of those old wars.
Thus, by comparison, Costa Rica was many times more "civilized," in any realistic sense, than the now nonextant United States. Were the differences expressed in familiar terms, Ben thought, Costa Rica would long have been--what? A small mansion in a manicured estate, and by comparison the United States would have ranked as--what?
A colossal pigsty!
To argue that the intransigence of the U.S.S.R. and Red China had caused that was not, actually, correct--even though such intransigence had obliged the United States to maintain and augment its status, although lesser than Costa Rica in real and human terms. For the United States had paid out most of its income owing to war, all Ben's life and even before the U.S.S.R. had been dangerous, while all that time half Costa Rica's funds had gone actually to education and to public health and not even to a token army, for the little country had none. Of course, the Monroe Doctrine had protected the people of Costa Rica. . . .
While Ben had acidly made that perhaps not precise but somewhat justified comparison, the screen had gone blank, then briefly showed the skyline of a city, gone blank again, and so, sent George Hyama hastening to the controls. After checking them, he said, "Okay, here. We'll just have to wait for them."
"They" presently recommenced telecasting. The same city skyline showed, rising at some distance from a flat plain that looked dry and hot. Texas, Ben decided. He thought he could name the city and was about to do so when the announcer's voice came, a little too loudly, Connie said, which made George flash back to the controls again: "We will not name the city you see in the distance because what you will see of the behavior of its citizens was universal in the United States where similar conditions prevailed. To name this particular place would be a libel. Its citizens were no more bestial, or brave, than others elsewhere under comparable conditions."
The screen now displayed a series of stock shots of the city in ordinary times . . .
and Ben knew its name, for certain. So, he realized, leaning to look, did Farr. But Farr caught Ben's eye and gave his head a minute shake that meant . . . let's accept the Tico's wish and keep the place nameless.
Over scenes of residential areas, manufacturing districts, super-highways, schools, churches, and a swarming downtown section where skyscrapers rose in a pointed package (senseless seeming, amid such spacious environs) the announcer went on:
"This city, as I stated, did not receive any direct strikes or near hits. Why, we do not know. Most likely, missiles aimed at it or bombers briefed to destroy it were themselves destroyed by United States defense systems or planes. But perhaps they were diverted by the attackers, while on course, to more vital targets. In any case, the public behavior was violent.
"This city, like those that were not destroyed in the first hour or so of onslaught, knew about the disintegration of the nation in which it stood. The people in this city, like people in others and in countless towns and villages, increasingly anticipated the skyfall of doomsday upon themselves. They had prepared, like most urban areas in the United States, shelters in large buildings and, to some extent, home shelters, for community and private refuge from fallout. Of course, word that other cities, in the state where this city stands and in the forty-nine sister states, were being devastated, were in ruins or even in firestorm, did negate presumptive value of shelters in the minds of those few who remained able to think coherently. But that number, within a very short while after facts about the initial strike began to be repeated on the then-still-workable TV and radio stations in the city, must have been a small fraction of the total populace.
"The record of happenings we will show, commences about an hour after the first news of the staggering onslaught elsewhere had reached the inhabitants. The film was made by a motion-picture news photographer who was a plane pilot, too. He had been assigned, by chance, to fly that afternoon to Panama to film the annual Panamanian 'Day of Liberty' fiesta celebrating the demilitarization of the former Canal Zone and the turnover of the Zone and the Canal to the people of Panama.
"The news cameraman's name was Waldemar Schultz. Yes. Was. When he saw the rising panic of his fellow citizens, as details of annihilation elsewhere poured in, Schultz made every effort to get a record of the reaction. As his pictures show, it required enormous personal courage to achieve that goal. You will see, for instance, one scene that indicated not only the fact that Schultz armed himself, but that such a step saved his life, temporarily, along with the film he exposed.
"Only when the situation grew so perilous that further camera work was out of the question, did Schultz give up. By that time Schultz had realized that all streets and roads leading out of the city were impassible, owing to multiple collisions on such routes and even on country lanes--due, of course, to the crazed driving and the murderous speeds of people trying not only to escape but also to get into the city. In some instances that was done to try to succor friends or relatives, but far oftener the inbound rush was of people who merely wanted to see the 'sights' of a city reported in turmoil. In every disaster the morbidly curious pose just such needless and congesting problems to refugees.
"Schultz managed to reach the airfield he had expected to leave in mid afternoon, much later and on foot, carrying his film but not his camera. The air terminal was in chaos as tens of thousands of persons tried to get passage south, from their dying nation and murderous city. No planes were arriving and few were leaving; the operating personnel had, by and large, fled the ticket booths, control tower, hangars, maintenance shops, and so on. Schultz therefore simply reconnoitered the smaller planes standing, in some numbers and still unused. He managed to start one and flew to San Juan, after landing for gasoline in Merida, Mexico.
"His film was contained in tight, metal cans which were further protected by the metal sides of the airplane luggage compartment. Schultz himself, however, had no such protection. He flew with the cockpit windows open and at only modest altitude. In consequence he passed through some areas of invisible and therefore unsuspected radio contamination-the drift of hot, isotopic debris from hits on other cities than the one where he began his flight. He saw distant evidence of those strikes, including at least three firestorms, but he did not consider himself to be in any danger. Four days ago, however, like the United States Air Force men, Waldermar Schultz died of radiation sickness.
"The first of his dramatic, and horrible, pictures follows. It was taken from a high window in a downtown office building and shows some of the events around a large, marked air-raid shelter designated by the federal government and reinforced by the state.
The shelter is underground, beneath a skyscraper hotel."
What appeared was a wide street filled, building-to-building and for the two blocks visible each way, with people. They seemed to be compressing.
Next came a closer view of the thousand or so persons nearest to the entrance of the hotel. The camera panned, as if sardonically, to show a sign over the heads of the jam-packed mob. It read "Shelter Area," and an arrow under the words pointed to the hotel entrance.
Now the camera returned to the mob and it could be seen that there was a strangeness about its members. That strangeness was explained by a cut to a still-closer view.
The people nearest the entrance, which was barred and boarded, were being literally squeezed to death. Many, already limp and motionless, were being supported by the press of those around them. From the mouths and nostrils of some-both the dead and the living-blood trickled redly.
Soon, individual faces were picked out and the agony, where they wer
e the faces of the still-living, was as sickeningly fascinating as hideous. They were cheek by jowl with the dead but could not get clear an inch from the upright cadavers. These living, too, were being tortured. Where an arm or leg of a man, woman, or child had been allowed to stray free among the mass in some less-compressed time, or where a limb had been pulled or pushed away from its owner into the melée--they were being broken, dislocated, even pulled out at their roots. It seemed, in the minute or so of camera search, that the pressure grew greater, the blood-flow swifter, the agony more terrible.
Rib cages cracked with suddenness, like crates under trip-hammers, and people thus slaughtered were lucky, for they died quickly, in gouting blood-vomits or a last explosive belch of red-frothed air.
The announcer spoke, gently, Connie suggested by her tone:
"This shelter was well known, of course, and also known to be commodious and strong. Across the street some hour and a half before this picture was taken, people had formed a crowd owing to the announcement that a bargain sale in the store beneath the photographer was to open that day. The bargain-hunting multitude made the nucleus of the self-killing crowd you see. The shelter they seek to enter, of course, was filled within minutes of the first word of the national attack. Realizing that the almost-instantly crammed shelter would be subject to further assault, the hotel management put in effect a scheme readied for that possibility.
"Planks, backed by steel bars that fitted into prepared holes in the terrazzo entrance and overhead girders, were hastily emplaced. To no avail. For you will soon see the human ram break down planks, steel bars, and all, just as now you can see the tide of humanity pour, bleeding, against and through the great plate-glass windows of the hotel."
They saw that.
Next they saw another, similar mob trying to force impossible entrance into a different shelter that, lucklessly, had lost its portal, or, perhaps, never got it closed. A ramp-like street led to an opening big enough to admit a truck. Now, however, the pressure of the mob on the ramp, against those in the shelter (fortunately, Ben felt, only dimly-visible) was so immense it was reasonable to assume (and the announcer did) that all those who had gained entrance to the shelter were lost. It had been built to accommodate nine hundred persons but now contained, the announcer said, five to six thousand or even more. These were already dead of suffocation, de-limbing, crushing, trampling, smashed chests, and blood-loss.