Triumph

by Philip Wylie

  But you. You never even gave my husband the eye. It's you who've been the--" Valerie said a word she had usually employed with scorn but now meant in its ancient sense--

  " lady."

  This scene was watched in silence.

  And it was swift-ended.

  With a reach and swing Valerie Farr retrieved her drink and sent it, ice, glass, and all, spinning and spilling, over the floor lamps and the pretty, hand-made furniture to smash against the beige paint they'd applied to the once-grim walls. She then closed the little distance between herself and the lovely Irish-Italian girl, threw her arms around Angelica, and kissed her. "You're an angel, and I'm tired of being a bum. You and Vance deserve something better!"

  Head high, she left the Hall. Faith whispered, "Lord!" and ran to Angelica, who had started to weep. George Hyama said to Ben, "Sorry I mixed it up." He turned to Pete, hand out. "Apologies!"

  Pete said, humbly, "It was my fault," and took the hand.

  Faith made the statement that ended the matter. "If this fracas has caused Mother to see what she's been doing to herself--to all of us--it'd be worth staging every day!" She smiled tentatively at Pete and George. Then Ben. Then Kit.

  It would be weeks before they were certain--Farr, especially. But, in time, they were to know that Valerie Farr had meant it.

  She never took another drink.

  The ensuing days were marked by a phenomenon they had already experienced, the scrambling of TV and radio signals. For a time they were out of touch with the voice of surviving humanity. Gradually, however, the messages began to come in clearly.

  They learned that the Costa Ricans and others to the north of them now had suffered. "The hideous and evil monstrosity perpetrated by automatic action in a dead U.S.S.R.," as San José put it, "caused new millions to take all precautions against poison-clouds that, thousands of miles in length and about twelve hundred miles wide ( at first) are now repeatedly circling the globe, with ever-diminishing radioactivity, but with ever-widening menace."

  When a frozen turkey was served, with trimmings, in the Sachem's Watch caverns, for Thanksgiving, the survivors had less to be thankful for than they had expected, some weeks earlier. If it had not been for the enthusiasm with which Dorothy and Dick attacked the meal and enjoyed the festivities, that day would have been drearier than any. As it was, every adult felt privately grateful for the presence of two youngsters, to whom the facts of life, or of death, inherent in radioactivity meant little. Youngsters for whom, moreover, every grownup felt he or she must keep up an appearance of calm, however fearful and depressed in fact.

  It was Dick, in the middle of consuming a drumstick, his chin anointed with gravy, who suddenly heightened the festive pleasure shared only by his sister and himself. Hopefully he asked, "Isn't it now only a month . . . to Christmas?"

  Valerie broke a dead silence. "Why, of course! What a perfectly wonderful thing to realize, Dick! And I bet Vance has even got a Christmas tree!" She sounded ecstatic, and looked hopefully, even merrily, though it took a strong will, at her husband. He beamed back, with a matching effort to assume the right expression. " Naturally!"

  Valerie chortled. "Didn't I tell you!"

  In truth, she had guessed her husband would figure a way to make an artificial Christmas tree. She did not know--and he did not disclose for some time--that the storage chambers contained an immense tree of aluminum--a Christmas-tree substitute for dangerously-flammable evergreens that had become popular in the early 1960s. . . .

  As time passed, all the adults busied themselves with secret endeavors-the making of small gifts, the writing of verses, the painting of funny pictures that would be exchanged as gifts once the tree was brought out and decorated. Both youngsters had volunteered the information that they had not believed in Santa Claus "since we were babies." But both, and Dorothy especially, seemed very reassured to be told by Valerie again, and in a most confiding manner, that, "There may be no Santa Claus, children. But if by any chance there is, I know this: not even atomic bombs can bother the North Pole, where he would have been living, and he can come down an air-raid-shelter tunnel easy as a chimney!"

  A week before Christmas, since the suspense had grown unbearable for the youngsters (and since Vance realized many of the adults were showing signs of dangerous depression beneath tight-controlled exteriors), the great aluminum tree was set up. It turned out to be the kind the children's parents had provided. Abundant ornaments were produced in their boxes; a tall stepladder was placed beside the tree; electric bulbs in long strings were unpacked; and everybody, at one time or another, then had a hand in helping the two young people to decorate what Ben one afternoon mournfully reflected was surely the only such tree in the United States.

  A few days before Christmas, Farr came into the shop where Ben and his busy assistants were fabricating parts for a newly-designed transmitter. Farr motioned Ben outside. His face was troubled, and Ben went out nervously.

  Farr spoke in a low tone, "I've just been checking over the oxygen tanks and so on. I'd say we'll have to start feeding the diesels outside air in--oh--two months, at a minimum, if we even want six months of comfort beyond that."

  Ben felt somewhat relieved. "I know." Vance gazed at him. "You do? I didn't realize you'd even familiarized yourself with that plant!"

  "Sure. Spare time. Nights. Our 'sleep time,' as they all call it. When I couldn't sleep, I mean. I've been pondering the thing myself. We can take air, as full of hot material as the monitors show to be lying on the ground, and filter out so much that it would be a year, in my opinion, before the diesels actually suffered. Be nasty to service them, though, after a time."

  " Brother! "

  "But I'm not sure exactly what the actual, atmospheric radiation level is now.

  After all, your outside gauges had to take one hell of a beating before they poked out of what were virtual bank vaults. Hot junk could be thicker, near them, than in the air above them. Besides, I believe it has rained like hell, all through October and November."

  "Why?"

  Ben grinned. "You ever climb down the shaft, to the caverns where our sewage is treated?" "Lord, no! Man'd almost suffocate!" "Not with the masks and oxygen packs we have here." "Okay! But it'd take a mountain climber!" "We did some pretty rough cliff-work in the Navy. And there are cliffs under the sea, too, you know." Ben was grinning.

  "I made a trip--steep slope but there are plenty of old steel pitons, some steel ladders, on the way down. So you only need a few good lengths of nylon rope. It took three trips, hauling down line, before I reached the bottom. Been there several different nights."

  "Man! But why?"

  "Curiosity, the first trip," Ben smiled. "After that, oh, less than a couple of months ago, to see if the radiation outside was appearing in the underground river you diverted for sewage-layering down there."

  "Was it?"

  "Not then. Not noticeably. Today that water course is pretty hot-maybe two hundred roentgens. Your automatic safety system has cut it out. The sewage now settles without being washed into place. That part works perfectly though, so no worry. Point is, on my latest trip the flow of water in that subterranean stream was about triple the rate up until then. So I rigged a gadget on a thousand-yard, synthetic line--fishline? right!--to keep me informed of the subterranean water flow and level, without necessitating that damned, long, rope-rock-piton-and-ladder crawl. Especially since the untreated sewage now remains exposed till the treatment gunk mixes in it, and it has a--a less--"

  "Less intoxicating?"

  "Call it less overpowering, state. I deduce it's been raining beyond any past records, if my geology's not too rusty and if I correctly read the underground signs on the sides of the chute through which that river runs.

  Vance nodded. Frowned. Finally said, "Maybe I'm dumb, but--?"

  "The matter of air intake." Ben pulled Vance farther down that particular passageway, into a fork that led to a small chamber, unnamed, but marked L-17. Inside were racks
that contained enormous, bound sets of mechanical and geological maps and drawings. Ben picked one volume without hesitation and opened it to a marked page. He pointed as he talked: "This shows, as you'll realize, the five potential air intakes you drilled. Then blocked, mighty thoroughly! All five near the summit at Sachem's Watch.

  Now. I expect that rounded summit is burned bare, maybe even sliced off or melted slightly, and somewhat fissured. However, bare. With the rains I believe we've had, these three possible openings--" Ben pointed to each--"would likely have been washed pretty clean, even if the rain was hot itself. Say, comparatively clean. Cleaner by far than the cavities from which we extruded the counters. They'll be chock-full of debris: hot material, water from hot rain, and so on." Then he winced, for his back had been mightily pounded.

  "Meaning, we might get fairly low-level air from one of those tunnels?"

  "Yeah."

  "Brother! Never occurred to me! When do you think we ought to start a mining-and-blasting act?"

  "Tomorrow." Ben smiled.

  "Great!" Vance whacked Ben again. "I'll rally a crew!"

  That night Ben inadvertently witnessed a scene that was moving, but not, he felt, threatening. In due course, however, it led to a not unexpected but new difficulty. Lotus Li and George Hyama were involved.

  The circumstance that led him to witness it was accidental and Ben's act of eavesdropping, very uncharacteristic.

  After dinner that evening Vance told the assembled group about the need of an outside, filtered air supply for the diesels and the plan to open up one of the long, concrete-plugged ducts, and others if the first proved a source of too-radioactive atmosphere.

  Some of his listeners were plainly exultant at the mere prospect of a hole (even if it would be, initially, only six inches in diameter) bored, at last, to the outside world.

  Vance acknowledged their reactions and went on explaining: "Ben and I have also decided that miniaturized instruments can be extruded from the orifice with a protective umbrella for some of them, so that we'll from then on know, providing the effort comes off, when it's raining outdoors, and what the temperature is, and how much snow falls, in addition to how radioactive the air is above ground. And even more, if Ben, Lodi, George, and company can achieve more."

  All but two of his hearers understood perfectly what Vance had said, the women included. . . .

  Women, in the past decade, had increasingly demanded and increasingly received a considerable education in technology. Their homes and the myriad ease-making and labor-saving devices on which they depended were, mostly, electrical or electronic.

  Women--and nearly all men, too--had grown increasingly frustrated by the constant need to get quick repairs and swift service for their ever-multiplying gadgets. An electric stove burner would go out--or the entire stove--and the then paralyzed housewife would be obliged to wait for hours, even days, until overworked repair-and-maintenance people answered her summonses.

  When they did arrive, the cause of trouble would often merely be a blown fuse, a loose wire, the need to take out an old burner (or electronic tube or the like) and replace it with a new element. Each such call entailed a high basic charge. So women, at first in small numbers, but soon in their majority, began to demand knowledge that would enable them to diagnose at least the simplest breakdowns of domestic equipment and to make repairs, adjustments, or replacements.

  An average girl graduating from high school at the time of the Third War could competently handle more such problems than the man she would marry, unless he happened to be specially trained. A woman college graduate who had majored in home economics would be so able a gadget-tender that she would rarely need to phone imploringly for aid when the dishwasher, spin-drier, electric eyes, motors, or even the TV

  set failed.

  Angelica Rosa had not, however, enjoyed such an education and the technical facts she had encountered had not "rubbed off." So now she raised her hand, gazing at Ben. He nodded. She said:

  "We know it's still terribly radioactive outside. So won't the hole you bore let it leak down here and hurt us?" Her ebony curls glittered and her sapphire eyes dilated in dread.

  Ben gestured at Farr, who grinned at her, his expression paternal and without any sign of awareness of what Angelica had once been to him. "Nope! We'll enter the pre-bored shaft from a room made airtight. In it, and so up the working shaft, we'll maintain a positive air pressure. That is, Angelica, when we finally hole through to the outdoors, air will blow from us to the outside, until we determine it's safe to bring it in and run it through our filtration-diffusion plant to supply the motors."

  "Oh." She seemed abashed.

  Vance went on. "The job will take time, gentlemen, and hard labor. Three sets of thick, metal doors can presumably be swung back, after their bracing is removed, and lowered into the workroom. But above that there's a steep-sloping stretch--the shaft's not much bigger than a manhole--that's empty for a long ways. Then we encounter one hundred feet of solid concrete.

  "We can blast through a lot of that--say, half. But, for safety's sake, Ben and I agree we'll then merely drill a six-inch test hole, the last fifty feet. Miniaturized gauges--

  which Ben has sketched and George will design in detail, and all our three engineers will then make--will be put through that, after we're sure it's wise. If it then proves equally practicable, we'll draw air. For so big a job, I need volunteers. It'll be hazardous, scary, dirty labor, in a confined place."

  To Ben's surprise, the first hand up was Alberto's. "My old man," he said, "was a coal miner. I tried it when I was a young punk, and decided it wasn't for me! But I've done it! And I'm getting as flabby"--his glance went briefly and with near-admiration to Ben--"as a custard pie around here! So count me in!"

  Vance was as delighted as surprised. "Great!" He saw Pete's hand up. "Fine!"

  "And me," Kit nodded. "Heavy work, that's my meat!" Davey's hand was up too.

  "I'm not any feeble old cane-needing man, Mr. Farr. Vance, I mean."

  "Right. Thanks, Paulus. Well, the five of us will start at 9 A.M., tomorrow. That leaves the housework to the ladies."

  "We'll manage," Valerie said, dryly. "Haven't we, for maybe a million years?"

  They laughed and she went on, musingly, "Funny! I remember--oh, long ago--when that man, the 'father of the H-bomb'--what was his name?--Edward Teller--said all people in any shelters suitable for nuclear survival should have mining machinery. I half thought it was ridiculous--and half, got a chill. It implied so much! That an adequate shelter would be deep in rocks, or have skyscrapers fall on it, or something! But that was way back in the 1950s, I think."

  Her husband smiled at her fondly. "Yes, dear. It was. And how right Teller was that one way! But we have the machinery! If there was coal within a mile or two, we could mine it. Oil, we could drill a mile or two for that. We're set--and thanks only in a small part to such dim prophets as Dr. Teller!" . . .

  The usual evening's recreation began. But soon there were few participants; the men who intended to start their hard task next morning went to bed early.

  Ben roller-skated--proficiently now--with various lady partners, and alone, also.

  But he soon retired, too. However, his mind was busy with the many problems that would certainly or possibly, be encountered, once a hole had been driven from the cement-plugged, sloping shaft they had selected to try first. That set of problems was his assignment.

  By-and-by, in moccasins, chosen from the stores, for bedroom slippers, wearing a dressing gown, Ben left his room and headed for the drawing boards in the big "shop."

  He had sketched out rough designs for miniature gauges and other instruments to be thrust through the proposed six-inch bore; but now he had hit upon some ideas, as he had lain awake, derived from the varied instrumentation of the many satellites put in earth orbits or used as space probes. It would be possible, he thought, as one adaptation, to put together TV Iconoscopes which would slide through a six-inch hole; once outd
oors, they could scan the surroundings steadily and send back the view, at various distances.

  When he reached the passage entry of the shop, he heard voices and stopped. He then found himself eavesdropping, not out of curiosity, but in reluctance to interrupt.

  George Hyama and Lotus Li had evidently not retired either, but gone to the shop in their dinner clothing. For the women, that now meant dresses they had made of the bright fabrics; for the men, flannel slacks and sports jackets over sports shirts. By this date the nightly group was not just well-clad, but handsomely clad.

  Ben glanced in and then stepped back unseen: to interrupt what was happening might prevent its occurrence, for good.

  Lodi Li was standing in front of a desk where she had been making mathematical calculations for George Hyama, until he'd left his drawing board and taken the lovely Chinese girl in his arms. She was saying, "You know, George, the Chinese have always detested you Japanese." Ben was transfixed by that calm recognition of a horror he well understood. Race prejudice.

  "Yes, I do, Lodi." George sounded shy.

  "I suppose we felt very superior with our thousands-of-years-older civilization.

  Which the Japanese stole."

  "Probably you Chinese were superior!"

  "Do you think, George, any race of people are that?"

  "Not really. No. And remember how quickly we Japanese borrowed Western technology, given the chance?"

  "I don't like it put that way! Everybody's borrowed ideas from everybody. The Chinese and the Japanese, though, have both produced countless original ideas. Think how many Japanese have won Nobel Prizes! And Fermi Prizes, like Ben's!"

  George laughed huskily and held her, still loosely, arms around her waist. "Very well. We are all geniuses, in some minute percentage. "

  Her laughter was soft. "In Hawaii even, many Chinese people used to loathe Japanese."