The Second Murray Leinster Megapack

by Murray Leinster

  There was a trampling of many hoofs in front of the house. The far-away tractor stopped. Kenie looked out of the barn and saw her father walking across the fields. She heard Tom’s television set still squawking. When he got it to work, it only brought silly things like talks on farming and how to keep well; but her father said that whoever was visicasting was very brave. They might be safe if they talked only about crop rotation and sanitation, but he warned Tom to tell him if they ever started to ’cast about science. Tom probably wouldn’t tell him, though. Tom was always mooning around, trying out things and trying to find old books with science in them, but not talking.

  Kenie watched, wide-eyed, as the neighbors rode up to the house. They were going to remind father that there were nearly five thousand people in this locality, and they couldn’t have their lives jeopardized by a boy working on science. Tom could either give up his experiments or leave. They didn’t want any bombs falling from a seemingly empty sky.

  There was a rustling in the barn. There was Cissie; she put her arm around Kenie and hugged her a little. That wasn’t unheard of, but it was unusual. Kenie wriggled.

  “They’ve come to talk to father about Tom, Cissie!” Kenie was thrilled. “It’s going to be awful! Maybe he’ll get mad—”

  “He won’t,” said Cissie. “He promised me he wouldn’t.”

  They heard their father’s voice inside the house. He was calling Tom. Then a great stillness settled on everything. The neighbors were gathered in the front parlor. They’d be grim. Just as grim as when they told Roland to leave or be hanged. Tom would be white and stricken. But their father would do what he could. He’d probably tell how Tom helped him in metal recovery—smelting down iron rust for fresh metal to make things that had to be made new. He’d been the first one to do that, with charcoal from the woods for fuel. The neighbors respected Kenie’s father, and they wouldn’t be mean. Just firm. Anyhow, they knew how Kenie’s father felt about science. He’d been the first one to say that Roland had to go away, even though Roland and Cissie were planning to get married.

  “Darling,” said Cissie, and she hugged Kenie. “You like me, don’t you? I want to tell you something.”

  “About Roland?” asked Kenie quickly. Cissie seemed not to realize what she meant.

  “Partly,” she said softly. “But not altogether. I’m not sorry about Roland, you know. There used to be a wonderful world, and it got spoiled. But there’s going to be a wonderful world again, and Roland will help to make it. That’s worth while, isn’t it?”

  “The world’s all right now,” said Kenie blithely. “It’s fun. But it might be nice to have electricity. Bub says so.”

  Cissie laughed a little.

  “That’s what I want to tell you. Not about electricity, but about Bub. I used to watch you tagging after him, and now he tags after you, Kenie. And as your older sister—”

  Kenie said matter-of-factly, “Bub’s going to marry me when we grow up. He doesn’t know it yet, but I can make him do almost anything I want to.”

  Cissie’s arm tightened about her.

  “I—just want to say something serious, for once,” she said quite gravely. “It’s nice, loving someone, Kenie. And if you—grow up and marry Bub—you won’t want to regret it. If he wants to be like everybody else, he’ll be safe and so will you. But if he doesn’t, Kenie—let him be different! Like Roland. Make him be careful, of course! Make him be terribly careful! But it will be worth it if he—risks his life and yours, too, to try to build back to a better world, than the one that got smashed. Even for a little thing like electricity! Remember it, Kenie! Please!”

  Kenie almost started to tell her that Bub was already building an electric generator in his secret cellar—Cissie could be trusted—but just then Mr. Wedderson came in view, lie was marching toward the house, and he was fat and smug and revolting.

  “That,” said Kenie scornfully, “is Aunt Sarah’s ideal! She-wants us to call him Uncle! He’ll want me to sit on his lap! I despise him!”

  Cissie drew a quick breath. She looked oddly at Kenie, as if what she’d just said was a very special admonition that she might not be able to give again, but Kenie was sticking out her tongue at the waddling, stocky figure. Then she turned.

  “We’d better go to the house,” she said resentfully. “Mother’s going to serve refreshments. I’d like to put a bug in Mr. Wedderson’s mug. Or something worse!”

  * * * *

  Cissie followed silently. Their mother was moving about the kitchen. She nodded when they came in.

  “Just in time,” she told them. “You take in the coffee, Cissie, and Kenie, you carry the cakes.”

  Cissie was grown-up and calm, and Kenie envied her a little. Her own elbows seemed to get in the way going through doors. But she got-to the parlor without mishap. Then she thrilled.

  It was dreadful in there. Her brother Tom stood ashen-faced at one side of the room. The neighbors were unsmiling and grim. Not unkindly, of course. That made it worse. Kenie saw twin wet streaks on Tom’s cheeks. He was seventeen, but the tears had come when he met the unalterable ultimatum of the neighbors and found that his own father backed it.

  “It ain’t,” said a heavy voice doggedly, “that we’re against anybody doin’ what they want to, Tom. You got a life to live. If you want to go off and study science, you got a right to an’ we ain’t stoppin’ you. But we got our families to think of. Where there’s science and people know of it, bombs fall. You can go, an’ you’ll have no spite go with you. But you can’t come back. You’ll do a lot better by your family and friends if you stay amongst us an’ be a good neighbor—”

  Tom’s hands were clenched tightly. He was the very picture of stunned grief. But suddenly he said in a choked voice:

  “I’ll bet it was Mr. Wedderson who told you! He started talking about sciene! He s-seemed to know a lot and I g-got interested and t-told him too much—”

  The faces in the parlor hardened. There were thumpings outside. Kenie’s mother went to the door. Cissie moved among the neighbors, offering them dandelion root coffee. Kenie’s mother said:

  “Why, yes, Mr. Wedderson! Quite a gathering! Come in!”

  Eyes turned to the door. Mr. Wedderson entered. His eyes glittered behind their thick lenses. He swaggered a little.

  “Gentlemen,” he said pompously, “as a more poor deepie, I have come to do you a service. Did you know that a plane landed near here two days ago?”

  It had been quiet in the parlor, before. The only sounds had been the small clickings of the coffee mugs. But then the stillness became absolute. Kenie’s breath stopped. A plane landed here! That was science at its worst! She had never seen a plane in her life. They were deadly. Bub said they could have electricity again if it wasn’t for snoopers, but nothing was more sure to bring a bomb from empty sky than a plane…

  “It has not taken off,” added Mr. Wedderson blandly. “It is still here. I have seen it. Does it surprise you?”

  Kenie saw the faces of the neighbors. Every one was stony. A plane landed here—and known to a deepie! A bomb might fall at any instant. It might be falling now… For a moment Kenie tried to imagine a bomb falling. She tried to picture this house, the barn, the fields yonder and the new-ploughed land, all gone and nothing but glassy, baked-hard emptiness in its place. She tried to imagine herself, Kenie, completely obliterated. But her Imagination boggled at the last. She could not imagine a world without Kenie in it. She found herself licking her lips.

  “We know nothing of it!” said her father fiercely. “You gentlemen have your horses here! We’ll see if this is true! And if it is, Mr. Wedderson, you’ll see what we do when people bring science into this locality!”

  Mr. Wedderson said, blinking in a sort of smug meekness, “I had hoped to form a family connection and be allowed to settle here, but even we deepies do not like localities where science is favored. Here, even the young boys—”

  “Tom!” said Kenie’s father harshly. “Saddle three h
orses. One for Mr. Wedderson. Right away!”

  Tom stumbled from the room. Kenie boiled. Mr. Wedderson had persuaded Tom to talk about science, and then told the neighbors on him! Now he told about a plane landing, and mentioned what deepies would think about it. And if deepies knew about it, sooner or later a snooper would know! He was threatening! He was telling them they’d better be nice to him! It was things like this that made people not let anybody stay in a locality unless he had kinfolk and relatives who’d share any danger he brought on the rest.

  “Come, Kenie,” said Cissie in her ear. Kenie followed to the kitchen and shook with a murderous rage.

  “I hate him!” she said furiously. “He told on Tom! If he’s ever my uncle I’ll—”

  Cissie pushed her firmly out of doors. She followed. But her tone was shaky rather than indignant as she said:

  “You mustn’t talk like that, Kenie! Aunt Sarah thinks she’s in love with him! If she heard you—”

  Kenie grumbled, “You were in love with Roland, but it didn’t make you crazy!”

  “That,” said Cissie quietly, “was real. Not just desperation. She isn’t like—you and Bub, either, is she?”

  “Huh!” said Kenie. “I can make Bub do almost anything I want!”

  Tom rode blindly past them, leading two horses. One for his father and one for Mr. Wedderson. Tom was seventeen, and Kenie normally admired him with a trace of female condescension. But even she could see something close to dignity in his grief-stricken look.

  “Poor Tom!” said Cissie.

  Her voice was soft enough, but her eyes were oddly hard as she looked back at the house. There was a clattering of hoofs and the neighbors rode off with Mr. Wedderson in their midst. He said a plane had landed—and a plane was sure to bring a bomb. He was going to show them where it was. Most deepies would simply run. There was something—

  Kenie watched breathlessly. She would have liked to go, but she was a girl, and if they found out who had landed the plane there’d be a hanging. A sudden thought struck her. Roland! Suppose it was Roland who came in the plane! Suppose her father helped to hang Roland because he was a scientist and he’d come back after being warned not to.

  Kenie jerked her head to stare at Cissie. If it was Roland, Cissie knew it. She knew that they were going to hunt for whoever had landed the plane. Cissie looked quite pale, though entirely composed. Entirely. She looked startlngly grown up.

  There was a yell, and a gangling horse jumped the fence behind the barn, Bub waved to Kenie. He always arrived that way. He was sixteen. And Kenie squealed at sight of him and dashed to meet him. Speculations were unimportant now. She poured out an almost incoherent account of the morning’s happenings, from the formal warning to Tom, to Mr. Wedderson’s notification of the incredible fact that a plane had landed near-by and they might all be blown up any second.

  Bub simply wheeled his horse about, his lips set. Kenie jumped in front of him.

  “You’ve got to take me!” she cried fiercely. “I told you about it! You’ve got to take me! You won’t dare show yourself anyhow—”

  He thrust down a bony hand. She caught it and scrambled up. He dug his heels into the horse’s sides and they went off at a shambling gallop, Kenie astride behind him and clinging to his waist. She was filled with an ecstasy amounting almost to delirium. This was excitement! She and Bub trailing the neighbors on the way to destroy an airplane! Perhaps to hang Roland! Nothing go deliciously thrilling had ever happened in the world before!

  Bub said tragically, “All my life I’ve wanted to see a plane, and the only chance I’ll ever get is to see the neighbors smash one!”

  Kenie was abashed by such grief, but nothing could make her unhappy while such thrilling events went forward. They sighted the cavalcade a long distance ahead. They trailed it. It swung aside into the woods. Bub dared close up until he could see the thrashing of branches as the horsemen forced their way through low-hanging trees.

  * * * *

  A long time later the cavalcade halted. Kenie could feel the tension in Bub’s body. He reined aside.

  “Come on!” he said feverishly. “We’ll hide the horse and sneak up to see before it’s all smashed—”

  It was a matter only of seconds before he and Kenie were dashing, hand in hand, from one thick patch of brushwood to another to get where they could see what impended.

  It was Kenie who jerked him aside and pointed.

  “There!”

  They saw perfectly through a gap among the trees. There were the horses, stamping and snuffling in an uneasy group. The men advanced silently toward a silvery white object on the ground. The plane wasn’t big, and somehow it looked awkward. It looked as if it had been built of inadequate materials, by men who’d made ingenuity take the place of equipment. There were little pipes sticking out of it astern. There were fins—not wings—and there was a folded-up contrivance which Kenie guessed excitedly was a helicopter screw. She’d seen pictures.

  “Rocket-drive,” said Bub in a broken, mourning whisper. “Atmospheric rocket, Kenie. Not like the ones men went to the evening star with, once. But, oh, isn’t it beautiful!”

  It wasn’t Kenie stared with all her eyes, but to her it was not beautiful. It was merely extraordinarily thrilling. Her eyes went to the human figures. Mr. Wedderson looked brisk and shrewd and very different from the way he usually did. He stood back while the others went grimly to the plane and pulled open its door and went in. They went over it in every possible fashion, looking for some clue to who had brought it. Kenie’s father said harshly:

  “Anyhow, we can pile brush on it and set it afire!”

  Then he stopped. Mr. Wedderson stood composedly with something like a little switch in his hand, only it had a cup on it and he held that to his mouth. He seemed to be talking into it.

  There was a dreadful stillness. Then Mr. Wedderson grinned.

  “This,” he told the neighbors, still holding the cup near his mouth, “is a radio and I am talking to the people who have planes and bombs. They can hear everything I say. They do not want the plane destroyed. So you will not destroy the plane.”

  Men made a concerted small noise like a growl.

  “I brought you here and had you go into it and handle it,” said Mr. Wedderson with an infuriating smugness, “because it was possible that whoever left it had mined it—set explosives to destroy meddlers. But you are not destroyed. So I shall fly it to where I came from, and we shall examine it. Our radar said that it was even faster than our planes! But you will let me take it because your whole community will be bombed within minutes if you do not.”

  He grinned at them. Enragingly. But there was absolute dead silence save for the stamping and snorting of the horses, Mr. Wedderson walked over to the plane. The neighbors made way for him, their hands clenched. He got in and touched something. The folded-up thing reached up and expanded. It began to move, at first slowly and then more swiftly. A little puff of vapor came from one of the pipes at the stern.

  All this in dead silence.

  The plane shifted itself around bodily. It slid forward over fallen leaves until it was no longer under a tree, but under open sky. Mr. Wedderson grinned at the neighbors.

  “You are very docile,” he said blandly, “so I have reported that you need not be bombed. And your funny sister—” He looked at Kenie’s father—“was very amusing. Tell her I laugh.”

  The whirring thing speeded up. The plane rose, and hovered, and rose swiftly again. It danced lightly up above the treetops.

  Up and up and up… It was a bare speck when vapor streamed from behind it.

  It moved forward. The blurred disk of the lift-screw vanished suddenly and it was merely a mote which moved so fast that the eye lost trace of it. Then it was gone.

  Bub was crying almost happily, “B-beautiful!”he gasped. “Oh, b-beautiful! B-but he took it away…”

  Then he sobbed. And then Kenie’s father loomed up sternly. He’d seen her. He opened his mouth to ask how
she’d gotten there, and saw Bub. He said nothing.

  He waved his hand, and Tom came numbly over with the three horses from home.

  They went to Bub’s tethered horse. Kenie mounted the now spare animal. They went back toward home. The neighbors were riding off singly, every man’s face like stone.

  “And now,” said Kenie’s father tiredly, “we ought to hang Roland.”

  Then Tom spoke thickly, “I’m—I’m sorry, Dad,” he said, “but if—if this is—what you have to do—not to have bombs fall, I—I’m going away. Maybe I’ll only be a—deepie, but—if there’s science anywhere on earth—”

  Bub gulped and said uncertainly, “I—guess I’ll go too, Tom.”

  For an instant Kenie was fiercely proud of her brother and of Bub. She, too, felt the bitter scorn of youth for the compromises older people make for the sake of youth. But then she realized that their going away would mean they’d be like Roland.

  They couldn’t come back. They’d be hanged, if they did.

  She made no sound. She rode on stoically, a small figure in shorts and jumper, with her hair hanging in a pigtail down her back. But tears flowed down her cheeks. She licked them furtively from the corners of her mouth.

  “Eh? Desperate?” said her rather. Then he grunted. “I forgot. You boys have thought science was play. It’s not. You had to learn a lesson, and I think Tom has. You’ll never talk too much to a deepie again, Tom!”

  “I’m—going to be one,” said Tom, doggedly.

  “Being careful gets to be a habit,” said Kenie’s father, dryly. “It’s one you’d better learn, Tom. But Roland won’t be hung. Of course! We’ll all say so—all the neighbors. But actually he’s going to be married. To Cissie. Kenie’s to be bridesmaid. It will all happen after supper tonight. They’ll be off before morning.”

  Then he added, “Roland flew that plane here.”

  Kenie’s eyes opened wide. She felt a complete topsy-turviness in all the world. She blinked incredulously up at her father.