by Algis Budrys
Ted grunted. “What d’you hear on the box?” he said, motioning toward the radio.
“Ryder’s coming down, Matt’s coming up. We’re going west. Speed: six inches per hour.”
“They tried that stunt with the PT’s?”
Holland snorted. “Ever try to torpedo a warehouse? They knocked out most of the freighters in the channel, which doesn’t help us a goddamned bit.”
“We’ve got to crack those birds soon, Jack.”
“I know. We’ll be firing Roman candles at them if this keeps up. You got any ideas?”
“No.” He dozed off again, leaning on a garbage can.
Ten days, and he reached his conclusion. It was not an idea, he recognized, no more than Austerlitz or the shelling of Monte Cassino were ideas. It was a calculated decision based on the problem before him, reached in the light of the urgent necessity for the problem’s solution. Again, as with many of his recent decisions, he did not like it when he came to it. But it was the product of logical extrapolation, based on rational thinking and personal knowledge which he could honestly believe he had analyzed completely. Once he recognized this last, he knew he had given himself no choice.
“Problem is to get in close enough to dynamite the warehouses, right?” he said to Jack.
“Ahuh. Been that way for some time, now. They’ve got those boys on the roofs of the houses all around them. They can cover them, and the lads in the houses keep us back. We clean out a house, they toss dynamite down and blow the house to shreds, leaving an exposed area we can’t cross anyway. Can’t go in at night, because this is their territory, booby-trapped. So?”
“Wait for an east wind. Get one, and burn the houses. Go in under the smoke. Blow your way into the first floor, sit back, and wait for them to come out. They don’t come out, blow the second floor.”
Holland whistled. He looked at Ted thoughtfully. “Kind of mean, isn’t it? The guys in those houses get it either way—they come out while we’re waiting in the street, or they burn.”
“Jesus Christ!” Jim said, staring at Ted.
Berendtsen swayed wearily on his feet. Suddenly, he realized that he had done something neither Jack Holland nor Matt Garvin’s son were capable of. He had reached a decision he hated, but would carry out, given the opportunity, because he knew that whether it was right or wrong on some cosmic balance scale, he believed it to be right. Or, not right—necessary. And he could trust that belief because he trusted himself.
“All right,” he said, his voice calm, “let’s get on that radio and talk to Matt. We’ve got an old precedent for all this, you know,” he added dryly.
He led his sooty, weary men back along the broad length of Fourteenth Street, his left hand lost in a bulbous wrapping of bandage, his empty pack flapping between his shoulder blades. He and Jim and the rest of his squad were lost in the haphazard column of Matt Garvin’s men, but his mind’s eye separated his own from the rest. All the men were shuffling wordlessly up the street, weary past the bone, but he tried to read the faces of his squad. There had been many more men in the firing and dynamiting parties, but these had been the ones he led.
He tried to discover whether the men who followed him thought he was right or wrong. But their faces were blank with exhaustion, and he could not let his own expression disclose the slightest anxiety. And then he realized what the hard part of being a man was.
When they reached Stuyvesant at last, he found Matt Garvin. They looked at each other, he with his wounded hand and Matt with a shoulder almost dislocated by the magnum’s repeated detonations. He drew one corner of his mouth up crookedly, and Matt nodded and smiled faintly.
Now I know, Berendtsen thought.
Silently, Ted Berendtsen walked up the stairs while Jim hung back. He ran his hand over his jaws, and his cheeks, under their temporary gauntness, were just as soft. His feet stumbled on the steps.
Jesus Christ, I’m only sixteen! he thought. He grimaced faintly, at this last, illogical protest. Matt had a few more years.
CHAPTER FIVE
Matt Garvin had grown old, for his time. His oldest son, Jim, was twenty-two, and his daughter, Mary, was twenty. His youngest son, Robert, was a little past fifteen. And the civilization he had seen re-established now held all of Greater New York.
It was enough. He could sit at his window, looking out over Stuyvesant Town where the building generators had put lights back in the windows, and nod slowly to himself. It was done. Up and down the coast, where his scouting boats had wandered, he knew there were other cities shining once more beside the broad ocean. In those cities there must be other men like himself, satisfied with what they had accomplished. Soon, now, the cities would spill over—the pocket civilizations would touch and coalesce, and the plague would be forgotten, the land and the people whole again.
Out in the inlands, each isolated by the broken strands of transportation and communication, there would be other cities, all flickering back to life. And in the farmlands between them, where life had not really changed, there would be other men waiting to join hands with them.
He spoke about it, hesitantly, during a meeting with his most important lieutenants. And Ted Berendtsen looked up.
“You’re right, Matt. It’ll happen, and soon. But have you thought about what’s going to happen when it does?”
Jim Garvin looked up sharply. No, his father hadn’t thought about it. Not in detail. Neither had he.
Berendtsen was finishing his point. “We’re not just going to puddle up by osmosis, you know. Somebody’s going to have to build pipelines. And when we get that puddle—who’s going to be the big frog? Somebody’ll have to. We can’t just all live happily ever after. Somebody still has to lead. What guarantee do we have that we’ll enjoy it?”
Jim sighed. Berendtsen was right. They were not one people, separated, now reuniting. They were half-a-hundred, perhaps more, individual civilizations, each with its own society, each with its own way of life. It would not be an easy, or a happy, process.
Matt Garvin looked at Jack Holland and shrugged his shoulders heavily. “Well, what’s your answer to it all, Jack?”
Jim Garvin saw Jack Holland’s side-glance at Ted before he said anything, and nodded quietly to himself. It wasn’t Holland who was really second in command, it was Berendtsen, young as he was.
“I don’t know,” Holland said. “Seems to me that it’s about time for a lot of outfits like ours to be spilling over into the surrounding territory, yeah. But it’s going to be a long time before whatever happens around Boston or Philadelphia makes itself felt up here. They’re doing the same thing we are—pushing out and looking for land to grow food on. We’re out on Long Island, busy farming. Philly’ll be doing the same thing in its own corner. So will Boston and Washington. It’ll be years before we grow up to the size where we’ll need more territory. They’re even smaller. They’ll take more time. By then, we’ll be farther along. We’ll always be stronger than they are.”
Berendtsen shook his head, and the gesture was enough to draw everyone’s attention. “Not quite the whole problem,” he said.
Matt sighed. “No, I guess it isn’t. How do you read it?”
“Our scouting reports from Boston indicate that New England’s having the same old problem. You can’t farm that country worth a damn. There’s a good reason why that was all manufacturing country up there—you can’t feed yourself off the land. There’s nowhere near the population up there that there used to be, of course, but they’re still going to be spreading out faster than anybody else. They’ll have to. They need four acres to our one.
“Now—Philly’s in a bad spot. They’re down on the coast with Baltimore, Washington, and Wilmington right on their necks. That’s besides Camden. They won’t move up here until they’re sure of being safe from a push coming up from below. They can handle that three ways—lick the tar out of those people, bunch up with them in some loose alliance against us, or—and this is what I’m afraid of—start building u
p for a fast push in this direction before those other cities get set. Once they’ve got a lock on us, they can concentrate on holding off anybody else.”
He leaned forward. “Now. We’ve already assumed that whatever happens, we want our side on top.”
Something jumped in Jim Garvin’s solar plexus. They had, hadn’t they? It had already become a question of “How do we get them to do things our way?” But what other way was there? A man worked for himself, for what was his. A society—an organization of men—did the same. You fought for what was yours.
“All right, then,” Berendtsen said. “If Philly moved up here, and took over, I’d join them. So would everybody else. It wouldn’t be our society any more, but at least it would be a society. We’d get used to it in time, if we had to.
“The same thing works in our favor. If we take over another outfit, their citizens’ll join up with us. They may not like it. Some individuals will be holdouts to the bitter end. But, as a whole, that group will become part of us.
“Think it over.”
Berendtsen’s voice and expression had been completely neutral. He spoke as though he were reading off a column of figures, and when he stopped he settled back in his chair without any change of manner.
Matt nodded slowly. “I think you’re right. In general, and about Boston and Philadelphia. Both those outfits are being pushed. They’ll be moving faster than we will.”
Jim looked around again. Holland was nodding softly, and he himself had to agree.
He looked at Berendtsen, once again trying to understand what made his brother-in-law tick. There didn’t seem to be a fast answer, even though they had grown up together. He could guess what Ted would do in a particular circumstance, but he could never really get down to the basic motivation that made him do it. Somehow, he doubted if Mary could do any better. Both of them could penetrate his calm, withdrawn shell along certain fronts, but the whole Theodore Berendtsen—the man who lived in the whipcord body with the adding-machine mind—escaped them with unconscious elusiveness.
What does it? he thought. What was there hidden behind his brooding eyes that pulled each problem apart and allowed him to say “Hit it here, here, and there. Get that, and this part’ll collapse and let you get at the rest of it,” as coldly as though it were a piece of physical machinery to be stripped down and rebuilt until it functioned smoothly and without effort.
And now there was something new in the wind. Jim shot a fresh glance at his father. Matt was halftwisted in his chair, racked by arthritis. His right hand was almost completely useless. And if his mind was still clear, his eyes tired but alert, Ted’s thinking was just as straight, and he was out in the city every day, directing Ryder in the absorption of the neighboring New Jersey cities, while he himself cleaned out the Bronx and lower Westchester.
Jim looked up and caught Jack Holland’s eye. They grinned wryly at each other and then turned their attention back at Ted.
“There’s only one thing to do,” Berendtsen said, still not raising his voice. “No matter how fast they get set, down in Philadelphia, it’ll be two years at least before they come up this way. There’s no sign that Trenton’s anything but an independent organization yet.
“We need supplies. We need heavier weapons, more tools, more machinery. We need men who’re used to handling them. And we’ve got to nip Boston in the bud. We can’t stand to get caught between two forces.”
Holland stiffened in his chair. “You want to push up into New England now?”
Ted nodded. “We’ve got the men. They’re used to the idea of fighting aggressively, instead of just defending their personal property. They’ve got it through their heads that the best security lies in putting as much distance as possible between our frontier and their families. They’ve learned that a cooperative effort gets them more food and supplies than individual foraging.
“We’ll pick up more recruits as we go along. I don’t care what kind of set-up they’ve had up to now, ours is bigger. We can feed ’em and take care of their families better than anyone else.”
“That’s an awful lot of fighting,” Matt said.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Ted answered. “We’ll make the usual try at getting them to join us peacefully.”
Matt looked steadily at Gus Berendtsen’s son and said nothing, but Ted nodded slowly back, with a crooked smile on his face. “We’ll make the attempt, Matt.”
Jim looked at Holland, and Jack looked thoughtfully back. He was right, again. They’d have to make examples of the first few local organizations, but after that they’d be able to progress smoothly until they reached Boston. And, by then, their forces would have grown large enough to carry out the plan. Once they had New England to back them up, Philadelphia was no menace.
They both looked up and saw Matt’s eyes searching their faces. Jim saw Holland nod slowly, and then he nodded himself, because Ted was right.
Yes, Jim thought, he was right. Again. He had the answer, and there was no denying it.
“There’s going to be a lot of killing,” Jim said, but it was just for the record. What record, he didn’t know.
Berendtsen’s face softened, and for one moment Jim thought he had somehow managed to learn how to read minds. “I know,” he said gently, and it took a few seconds for Jim’s flash of irrationality to pass and for him to realize that Ted had been answering his spoken question.
* * *
“Well, what’d the great young white father come up with this time,” Bob asked him, his voice sarcastic.
Jim looked at his younger brother wearily. “Just a couple of ideas on what we’re going to do next.”
But the vagueness of the answer didn’t discourage Bob, and Jim realized that all he’d done was to offer him bait.
“Yeah? When’s he taking over?”
“For Sweet Willie’s sake, will you get off this kick and leave me alone!” Jim exploded.
“No,” Bob said, “I will not leave you alone.” The back of his own neck was red, but his eyes were snapping with some sort of perverse joy at having gotten under Jim’s skin. “You may not enjoy thinking, but I’m going to force your daily quota down your throat anyway. Berendtsen’s moving in on Dad as fast as he can, and you know it. He got his smell of power when he butchered his way through the West Side and he’s been aching for a chance to repeat the performance on a bigger scale. And you and Jack just sit there and let him push Dad around as much as he damn well likes!”
Jim sucked in a breath and looked steadily at Bob for a full minute before he trusted himself to speak. In the back of his mind, he admitted that he was a little afraid of these increasing verbal battles with his brother. Bob had read a lot of books, and he was constantly poking and prying around the city, camping in libraries for weeks at a time, or bringing the books home in his pack, carefully wrapped and handled more tenderly than his carbine. When Bob talked, words fit smoothly into words, building nets of step-by-step assertions that could snare a man in his own fumbling until he found himself running down into foolish silence while Bob just stood there and gibed at him with his eyes, cutting him with the slash of his grin.
“In the first place…” he began, forcing the words out against the barrier of Bob’s obvious patient waiting until he left an opening to be attacked through, “Ted’s brains are what gives him the right to sit in on meetings. He belongs there a hell of a lot more than I do, let me tell you! In the second place, Ted did not butcher his way through the West Side—he helped to take care of one small part of it. And I know damn well he didn’t enjoy himself, because I was with him—which you weren’t, sonny. And if he gets an idea that’s going to make life safer for all of us, we’re damn well going to follow it. Dad’s getting old and we might as well face it. He listens to Ted, and so does Jack Holland. Personally, if Ted wants to push north—”
He stopped and stared helplessly at Bob, whose eyes had widened and who was half-laughing at him for giving himself away.
“All right, so h
e does intend to lead a force toward Boston. So what? His reasons are damn good ones!” Jim blurted, trying to bolster his position.
“I’ll bet they are,” Bob said, and turned away as though he had won the argument conclusively, leaving Jim standing there fighting off the unfounded conviction that he really had.
“James Garvin, I’ll thank you to stop cursing at your brother,” his mother said angrily from the doorway.
“I was not…” Jim began, and then blew the breath out of his throat and shrugged hopelessly. “All right, Mom,” he said, and went past her into the apartment with an apologetic look that was strongly tinged with frustration. He hung up his rifle and went to his room, where he sat down on the bed and stared angrily at the wall until dinner time.
* * *
Ted and Mary were eating with them that night, and through the first part of the meal, Jim sat uncomfortably between his father and Bob, hoping the present silence would continue but knowing that this was extremely unlikely with Bob in the mood he was. Ted was eating quietly, and Mary, sitting beside him, was her usual controlled self.
Jim bit off a piece of cornbread viciously, drawing an amused side-glance from Bob, who, as usual, missed nothing going on around him and who was probably enjoying the situation considerably.
Finally his father pushed his plate awkwardly away and looked up. “Jim, I suppose you’ve told your mother and Bob about what we decided at the meeting today?”
Jim grimaced. “I didn’t get a chance to tell Mom. Bob’s got it all figured out for himself, of course.”
His father shot him a quick, surprised, yet understanding look which was gone immediately as he turned to look inquiringly at Bob. Jim noticed that Ted was still eating with even, wasteless motions, finishing the last of his supper, and not looking up.
“Well, what do you think, Bob?” Matt asked.
Bob raised an eyebrow and twitched his eyes to Ted before he looked back at his father. “Are you sure it’s all right for me to think while Big Chief’s here to do it for me?”