“And so now—?”
“We’re over the worst. Except for outlaws, we have the population fairly well controlled. The civilized people are fairly well fed, with some kind of housing. We have machine shops, small factories, and the like going, enough to keep our transportation and other mechanism ‘level.’ Presently we’ll be able to expand these, begin actually increasing what we have. In another five years or so, I guess, we’ll be integrated enough to drop martial law and hold a general election. A big job ahead, but a good one.”
The car halted to let a cow lumber over the road, a calf trotting at her heels. She was gaunt and shaggy, and skittered nervously from the vehicle into the brush.
“Wild,” explained Robinson. “Most of the real wild life was killed off for food in the last two years, but a lot of farm animals escaped when their owners died or fled, and have run free ever since. They—” He noticed Drummond’s fixed gaze. The pilot was looking at the calf. Its legs were half the normal length.
“Mutant,” said the general. “You find a lot such animals. Radiation from bombed or dusted areas. There are even a lot of human abnormal births.” He scowled, worry clouding his eyes. “In fact, that’s just about our worst problem. It—”
The car came out of the woods onto the shore of a small lake. It was a peaceful scene, the quiet waters like molten gold in the slanting sunlight, trees ringing the circumference and all about them the mountains. Under one huge pine stood a cottage, a woman on the porch.
It was like one summer with Barbara—Drummond cursed under his breath and followed Robinson toward the little building. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, it could never be. Not ever again. There were soldiers guarding this place from chance marauders, and— There was an odd-looking flower at his foot. A daisy, but huge and red and irregularly formed.
A squirrel chittered from a tree. Drummond saw that its face was so blunt as to be almost human.
Then he was on the porch, and Robinson was introducing him to “my wife Elaine.” She was a nice-looking young woman with eyes that were sympathetic on Drummond’s exhausted face. The aviator tried not to notice that she was pregnant.
He was led inside, and reveled in a hot bath. Afterward there was supper, but he was numb with sleep by then, and hardly noticed it when Robinson put him to bed.
Reaction set in, and for a week or so Drummond went about in a haze, not much good to himself or anyone else. But it was surprising what plenty of food and sleep could do, and one evening Robinson came home to find him scribbling on sheets of paper,
“Arranging my notes and so on,” he explained. “I'll write out the complete report in a month, I guess.”
“Good. But no hurry.” Robinson settled tiredly into an armchair. “The rest of the world will keep. I’d rather you’d just work at this off and on, and join my staff for your main job.”
“O.K. Only what’ll I do?”
“Everything. Specialization is gone; too few surviving specialists and equipment. I think your chief task will be to head the census bureau.”
“Eh?”
Robinson grinned lopsldedly. “You’ll be the census bureau, except for what few assistants I can spare you.” He leaned forward, said earnestly: “And it’s one of the most important jobs there is. You’ll do for this country what you did for central Eurasia, only in much greater detail. Drummond, we have to know.”
He took a map from a desk drawer and spread it out. “Look, here’s the United States. I’ve marked regions known to be uninhabitable in red.” His fingers traced out the ugly splotches. “Too many of ’em, and doubtless there are others we haven’t found yet. Now, the blue X’s are army posts.” They were sparsely scattered over the land, near the centers of population groupings. “Not enough of those. It’s all we can do to control the more or less well-off, orderly people. Bandits, enemy troops, homeless refugees — they’re still running wild, skulking in the backwoods and barrens, and raiding whenever they can. And they spread ‘the plague. We won’t really have it licked till everybody’s settled down, and that’d be hard to enforce. Drummond, we don’t even have enough soldiers to start a feudal system for protection. The plague spread like a prairie fire in those concentrations of men.
“We have to know. We have to know how many people survived— half the population, a third, a quarter, whatever it is. We have to know where they are, and how they’re fixed for supplies, so we can start up an equitable distribution system. We have to find all the small-town shops and labs and libraries still standing, and rescue their priceless contents before looters or the weather beat us to it. We have to locate doctors and engineers and other professional men, and put them to work rebuilding. We have to find the outlaws and round them up. We— I could go on forever. Once we have all that information, we can set up a master plan for redistributing population, agriculture, industry, and the rest most efficiently, for getting the country back under civil authority and police, for opening regular transportation and communication channels—for getting the nation back on its feet.”
“I see,” nodded Drummond. “Hitherto, just surviving and hanging on to what was left has taken precedence. Now you’re in a position to start expanding, if you know where and how much to expand.”
“Exactly.” Robinson rolled a cigarette, grimacing. “Not much tobacco left. What I have is perfectly foul. Lord, that war was crazy!”
“All wars are,” said Drummond dispassionately, “but technology advanced to the point of giving us a knife to cut our throats with. Before that, we were just beating our heads against the wall. Robinson, we can’t go back to the old ways. We’ve got to start on a new track—a track of sanity.”
“Yes. And that brings up—” The other man looked toward the kitchen door. They could hear the cheerful rattle of dishes there, and smell mouth-watering cooking odors. He lowered his voice. “I might as well tell you this now, but don’t let Elaine know. She . . . she shouldn’t be worried. Drummond, did you see our horses?”
“The other day, yes. The colts—”
“Uh-huh. There’ve been five colts born of eleven mares in the last year. Two of them were so deformed they died in a week, another in a few months. One of the two left has cloven hoofs and almost no teeth. The last one looks normal—so far. One out of eleven, Drummond.”
“Were those horses near a radioactive area?”
“They must have been. They were rounded up wherever found and brought here. The stallion was caught near the site of Portland, I know. But if he were the only one with mutated genes, it would hardly show in the first generation, would it? I understand nearly all mutationsare Mendelian recessives. Even if there were one dominant, it would show in all the colts, but none of these looked alike.”
“Hm-m-m—I don’t know much about genetics, but I do know hard radiation, or rather the secondary charged particles it produces, will cause mutation. Only mutants are rare, and tend to fall into certain patterns—”
“Were rare!” Suddenly Robinson was grim, something coldly frightened in his eyes. “Haven’t you noticed the animals and plants? They’re fewer than formerly, and . . . well, I’ve not kept count, but at least half those seen or killed have something wrong, internally or externally.”
Drummond drew heavily on his pipe. He needed something to hang onto, in a new storm of insanity. Very quietly, he said:
“In my college biology course, they told me the vast majority of mutations are unfavorable. More ways of not doing something than of doing it. Radiation might sterilize an animal, or might produce several degrees of genetic change. You could have a mutation so violently lethal the possessor never gets born, or soon dies. You could have all kinds of more or less handicapping factors, or just random changes not making much difference one way or the other. Or in a few rare cases you might get something actually favorable, but you couldn’t really say the possessor is a true member of the species. And favorable mutations themselves usually involve a price in the partial or total loss of some other function.
Drummond’s throat was dry. “There’ve been a lot of them?” he whispered.
“Yes. But we don’t know how many or where. We only know about those people who live near an army post, or have some other fairly regular intercourse with us, and they’re .only a few thousand all told. Among them, the birth rate has gone down to about half the prewar ratio. And over half the births they do have are abnormal.”
“Over half—”
“Yeah. Of course, the violently different ones soon die, or are put in an institution we’ve set up in the Alleghenies. But what can we do with viable forms, if their parents still love them? A kid with deformed or missing or abortive organs, twisted internal structure, a tail, or something even worse . . . well, it'll have a tough time in life, but it can generally survive. And perpetuate itself—”
“And a normal-looking one might have some unnoticeable quirk, or a characteristic that won’t show up for years. Or even a normal one might be carrying recessive’s, and pass them on— God!” The exclamation was half blasphemy, half prayer. “But how’d it happen? People weren’t all near atom hit areas.”
“Maybe not, though a lot of survivors escaped from the outskirts. But there was that first year, with everybody on the move. One could pass near enough to a blasted region to be affected, without knowing it. And that damnable radiodust, blowing on the wind. It’s got a long half-life. It'll be active for decades. Then, as in any collapsing culture, promiscuity was common. Still is. Oh, it’d spread itself, all right.”
“I still don’t see why it spread itself so much. Even here—”
“Well, I don’t know why it shows up here. I suppose a lot of the local flora and fauna came in from elsewhere. This place is safe. The nearest dusted region is three hundred miles off, with mountains between. There must be many such islands of comparatively normal conditions. We have to find them too. But elsewhere—”
“Soup’s on,” announced Elaine, and went from the kitchen to the dining room with a loaded tray.
The men rose. Grayly, Drummond looked at Robinson and said tonelessly: “O.K. I’ll get your information for you. We'll map mutation areas and safe areas, we’ll check on our population and resources, we’ll eventually get all the facts you want. But — what are you going to do then?”
“I wish I knew,” said Robinson haggardly. “I wish I knew.”
Winter lay heavily on the north, a vast gray sky seeming frozen solid over the rolling white plains. The last three winters had come early and stayed long. Dust, colloidal dust of the bombs, suspended in the atmosphere and cutting down the solar constant by a deadly percent or two. There had even been a few earthquakes, set off in geologically unstable parts of the world by bombs planted right. Half California had been ruined when a sabotage bomb started the San Andreas Fault on a major slip. And that kicked up still more dust.
Fimbulwinter, thought Drummond bleakly. The doom of the prophecy. But no, we’re survivinng. Though maybe not as men—
Most people had gone south, and there overcrowding had made starvation and disease and internecine struggle the normal aspects of life. Those who’d stuck it out up here, and had luck with their pest-ridden crops, were better off.
Drummond's jet slid above the cratered black ruin of the Twin Cities. There was still enough radioactivity to melt the snow, and the pit was like a skull’s empty eye socket. The man sighed, but he was becoming calloused to the sight of death. There was so much of it. Only the struggling agony of life mattered any more.
He strained through the sinister twilight, swooping low over the unending fields. Burned-out hulks of farmhouses, bones of ghost towns, sere deadness of dusted land — but he’d heard travelers speak of a fairly powerful community up near the Canadian border, and it was up to him to find it.
A lot of things had been up to him in the last six months. He’d had to work out a means of search, and organize his few, overworked assistants into an efficient staff, and go out on the long hunt.
They hadn’t covered the country. That was impossible. Their few planes had gone to areas chosen more or less at random, trying to get a cross section of conditions. They’d penetrated wildernesses of hill and plain and forest, establishing contact with scattered, still demoralized out-dwellers. On the whole, it was more laborious than anything else. Most were pathetically glad to see any symbol of law and order and the paradisical-seeming “old days.” Now and then there was danger and trouble, when they encountered wary or sullen or outright hostile groups suspiefous of a government they associated with disaster, and once there had even been a pitched battle with roving outlaws. But the work had gone ahead, and now the preliminaries were about over.
Preliminaries— It was a bigger job to find out exactly how matters stood than the entire country was capable of undertaking right now. But Drummond had enough facts for reliable extrapolation. He and his staff had collected most of the essential data and begun correlating it. By questioning, by observation, by seeking and finding, by any means that came to hand they’d filled their notebooks. And in the sketchy outlines of a Chinese drawing, and with the same stark realism, the truth was there.
Just this one more place, and I'll go home, thought Drummond for the —thousandth ?—time. His brain was getting into a rut, treading the same terrible circle and finding no way out. Robinson won't like what I tell him, but there it is. And darkly, slowly: Barbara, maybe it was best you and the kids went as you did. Quickly, cleanly, not even knowing it. This isn’t much of a world. It’ll never be our world again.
He saw the place he sought, a huddle of buildings near the frozen shores of the Lake of the Woods, and his jet murmured toward the white ground. The stories he’d heard of this town weren’t overly encouraging. but he supposed he’d get out all right. The others had his data anyway, so it didn’t matter.
By the time he’d landed in the clearing just outside the village, using the jet's skis, most of the inhabitants were there waiting. In the gathering dusk they were a ragged and wild-looking bunch, clumsily dressed in whatever scraps of cloth and leather they had. The bearded, hard-eyed men were armed with clubs and knives and a few guns. As Drumond got out, he was careful to keep his hands away from his own automatics.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m friendly.”
“Y’ better be,” growled the big leader. “Who are you, where from, an’ why ?”
“First,” lied Drummond smoothly, “I want to tell you I have another man with a plane who knows where I am. If I’m not back in a certain time, he’ll come with bombs. But we don’t intend any harm or interference. This is just a sort of social call. I’m Hugh Drummond of the United States Army.”
They digested that slowly. Clearly, they weren’t friendly to the government, but they stood in too much awe of aircraft and armament to be openly hostile. The leader spat. “How long you staying?”
“Just overnight, if you’ll put me up. I’ll pay for it.” He held up a small pouch. “Tobacco.”
Their eyes gleamed, and the leader said, “You’ll stay with me. Come on.”
Drummond gave him the bribe and went with the group. He didn’t like to spend such priceless luxuries thus freely, but the job was more important. And the boss seemed thawed a little by the fragrant brown flakes. He was sniffing them greedily.
“Been smoking bark an’ grass,” he confided. “Terrible.”
“Worse than that,” agreed Drummond. He turned up his jacket collar and shivered. The wind starting to blow was bitterly cold.
“Just what y’ here for?”demanded someone else.
“Well, just to see how things stand. We’ve got the government started again, and are patching things up. But we have to know where folks are,
what they need, and so on.”
“Don’t want nothing t’ do with the gov’ment,” muttered a woman. “They brung all this on us.”
“Oh, come now. We didn’t ask to be attacked.” Mentally, Drummond crossed his fingers. He neither knew nor cared who was to blame. Both sides, letting mutual fear and friction mount to hysteria— In fact, he wasn’t sure the United States hadn’t sent out the first rockets, on orders of some panicky or aggressive officials. Nobody was alive who admitted knowing.
“It's the jedgment o’ God, for the sins o’ our leaders,” persisted the woman. “The plague, the fire-death, all that, ain’t it foretold in the Bible? Ain’t we living in the last days o’ the world ?”
“Maybe.” Drummond was gald to stop before a long, low cabin. Religious argument was touchy at best, and with a lot of people nowadays it was dynamite.
They entered the rudely furnished but fairly comfortable structure. A good many crowded in with them. For all their suspicion, they were curious, and an outsider in an aircraft was a blue-moon event these days.
Drummond’s eyes flickered unobtrusively about the room, noticing details. Three women — that meant a return to concubinage. Only to be expected in a day of few men and strong-arm rule. Ornaments and utensils, tools and weapons of good quality—yes, that confirmed the stories. This wasn’t exactly a bandit town, but it had waylaid travelers and raided other places when times were hard, and built up a sort of dominance of the surrounding country. That, too, was common.
. There was a dog on. the floor nursing a litter. Only three pups, and one of those was bald, one lacked ears, and one had more toes than it should. Among the wide-eyed children present, there were several two years old or less, and with almost no obvious exceptions, they were also different.
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