Alas, Babylon

by Pat Frank

  "Okay. Be careful. Don't stop for anybody on the way to town." Randy went upstairs, each step an effort. It was true, he thought, that women had more stamina than men.

  Randy decided not actually to take off his clothes and get into bed because once he got under the covers he would never get up. Instead, he took off his shoes and dropped down on the couch in the living room. He stared at the gunrack on the opposite wall. Until very recent years guns had been an important part of living on the Timucuan. Randy guessed they might become important again. He had quite an arsenal. There was the long, old-fashioned 30-40 Krag fitted with sporting sights; the carbine he had carried in Korea, dismantled, and smuggled home; two .22 rifles, one equipped with a scope; a twelve-gauge automatic, and a light, beautifully balanced twenty-gauge double-barreled shotgun. In the drawer of his bedside table was a .45 automatic and a .22 target pistol hung in a holster in his closet.

  Ammo. He had more than he would ever need for the big rifle, the carbine, and the shotguns. But he had only a couple of boxes of .22's, and he guessed that the .22's might be the most useful weapons he owned, if economic chaos lasted for a long time, a meat shortage developed, and it became necessary to hunt small game. He rose and went into the hallway and shouted down at the stairwell, "Helen!"

  "Yes?" She was at the front door.

  "If you get a chance drop in at Beck's Hardware and buy some twenty-two caliber long-rifle hollow points."

  "Just a second. I'll write it down on my list. Twenty-two long-rifle hollow points. How many?"

  "Ten boxes, if they have them."

  Helen said, "I'll try. Now, Randy, get some sleep."

  Back on the couch, he closed his eyes, thinking of guns, and hunting. In his father's youth, this section of Florida had been a hunter's paradise, with quail, dove, duck, and deer in plenty, and even black bear and a rare panther. Now the quail were scattered and often scarce. Three coveys roamed the grove, and the ham­mock behind the Henrys' place. Randy had not shot quail for twelve years. When visitors noticed his gun­rack and asked about quail shooting, he always laughed and said, "Those guns are to shoot people who try to shoot my quail." The quail were more than pets. They were friends, and wonderful to watch, parading across lawn and road in the early morning.

  Only the ducks were now truly plentiful in this area, and they were protected by Federal law. Once in a while he shot a rattlesnake in the grove, or a moccasin near the dock. And that was all he shot. Still, there were rabbits and squirrels, and so the .22 ammo might come in handy. A long time ago - he could not have been more than fourteen or fifteen - he remembered hunting deer with his father, and shooting his first deer with buckshot from the double-twenty. His first, and his last, for the deer had not died instantly, and had seemed small and piteous, twitching in the palmetto scrub, until his father had dispatched it with his pistol. He could still see it, and the round, bright red spots on the green fronds. He shivered, and he slept.

  Randy awoke in darkness. Graf was barking, and he heard voices downstairs. He turned on a light. It was nine-thirty. He had slept almost four hours. He felt re­freshed, and good for whatever might come through the night. He was putting on his shoes when the door opened and Helen came into his apartment, followed by Ben Franklin and Dan Gunn.

  "I was just going to wake you up," Helen said. "Dan is going in to look at Peyton."

  Dan's eyes were hollowed, and his face carved with fissues of exhaustion. Randy said, "Have you eaten any­thing today, Dan?"

  "I don't know. I don't think so."

  Helen said, "You'll eat, Doctor, right after you've seen Peyton. Do you want me to go in with you?"

  "You and Randy can both come in with me. But don't say anything. Let me do the talking."

  They went into the child's room. Randy flicked on the overhead light. "Not that one," Dan said. "I want a dim light at first." He turned on a lamp on the dressing table.

  Peyton's hands crept out from under the sheet and touched the bandages over her eyes. "Hello," she said, her voice small and frightened.

  "Hello, dear," Helen said. "Doctor Gunn is here to see you. You remember Doctor Gunn from last year, don't you?"

  "Oh, yes. Hello, Doctor."

  Dan said, "Peyton, I'm going to take the bandage oft your eyes. Don't be surprised if you don't see anything. There isn't much light in the room."

  Randy found he was holding his breath. Dan removed the bandage, saying, "Now, don't rub your eyes."

  Peyton tried to open her eyes. She said, "They're stuck. They feel all gooey."

  "Sure," Dan said. He moistened cotton in a borax mixture and wiped Peyton's eyes gently. "That better?" Peyton blinked. "Hey, I can see? well, sort of. Every­thing looks milky." Helen moved and Peyton said, "Isn't that you, Mother?"

  "Yes. That's me."

  "Your face looks like a balloon but I could tell it was you."

  Dan smiled at Randy and nodded. She was going to be all right.

  He rummaged in his bag and brought out a small kit, a bottle, and applicator, a tube. He said, "Peyton, you can stop worrying now. You're not going to be blind. In perhaps a week, you'll be able to see fine. But until then you've got to rest your eyes and we've got to treat them. This is going to sting a little."

  He held her eyelids open and, his huge hands sure and gentle, applied drops, and an ointment. "Butyn sulphate," he said. "This is really outside my line, but I remembered that butyn sulphate was what Air-Sea Res­cue used for rescued fliers. After floating around in a raft for two or three days, the glare would blind them just as Peyton was blinded. It fixed them up, and it ought to fix her up."

  Dan turned to Helen. "Did you see how I did it?"

  "I was watching."

  "I'll try to get out here at least once a day, but if I don't make it, you'll have to do it yourself."

  "I won't have any trouble. Peyton's quite brave."

  Peyton said, "Mommy, I'm not. I'm not brave at all. I'm scared all the time. Have you heard from Dad, yet? Do you think Dad's all right?"

  "I'm sure he's all right, dear," Helen said. "But we can't expect to hear right away. All the phones are out, and I suppose the telegraph too."

  "I'm hungry, Mother."

  Helen said, "I'll bring something right up."

  They turned off the light: Helen went downstairs. Dan Gunn came into Randy's rooms. He took off his wrinkled jacket and dropped it on a chair and said, "Now I can use a drink."

  Randy mixed a double bourbon. Dan drank half of it in a gulp and said, surprised, "Aren't you drinking, Randy?”

  "No. Don't feel like I want one."

  "That's the first good news I've heard all day. I've already treated two fellows who've drunk themselves in­sensible since morning. You could've been the third."

  Could I?"

  "Well, not quite. You react to crisis in the right way. You remember what Toynbee says? His theory of chal­lenge and response applies not only to nations, but to individuals. Some nations and some people melt in the heat of crisis and come apart like fat in the pan. Others meet the challenge and harden. I think you're going to harden."

  "I'm really not a very hard guy," Randy said, looking across the room at his guns and thinking, oddly, of the young buck he'd shot when a boy, and how he'd never been able to shoot a deer since that day. To change the subject he said, "You must've had a pretty harrowing day."

  Dan drank the second half of his bourbon and water. "I have had such a day as I didn't think it was possible to have. Seven cardiacs are dead and a couple more will go before morning. Three miscarriages and one of the women died. I don't know what killed her. I'd put down 'fright' on the death certificate if I had time to make out death certificates. Three suicides - one of them was Ed­gar Quisenberry."

  Randy said, "Edgar - why?"

  Dan frowned. "Hard to say. He still had as much as anybody else, or more. He wasn't organically ill. I'll re­fer to Toynbee again. Inability to cope with a sudden change in the environment. He swam in a sea of money, and w
hen money was transmuted back into paper he was left gasping and confused, and he died. You've read the history of the 'twenty-nine crash, haven't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Dozens of people killed themselves for the same reason. They created and lived in an environment of paper profits, and when paper returned to paper they had to kill themselves, not realizing that their environ­ment was unnatural and artificial. But it wasn't the adults that got me down, Randy, it was the babies. Give me another drink, a small one."

  Randy poured another.

  "Eight babies today, three of them preemies. I've got the preemies in San Marco hospital. I don't know whether they'll make it or not. The hospital's a mess. Cots end to end on every corridor. A good many of them are accident cases, a few gunshot wounds. And all this, mind you, with only three casualties caused di­rectly by the war - three cases of radiation poisoning."

  "Radiation?" Randy said. "Around here?" Suddenly the word had a new and immediate connotation. It was now a sinister word of lingering death, like cancer.

  "No. Refugees from Tallahassee. They drove through pretty heavy fallout, I guess. We estimate at the hospital that they received fifty to a hundred roentgens. Any­way, a pretty hefty dose, but not fatal."

  "Are we getting any radiation, do you think?"

  Dan considered. "Some, undoubtedly. But I don't think a dangerous dose. There isn't a Geiger in town, but there is a dosimeter in the San Marco hospital and I guess we're getting what San Marco gets. Most of the radioactive particles decay pretty fast, you know. Not cesium or strontium 90 or cobalt or carbon 14. Those will always be with us."

  "Lucky east wind," Randy said, and then was sur­prised at his words. The danger of radiation was still there, and might increase. Long before this day scien­tists had been worried about tests of nuclear weapons, even when conducted in uninhabited areas under rigid controls. Now the danger obviously was infinitely greater, but since there were other and more immediate dangers - dangers that you could see, feel, and hear - ­radiation had become secondary. He wasn't thinking of its effect upon future generations. He was concerned with the present. He wasn't exercised over the fallout blanketing Tallahassee from the attack on Jacksonville. He was worried about Fort Repose. He suspected that this was a necessary mental adjustment to aid self-preservation. The exhausted swimmer, struggling to reach shore, isn't worried about starving to death after­wards.

  When Helen called, they sat down to a dinner table that, under the circumstances, seemed incongruous. The meal was only soup, salad, and sandwiches, but Helen had laid the table as meticulously as if Dan Gunn had agreed to stay for a late supper on an ordinary evening. When Ben Franklin sat down Helen said, "Did you wash your hands?"

  "No, ma'am."

  "Well, do so."

  And Ben disappeared and returned with his hands washed and hair combed. They listened to the radio as they ate, hearing only the local broadcasts from San Marco at two-minute intervals. Their ears had become dulled to the repetitive, unimportant announcements and warnings; as those who live on the seashore fail to hear the sea. But any fresh news, or break in the rou­tine, instantly alerted and silenced them.

  Several times they heard a brief bulletin: "County Civil Defense authorities warn everyone not to drink fresh milk which may have been exposed to fallout. Canned milk, or milk delivered this morning prior to the attack, can be presumed safe."

  Dan Gunn explained that this precaution was proba­bly a little premature. It was designed primarily for the protection of children. Strontium 90, probably the most dangerous of all fallout materials, collected in calcium. It caused bone cancer and leukemia. "In a week or so it can be a real hazard," he said. "It can't be a hazard yet, because the cows haven't had time to ingest strontium 90 in their fodder. Still, the quicker these dangers are broadcast, the more people will be aware of them."

  Helen asked, "What happens to babies?"

  "Evaporated or condensed canned milk is the answer - while it lasts. After that, it's mother's milk."

  "That will be old-fashioned, won't it?"

  Dan nodded and smiled. "But the mothers will have to be careful of what they eat." He looked down at the lettuce. "For instance, no greens, or lettuce, if your gar­den has received fallout. Trouble is, you won't know, really, whether your ground, or your food, is safe or not. Not without a Geiger counter. We'll all have to live as best we can, from day to day."

  Ben Franklin looked up at the ceiling, listening. He said, "Listen!"

  The others heard it, very faintly.

  "A jet," Ben said. "A fighter, I think."

  The sound faded away. Randy discovered he had been holding his breath. He said, "I guess it's: still going on."

  Helen laid her salad fork on the plate. She had eaten very little. She said, "I have to know what's happen­ing - I just have to. Can't we go over to see your retired admiral tonight, Randy?"

  "Sure, we can see him. But what about Peyton? We can't leave her alone."

  Helen looked at Ben Franklin and Ben said, "Is this what Im going to be - a professional baby-sitter?"

  Dan Gunn rose. "I've got to get back to town. I've got to check in at the clinic and then I've got to get some sleep."

  "Why don't you stay here for the night, Dan?" Randy said.

  "I can't. They're expecting me at the clinic. And Randy, I brought the emergency kit for you." He turned to Helen. "It was a wonderful supper. Thanks. I was so hungry I was weak. I didn't realize it."

  Randy walked him to his car. Dan said, "That poor girl."

  "Peyton?"

  "No. Helen. Uncertainty is the worst. She'd be better off if she knew Mark was dead. See you tomorrow, Randy"

  .

  "Yes. Tomorrow." He walked back to the house and paused on the porch to look at the thermometer and barometer. The barometer was steady, very high. Tem­perature was down to fifty-five. It would get colder to­night. It might go to forty before morning. From across the river, far off, he heard a string of shots. In this still­ness, at night, and across water, the sound of shots car­ried for miles. He could not tell from whence the sound came, or guess why, but the shots reminded him of a nervous sentry on post cutting loose with his carbine. It sounded like a carbine, or an automatic pistol.

  He walked into the house, head down, and went up to his bedroom and pulled on a sweater. He called Ben Franklin to the living room and Ben came in, his mother following. "Ben," Randy said, "ever shoot a pistol?"

  "Only once, on the range at Offutt."

  "What about a rifle?"

  "I've shot a twenty-two. I'm pretty good with a twenty-two."

  "Okay," Randy said, "I'm going to give you what you're good at."

  He walked to the gunrack. The Mossberg was fitted with a sixpower scope, and a scope was not good for snap shooting, and hard to use at night. He took down the Remington pump, a weapon with open sights, a pres­ent from his father on his thirteenth birthday. He handed it to Ben.

  The boy took it, pleased, worked the action and peered into the chamber.

  "It's not loaded now," Randy said, "but from now on every gun in this house is going to be loaded. I hope we never have to use them but if we do there probably won't be any time to load up."

  Helen said, "I forgot to tell you, Randy. I couldn't get ten boxes of the ammunition you wanted but I did get three. They're somewhere in the kitchen. I'll find them later."

  "Thanks," Randy said. He took a package of car­tridges out of his ammunition case and handed it to Ben. "You load up your gun, Ben," he said. "It's yours now. Never point it at a man unless you intend to shoot him, and never shoot unless you mean to kill. You un­derstand that?"

  Ben's eyes were round and his face sober. "Yes, sir."

  "Okay, Ben. You can baby-sit now. We should be back in an hour."

  When Rear Admiral Hazzard retired he embarked upon what he liked to call "my second life." He and his wife had prepared carefully for retirement. They had wanted an orange grove to supplement his pension and a body
of water upon which he could look and in which he could fish. While still a four-striper he had located this spot on the Timucuan, and bought it for a surpris­ingly reasonable sum. The real estate agent had care­fully explained that the low price included "niggers for neighbors," meaning the Henrys. At the same time the agent had grumbled at the Braggs, who had allowed the Henrys to buy water-front property in the first place, thereby lowering values along the entire river, or so he said.

  The Hazzards first had planted a grove. A few years later they built a comfortable six-room rambler and started landscaping the grounds. Thereafter they lived in the house one month each year, when Sam took his annual leave, trying it and wearing it until it fitted per­fectiy.

  On his sixty-second birthday Sam Hazzard retired, to the relief of a number of his fellow admirals. There were rivalries within, as well as between, the armed services. In the Navy, the rivalry had once been be­tween the battleship and carrier admirals. When it be­came a rivalry between atomic subs and super-carriers, Hazzard had outspokenly favored the submarines. Since he once had commanded a carrier task force, and never had been a submariner, the carrier admirals regarded his stand as just short of treason. Worse, for years he had claimed that Russia's most dangerous threat was the terrible combination of submarines equipped with missiles armed with nuclear warheads. Such a theory, if unchallenged, would force the Navy to spend a greater part of its energy and money on anti-submarine war­fare. Since this, per se, was defense, and since the Navy's whole tradition was to take the offensive, Hazzard spent his final years of duty conning a desk.

  Two days after his retirement his wife died, so she never really lived in the house on the Timucuan, and she never physically shared his second life. Yet often she seemed close, when he trimmed a shrub she had planted, or when in the evenings he sat alone on the patio, and reached to touch the arm of the chair at his side.

  The Admiral discovered there were not enough hours in the day to do all the things that were necessary, and that he wanted to do. There was the citrus, the grounds, experiments with exotic varieties of bananas and pa­paya, discreet essays to be written for the United States Naval Institute Proceedings. and not-so-discreet articles for magazines of general circulation. Sam Hazzard found that the Henrys were extraordinarily convenient neighbors. Malachai tended the grounds and helped de­sign and build the dock. Two-Tone, when in the mood - broke and sober - worked in the grove. The Henry women cleaned, and did his laundry. Preacher Henry was the Admiral's private fishing guide, which meant that the Admiral consistently caught more and bigger bass than anyone on the Timucuan, and possibly in all of Central Florida.