Alas, Babylon

by Pat Frank

  "You know, I enjoyed hearing that," Lib said. "It gave me a nice feeling. Big Rock has a solid Midwest accent."

  Sam Hazzard moved a candle so that better light fell on his dials. "Big Rock won't be back again tonight," he said. "I've never heard him more than once a night. He makes his call and that's it. I'll try the thirty-one meter band again."

  In the candlelight Hazzard's hands shone with the silky, translucent patina of age and yet they were re­markably deft. They discovered a fascinating squeal. His fingers worked the band-spreader delicately as a master cracksman violating a safe and he pressed his face for­ward as if he expected to hear tumblers click. Very gradually, a faint voice replaced the squeal. He turned up the power. They heard, in English with an indefinite accent:

  "Continuing the news to North America-

  "The representative of the Argentine has informed the South American Federation that two ships with wheat have sailed for Nice, in southern France, responding to radio appeals from that city. The appeals from Nice say that sev­eral hundred thousand refugees are camped in makeshift shelter on the Cote d'Azure. Many are starving. The casino at Monaco and the Prince's palace have been converted into hospitals.

  "In a Spanish-language broadcast heard here today, Ra­dio Tokyo announced that the Big Three meeting in New Delhi has approved preliminary plans for flying desperately needed vaccines and antitoxins to uncontaminated cities in Europe, North America, and Australia."

  "Big Three!" Randy said. "Who's the Big Three?"

  "Sh-h!" said the Admiral. "Maybe we'll find out."

  The announcer continued:

  "China, where 'Save Asia First' sentiment is strong, urged that first priority for vaccine aerial shipments go to the Soviet Union's maritime provinces, where typhus is re­ported. India and Japan felt that the smallpox epidemic on the West Coast of the United States, Canada, and in Mex­ico should receive equal priority. The universal shortage of aviation gasoline will make any quick aid difficult, how­ever . . ."

  The squeal insinuated itself into the voice and sub­dued it. Hazzard caressed the band-spreader. "The atmospherics have been crazy ever since The Day." Abruptly he asked Randy: "Do you believe it?"

  "It's weird," Randy said. "Maybe its a Soviet bloc propaganda station pretending to be South American, set up to confuse us and start rumors. I'll admit I'm confused. I thought the Chinese were in it, on the other side."

  "The Chinese never liked Russia's preoccupation with the Med," Hazzard said. "Maybe they opted out, which would be smart of them. It could be simpler. If they didn't have nuclear capability we wouldn't bother hitting them on The Day, and without nuclear weapons they wouldn't dare stick their noses into a real war. If that was it, they were lucky."

  "I noticed that station quoted Tokyo? How is it you didn't hear Tokyo?"

  "I've never been able to pick up any Asiatic stations. I used to get Europe fine - London, Moscow, Bonn, Berne. Africa, too, especially the Voice of America transmitter in the Tangier. Not any more. Not since The Day."

  The signal cleared. They heard:

  . . but as yet the Big Three have been unable to re­open communications with Dmitri Torgatz. According to Radio Tokyo, Torgatz headed the Soviet government while the Soviet Union's capital was in Ulan Bator in Outer Mongolia. The medium-wave station operating from Ulan Bator is no longer heard."

  "That doesn't sound like Soviet propaganda to me," Randy said. "Who is Dmitri Torgatz?"

  The Admiral glanced up at a shelf of reference works. He selected a slender book, Directory of Com­munist Leaders, found the name, and read: "Torgatz, Dmitri; born Leningrad 1903? Married, wife's name unlisted; children unlisted; Director Leningrad Agitprop 1946-49; Candidate member Presidium 1950-53; Di­rector waterworks, Naryan Mar, Siberia, since fall of Malenkov."

  "Looks like they had a shakeup," Randy said. "Looks like they had to reach way down and find a minor league bureaucrat."

  "Yes. It's surprising that Torgatz should be running Russia," the Admiral said, "until you consider that a female, last on the list of Cabinet members, is running the United States."

  Randy could see that Lib wasn't listening. She was staring at the tassel of a sword resting on pegs behind his head, her lips parted, eyes unblinking. Her thoughts, he had discovered, frequently raced ahead of his or sped down dark and fascinating byways. When she con­centrated thus she left the party. She murmured, "Smallpox."

  Not understanding that Lib, mentally, was no longer in the room with them, Sam Hazzard inquired, "What about smallpox?"

  "Oh!" Lib shook her head. "I think of smallpox as something out of the Middle Ages, like the Black Plague. It's true that every so often it cropped up, but we always slapped it down again. What happens now without vaccine? What about diphtheria and yellow fe­ver? Will they start up again? Without penicillin and DDT, where are we? All good things came to us auto­matically. We were born with Silver spoons in our mouths and electric dishwashers to keep them sanitary and clean. We relaxed, didn't we? What happened to us, Admiral?"

  Sam Hazzard disconnected the radio's batteries and pulled his chair around to face them. "I've been trying to find the answer." He nodded at his typewritier and the books massed on his desk. "I've been trying to put it down in black and white and pass it along. Up to now, no bottom. All I've found out was where I myself - and my fellow professionals - failed. I'll explain."

  He opened a drawer and drew out a folder. "I called this 'A Footnote to History.' You see, I was in the Pen­tagon when we were having the big hassles on roles and missions and it occurred to me that I might be one of the few still alive who knew the inside of what went on and how the decisions were reached and I thought that future historians might be interested. So I set it all down factually. I set down all the arguments between the big carrier admirals and the atomic seaplane admirals and the ICBM generals and pentomic division generals and heavy bomber generals and manned missile generals. I told how we finally achieved what we thought was a balanced establishment.

  "When I finished I read it over and realized it was a farce."

  He tossed the manuscript on the desk as if he were discarding unwanted fourth class mail.

  "You see, I confused the tactical with the strategic. I think we all did. The truth is this. Once both sides had maximum capability in hydrogen weapons and efficient means of delivering them there was no sane alternative to peace.

  "Every maxim of war was archaic. The rules of Clause­witz, Mahan, all of them were obsolete as the Code Duello. War was no longer an instrument of national policy, only an instrument for national suicide. War it­self was obsolete. So my 'Footnote' deals with tactical palavers of no real importance. We might as well have been playing on the rug with lead soldiers."

  The Admiral rose and unkinked his back. "I think most of us sensed this truth, but we could not accept it. You see, no matter how well we understood the truth it was necessary that the Kremlin understand it too. It takes two to make a peace but only one to make a war. So all we could do, while vowing not to strike first, was line up our lead soldiers."

  "That was all you could do?" Lib asked.

  "All. The answer was not in the Pentagon, or even in the White House. I'm looking elsewhere. One place, here." He tapped Gibbon. "There are odd similarities between the end of the Pax Romana and the end of the Pax Americana which inherited Pax Britannica. For in­stance, the prices paid for high office. When it became common to spend a million dollars to elect senators from moderately populous states, I think that should have been a warning to us. For instance, free pap for the masses. Bread and circuses. Roman spectacles and our spectaculars. Largesse from the conquering procon­suls and television giveways from the successful lipstick king. To understand the present you must know the past, yet it is only part of the answer and I will never discover it all. I have not the years."

  Randy saw that the Admiral was tired. "I guess we'd better get back," he said. "Thanks for an entertaining evening."

  "Next time you come ove
r," Hazzard said, "I want you to look at my invention."

  "Are you inventing something too? Everybody's in­venting something."

  "Yes. It's called a sailboat. It is a means of propul­sion that replaces the gasoline kicker. I sacrificed my flagpole and patio awning to make it. The cutting and sewing was done by Florence Wechek and Missouri and Hannah Henry. I can now recommend them as experi­enced sailmakers."

  "Thanks, Sam." Randy grinned. "That's a wonderful invention and will become popular. I know I'm going to get one right away, and I will use your firm of sailmak­ers."

  They walked to the path along the river bank. Swing­ing at its buoy Randy saw the Admiral's compact little cruiser with covered foredeck, useless kicker removed, a slender mast arcing its tip at a multitude of stars. There were many sailboats on Florida's lakes; but Randy had seen very few in the upper reaches of the St. Johns, or on the Timucuan.

  "I love the Admiral," Lib said. "I worry about him. I wonder whether he gets enough to eat."

  "The Henrys see that he eats. And Missouri keeps his place neat. The Henrys love him too."

  "As long as we have men like that I can't believe we're so decadent. We won't go like Rome, will we?"

  He didn't answer. He swung her around to face him and circled her waist with his hands. His fingers almost met, she was so slim. He said, "I love you. I worry about you. I wonder whether I tell you enough how I love you and want you and need you and how I am diminished and afraid when you are not with me and how I am multiplied when you are here."

  His arms went around her and he felt her body arch to him, molding itself against him. "There never seems to be enough time," he said, "but tonight there is time. When we get home."

  She said, "Yes, Randy." They walked on, his arm around her waist. "This is a bad time for love," she said. "Oh, I don't mean tonight is a bad time, I mean the times. When you love someone, that should be what you think of most, the first thing when you wake in the morning and the last thing before you sleep at night. Before The Day that's how I thought of you. Did you know that? First in the morning, last at night."

  Randy knew, without her saying it, that it must be the same for her as it was for him. At day's end a man was exhausted - physically, mentally, emotionally. Each sun heralded a new crisis and each night he bedded with old, relentless fears. He awoke thinking of food and fell onto his couch at night still hungry, his head whirling with problems unsolved and dangers unparried. The Germans, in their years of methodical madness, had dis­covered in their concentration camps that when a man's diet fell below fifteen hundred calories his desire and capacity for all emotions dwindled. Randy guessed that he managed to consume almost fifteen hundred calories each day in fish and fruit alone. His vigor was being expended in survival, he decided. That, and worry for the lives dependent upon him. Even now, he could not exclude worry for Dan Gunn from his mind.

  The hodgepodge outlines of the Henry place loomed out of the darkness above them. They were within fifty yards of the barn and Ben Franklin was somewhere in that shadow, shotgun over his knees, enjoined to si­lence, alert to shoot anything that moved; and they were moving, silhouetted against the star-silvered river. He stopped and held Lib fast. "Ben!" he called. "Ben Franklin! Do not answer. Do not answer. This is Randy. We're on our way home."

  They walked on.

  "You know, you sounded just like that radio call on the Air Force frequency," Lib said.

  "I did sound like that, didn't I?" He smiled in the darkness, snapped his fingers, and said, "I think I know now what was going on. It wasn't the way Sam thought. It was just the other way around. Big Rock was the plane, and Sky Queen the base. Big Rock had been somewhere and was coming home and was telling Sky Queen not to shoot, just like I told Ben Franklin."

  "Perhaps you're right. Not that it matters to us. I've heard them up there on still nights, but they never come low enough to see. The Admiral hears them talk on the radio but they never have a word for us. Maybe they've forgotten us. Maybe they've forgotten all the contami­nated zones. We're unclean. It makes me feel lonely and, well, unwanted. Isn't that silly? Does it make you feel like that?"

  "They'll come back," he said. "They have to. We're still apart of the United States, aren't we?"

  They came to the path that led though their grove from house to dock. "Let's go out on the dock," Lib said. "I like it out there. No sound, not even the crick­ets. Just the river whispering around the pilings."

  "All right."

  They turned left instead of right. As their feet touched the planking the ship's bell spoke. It clanged three times rapidly, then twice more. It kept on ringing. "Oh, damn it to hell!" Randy grabbed her hand and they started the run for the house, an uphill quarter mile in sand and darkness. After a hundred yards she released his hand and fell behind.

  By the time he reached the back steps Randy couldn't climb them. He was wobbling and his knees had jellied, but before The Day he could not have run the distance at all. He paused, sobbing, and waited for Lib. The Model-A wasn't in the driveway or the garage. He concluded that Dan hadn't returned and something frightful had happened to Helen, Peyton, or Bill McGovern.

  He was wrong. It had happened to Dan. Dan was in the dining room, a ruined hulk of man overflowing the captain's chair, arms hanging loose, legs outstretched, shirt blood-soaked, beard blood-matted. Where his right eye should have been, bulged a blue-black lump large as half an apple. His nose was twisted and enlarged, his left eye only a slit in swollen, discolored flesh. He's wrecked the car, Randy thought. He went through the windshield and his face took along the steering wheel.

  Helen laid a wet dish towel over Dan's eyes. Peyton, face white and pinched, stood behind her mother with another towel. It dripped. Except for Dan's choked breathing, the dripping was for a moment the only sound in the room.

  Dan spoke. The words came out slowly and thickly, each an effort of will. "Was that you, Randy, who came in?”

  "It's me, Dan. Don't try to talk yet." Shock, Randy thought, and probably concussion. He turned to Helen. "We should get him into bed. We have to get him up­stairs."

  "I don't know if he can make it," Helen said. "We could hardly get him this far." Helen's dress and Bill McGovern's arms were blood stained.

  "Bill, with your help I can get him up all right."

  So, with all his weight on their shoulders, they got Dan upstairs and stretched out on the sleigh bed. Bill said, "I'm going to be sick." He left them. Helen brought clean, wet towels. Dan's body shook and quiv­ered. His skin grew clammy. He was having a chill. Randy lifted his thick wrist and after a time located the pulse. It was faint, uneven, and rapid. This was shock, all right, and dangerous. Randy said, "Whiskey!"

  Helen said, "I'll handle this, Randy. No whiskey. Blankets."

  He respected Helen's judgment. In an emergency such as this, Helen functioned. This was what she was made for. He found extra blankets in the closet. She covered Dan and disappeared. She returned with a glass of fluid, held it to Dan's lips, and said, "Drink this. Drink all you can."

  "What are you giving him?" Randy asked.

  "Water with salt and soda. Much better than whiskey for shock."

  Dan drank, gagged, and drank more. "Keep pouring this into him," Helen ordered. "I'm going to see what's in the medicine cabinet."

  "Almost nothing," Randy said. "Where's his bag? Everything's in there."

  "They took it; and the car."

  "Who took it?"

  "The highwaymen."

  He should have guessed that it hadn't been an acci­dent. Dan was a careful driver and rarely were two cars on the same road. Traffic was no longer a problem. In his concern for Dan, he did not immediately think of what this loss meant to all of them.

  Helen found peroxide and bandages. This, with aspi­rin, was almost all that remained of their reserve medi­cal supply. She worked on Dan's face swiftly and effi­ciently as a professional nurse.

  Randy felt nauseated, not at the sight of Dan's injuries - he had
seen worse - but in disgust at the beasts who in callous cruelty had dragged down and maimed and destroyed the human dignity of this selfless man. Yet it was nothing new. It had been like this at some point in every civilization and on every continent. There were human jackals for every human disaster. He flexed his fingers, wanting a throat in them. He walked into the other room.

  Lib's head lay across her arms on the bar. She was crying. When she raised her face it was oddly twisted as when a child's face loses form in panic or unexpected pain. She said, "What are you going to do about it, Randy?"

  His rage was a hard cold ball in his stomach now. When he spoke it was in a monotone, the voice of someone else "I'm going to execute them."

  "Let's get with it."

  "Yes. As soon as I find out who."

  At eleven Dan Gunn came out of shock, relaxed and then slept for a few minutes. He awoke announcing he was hungry. He looked no better, he was in pain, but obviously he was out of danger.

  Randy was dismayed at the thought of Dan, in his condition, loading his stomach with cold bream and cat­fish, orange juice, and remnants of salad. What he needed, coming out of shock, was hot, nourishing bouil­lon or broth. On occasion, when Malachai or Caleb dis­covered a gopher hole and Hannah Henry converted its inhabitant to soup, or when Ben Franklin successfully stalked squirrel or rabbit, such food was available; but not on this night.

  The thought of broth triggered his memory. He shouted, "The iron rations!" and ran into his office. He threw open the teak sea chest and began digging.

  Lib and Helen stood behind him and watched, per­plexed. Helen said, "What's wrong with you now, Randy?"

  "Don't give him any food until you see what I've got!" He was sure he had tucked the foil covered car­ton in the corner closest to the desk. It wasn't there. He wondered whether it was something he had dreamed, but when he concentrated it seemed very real. It had been on the day before The Day, after his talk with Ma­lachai. In the kitchen he had collected a few nourishing odds and ends, tinned or sealed, and dubbed them iron rations, for a desperate time. Now that the time was desperate, he couldn't find them.