Alas, Babylon

by Pat Frank

  Randy picked up the black leather case. It looked fa­miliar. He had seen it before. He opened it and saw the two matched straight-edge razors that had belonged to his father.

  He leaned over and kissed the top of Peyton's head. "Don't worry about what your mother will say," he told her. "I'll handle everything for you. If I had medals to give, I would pin one on you, Peyton, right now."

  In this manner, Peyton became a heroine.

  [13]

  One morning in November, when Randy was break­fasting early and alone, Dan Gunn came downstairs smooth-shaven, his jaw looking oddly pallid in contrast to brown forehead, nose, cheekbones, and neck. "Good morning," Randy said. "You swore you'd never shave again! Why?"

  "Well," Dan said lamely, "I had the razor and it seemed a shame not to use it after Peyton gave it to me. Then there was the soap." Within the past few weeks, bars of homemade soap had appeared in Marines Park, produced by Mrs. Estes, who had been senior teller at the bank, and two former co-workers. Everyone agreed that it would be a prosperous and rewarding business.

  "The truth, Dan!" Randy said.

  "Helen asked me to do it. She said she was getting tired of trimming it."

  "Oh, that's different. You'd better be home in time for dinner tonight. John Garcia just made another run up to Blue Crab Pool and he's dropping off a washtub of crabs here. In exchange for one quart of lightning."

  Dan said, "I'm very fond of Helen. I don't know what I'd do without her."

  "Why do anything without her?"

  "Randy, I want to marry her."

  Randy rose from the table, bowed, and said, "I give you my blessing!"

  "It isn't funny."

  "Marriage is rarely funny."

  "She won't marry me."

  "Then why did you shave off your beard?"

  "Damn it, Randy, I love her. And she loves me. She admitted it. She wants to marry me. But she won't. She thinks there's a chance Mark's still alive. She's afraid that if we married then Mark would turn up alive and there'd be one of those awful messes we've all heard about or read about. Like when men were reported dead in the Philippines or Korea and they turned up after the war in an enemy prison camp. They came home and found their wives happily married to someone else. Sometimes there were children. It's always a mess."

  "It's happened," Randy said, "but in this case I don't think there's a chance. Want me to talk to her?"

  Dan rubbed his face where his beard had been. "I feel naked. No, Randy, thanks. I don't think Helen would want it discussed. Not yet, anyway. She just has this feeling, and I'm afraid she'll have to empty it her­self."

  It was in this month that the first low-flying plane frightened and exhilarated them.

  At irregular times planes had been reported before, but always jets, flying very high, usually no more than a silver splinter in the sky, or contrail, in day, and only sound at night.

  But in the second week in November a big four-­engined transport roared over Fort Repose at a thou­sand feet. It bore Air Force markings. In Marines Park everyone screamed and waved. It did not even waggle its wings, but went on, south. Dan Gunn, who was in town, saw it directly overhead. Randy heard and saw it from River Road

  . The Admiral, who was out on the river in his flagship, was able to observe it through binoculars.

  That night Randy and Lib and Dan and Helen went to Sam Hazzard's house to hear his opinion. "I noticed two cylinders slung under the wing," he said. "Not extra gas tanks. I think they might be air traps. I think they might be taking radiation samples."

  A week later the same plane, or one like it, came over again. This time it circled Fort Repose, and a stream of what appeared to be confetti, at the distance, fell from its belly and drifted down on the river banks and in the town.

  Randy was in Marines Park, at the time, discussing an alarm system with officers of his company. Church bells had been used in England during the second World War, and there were bells in the Catholic and Episcopal churches. It was possible to evolve a code by which his troopers could understand the type and loca­tion of the emergency. The plane came over and every­one yelled, as before, as if they could hear up there. Then the leaflets fluttered down. They read:

  DO NOT BE ALARMED

  This leaflet comes from a United States Air Force plane conducting atmospheric surveys of the Contaminated Zones.

  At a future date a more precise survey will be under­taken by helicopters.

  Should a helicopter land in or near your community do not interfere with the activities of personnel aboard. Lend them your cooperation if requested.

  This activity is an essential preliminary to bringing relief to the Contaminated Zones.

  In a sense, it was disappointing. But it was some­thing. It was something you could put your hands on, that you could feel, that had come from the outside. It was proof that the government of the United States still functioned. It was also useful as toilet paper. Next day, ten leaflets would buy an egg, and fifty a chicken. It was paper, and it was money.

  In December the helicopter came. It made a fearful racket, wind-milling over Fort Repose. At various open spaces, including Marines Park it hovered low and dropped a long wire from its belly, a small cylinder on the end of the wire actually touching the earth. It was like a gigantic bug dipping for honey.

  It came up the Timucuan and circled the Bragg house.

  The children were down at the dock; Helen and Lib were in the house; Randy was visiting with Sam Hazzard.

  It circled four times. The two women ran up to the captain's walk. They had the best view. They waved their arms and then Helen took off her pink apron and waved that.

  Inside the helicopter they saw faces and the pilot opened a window and waved back. Then it went away, up the Timucuan.

  In five minutes Randy, the Admiral, and the chil­dren, all out of breath, were at the house.

  Helen was weeping. "He waved!" she said. "He waved at us! Nobody else, us! I'm sure he came just to see us!"

  "Now let's not get too excited," Randy said. "It may be that he was just looking for people - not anyone in particular - and saw the kids out on the dock and then circled the house to encourage us and give us heart."

  Helen wiped her face with her apron. She said, "Oh, I wish he'd come back. Please, God, send him back!"

  At that moment, they heard it coming back.

  The children ran up to the roof. Randy went outside and sat on the porch steps. He was still out of breath and he wasn't going to run upstairs. If the damn helicopter wanted to see him it would have to come here. He couldn't go to it. Sam Hazzard sat down beside him.

  Randy watched for it. From the sound he knew it was circling again. It came low over the trees and hovered over the lawn. Everything else was overgrown and choked with weeds and sprouting saplings but this single stretch between house and road Randy kept in lawn. It was one of Ben Franklin's chores to mow once a week, and it was a link between the house and the time before The Day, like shaving.

  It hovered there and slowly lowered. Randy said, "It's coming in!" He rose to receive it.

  Its wheels touched the ground, its engines cut off, and its rotors drooped and slowed. Peyton ran down the steps and Randy grabbed her. "Don't go out there until the rotors stop!" he ordered. "Cut your head off!"

  Now that it was down, the helicopter looked ungainly and enormous. There were five men in it.

  The rotors stopped.

  They waited in stillness so complete that they heard the creak of hinges as the hatch opened. A metal ladder fell from its side and two men climbed down. Plastic helmets covered their heads and they were encased in silver, translucent plastic suits, oxygen tanks strapped to their backs. Like divers, Randy thought, or maybe Spacemen. Peyton and Ben Franklin had run out on the lawn. Now they shrank back. One of the men, laughing silently inside his helmet, held up his hand in a gesture, "'Wait!"

  The two men carried machines that looked like min­iature vacuum cleaners, a cylindrical nozzle in o
ne hand, an oblong black box in the other. They allowed these nozzles to sniff at grass and earth. "Geiger count­ers," Sam Hazzard said. "Maybe we're hot."

  One of the men approached them, hesitated, and se­lected Randy. He bent over and allowed the nozzle to sniff Randy's last pair of boat shoes, big toe protruding through the canvas, soles reinforced with possum hide. The nozzle investigated the tattered shorts, the belt, and finally Randy's hair. At each point, the head in the hel­met glanced at a dial in the box. It was very efficient.

  The man swept off his helmet, slammed his hand on Randy's shoulder as if in congratulations, and called back to the helicopter, "Okay, Colonel. The terrain's clear and they're clears. You can come down."

  His back toward them, a man climbed down. He wore a blue, zippered Air Force flight suit with the ea­gles of a full colonel on his shoulders.

  When he turned and stepped forward, Randy did not immediately recognize him, he was so changed.

  It was not until the man held out his hand, and spoke, that Randy saw it was Paul Hart, who had been a light colonel, sandy-haired instead of gray, his face cheery and freckled instead of lined and aged, when he saw him last. Randy could think of nothing to say ex­cept, "Come on in, Paul, and bring your people. We're just about to sit down for lunch."

  Lib cried, "The quail!" and dashed into the house, letting the screen door bang.

  "My wife," Randy said. "It's her lunch day."

  "Your wife? Congratulations. My wife - I'll save it for later."

  Randy saw that the men with the Geiger counters had stripped off their plastic suits. "You'll all have a drink before lunch?" he suggested, thinking that this had been the proper thing to say, long ago, and would still be proper and expected.

  "Why, I'd be delighted!" Paul said. "I haven't had a drink since-" he asked a question: "You people haven't saved your liquor all this time, have you?"

  "Oh, no. This stuff is new. Well, it's aged a bit. In a charcoal keg. We think it's very good."

  He led them up to his apartment and mixed sours with the corn whiskey and fat, ripe limes. Then there were the introductions. There was a Captain Bayliss, the pilot, a Lieutenant Smith, chief radiologist, and the two sergeant technicians. They all considered the sour very good and Paul said, "It's impossible to find any­thing to drink, even in Denver. Not even beer. Shortage of grains, you know. Nobody would dare make his own whiskey in the clear zones. He'd go to jail. The older people say it's worse than prohibition."

  There were a thousand questions Randy wanted to ask but at that moment he only had time for one be­cause Lib called from downstairs. Lunch was ready; The men all wore brassards with the letters D.C. on the right arms. "What's that?" Randy asked, touching Paul's brassard. "District of Columbia?"

  "Oh, no," Paul said. "There isn't any District of Co­lumbia. Denver's the capital. That stands for Decontami­nation Command. It's the biggest command, nowadays, and really the only one that counts. I was seconded to the D.C. last spring. I put in for a C.Z. right away and asked for Florida and Florida was the C.Z. I got."

  Paul Hart thought the soup was wonderful and said he had never tasted anything exactly like it before and Randy replied that he wasn't surprised. They always kept the big soup pot simmering on the fire and every­thing went into it. "This particular soup," he explained, "is sort of a combination. Armadillo, gopher, and tur­key carcass."

  Lib brought a dozen quail, and more were broiling, and placed pitchers of orange juice in front of them and they all drank it greedily. Captain Bayliss kept mum­bling that he felt they were imposing, and that there were K-rations in the helicopter and that he actually ex­petted to find C.Z. people all starving, because certainly most of them were in other parts of the country. He also kept on eating.

  "How does it happen," Randy asked Hart, "that you found us?"

  Hart said, "You haven't heard anything from my wife, Martha, have you?"

  Randy shook his head, no, apprehending Paul's tragedy.

  "Of course that's why I asked for duty in this C.Z. I wanted to find out what happened to Martha and the children." He looked up. "It was just a year ago, wasn't it, that I met you at McCoy Operations? Wasn't it on the day before H-Day?"

  "H-Day? We just call it The Day."

  "Hell Day or Hydrogen Day or The Day, it's the same thing."

  "Yes. That was the last time I saw you."

  "It was also the last day I saw Martha except to kiss her goodbye the next morning. Post-strike we went on to Kenya, in Africa. When I got back to this country I learned right away, of course, that McCoy received one. But it wasn't until I flew over Orlando last week that I gave up hope. I suppose you know what happened to Orlando."

  Randy said, "Oh, no! Nobody's been that far off!"

  "It's as if no man was ever there. Even - the shapes of the lakes have changed and there are a couple of lakes that weren't there before. Find my wife? I couldn't even tell where my house stood. I think they must've dropped a five-megaton missile on McCoy and another on Or­lando municipal. Nothing stands. Everything is burned and still hot. It's the damn C-14 that does it."

  "C-14?"

  "Radioactive carbon. It's half-life is more than five thousand years. That and U-238 and cobalt and strontium is what makes rebuilding impractical in the T.D. - the totally destroyed - cities. You have to start some­where else, here for instance. Did you know that you are living in the center of the largest clear area in the whole C.Z.?"

  "No, I didn't, but I'm glad to find out."

  Helen had been waiting, tensely, to ask the question that she must ask, yet knowing the answer before she asked it; for had there been any other answer Paul would have told her before now. She said, "Paul, noth­ing about Mark, I suppose?"

  "I'm sorry, Helen. Nothing. There were a few survi­vors from Omaha but Mark wasn't one of them. After all, it was a primary target with SAC Headquarters, Offutt Field - itself an important base - and the biggest rail complex between Chicago and the Coast - all grouped together. I don't think we'll ever find out ex­actly what happened."

  Helen nodded. "At least I know for sure. That's im­portant - to know." No tears, Randy thought. He glanced at the children. Ben Franklin stood firm, chin outthrust, taut facial muscles containing his emotions. But Peyton, eyes lowered, slipped away into the other room.

  Then for a long time Hart and the lieutenant radiolo­gist questioned Randy and Sam Hazzard about the way things had gone in Fort Repose; taking notes and show­ing remarkable interest in details of how the emergen­cies were met. "Of course we need everything," Randy said, "but the town could get along fine if only we had electricity because if they had power then they'd have water. They wouldn't have to boil it or haul it from springs, as they do now."

  "It'll be a long time - a very long time," Hart said. "Even major cities that weren't touched - cities in the clear zones lost their electricity a month or so after H-­Day and don't have it back yet. The only towns which have had uninterrupted power were those served by hy­droelectric plants, provided the plants were undamaged and the aqueducts intact. There aren't many."

  "What about the other towns in the clear zones?" Randy asked. He noted how quickly you picked up the jargon of the post-Day age. It was like entering a totally new environment, like joining the Army.

  "To have light," Paul said, "you either have to have water power or fuel. Most cities had supplies for a month or so. After that, darkness. Some of our big oil fields are still burning. The coal regions of Pennsylvania and West Virginia were saturated with fallout. But the transport problem is what really cripples us. Think what happened to the pipe lines; the railroads, the ports. Our big hope is atomic power. Thank goodness we still have a big stockpile of nuclear fuel."

  The radiologist and the two technical sergeants ex­cused themselves. They were going to the river to bottle water samples.

  Randy said that if the river was hot they'd all be hot because ever since The Day they'd been living on the bounty of the river.

  Har
t said that apparently the river was going to be all right, and this was hopeful. "If we're going to get this C.Z. on the road back, I think I'd like to start in this area. Of course you understand, Randy, that before we can be of much help to the C.Z.'s we have to get the clear country in decent shape." He shook his head. "Some of our scientists think it will take a thousand years to restore a saturated C.Z., like Florida or New Jersey, to anything close to normal, even scratching the T.D. cities."

  He talked of the cities that remained, and of the shortages, and the epidemics, and how fortunate they had been to live in Fort Repose. In the following year the government was going to take a census, including the contaminated zones if possible. "There's no use kid­ding ourselves," he went on. "We're a second class power now. Tertiary would be more accurate. I doubt if we have the population of France - or rather, a popula­tion as large as France used to have." He talked of farm areas out of production for an indefinite period, and how the South American nations had begun lend-lease shipments to the northern continent, and how Thailand and Indonesia were contributing rice. Eventually, it was hoped that Venezuelan oil would alleviate the transport fuel shortage, although he doubted that in his lifetime he would again see gasoline for sale to private citizens.

  They listened, their eyes marbled as if in shock.

  The technicians returned from the river. Paul Hart looked at his watch and said they would have to take off. It was necessary that they drop into a small field near Brunswick, Georgia, before dark. It was presently his headquarters but in a few years he planned to re­habilitate Patrick Air Force Base, on Cape Canaveral, and transfer there. The enemy had overlooked Patrick, perhaps deliberately since it was a test not an opera­tional base, perhaps because the missile designed for it had gone elsewhere. They would never know. Hart was thoughtful for a moment. Then he spoke to Randy:

  "You know, you and all your clear people can come out if you want. Of course you'll have to have a physi­cal and be officially cleared and processed but I doubt that you'd have any trouble. I'll be back here in a week. We're short on choppers but I could bring you out, two or three at a time."