Collected Short Fiction, page 492
“The house isn’t wired,” I told him. “Each gadget seems to generate its own current—without any batteries or generator or anything else that makes sense to me. Just like that machine at the dam.”
On a table in the living room we found a telephone instrument, cradled on a little black plastic box that had no wires attached. Doyle picked it up impulsively, then reluctantly set it back again. He peered at several numbers written on a plaque beside it.
“We could call,” he said. “Probably we could get somebody, and find out all we want to know. But Mr. Lord doesn’t want it done that way.”
We heard the roar of jets, then, and hurried back down to the ravine. Doyle had brought a blanket from the house, and he spread it decently over the two bodies.
Sinking slowly upon an inverted mushroom of blue electric fire, the lifecraft landed a hundred yards below the dam. Scorched weeds smoldered about the bright fins that held it upright.
On the bank of the little gorge, Lord turned from watching Cameron, to question Doyle. But he merely shook his head, with an empty-handed shrug, and Lord went back to shout at Cameron:
“On the double, now—it’s time to go. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Cameron came up out of the ravine, carrying something in his hand. It was a piece of thick copper wire, shaped into a double coil of oddly-shaped loops at odd-seeming angles, and held in shape with a transparent plastic rod.
“This is it,” he said.
The hushed elation of his low voice told more than his words. I stared at him—for something, I thought, had somehow transformed him. His emaciated body had grown proudly straight. His hollowed face was smiling, with a stern joy which almost frightened me.
“Well?” Lord retreated a little, as if afraid of the look in Cameron’s blue eyes. His sleek black head made a quick nod, to bring his two gunmen back from the ends of the unfinished dam. “Quick—what is it?”
Cameron held up that bit of wire on the plastic rod, with both his hands. His face had a look of solemn awe—as if the thing in his hands had been, somehow, an utterly priceless treasure.
“Speak up,” Lord rapped nervously. “What is it?”
Cameron looked up at Lord again, with no awe at all. His blue eyes showed a sudden glint of ironic amusement. But still he held that bit of wire, as if it were a precious thing.
“It’s what we’ve all been looking for.” Cameron’s voice held the eager ring of triumph. “It’s the reason men abandoned Fort America, and deserted the cities. It is what happened to the Directorate, and to Tyler.”
Cameron’s eyes turned sardonic.
“It’s also what is going to happen to the Task Force,” he added softly. “And to Mr. Julian Hudd. And even to you, Mr. Lord.”
Lord’s sleepy yellow eyes slitted dangerously.
“I’ll tolerate no further insubordination,” he snapped savagely. “Just tell me what you’ve got.”
Cameron turned to Doyle and me. Angrily, Lord hauled out his automatic, and then slowly thrust it back again. I suppose he saw the folly of extinguishing the source of information, and perhaps he was a little awed by Cameron’s air of solemn exultation. But he still intended, I knew, to get his revenge.
Cameron ignored his sullenly boiling fury.
“Chad, you remember that little gadget we called an induction furnace? Well, we were on the right track—if I hadn’t been afraid of blowing up the Great Director. And this is the thing we were looking for.”
Generously, he gave me far too much credit. I had known, of course, that the device was something more than a furnace—for it made atomic changes in the metal samples we fused in it; and, instead of using power, it generated a dangerous surplus. That much I had known, and held my tongue about it. But I had really understood neither his effort nor his goal.
From me, Cameron turned impulsively to Doyle.
“Captain, may I have a word with you?”
“Of course.” Doyle lifted his red brows, in puzzlement. “What about?”
“This.” Cameron lifted the thing in his hands. “I’ve always admired you, captain, and I trust you now.” He beckoned with his head, toward the end of the dam. “Let me tell you what this tiling means to you—and all of us.” He glanced aside at the simmering, suspicious little Squaredealer, and added: “Listen for just ten minutes, captain, and you’ll be free of Lord and his sort.” Confusedly. Doyle shook his head. “Careful, Cameron.” I knew he was no friend of Lord’s, but loyalty was part of his being. His voice was shocked. “Watch yourself—that sounds like treason, you know.” Cameron gave him a brief, sardonic grin.
“If there is such a thing, any longer.” His low voice turned grave again. “Though I imagine that this little device has repealed a lot of the old laws.” He glanced at the twisted wire, and regretfully back to Doyle. “I wish you’d listen, Rory. But I know how you fed, and I’ll save your life if I can.”
Little Lord was quivering with white-lipped fury. His hand hovered close to his gun. Yet caution or curiosity must have tempered his wrath, for he gestured sharply to halt his black-clad gunmen.
“Explain this strange behavior, Cameron,” he snapped, “or I’ll have to shoot you down.”
And Cameron turned back to him, with a gentle gravity.
“No, I don’t think you’ll do that, Mr. Lord,” he said, very softly. “Because you’re an anachronism, now, along with the dinosaur and the atom bomb. Because technological advancement has passed you by.”
Lord’s narrow, sallow face turned dark with anger. Still, however, he seemed to want the secret of that piece of twisted wire more than he wanted Cameron’s life. For he nodded furtively to his gunmen, and they began edging aside, to Cameron’s right and left.
“What’s that gadget?” he snarled.
But Cameron, already, had turned to me.
“You’ll come with me, won’t you, Chad?” His low voice had a tremor of anxious appeal. “There’s a job we have to do, with this.” He moved the little device. “It’s not too dangerous—if we’re lucky. But I need you, Chad.”
I wanted to go with him—wherever he was going. But I could see the two bleak-faced men, moving warily to get behind him; I could see Lord’s wolfish snarl and the cold menace of his yellow eyes; I could remember the SBI and all the cruel art of intensive interrogation. Somehow, that bit of wire and plastic had made Cameron seem a bolder and a bigger man, but still I hadn’t felt the power of it.
Miserably, I shook my head.
“That’s all right, Chad.” He gave me a brief, cheering grin. “Perhaps I’ll have a better chance alone, anyhow. And I’ll do my best to save you.”
“You, stand still!” Lord shouted, and sharply ordered his gunmen; “Shoot for the knees, if he tries anything.”
Cameron turned back to him, soberly.
“Better call them off, Mr. Lord.” Something in his low voice sent a shiver up my spine. “It’s time for you to think of your own skin, now. Because it’s clear, now, that you made quite an error, when you butchered that man and girl. You aren’t very safe here, Mr. Lord—or anywhere.”
The little Squaredealer must have heard that something in Cameron’s voice, for his thin sallow face turned a sickly, yellow-gray. His perspiring and gestured again, uneasily, to hold his gunmen back. His sleepy eyes blinked apprehensively.’
“I’ll be back,” Cameron stated softly. “But I advise you not to follow.”
He dropped into the ravine, up beyond the dam.
Lord hesitated for a long second, pale and breathless.
“Get after him,” he screamed at last. “Shoot him in the legs.”
He didn’t lead the pursuit, however, and his men weren’t eager. That same something in Cameron’s voice must have made them doubt that it was really wise to follow. They ran uncertainly along the rim of the little gorge, and fired a few wild shots.
Ahead of them, something flashed. Its terrible brightness made us duck and shield our eyes, even in the full daylight. The detonation came instantly—a single, terrific report. A green tree, beside the ravine, shattered into smoking, whistling fragments.
Lord and his two men followed no farther. As soon as the burning splinters stopped falling, they scrambled up off their faces, and hastily retired.
“Unprintable civilian,” gasped the little Squaredealer. “He’ll regret this,” He made a rather fearful gesture toward the lifecraft. “On board!” he shouted. “We’re getting out of here.”
VII.
We tumbled through the valves, and Lord ordered Captain Doyle to blast away at full thrust. Before Doyle could reach his bridge, however, the signal officer shouted down the ladder well:
“Captain Doyle! I’ve just got contact with the Great Director, and Mr. Hudd is on the screen. He wants a full report, at once, sir.”
Earth’s intervening mass had cut off microwave transmission since we dropped over the bulge of it, before we landed; now, however, the planet’s rotation had brought the flagship back above the horizon. We climbed hurriedly into the little television room.
Gigantic on the screen, Hudd boomed his question:
“What’s the story, Lord?”
“A crisis, Mr. Hudd!” Lord looked damp with sweat, and his voice was agitated. “We’re in danger. I request permission to blast off at once, and make our full report at space.”
“What’s the crisis?”
Lord gulped, uncomfortably. “Your smart civilian, Cameron, got away.”
Hudd’s great, blue-jowled face was furrowed with sudden concern.
“Then I’ll take your full report, Mr. Lord,” he said decisively. “Right now.”
“But this civilian mutineer has got a weapon,” Lord protested desperately. “Something that strikes like lightning—”
“Then the entire Task Force may be in peril,” Hudd cut in. “Now let’s have it—at once.”
Lord talked rapidly, while sweat burst out in shining drops on his narrow face, and soaked dark blotches into his uniform. Hudd listened gravely, now and then turning to Doyle or me with a tersevoiced question.
It was Doyle who told him how Lord and the two guards had shot the couple named Hawkins. Hudd’s heavy, sagging jaw turned hard, at the news. When the report was finished, he must have started his habitual nervous drumming—his hands were hidden, below the screen, but the speaker brought a worried rapping.
“You made two blunders.” His small, troubled eyes peered accusingly at Lord. “You let Cameron get away with the vital information I sent you for. And you killed those people, before they had a chance to talk. I’m afraid you have gravely compromised our objectives, Victor—and your own future.”
All his swagger gone, Lord. twisted and cringed before the steady eyes, of Hudd. Still perspiring, he seemed to fawn and cower like a punished dog. And the loud, aggressive voice of his master continued:
“We must take bold, immediate action, Victor, to restore the situation.”
“Right, Mr. Hudd,” Lord said eagerly. “Shall we blast off, now?”
“You will remain where you are,” Hudd said flatly. “Get in touch with the inhabitants, if you can. Offer apologies and compensation for the killing, and stall for time. Find out all you can about the weapons, the military establishment, and the government of the inhabitants.”
Lord gulped uneasily, nodding. “Post a reward for Cameron.” Hudd’s big mouth set hard. “My mistake, to trust him. Get hold of him. Use extreme interrogation. Make him talk, and liquidate him. He has gone too far.”
Hudd shook his massive, shaggy head, somewhat regretfully.
“Too bad,” he added heavily. “Because I always liked him.”
I felt cold and ill. Hudd’s loud words had struck me like numbing blows. That harsh command was no surprise to me, but it brought me a dull sickness of regret, that I had failed Cameron when he asked me to go with him.
Lord was protesting again, breathlessly.
“Mr. Hudd, I think we’ll be attacked—”
“I’ll support you,” Hudd assured him, and turned off the screen to speak to his signal officer: “Change the scramble code—we don’t know who is trying to listen.”
The unseen officer on the flagship droned out a code number, repeating each digit. Our officer droned it back. The screen darkened, flickered. Then the image of Hudd came back, huge and resolute, declaring:
“Whatever happens, Victor, I intend to restore the Directorate. I am taking prompt action, to that end. The Valley Forge and the Hiroshima are proceeding to the Moon. They will land a new garrison, with the necessary repairs to bring Fort America back into effectiveness. The Yorktown, the River Plate, and the Leningrad will stand by, spaced on an orbit ten thousand miles from the Earth, to relay communications and bombard any targets we discover.
“With the Great Director, I’m coming to Earth.”
Lord licked his thin, colorless lips.
“You’re too daring, Mr. Hudd,” he protested shrilly.
“It took audacity to establish the Directorate.” The great boom of Hudd’s voice in the speaker visibly startled Lord. “It’s worth audacity to restore it. I’m coming, at full thrust, to take personal command.”
Lord remained aboard the lifecraft, that night. His uneasy fancy must have dwelt upon the fused metal we had found beside that skeleton in the weeds, and the sudden bolt which struck that tree as Cameron fled. Perhaps he regretted the two still bodies in the gully, and no doubt he peopled the dark valley with vengeful enemies.
My own imagination, I know, was busy enough. Staring out into the thickening night, I felt myself the helpless spectator of stupendous forces sweeping grandly toward collision.
On one side, there was the Atomic Age itself, expressed in the rekindled might of Fort America, in the fine discipline of the Task Force, in sleek guided missiles, and in the determined sagacity of Mr. Julian Hudd.
On the other side, there was that unknown power that had swept the old garrison from the Moon, and driven men from the cities, and destroyed the Directorate. All I had seen of it was a piece of twisted wire, a blasted tree, and the change in Jim Cameron. But that was enough—I waited for the fireworks.
After dark, Captain Doyle volunteered to go back to the house.
“Mr. Hudd wants us to get in touch with the inhabitants,” he reminded Lord. “And we saw some kind of telephone, there.”
Lord agreed, with evident reluctance.
“If you contact anybody, call for the government,” he ordered. “Offer a reward for Cameron.” His sleepy eyes glittered cunningly. “If anybody mentions those two dead peasants, we’re holding them—alive—for Cameron’s return.”
Doyle went down through the valves, accompanied by the signal officer to help him work the strange radiophone. They were lost in the pale moonlight, among the young apple trees. They didn’t come back.
After an hour, Lord sent me after them, with one of his gunmen for escort. Soft lights came on of themselves, when I opened the door. I tried to call Doyle’s name, and found that my voice had gone to a grating whisper. We walked through the silent rooms, and found nobody.
The little radiophone, oddly, was also gone.
At midnight, Hudd called again.
At the news of Doyle’s apparent desertion, he muttered forebodingly:
“It’s something pretty sinister, that takes so true a man.”
The Interstellar cruiser landed, just at dawn.
The thunder of it woke me out of a nodding doze, in the acceleration room. I moved groggily to a port, and saw a glare that burned all color out of the valley, so that everything was dark and blinding white. I had to cover my smarting eyes. Wind rocked the lifecraft on its stabilizers, and the Earth shuddered.
When the thunder ceased and that cruel light was gone, I saw the cruiser standing two miles down the valley. Dark smoke billowed up about the base of it, from the green forest burning. Its tall peak, towering out of the night in the valley, was already incandescent in the sunlight.
Immensely far above us, the great flat turrets swung with ominous purpose. The huge bright tubes of rifles and launchers lifted out of their housings, ready. And Hudd called again, looking as massively indomitable as his flagship.
“Have you met the inhabitants, Mr. Lord?”
“Not yet, Mr. Hudd.” Haggard for want of sleep, Lord seemed relieved by the great ship’s coming; he had his swagger back.
“You’re going to,” Hudd told him. “Our lookouts report a small helicopter, approaching you now. Contact them, and report immediately.”
Sunlight glinted redly on a bright, silent rotor. The machine landed above us, beside the unfinished dam. Four people got out. One of them began waving a bit of white cloth. With a shock of dismay, I recognized Jim Cameron.
VIII.
Cameron planted his flag of truce. Moving with a solemn deliberation, the four carried the bodies out of the gully on blanket-covered stretchers, and loaded them in the helicopter. The pilot took his seat and departed with them, flying low over the green ridge. Cameron and two others were left behind. He took up his white flag and came halfway to us, then stopped and stood waiting.
Watching through a port in the signal room, Lord nervously wet his lips. Beneath a puzzled unease, his sleepy eyes had a glare of yellow elation. He sent me out to find what Cameron wanted.
Cameron grinned with pleasure to see me, and put down the stick with his handkerchief tied to it. Fatigue had drawn his stubbled face, and smudged blue shadows under his eyes.
“Jim, you shouldn’t have come back.” I pitched my voice too low for Lord’s gunmen, covering us from the valve. “Because you made a fool of Lord, when you got away. He’ll never forgive that, and he’s got Hudd’s permission to liquidate you.”
He grinned wearily, and glanced at the two behind him.
“You can tell Mr. Lord that he’s in no position to liquidate anybody.
On the contrary—these neighbors of the Hawkins couple have come to arraign him and his guards for the murder.”
I must have gaped with astonishment.
“I’m afraid Lord will be unreasonable,” he went on, regretfully. “I came along to try to prevent any needless destruction. There’s not much use for Lord to resist, and no need for others to be killed. You can tell him that.”
