Collected Short Fiction, page 519
“But the renegades have reclaimed the planet now. The residues are all cleaned up—they must have done that partly with paraphysical means, because radioactives aren’t easy to clean out of the soil and the seas. The craters are level now, and the land is green again.” Claypool frowned into the hostile dark.
“That’s a strange thing, these men have done.” His skinny fists clenched with bafflement, and relaxed again. “I don’t quite see how any man could sell out to those machines, not even for what they seem to pay. Take Ironsmith!” He scowled at that silver plume of stars, and limped around the dome again.
“I never really liked him much—he always seemed a little shiftless, and somehow irreverent, and too clever for his own good. But I never thought him capable of such absolute wickedness—because this crime is something worse than murder. I’ll be there, when he gets back!”
His soft brown eyes smiled at the child.
“You must wait for me, here.”
“Oh, please—I can’t!” She ran to him, anxiously. “Please let me come.”
“You don’t understand what I’m going into,” he told her softly. “I’m not even sure, myself. But these renegades are strong. They’ve been working with the humanoids, probably half a century. They must have thousands of men like Ironsmith. I may not come back.” Nervously, Claypool wiped his worried brown face with the gray pajama sleeve, and she pitied him again. She wished that he had been strong and bold and red-bearded, like Mr. White. She knew he was afraid, but he didn’t seem uncertain.
“t think I can surprise them,” he said. “I didn’t see any evidence that they understand mass-detonation, I’m going to try to kill Ironsmith and the others, and force the humanoids to make a new, just Compact. But something may go wrong.”
He licked his pale lips, and grinned at her stiffly.
“I saw no weapons, but such men don’t need physical weapons. I don’t know what trap they may spring, or what unknown force they may turn against me.”
He shook his head, and his soft brown eyes seemed sad.
“So you see you shouldn’t go.”
“But I must.” She clung to his taut fingers, frantically. “Cause the black things will get me again, if you make me stay.”
“Eh?” He blinked at her, startled. “How’s that?”
“Don’t you know?” She peered up at him, frightened and perplexed. “You should, ’cause you’ve been fighting the power of that awful new machine, ever since we got away.” She shrugged. “I guess you just don’t ’member again.”
“I didn’t know that,” He glanced out uneasily at that leaning, frozen plume of far suns, and she saw him shiver. “There must be a lot more in that equation than I can ever learn. But perhaps I know enough to fight Ironsmith—and we’ll go to meet him together.”
“Oh, thank you!” she whispered. “And I’m awful hungry now.”
They went back down to that white kitchen, which his mind had shaped in the rock. Dawn rummaged eagerly for cans and cartons. He opened them inexpertly, and watched her eat. His own stomach was a raw pain, and he went to his room for another capsule.
The bathroom mirror gave him a shocking glimpse of black stubble and sunken, blood-shot eyes and sick gray pallor, and the loose pajamas made a comic battle dress. He found a crisp new suit in the closet, and tried to change out of the pajamas. He couldn’t work the rhodomagnetic snaps, however, and the thin gray cloth proved too tough to tear. He gave it up, and washed his face, and limped wearily back to the cupola.
“It’s time to go,” he told Dawn, “because Ironsmith will be there in another five minutes, and we must be ready.”
She saw him study a scrap of paper.
“Another transformation of the prime equation,” he said. “It describes the instantaneous deformation of the electronic exchange forces, by control of the paraphysical component, to transfer the electronic identity patterns of matter to new co-ordinates of space and time. That makes it the equation of teleportation.”
Dawn shook her head. She could do teleportation, but she didn’t understand the long words or the funny doodles on the paper. Trustfully, she took Claypool’s tight, bony hand. He read the paper again, and crumpled it up, and turned toward that high shining cloud tilted across the black sky.
The sky turned bright.
XXVIII.
They were in an enormous room. Great square pillars the color of silver held up the high roof. Between the pillars were wide windows, clearer than glass. The windows came down to the floor, and beyond them Dawn could see this world of the renegades.
Smooth green hills rolled away beneath a soft and friendly sky. The white pillars of other great buildings shone like silver crowns on other hills. Below the hills was a long dazzling curve of white beach, and the sparkle of wind on dark blue water.
Claypool stood beside her, empty-handed and uneasy. A brown haggard little gnome, he looked funny in the loose gray pajamas he couldn’t take off. She could see that his stomach still hurt him, and he was very careful of his bad knee.
She knew he was afraid. She wished that he were tall and brave, with fierce blue eyes, like Mr. White. But he smiled at her with his soft brown eyes, and caught her hand again, and pointed toward the open doorway of that vast, silent place.
“Ironsmith will pass by there.” His voice, like his hand, was cold and quivering. “We’ll be ready.”
They started toward the doorway, Claypool limping painfully. Dawn looked around her, wondering at the empty hush of that huge space. Tall cases of something you couldn’t quite see made long rows across the floor, and the cases had things in them. But she couldn’t see any people.
“Where are they “Not here.” He didn’t look at her, and his voice was quick and dry. “Because this is a museum of war. These old weapons must have been collected for historical research, but I don’t think the renegades have any use for them. I don’t think they’ll find us, before—“Huh!”
She heard that grunt of sharp surprise, and felt his clammy fingers stiffen. He stopped on that vast Boor, and blinked unbelievingly at something in a long transparent case, and limped slowly toward it. She peered, bewildered.
Some of the other cases held things she knew. Long black guns, and cruel-bladed knives, and shimmering swords. Curving bows and feathered arrows, and trays filled with keen stone points. But this, case held something different.
There was a long thing, made of polished metal. It was sleek and beautiful, tapered to go fast. Spread out beside it were rows of bright parts, all with neat labels that she couldn’t read. And there were the curved sections of another shining shell, empty and ready for the parts to fit inside.
That was all, and yet, Claypool stood staring speechlessly. He looked bent and empty and sick, and his pale dry mouth was drawn by the hurting in his stomach. She pulled at his hand, whispering:
“Please—what is that?”
“Those are my missiles.” His voice was a shaken rasping. “From Project Thunderbolt! I thought Ironsmith took them, but I never knew why.” His brooding eyes held old hatred, and dull bewilderment. “Here they’re only laid out to rust, along with throwing sticks and primitive plutonium bombs. I don’t quite get it!”
He shrugged nervously, and limped away again toward the wide door where Ironsmith was to pass. Clutching his cold hand, Dawn hung back to watch a tiny flying thing.
It must have strayed in from the green fields, she thought. It fluttered idly above a case of long black spears, on rainbow-colored wings. It hovered and perched and preened itself, and Dawn thought it was entirely lovely.
Then she felt the Gruel, sudden tension of Claypool’s clammy fingers. She saw a hard white flash where the winged thing had been, and she heard a clap of sound. Her nostrils caught a sharp burnt odor, and she saw the bleakness of Claypool’s haggard face.
“Did you do that?” she whispered.
She saw a new gray sickness on his face, and the beads of sweat on his furrowed brown forehead. His lips turned white from the hurting in his stomach, and he nodded.
“I wanted to test the detonation equation again,” he said. “And I guess that butterfly reminded me of Ironsmith so lazy and idle and brilliant.”
She was sorry he had killed it, because it had been a perfect thing. But she felt sorry for Claypool, too, so sick and desperate and afraid. He caught her hand again, and hobbled on laboriously toward the open doorway.
“We’ll, wait here, for Ironsmith,” And he stepped her behind the gray ugly bulk of a battle tank, the thick steel of it scarred where bullets must have struck it:, and black where flame had burned it. Silent and afraid, she watched the doorway.
Broad steps, outside, led down to curving walks and broad green lawns. Beyond a clear stream, the grass was scattered with: strange low trees, bright with violet bloom. A man and a girl were walking there—the first people she had seen.
They looked happy and brown and strong, and the girl wore flowers in her hair. They held hands, and she heard a ring of laughter. They were alone, with, no black things to guard them—although, on another far green hill and small as a toy in the distance. She could see the black, pointed pillar of a ship which must have tome from Wing IV.
Claypool drew her back beside him, crouching lower behind the burned armor of the tank. She felt his wary tenseness, and saw the hard resolve in his narrowed eyes. A sudden alarm wade her clutch: at his sleeve.
“Please don’t hurt them.” she whispered, “ ‘cause they look so happy?”
“They are the enemy.”
His voice was flat and cold, and something in it made her shiver. She looked at him—a sick, stooped little man in gray pajamas. She pitied him, yet she knew that his mind was deadlier than all the weapon in this museum of death.
“It’s hard . . . to understand.” She heard the haunting trouble in his voice. “They do look happy. But they’ve joined the humanoid, and sold us out. I can hear them laughing now, but their crime is the worst I know. If they find us, I’m going to kill them.”
“Then I hope they don’t.”
Dawn shivered. When she looked, again, the man and the girl were putting up a gay-colored building, beyond the stream. She watched them at work, puzzled. She knew they hadn’t brought anything with them, and she couldn’t, see any black machines helping. They drew the bright sections out of the stream and fitted them very swiftly together. She realized suddenly that, they were building a shelter out of water, with their minds.
Beside her, Claypool stiffened suddenly.
“Dawn!” he breathed, harshly. “Quiet!”
Crouching behind the war-starred, tank, she saw an old man coming up the broad steps outside. Tall as Mr. White, he was lean and straight, Snowy-haired. His cragged, raw-boned face had a look of austere command, and the gnarled old hands hung a little forward, in an attitude of competent readiness for anything.
Dawn hadn’t seen him come. She looked beyond him, for the vehicle that must have brought him, and found nothing. He came to the broad level at the top of the steps, and looked around him, and waited there.
Beside her, Dawn could feel Claypool’s trembling tensity. She saw his brown eyes, hard and narrowed again, watching the old man. She saw the bright sweat on his twisting cheeks, and his sallow illness, and his twisted frown of pain. She could feel his deadly readiness, and she was glad when the old man didn’t find them.
She didn’t want to see him die.
Waiting, the old man walked idly to a low silver parapet. He deemed vigorous, and he didn’t need a cane. The man and the girl saw him, and waved to him from the shelter they were building. He lifted a great scarred hand, in majestic salutation. Suddenly he smiled and turned, and Dawn saw the man he had waited for.
“Now!” Claypool made a sob of triumph. “He’s come!”
Still she saw no vehicle, but Frank Ironsmith came quickly up the museum steps, smiling and holding out his hand to grasp the old man’s. His sandy head was bare, and his pleasant youthful face was bright with a quiet elation.
“Mr. Sledge!”
Dawn heard him call that eager greeting, and she felt Claypool start. She remembered Mr. White’s talk of old Sledge—the unlucky old man who made the black things, and then fought them, and was beaten. But this couldn’t be the same Sledge, she thought, because he couldn’t be that old, and he didn’t look beaten.
“Well, Ironsmith?” The old man’s voice was an anxious rumbling. “How’s your grid?”
“Done!” They shook hands, beaming. “I just watched the humanoids hook in the last section. They’re going after Claypool with it, as soon as we get enough potential up. I don’t think such cases will be dangerous, any longer.”
Claypool shuddered. Dawn saw the scowl of effort on his haggard face, and the terrible light in his sunken eyes. She knew he was about to strike, and she huddled lower behind the old tank, to escape the fury that would be loosed when Ironsmith died.
But he didn’t.
She saw the deadly purpose relax from Claypool’s dark hollowed face, and she heard the dreadful pain in his stifled whisper:
“No—not Ruth!”
Impelled by wonder stronger than her terror, Dawn rose up again, to peer over the fire-scarred tank. She saw a woman, tall and smiling, coming to join the two men. The woman, she thought, was altogether beautiful. Her hair was red-glinting black, and her gown was crimson-and-black, and her white face was joyous.
“My darling!” she cried. “So you’re home!”
Ironsmith ran down the steps to meet her. Her long white arms opened for him, and her bright lips parted for his kiss. He gathered her against him and then Dawn heard the broken moan of the drawn little man beside her.
“That was—my wife.”
XXIX.
Behind the tank, Claypool came stiffly to his feet. Under the untidy black stubble, his gaunt face was livid with his agony. His stringy fists opened and clenched and opened again. He stumbled to the doorway of that hushed museum of weapons, hobbling painfully on the leg the humanoids had set, and he stopped between the silver pillars there.
He must have forgotten Dawn. She ran after him, too frightened to whimper. She was afraid of the pain and the fury on his quivering face, but she was more afraid of the others outside. They were the friends of the black things. She caught up with Claypool, and clung to the flapping folds of his gray pajamas.
Outside, the tall old man stood with his back to them, smiling down in fond approval at the two below him on that wide silver stair. They straightened from their long kiss of greeting. The woman let Ironsmith go reluctantly. He brushed her soft hair with his fingers, and murmured something, and she whispered softly:
“Oh, my dear, I’m so glad you’re home!”
Claypool shuddered, and made a strangled cry.
“Ruth!” he shouted hoarsely. “Get away from him!”
They all swung to face Claypool then, seeming a little startled. The old man’s seamed and cragged face took on a look of stern regret. Ironsmith stood with his arm around the woman, calmly grave. A shocked pity widened the woman’s eyes.
“Webb!” She seemed breathless, hurt. “What . . . what are you doing here?”
Claypool limped toward them, trembling violently. His hollowed face was bloodless. He swayed weakly, and his bad leg tried to buckle under him. He got back his balance awkwardly, and caught a ragged breath. Dawn crept after him, silent and afraid.
“I’ll tell you!” He spat the words, with a tight-voice vehemence. “And I think you had better listen, because I can follow you across the universe, if you try to run away. You see, Ironsmith, I’ve a better weapon now than the clumsy device you stole.”
His bald head jerked scornfully toward the long case behind him, which held the useless missiles of Project Thunderbolt, built to shatter planets. And then he pointed, with a thin shaking arm, out across the scattered silver buildings on the hills, toward the estuary.
“See!” he rasped. “Watch that rock!”
Trembling beside him, Dawn shaded her eves to peer out across the wind-ruffled indigo water. Where it met the limpid sky, she found a far wisp of white water and a tiny point of black. Claypool gestured angrily at that rock, and it turned to incandescent fury.
The light of it might have been blinding, but Dawn guarded herself. She watched the appalling dome rush outward, and the terrible white flame of it soften at last into flowing, rosy colors. She saw the great cloud of fire and darkness mushroom upward to stand like an ominous signal against the peaceful sky. Presently the floor shook.
Dawn had been sorry for Claypool, but now she clung to his thin gray sleeve, smiling up at him proudly. Now his bad knee and the hurting in his stomach didn’t seem to matter, for even Mr. White couldn’t blow up rocks like that.
Strangely, though, the three before them didn’t seem afraid. The old man shook his cragged, whitemaned head, in regretful protest.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he rumbled sadly. “Sea fowl nested on that rock.”
Ironsmith stood calm and bold and very grave. Ruth stood beside him, and watched Claypool with a stricken pity.
“Webb!” she whispered again. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I know what I’m doing.” Claypool limped grimly toward them. “I’m going to smash your dirty little plot with the humanoids—this monstrous Compact to smother and mechanize the human race. I’m going to give all men, everywhere, the same freedom you’ve sold us out to get.”
He swung violently upon the sober man beside her.
“Ironsmith, I’m going to kill you. I’m willing to bargain with the rest, but I think you’ve a little too much to answer for. Have you anything to say?”
Calmly, Ironsmith said: “You might specify-your charges.”
“You’ve turned against your kind, and joined the mechanicals,” Claypool rapped. “You spied on me, and sabotaged Project Thunderbolt, and betrayed White, and wrecked our last effort to change the Prime Directive. Now you’ve helped build this new grid, to run men like machines.”
