The Second Murray Leinster Megapack (50 page)

Steve had gone to them to warn them of an intended foray by the guerillas—a foray in quest of food and women. He joined them in an ambush of the guerillas. The looters were driven off. And Steve, scouting after the battered, wounded, snarling band, had been absent from the community when bombs fell on it. He saw the flares in the sky and felt the shocks in the earth.

Steve returned to find gigantic craters where the village and most of the farms had been, and the blast-effect had destroyed all the rest. And he knew, then, that the falling of bombs on that small and resolute village was not an accident. It followed too closely their success in defending themselves against looters. It was the consequence of that success.

The people who had planes and bombs wanted all other civilization destroyed. They preferred it to destroy itself. But they would let no seed of future rivalry survive. Unquestionably, among the looters and bandits there were agents of the people with planes and bombs, watching lest any sanity or decency remain anywhere.

“It occurs to me,” said Steve suddenly, with narrowed eyes, “that if some of our friends recovered, back in town, they just barely might trail us, or they might tell some other people who’d take entirely too much interest in Frances’ system of self-defense.”

Frances regarded him with unquestioning eyes. Lucky frowned meditatively. Steve considered—and Lucky handed him no less than two of the crater-stones, and passed one to Frances. They varied in size, those three, but they were essentially duplicates of Lucky’s own.

But Steve only nodded absently, for he was thinking. They went on along the abandoned railroad. Presently they came to a trestle across a small, fast-flowing stream.

“In case our fine feathered friends back yonder trail us,” said Steve, “or in case they tell somebody else, we’ll build a raft that would carry us downstream. And our trail will definitely end.”

Lucky unquestioningly set to work. They had no ax, so chopping was out of the question. But they dismantled a wooden fence and bound its bars together with wire from a single-strand cattle-fence of wire. They made three bundles and fastened them together into a raft, fifteen feet long and four feet wide. They launched it.

“And I’ll try out my new crater-stone,” said Steve.

He put his hand in his pocket. His expression grew satisfied.

“It warmed up,” he observed. “Fine! Now we’ll cast the raft loose and wade upstream.”

Lucky’s eyes crinkled with amusement. Frances stared.

“Look,” said Steve, with a wave of his hand. “Anybody could tell we made a raft here. Anybody who wanted to trail us would follow the stream down. And I just used my crater-stone and pulled for the raft to float on merrily without grounding anywhere until it gets to a fair-sized river. So even if it’s finally found, they’d still think we got off somewhere downstream from here.”

Lucky chuckled.

“You got a hunch, huh? You think things ain’t as disorganized as they look? I’m gettin’ me an idea, too.”

He splashed into the stream, joining Steve. But Frances rolled up her new whipcord slacks before she began to wade.

Steve seemed now to have a definite destination in mind. He pushed the pace. Walking in water was tiring, but he moved briskly upstream, Frances followed, and Lucky brought up the rear. Lucky had a long, stout, sharp-pointed stick in his hand, split off from a fence-rail. For the first mile or so he seemed to use it as a walking-stick. Then he reversed it. Now and again he halted. Once he fell so far behind that Frances paused anxiously.

“Hadn’t we better wait for him, Steve?” she asked.

But then Lucky came into view, strolling in rippling water six inches above his ankles, and Steve went on without comment. They walked, altogether, nearly seven miles in shallowing water, by which time the stream was barely a brook and it was very late afternoon, and practically dark.

”It’s about five miles more to where I want to go tonight,” said Steve, in worried tones. “We’d better hit it up a little.”

Frances looked very weary, but she rolled down her dampened slacks and uncomplainingly prepared to go on. Lucky glanced at her. “You tryin’ to make Frances work up a good appetite?” he said humorously.

Steve shook his head.

“I’m trying a new trick with the crater-stones. I’m trying to make them yield information, indirectly. There used to be a house up this way that would be ideal for us to hole up in. A man I knew, had it as a sort of hunting cabin. It’s out-of-the-way and as likely as any place to be still standing. So I pulled for it that we’ll sleep in it tonight, in safety, after a meal we’ve gathered on the way. The stone warmed up.

“If the house weren’t standing, it wouldn’t be possible for us to sleep in it. It wouldn’t be on the dice, so to speak. If there weren’t some happening tied in to it to be arranged, the stone wouldn’t have needed to warm up. When the two things are linked, the warming of the crater-stone means that both have to happen, and the house must still be standing and in shape to sleep in.”

Lucky blinked.

“Hey! That’s—” He stopped. “Migosh, I see it! I pull to roll a thirteen on dice and the crater-stone won’t warm up unless one of ’em’s cracked. So if it warms up I know one’s cracked without lookin’ at it. Sure! Sure! So you know there’s a’ house there and it’s okay.”

“We haven’t the grub yet,” said Steve.

“Shucks,” said Lucky. “I had a sharp stick in my han’. I been stabbin’ at fish all the way upstream. I got seven, two big fellas and five little ones. Grub’s all set. Let’s go on and get a good night’s rest.”

* * * *

He took the lead, now, exuberant and happy. Steve and Frances followed. Frances was tired, but she smiled at Steve as he waited to help her up a steep place on the way they had to go.

“That’s an awfully good trick,” she said. “Using a crater-stone to find out things. If you can make things happen and find things out—”

“We can,” he told her. He held her hand to ensure her balance on tumbled rocks. “And I’ve found that all three of us are going to live through what’s coming. I pulled for the three of us to be together five years from today. And the crater-stone got warm. Thousands of millions of states of affairs could exist for all three of us five years from now, but now none are possible which don’t allow us to be alive and in the same spot.”

It was very late dusk. The first faint stars winked into being. Shadows of the tall hills into which they made their way made it almost dark where they moved. Lucky, on ahead, was singing lustily to himself. And the footing became quite secure, but Steve still held Frances’ hand, as if unconsciously, and she let him, as if unaware. Yet the pressure of her fingers was warm and strong against his palm.

“I didn’t realize it, but I know something of the future, too,” she said softly. “I wished for something. And it will happen.”

“What?”

She shook her head, smiling up at him.

“You don’t want to fool with the things,” he said anxiously. “We’ve still got to find out how they work. Lucky got hit on the head as the result of one of his wishes only this morning. You’ve got to be awfully careful. They’re dangerous!”

“Not what I wished for,” said Frances.

Somehow, they were standing still and facing each other. Frances’ hand was firm and soft. She looked very wistful. She was very pretty, but as she looked up at him her smile was wavery and a little bit frightened, too.

Suddenly he took her in his arms and kissed her. A dozen times over, with long-pent-up enthusiasm. And then he released her.

“I’m sorry, Frances!” he said contritely “I wanted you to feel safe with me, but you’re such a swell girl—I just couldn’t help it!”

He gulped. He suddenly realized that he still had his arms around her, holding her fast so she couldn’t flee until he had placated her.

Then he realized that she wasn’t trying to flee. She still looked a little scared. But she looked glad, too.

“S-silly,” said Frances shakily. “Of course you kissed me. What do—what do you think I used the crater-stone to wish for?”

CHAPTER VII

Lucky Takes a Jaunt

Despite their haste, they reached the house late; when the moon in its last quarter was barely above the horizon. It was a small house and a snug one, built into the side of a hill, with many trees around it and tall second-growth beginning not far away. Steve and Lucky scouted it cautiously, weapons ready, and at last stood sniffing at smashed-in doors, and it was empty.

But they searched it thoroughly in the darkness before they gathered in the big living room and Steve made a fire in the great stone fireplace. As its first flickers rose, he pounced upon long drapes, bunched in untidy heaps upon the floor. He was hanging them across window-openings before Lucky realized what he was about.

Then, as the light in the fireplace increased, the two of them prowled about—and Lucky went outside to make sure that no ray of light escaped, and Frances regarded Steve with shining eyes and he kissed her again very satisfactorily—and made everything quite light-tight.

They blacked out cities back in old war times,” said Steve. “Later radar made that useless. Now that there’s no more civilization, a lighted window means somebody trying to get back to it. So the old-fashioned blackout comes in again.”

“And the old-fashioned fish-fry comes back too,” said Lucky re-entering the room. “Only these got to broil before the fire.”

As Lucky began to cook the fish he talked, meditatively.

“You said somethin’ today that set me to thinkin’,” he said. “And you went to a lotta trouble to make sure we weren’t trailed here. What makes you so positive there’s somethin’—uh—phony about the way things are?”

Steve told him of the small community he’d found in which the folk had resolutely tried to cling to all of decency and civilization that remained. He also told of the band which called itself guerillas, and how he’d killed a leading member, and how he had gone ahead to warn its prospective victims. Then he told of the victorious defense, and the bombs which fell upon the defenders afterward, obliterating them and all they’d fought for.

“So somebody doesn’t want civilization to come back,” said Steve. “You see why, of course.”

“Nope,” said Lucky.

“There can’t be an atomic battle,” Steve pointed out. “There can only be atomic massacre. There can’t really be an atomic war. There can only be a contest in destruction. And there can’t be conquest by atomic bombs. You can kill people with ’em, but you can’t conquer them. So when this thing started, the United States couldn’t be conquered. It could only be smashed. Which it was! Most of the world was smashed, too. But the part where the aggressors live, escaped. Not completely, I suspect, but after a fashion. Left alone, we Americans would start to build up our civilization again, because even an unharmed other nation couldn’t occupy all of America. These people probably didn’t have nearly enough people left. They certainly haven’t ships and supplies to carry and maintain an occupying force. But if we built back, we’d be dangerous some day. So what would they do?”

Lucky grunted.

“I’m beginnin’ to guess, fella, and I’m mad!”

“So am I,” Steve told him. “It isn’t all guessing. Those people would establish bases where they’d store planes and bombs. Those bases wouldn’t be used to conquer anything, just keep us from rebuilding anything. They’d send out spies with pocket radios, to roam around with looters and so on. They’d have their planes keep up surveys. Ploughed fields mean people still holding on. Where they found civilization hanging on, the spies would lead looters to rob and wreck it. If the looters failed, they’d use planes and bombs.”

Lucky Connors growled a little.

“It adds up, I think,” said Steve, carefully. “If they can keep us at the level of animals for fifty years or a hundred, we’ll be merely savages, those of us or our children who’ll be left. And meanwhile the people who keep us degraded will be breeding feverishly in their own country, so that some day they can come over and occupy a nearly empty continent, peopled only by savages and not many of them. Possibly,” he added evenly, “it’s not only one continent they plan to reduce to savagery for their descendants to swarm over. Maybe it’s all the world. Maybe they plan one great nation of one blood which will people the whole earth. All they have to do is exterminate all other nations.”

Lucky growled again.

“They ain’t goin’ to get away with it.”

“No,” said Steve. “I’m beginning to hope they won’t.”

Lucky stared at the fire.

“Yeah,” he said presently. “I’m beginnin’ to see somethin’ I’m goin’ to attend to, come tomorrow. Let’s get some sleep.”

They curled up before the fireplace, all three of them, and slept. Steve woke when Lucky shook him gently. He was wide awake on the instant. Lucky had pulled down one of the drapes they’d hung over the windows, and early sunlight streamed in. Lucky put his finger to his lips and nodded at Frances. Her fingers were intertwined in Steve’s, and he flushed awkwardly. But Lucky seemed not to notice. He beckoned Steve outside, leaving Frances still sleeping.

“She’s a nice kid,” he said without expression, once in the open air. “You’re goin’ to look after her, huh?”

Steve looked at him sharply.