Authors: John Brunner
"It's just Denver and the environs," Doug said with a shrug. "But it might as well have been the whole country. They've put us under martial law, they've instituted rationing, and it's going on until the government change their minds."
"Doctor, you watch your tongue!" the sergeant snapped.
"Oh, shut up!" Doug retorted. "I'm not under military discipline-I'm a civilian volunteer. And what's more, I seem to be one of only about a dozen doctors fit for work in the whole of the city and its suburbs. And all I'm saying is that my job would be a sight easier if they told us the whole truth. I'm working in the dark half the time-and so are you, aren't you?"
The sergeant hesitated. "Well, doc, when it's a case of thousands of lunatics all of a sudden…" He spread his hands.
"Yes," Doug said ironically. "All of a sudden!" Looking past Philip's shoulder to where Rocco and Denise were trying to persuade Harold to take the pill and the antibiotic-with no success; he let himself be handled like a dead rabbit, but would not cooperate.
"Phil." Dropping his voice suddenly. "You've got to report for duty now-everyone who was ever in the armed forces has been recalled from the reserve, and you're fitter than most of the serving soldiers I've seen around here. That means it's going to be tough on Denise."
"How do you mean?" Philip's mind had been full of fog for days. It was obstinately refusing to clear.
"Well…Well, Harold's never going to be any different, you know.
We're certain about that, when it comes to kids that young. And if you're going to be whipped away, and-I didn't tell you!"
He had been half turned away; now he swung back to confront Philip directly.
"Alan! He was killed!"
"Oh, my God. How?"
"Burned to death in his warehouse. Along with Dorothy. I was on the detail that checked out the ruins." Doug licked his lips. "We think someone who'd had trouble with his filters must have put two and two together when the warning went out about poisoned water. Decided it was the Mitsuyama purifiers that had caused it. He and Dorothy went back to the office the day after the crisis, and someone threw gas bombs in. Burned a cop, too. Hadn't someone been shot?"
"Mack," Philip said slowly. "Who told you?"
"Pete Goddard. He's okay-and Jeannie. They're helping with casualty admin."
So a few people at least were likely to survive. Philip said, "About Harold?"
"Oh. Oh, yes. He's going to be a-a burden for Denise."
"I guess so." That damned mental fog wouldn't lift; it was like trying to think between the anesthetic and the coma. "But they'll get help, won't they? And I mean we do have some money, and-"
"Oh, shit,
Phil
!" So agitated, he had to grasp Philip's arm to halt his words. Still in a low tone, privately: "The banks are shut, everything's closed down here, and there's no transport out of the city, nothing,
nothing
! And Harold in his condition…" He waved his hand.
"But I've seen worse than him. Being tended like by Earth Community Chest." So far back in the past, a boy with a shrunken leg hobbling across the entrance to Angel City's parking lot in LA. "Or being helped by Double-V. I mean, he's a sick kid."
"They've been proscribed," Doug said.
"What?"
"Earth Community Chest and Double-V. They were both on the list of subversive organizations to be closed down when the country went on to a war footing. Along with all the civil rights groups, all the left-wing publishers…" Doug shook his head. "And they won't tell us who we're fighting."
"Them!" the sergeant said. Philip hadn't realized he was listening.
"This is the filthiest attack in history! Kids like yours driven crazy!
Women! Everyone! Not even killed clean!"
Philip gave a slow nod.
"Okay, I won't make my offer after all," Doug said, and turned away as Rocco offered him a pad of printed forms. "By the way, what was Josie's full name and date of birth? I have to clip this to her bag."
Philip supplied the data dully. And went on, "What-what offer?"
"A bag like this one," Doug said, not looking around. "It's that, or starve to death, or be killed in an accident, or die of typhus…Well, you've made it clear you'd refuse."
"You're
killing kids
?" Philip burst out.
"No. Saving them the trouble of dying by themselves." Doug turned and faced him again. There was something in his eyes which might have been pity, but Philip wasn't receptive to pity any more.
His voice softened. "Look, I'll do you another favor. Right now you can't think straight. You may even have had a sub-clinical dose of the nerve gas-the hallucinogen. I'll give you a note to say you won't be well enough to report for duty until tomorrow. Think about Harold and Denise while you have the chance. It's the only one you'll get."
Philip gazed at him without comprehension.
"One more thing," the sergeant said. "You got any food? Because we got to take away anything more than you need for tomorrow. They promised ration wagons the day after, with like soup and bread."
And that was too much. Philip turned away to the kitchen with a gesture and went to lean his forehead on a wall. It was covered with a film of greasy dirt, but it was at least cool. In the background he heard Denise saying, "What about Angie? And Millicent?"
"My mother's dead," Doug answered. "But Angie's okay. She was a nurse. She's with another detail like this."
When the door had closed Philip said, "If I could get my hands on the bastards responsible for this, I'd-I'd…"
And couldn't think of anything bad enough.
…
include prima facie but not ipso facto the following:
(a) Homosexuality or gross indecency with another male
person;
(b) Possession of or trading in an illegal narcotic or other drug;
(c) Living upon the earnings of prostitution;
(d) Membership in the Communist Party or one of its front
organizations (see schedule attached);
(e) "Trainism";
(f) Advocating the violent overthrow of the government;
(g) Slandering the President of the United States;
(h)
…
Hugh was very sick. Sometimes he thought it must be blood-poisoning because he had these like sores on his face, right up to his mouth so when he licked around he tasted the foul sweetness of pus. Sometimes he thought it was something else he could have caught, a separate fever altogether. But most of the time he thought it was a trip he was taking, only he'd forgotten when he dropped the cap of acid.
The world was all rubbery, especially his own limbs.
But he knew where he was going, and he'd got there, despite dodging pigs and skunks and there not being any cars on the road to hitch a ride with. His own had quit on him, or he'd driven it into something, or something. He wasn't thinking too good, what with the fever and the lack of food-he hadn't eaten in days, though he'd found plenty of water.
Water?
A drop of rain on his hand. Shit. But at least he was in sight of home. These were the botanical gardens around the Bamberley house-weren't they? He looked, bewildered, the darkness gathering.
Real evening.
Those trees. Too bare for this early in the fall and some of them not the kind to drop their leaves anyhow. Blight of some kind? He touched a trunk, found the bark come away at the brush of his hand.
Shit. Never mind trees. The house in that direction. More rain. It reminded him he was thirsty again, and he tilted his head to let the drops run on his tongue. His sense of taste was poor. Some sort of thick whitish mass had covered the inside of his mouth. Kitty had had it in her cunt, he remembered. Fungus. Thrush, they called it. Fucking stupid name. Everybody knew there were no more birds.
The rain was sour. He stopped dead, not believing what his senses reported. Sour? Must be the stinking thrush or something. Rain isn't sour. Only-
"Christ," he said aloud, and a shaft of terror went down his spine like an icicle. Battery acid! There was no doubt about it; he'd owned an electric car long enough to be certain.
Raining
acid
!
He screamed and ran headlong for the house, and under the next tree but two a sentry challenged him with a carbine. He stopped and looked at the man blankly.
"Acid rain," he said. "It's impossible."
"Shut up," the sentry said. "Who are you?"
"I live here," Hugh said. "It's my home."
"Your name Bamberley?" The sentry cocked his head.
"No-uh-no. I'm Hugh Pettingill." There were papers in his pocket…somewhere. He found something that felt right, handed it over.
"You were in the Marines!" the sentry said. "Ah-hah!"
"You're going to be useful when you're cleaned up." He scrutinized Hugh's face in the gathering dusk. "Bad sores on your face. You been laid up sick?"
"Y-yeah." When was I in the Marines?
"But you're reporting now?"
"Yeah."
"Fine. Go straight on in and ask for Captain Aarons." The sentry handed back the discharge certificate.
"Where are the-the family? Maud and the rest?"
"Huh? Oh, Mrs. Bamberley? Went crazy, I hear. A bit before the rest of them." A sour grin. "So since the place was empty, and big, they put us in. Handy to Denver."
"What are you doing here?"
The man shrugged. "Work gangs. Clearing the wreckage in the city.
Dodgers, Trainites, people like that. Pacifists. Walk 'em into the city every morning, bring 'em back at night. Get some honest work out of
'em. You better carry on to the house and report. See you later, maybe."
"Yeah," Hugh said dully, thinking: acid rain? Hell!
One of the work gangs was being returned for the night as he reached the house. They were in chains.
"This certificate's a forgery," Captain Aarons said curtly. "He was never in the Marines. Where is he right now?"
Startled, the sergeant said, "I think he's seeing the doctor, sir. Got like sores on his face."
"Get him out of there and put him on a work gang," Aarons said.
"Unless the doc says he's not even fit to dig rubble."
"Tom, this is Moses. Do you still not have anything we can use?"
"No, damn it, I don't! When the power went out the other night it was like-like hitting a man on the head with a blackjack! Sorting out the data after that isn't being made any easier, either, by the way you keep pestering me!
Goodbye
!"
Gradually, this sense of adjustment to the strange new way of the world…They had cleared this area now and officially declared it safe for habitation, but it was so-so
empty
!
Even though it hadn't been home for long, though, it was great to put her key in her own door, Jeannie thought. And they'd got off so lucky! The fires hadn't come within a quarter-mile of here; the building hadn't been shot up, or bombed, or anything.
Though of course the Army had put them into a motel out of the city for the time being, and they'd worked at what they could, she tending the sick in spite of being not so well herself and Pete dealing with casualty registration forms and death certificates, the land of thing he'd learned already in the police, easy.
But it was so weird, so
weird
! Knowing the apartments upstairs were vacant, a whole building with like thirty homes in…and the street, with the cars just standing there, no traffic, not even audible in the distance, except the rumble of Army trucks…and the state of the country! Every fit man drafted, no excuses: loyal, to serve under military command, or disloyal, to serve in some other way like clearing ruins and carrying corpses to be buried. They were still unearthing corpses all the time.
Home, though. Just to check whether she could bring Pete here tonight They didn't have gasoline for the car, but the Army was mounting regular patrols and so were the police, and Chappie Rice, this old friend of Pete's, would fix it so they could ride to and from work every day. Until the crisis was over. Would it ever be over?
She was thinking so hard about that she didn't see him.
"Don't move. Put your hands-Christ, it's Jeannie!"
She cried out and spun around, and there he was looking at her over the back of their long chesterfield: Carl.
But Carl changed, nearly out of recognition. He was so much older.
His thin face was drawn into the lines of premature maturity; he wore a dirty black sweater with a bandolier crossing the shoulder, and held a sporting rifle leveled at her.
He looked at her, then at the gun, and abruptly lost the extra years he'd acquired. Leaping to his feet, he dropped the gun and rushed to embrace her.
"Oh, Carl! Carl, baby!" She was almost crying; she'd been sure her favorite brother must be dead. "What are you doing here?"
"Hiding," he said, and laughed cynically. "You? Is Pete with you?"
"No-uh-we been put in this motel, see, but tomorrow…" She explained rapidly.
"All empty upstairs? Groovy. Then I can move into one of the other apartments."
"No, they're going to use them to rehouse people whose homes got burnt."
"Ah, shit." His face fell. "Am I ever a stupid
bastard
!"
"What?"
"See…" His age returned to him; he moved away to sit down beside the rifle, his thin fingers caressing its stock. "See, I got to hide out, Jeannie. This killed a state border guard."
"Oh, Carl!" She pressed her hands tight together.
"Had to. Him or me. I wanted to get by. And I don't have this love of skunks anyhow…See, I was out in Berkeley, but I had to split from where I was. And when I heard about this big thing here in Denver, I thought Christ, it's the revolution and not before time and I'm damned if I miss out. See what I mean about being a stupid bastard?"
She nodded, her face drawn.
"So when I found out what the real scene was, I could've kicked myself back to Berkeley. I tried to find you, then. You wrote me, I got the letter, said you'd moved, and I knew the street though I forgot the number, so I just worked along till I found Goddard on the plate.