Authors: John Brunner
Wasn't hard; so few buildings left standing here."
He stared at nothing.
"I did think it was the revolution. Really did. Guess I was out of touch."
"But what are you going to do now?" Jeannie cried.
"God knows." Suddenly weary. "I'm a dodger, in possession of a forged ID, killed a border guard…I did have to, Jeannie. He called me a black motherfucker and put up his gun. Would've shot me. Only I got him. I guess I'll have to lie low at least until they lift the martial law here, then try and sneak into Canada or something. They got an underground railway going over the border."
He hesitated. "That is, unless Pete gives me away first."
"He wouldn't do that!"
"No? He joined the pigs, didn't he? Matter of fact, I think I may be crazy talking to you this way-you married him. Only I been so long without anyone to talk to."
"I-I know!" Inspiration. "Pete's working in casualty administration.
Got all kinds of official forms. I'll sneak one, say you were hit with the nerve gas, still kind of on a trip, antidote hasn't worked properly yet!
We got dozens like that every day, people like found wandering."
"Ah-hah?" Interest woke in Carl's eyes. "And-?"
"And you pretend to be kind of woozy. Not all there. Act dumb, act stupid. You'll have to get in on some kind of like work gang, but…And hide the gun!"
"I heard. They put a ban on private guns, didn't they? Found a car with a radio that was still working, caught one of the official broadcasts." He rose and came to embrace her again. "Jeannie, honey, if you weren't my sister I'd kiss the hell out of you. Ten minutes ago I was thinking I should shoot myself."
All of a sudden the lights came on. They stared in sheer amazement for long seconds. Then Carl let go a yell of pure joy and did kiss her.
She let him. It seemed only fair. Besides, he did it very well.
"The bastard's faking it to evade retribution!"
"No, Mr. Bamberley, I assure you. He's genuinely ill. Suffered a massive kidney collapse. But he's responding well to treatment and we should be able to set the trial for the first week of next month. I'm making the arrangements right now. Such as they are. He won't cooperate, won't nominate a lawyer, nothing. Still, that's his lookout.
How's your son?"
"Him? Raring to go. Wants to settle with that bastard-what do you think? By the way!"
"Yes?"
"Don't call me 'mister.' It's Colonel Bamberley, even if I am only in the reserves. And come to that, why aren't you in uniform?"
…
restored this evening, and some areas of the city are due for
resettlement tomorrow, though others where the fires were fiercest
will have to be razed. Commenting on the speed of this return to
more-or-less normal circumstances in Denver, the President said,
quote, It will be a source of dismay to our enemies to see how
rapidly we can get the ship of state back on an even keel. End
quote. Pockets of Trainite and black militant resistance in city
centers up and down the nation are collapsing as hunger and cold
take their toll, and the illnesses which are everywhere rife. New
smallpox warnings have been issued in Little Rock and
Charleston, Virginia. Pressure to put Austin Train on trial
continues to grow, as the long delay has encouraged his
supporters who eluded the mass roundup of subversives to resume
their sabotage attacks and propaganda.
Jigra
infestation has been
reported in Canada and Mexico today. Now the weather. Over
much of the West and Midwest acid rain has been falling, the
result of atmospheric action on smoke containing sulphur, and
…
"Thanks," Peg said to the driver of the truck. She'd ridden the last part of the way with one of the teams checking out the purity of the local water, making sure the last trace of poison had been flushed away before the pipes were reconnected. The man didn't answer, but sneezed instead.
She showed her authorization to the gate guards and was passed through toward the former Bamberley mansion. They were allowing a lot of privileges to the press; foreign propagandists were making hay of the use of chained prisoners in and around Denver, and she was supposed to write an objective piece about the situation. It was the usual technique, the same they'd used for Train when he was appearing regularly on TV and advising government committees, the same they'd meant to use in the case of Lucas Quarrey.
But she'd taken the assignment purely for the sake of having a travel permit. After this stopover she was determined to get to California, legally or illegally. They'd taken Austin there, because Bamberley refused to bring his son to New York.
In any case, that was where he had been held captive.
A gang of prisoners was being marched the opposite way along the drive as she approached the house, and to her astonishment she recognized the last man in the line. Hugh. Hugh Pettingill. Horribly changed-his cheeks and lips covered in scabs, his expression slack as an imbecile's. But it was Hugh all right.
She exclaimed, and he turned, and the light of recognition dawned in his eyes. He stopped, and that pulled the chain taut, and the man ahead cursed, and the guard in charge swung around and for a moment Peg thought in horror Hugh was going to say, "Didn't I meet you at the wat?"
For the guard to know she had ever remotely sympathized with the Trainites would be fatal. Why she was still at large at all, she hadn't known until a few days ago, and she still hardly credited the reason.
It was thanks to Petronella Page.
That hard-boiled bitch who had pilloried hundreds of better men and women on her show had been touched by Austin's teaching; perhaps she was his only genuine convert up to now, perhaps she would remain unique. But she was using the leverage her show gave her to do Peg favors.
She had called up and asked Peg to visit her office; reluctantly, Peg had complied, and there she had been shown a photostat copy of a detention order in the name of Margaret Mankiewicz.
"I had it suspended," Petronella said.
"How?" (Peg remembered the way her nails had bitten into her palms as she asked.)
"Who do you think has the tape Austin made in case he was prevented from appearing on my show?"
"
What
?"
A slight smile. "Yes, that's a point you'd probably overlooked.
Before anyone else thought of claiming it from the safety deposit, I got my hands on it." Turning them over to inspect the neglected state they were in, some nails cracked, all the lacquer growing away from the half-moons. Also she was wearing a sweater and old jeans, but that was instant fashion-we're at war, so put on shabby clothes to prove you care.
"It's terrifying," she said. "I've played it a dozen times. Made copies, too. At home. I have a good electronics setup. They're in the proper hands. If anything happens to me, they'll be used. The Trainites aren't beaten, just held in check for the moment. Stunned."
Peg was almost beside herself. "But why haven't you released the tapes? Had them broadcast? Published the text?"
"Because Austin is still with us, isn't he? And I guess he has a reason for what he's doing, though I can't for the life of me imagine what it is. Still…" She hesitated. "I trust that man. The way you do, I guess."
When Peg didn't answer, she raised her head sharply.
"Don't you?" she demanded.
"He-he had a breakdown once. I wish he'd let me talk to him! I'm so afraid they could drive him insane! Permanently!"
"You know, after the inquiry into the riot at the Bamberley hydroponics plant, I had some of the kids who gave evidence on the show. All of them said crazy was the only way to be. Maybe they were right."
But she was loose, at least, and freedom was too precious to be gambled with. By a miracle, Hugh realized. He let his face slump back to sullenness.
"Stubbed my toe," he told the guard, who drove the gang onward.
"…So, you see," Peg concluded her explanation to the reluctant Colonel Saddler, who had already mentioned three times how furious he was to be back in the States when he'd been beating the pants off those Tupas in Honduras, "I thought if I could talk to a few of these-uh-workers…?"
"Pick any you like," the colonel grunted, and sneezed, and apologized, and went on. A lot of people were sneezing around here today. Peg hoped she wasn't due for another bout of sinusitis. "You'll find them blatant-blatant! Doesn't matter which you hit on; I'll guarantee you'll find he's a subversive, or a traitor, or pro-Tupa, or a draft-dodger. It is an absolute
lie
that we've arrested innocent civilians.
They are people who in time of need have failed to answer their country's call."
Which was how Peg found herself talking to Hugh in relative safety that evening.
"Sorry," Hugh said in a low voice. "I nearly gave you away. My head's kind of funny now and then. I drank some water on the way here and it must have had the stuff in it." He hesitated. "It is you, isn't it?
I mean, I'm not mixing you up with someone else? It's so hard to keep track!" Almost in a whine. "You were the friend of that guy-uh-Decimus!"
Peg nodded. There was a great ache in her heart. When she'd known Hugh before she hadn't liked him. But he hadn't been in this pitiable condition, trembling, talking as though to prevent himself from thinking.
"I know someone else who was a friend of his," Hugh said. His eyes were glazing. "Carl. You met him. Worked at Bamberley Hydroponics.
He knew Decimus. Liked him. Maybe I would have, if I'd met him.
Carl gave him a present once, he said. Gave him food. Took some from the plant. He worked at packing it or loading it or something."
"Did you say he gave Decimus food from the plant?" Peg said slowly.
"You're not listening! I just told you, didn't I? A Christmas present, he said. You remember Carl, huh? Seen him lately? Wish I knew where he was. I love Carl. I hope he's okay…"
He started drumming on his knee with his fingertips as his voice tailed away.
"Your friend Carl." Peg said, her throat as tight as though a noose had been drawn around it, "gave Decimus some of the food from the plant, as a Christmas present?"
"Christ, if you don't listen to what I'm saying I might as well shut up," Hugh said, and walked away.
"Oh, my God," Peg whispered. "Oh, my God."
WHEREWITHAL SHALL IT BE SALTED?
A chemist in an old-established corporation
succeeded after many decades of research
in isolating the active principle from oceans
Hopes were high for its immediate appeal
as a safe additive for preserving food
and miraculous enhancer of natural flavor
Regrettably however it was discovered
that in a solution as weak as three per cent
it caused dehydration and delirium and death
-"Our Father Which Art in Washington," 1978
He had used the name for so long he had even come to think of himself as "Ossie," but he didn't want the credit for what he was doing now to go to that mother who had tamely let himself be arrested-and worse yet was now meekly going to stand trial!-by the lackeys of the establishment he'd had it in his power to overthrow.
So he had put in his pocket a piece of paper which said, "I am Bennett Crowther." With his photo.
He didn't expect to last much longer. He'd hoped to go down fighting. Now he could barely walk, barely see, barely breathe. They said it was a new kind of influenza; it was killing people in China and Japan and just getting a foothold here on the West Coast. Still, the news from Honduras was good: the Tupas had taken San Pedro Sula and were spreading north, and their first edict as
de facto
rulers had been to make all industries generating noxious effluent or fumes subject to immediate nationalization. Take a while for it to be implemented, what with the famine, but…
He placed the last of his bombs and coughed and spluttered and wheezed. His temperature was a hundred and three but a revolutionary can't go to the hospital, a revolutionary is solitary, self-reliant, dies alone if need be like a wounded wolf. His fingers shook so much he had trouble setting the timer. Also he could scarcely read the dial.
But it would blow some time tomorrow morning and right now that would have to do.
He left the toilet, left the building, went home and never came out.
Armed guards at the courthouse. Some incredibly foolhardy Trainite had waved a skull-and-crossbones flag earlier, had been arrested and dragged away, but the crowd had mostly been quiet. There were two hundred National Guardsmen in the street and fifty armed police in the corridors and the courtroom. The quietness might be illusory. The sabotage wasn't showing any sign of letting up. Every city in the nation over about two thousand population had had some kind of incident by now, and people were frightened. Hungry, too. The first prosecutions were pending for food-hoarding and evasion of ration laws.
But the Trainites generally-or people who had thought of themselves as such, which meant most of the more intelligent young people and some of their elders-were puzzled and dismayed and didn't know what to do. After that incredible gaffe in the president's state-of-war announcement, they'd expected an instant request for the charges to be dropped, on the grounds that they could now never be tried by an unbiased jury. Like a shout of jubilation another wave of demonstrations and riots had broken out…and been suppressed.
Without a clue from Train himself, all these people who'd imagined they had found a leader began to wonder whether he might indeed have been involved in the Bamberley kidnapping. The most optimistic started to murmur that he must be dead, or being starved and brainwashed into confessing regardless of his guilt. Only the most sophisticated looked at the sky, which was overcast as usual, and watched the rain eat into clothing, brickwork, concrete-and despaired.