Winners! Page 11

  “Yes, sir. I’ve been using a minicom—” Lescarbault lifted the wrist on which his tiny transceiver was strapped—“for very short-range work, passing the ‘battalion commanders their orders. The interference stopped a couple of minutes ago. Clear as daylight.”

  Danielis pulled the wrist toward his own mouth. “Hello, hello, radio wagon, this is the C.O. You read me?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the voice.

  “They turned off the jammer in the city for a reason. Get me the open military band.”

  “Yes, sir.” Pause, while men mumbled and water runneled unseen in the arroyos. A wraith smoked past Danielis’ eyes. Drops coursed off his helmet and down his collar. The horse’s mane hung sodden.

  Like the scream of an insect:

  “—here at once! Every unit in the field, get to San Francisco at once! We’re under attack by sea!”

  Danielis let go Lescarbault’s arm. He stared into emptiness while the voice wailed on and forever on.

  “—bombarding Potrero Point. Decks jammed with troops. They must figure to make a landing there—”

  Danielis’ mind raced ahead of the words. It was as if Esp were no lie, as if he scanned the beloved city himself and felt her wounds in his own flesh. There was no fog around the Gate, of course, or so detailed a description could not have been given. Well, probably some streamers of it rolled in under the rusted remnants of the bridge, themselves like snowbanks against blue-green water and brilliant sky. But most of the Bay stood open to the sun. On the opposite shore lifted the Eastbay hills, green with gardens and agleam with villas; and Marin shouldered heavenward across the strait, looking to the roofs and walls and heights that were San Francisco. The convoy had gone between the coast defenses that could have smashed it, an unusually large convoy and not on time: but still the familiar big-bellied hulls, white sails, occasional fuming stacks, that kept the city fed. There had been an explanation about trouble with commerce raiders; and the fleet was passed on into the Bay, where San Francisco had no walls. Then the gun covers were taken off and the holds vomited armed men.

  Yes, they did seize a convoy, those piratical schooners. Used radio jamming of their own; together with ours, that choked off any cry of warning. They threw our supplies overboard and embarked the bossman militia. Some Spy or traitor gave them the recognition signals. Now the capital lies open to them, her garrison stripped, hardly an adept left in Esper Central, the Sierrans thrusting against her southern gates, and Laura without me.

  “We’re coming!” Danielis yelled. His brigade groaned into speed behind him. They struck with a desperate ferocity that carried them deep into enemy positions and then stranded them in separated groups. It became knife and saber in the fog. But Danielis, because he led the charge, had already taken a grenade on his breast.

  East and south, in the harbor district and at the wreck of the Peninsula wall, there was still some fighting. As he rode higher, Mackenzie saw how those parts were dimmed by smoke, which the wind scattered to show rubble that had been houses. The sound of firing drifted to him. But otherwise the city shone untouched, roofs and white walls in a web of streets, church spires raking the sky like masts, Federal House on Nob Hill and the Watchtower on Telegraph Hill as he remembered them from childhood visits. The Bay glittered insolently beautiful.

  But he had no time for admiring the view, nor for wondering where Laura huddled. The attack on Twin Peaks must be swift, for surely Esper Central would defend itself.

  On the avenue climbing the opposite side of those great humps, Speyer led half the Rolling Stones. (Yamaguchi lay dead on a pockmarked beach.) Mackenzie himself was taking this side. Horses clopped along Portola, between blankly shuttered mansions; guns trundled and creaked, boots knocked on pavement, moccasins slithered, weapons rattled, men breathed heavily and the hex corps whistled against unknown demons. But silence overwhelmed the noise, echoes trapped it and let it die. Mackenzie recollected nightmares when he fled down a corridor which had no end. Even if they don’t cut loose at us, he thought bleakly, we’ve got to seize their place before our nerve gives out.

  Twin Peaks Boulevard turned off Portola and wound steeply to the right. The houses ended; wild grasses alone covered the quasi-sacred hills, up to the tops where stood the buildings forbidden to all but adepts. Those two soaring, iridescent, fountainlike skyscrapers had been raised by night, within a matter of weeks. Something like a moan stirred at Mackenzie’s back.

  “Burgler, sound the advance. On the double!”

  A child’s jeering, the notes lifted and were lost. Sweat stung Mackenzie’s eyes. If he failed and was killed, that didn’t matter too much . . . after everything which had happened . . . but the regiment, the regiment—

  Flame shot across the street, the color of hell. There went a hiss and a roar. The pavement lay trenched, molten, smoking and reeking. Mackenzie wrestled his horse to a standstill. A warning only. But if they had enough adepts to handle us, would they bother trying to scare us off? “Artillery, open fire!”

  The field guns bellowed together, not only howitzers but motorized 75s taken along from Alemany Gate’s emplacements. Shells went overhead with a locomotive sound. They burst on the walls above and the racket thundered back down the wind.

  Mackenzie tensed himself for an Esper blast, but none came. Had they knocked out the final defensive post in their own first barrage? Smoke cleared from the heights and he saw that the colors which played in the tower were dead and that wounds gaped across loveliness, showing unbelievably thin framework. It was like seeing the bones of a woman murdered by his hand.

  Quick, though! He issued a string of commands and led the horse and foot on. The battery stayed where it was, firing and firing with hysterical fury. The dry brown grass started to burn, as red-hot fragments scattered across the slope. Through mushroom bursts, Mackenzie saw the building crumble. Whole sheets of facing broke and fell to earth. The skeleton vibrated, took a direct hit and sang in metal agony, slumped and twisted apart.

  What was that which stood within?

  There were no separate rooms, no floors, nothing but girders, enigmatic machines, here and there a globe still aglow like a minor sun. The structure had enclosed something nearly as tall as itself, a finned and shining column, almost like a rocket shell but impossibly huge and fair.

  Their spaceship, Mackenzie thought in the clamor. Yes, of course, the ancients had begun making spaceships, and we always figured we would again someday. This, though—

  The archers lifted a tribal screech. The riflemen and cavalry took it up, crazy, jubilant, the howl of a beast of prey. By Satan, we’ve whipped the stars themselves! As they burst onto the hillcrest, the shelling stopped, and their yells overrode the wind. Smoke was acrid as blood smell in their nostrils.

  A few dead blue-robers could be seen in the debris. Some half-dozen survivors milled toward the ship. A bowman let fly. His arrow glanced off the landing gear but brought the Espers to a halt. Troopers poured over the shards to capture them.

  Mackenzie reined in. Something that was not human Jay crushed near a machine. Its blood was deep violet color. When the people have seen this, that’s the end of the Order. He felt no triumph. At St. Helena he had come to appreciate how fundamentally good the believers were.

  But this was no moment for regret, or for wondering how harsh the future would be with man taken entirely off the leash. The building on the other peak was still intact. He had to consolidate his position here, then help Phil if need be.

  However, the minicom said, “Come on and join me, Jimbo. The fracas is over,” before he had completed his task. As he rode alone toward Speyer’s place, he saw a Pacific States flag flutter up the mast on that skyscraper’s top.

  Guards stood awed and nervous at the portal. Mackenzie dismounted and walked inside. The entry chamber was a soaring, shimmering fantasy of colors and arches, through which men moved troll-like. A corporal led him down a hall. Evidently this building had been used for quarters, offices, storage,
and less understandable purposes . . . . There was a room whose door had been blown down with dynamite. The fluid abstract murals were stilled, scarred, and sooted. Four ragged troopers pointed guns at the two beings whom Speyer was questioning.

  One slumped at something that might answer to a desk. The avian face was buried in seven-fingered hands and the rudimentary wings quivered with sobs. Are they able to cry, then? Mackenzie thought, astonished, and had a sudden wish to take the being in his arms and offer what comfort he was able.

  The other one stood erect in a robe of woven metal. Great topaz eyes met Speyer’s from a seven-foot height, and the voice turned accented English into music.

  “—a G-type star some fifty light-year’s hence. It is barely visible to the naked eye, though not in this hemisphere.”

  “The major’s fleshless, bristly countenance jutted forward as if to peck. “When do you expect reinforcements?”

  “There will be no other ship for almost a century, and it will only bring personnel. We are isolated by space and time; few can come to work here, to seek to build a bridge of minds across that gulf—”

  “Yeah,” Speyer nodded prosaically. “The light-speed limit. I thought so. If you’re telling the truth.”

  The being shuddered. “Nothing is left for us but to speak truth, and pray that you will understand and help. Revenge, conquest, any form of mass violence is impossible when so much space and time lies between. Our labor has been done in the mind and heart. It is not too late, even now. The most crucial facts can still be kept hidden—oh, listen to me, for the sake of your unborn!”

  Speyer nodded to Mackenzie. “Everything okay?” he said. “We got us a full bag here. About twenty left alive, this fellow the bossman. Seems like they’re the only ones on Earth.”

  “We guessed there couldn’t be many,” the colonel said His tone and his feelings were alike ashen.. “When we talked it over, you and me, and tried to figure what our clues meant. They’d have to be few, or they’d’ve operated more openly.”

  “Listen, listen,” the being pleaded. “We came in love. Our dream was to lead you—to make you lead yourselves—toward peace, fulfillment . . . . Oh, yes, we would also gain, gain yet another race with whom we could someday converse as brothers. But there are many races in the universe. It was chiefly for your own tortured sakes that we wished to guide your future.”

  “That controlled history notion isn’t original with you,” Speyer grunted. “We’ve invented it for ourselves now and then on Earth. The last time it led to the Hellbombs. No, thanks!”

  “But we know! The Great Science predicts with absolute certainty—”

  “Predicted this?” Speyer waved a hand at the blackened room.

  “There are fluctuations. We are too few to control so many savages in every detail. But do you not wish an end to war, to all your ancient sufferings? I offer you that for your help today.”

  “You succeeded in starting a pretty nasty war yourselves,” Speyer said.

  The being twisted its fingers together. “That was an error. The plan remains, the only way to lead your people toward peace. I, who have traveled between suns, will get down before your boots and beg you-—”

  “Stay put!” Speyer flung back. “If you’d eome openly, like honest folk, you’d have found some to listen to you. Maybe enough, even. But no, your do-gooding had to be subtle and crafty. You knew what was right for us. We weren’t entitled to any say in the matter. God in heaven, I’ve never heard anything so arrogant!”

  The being lifted its head. “Do you tell children the whole truth?”

  “As much as they’re ready for.”

  “Your child-culture is not ready to hear these truths.”

  “Who qualified you to call us children—besides yourselves?”

  “How do you know you are adult?”

  “By trying adult jobs and finding out if I can handle them. Sure, we make some ghastly blunders, we humans. But they’re our own. And we learn from them. You’re the ones who won’t learn, you and that damned psychological science you were bragging about, that wants to fit every living mind into the one frame it can understand.

  “You wanted to re-establish the centralized state, didn’t you? Did you ever stop to think that maybe feudalism is what suits man? Some one place to call our own, and belong to, and be part of; a community with traditions and honor; a chance for the individual to make decisions that count; a bulwark for liberty against the central overlords, who’ll always want more and more power; a thousand different ways to live. We’ve always built supercountries, here on Earth, and we’ve always knocked them apart again. I think maybe the whole idea is wrong. And maybe this time we’ll try something better. Why not a world of little states, too well rooted to dissolve in a nation, too small to do much harm—slowly rising above petty jealousies and spite, but keeping their identities—a thousand separate approaches to our problems. Maybe then we can solve a few of them . . . for ourselves!”

  “You will never do so,” the being said. “You will be torn in pieces all over again.”

  “That’s what you think. I think otherwise. But whichever is right—and I bet this is too big a universe for either of us to predict—we’ll have made a free choice on Earth. I’d rather be dead than domesticated.

  “The people are going to learn about you as soon as Judge Brodsky’s been reinstated. No, sooner. The regiment will hear today, the city tomorrow, just to make sure no one gets ideas about suppressing the truth again. By the time your next spaceship comes, we’ll be ready for it: in our own way, whatever that is.”

  The being drew a fold of robe about its head. Speyer turned to Mackenzie. His face was wet. “Anything . . . you want to say . . . Jimbo?”

  “No,” Mackenzie mumbled. “Can’t think of anything. Let’s get our command organized here. I don’t expect we’ll have to fight any more, though. It seems to be about ended down there.”

  “Sure.” Speyer drew an uneven breath. “The enemy troops elsewhere are bound to capitulate. They’ve got nothing left to fight for. We can start patching up pretty soon.”

  There was a house with a patio whose wall was covered by roses. The street outside had not yet come back to life, so that silence dwelt here under the yellow sunset. A maidservant showed Mackenzie through the back door and departed. He walked toward Laura, who sat on a bench beneath a willow. She watched him approach but did not rise. One hand rested on a cradle.

  He stopped and knew not what to say. How thin she was! Presently she told him, so low he could scarcely hear: “Tom’s dead.”

  “Oh, no.” Darkness came and went before his eyes.

  “I learned the day before yesterday, when a few of his men straggled home. He was killed in the San Bruno.”

  Mackenzie did not dare join her, but his legs would not upbear him. He sat down on the flagstones and saw curious patterns in their arrangement. There was nothing else to look at.

  Her voice ran on above him, toneless: “Was it worth it? Not only Tom, but so many others, killed for a point of politics?”

  “More than that was at stake,” he said.

  “Yes, I heard on the radio. I still can’t understand how it was worth it. I’ve tried very hard, but I can’t.”

  He had no strength left to defend himself. “Maybe you’re right, duck. I wouldn’t know.”

  “I’m not sorry for myself,” she said. “I still have Jimmy. But Tom was cheated out of so much.”

  He realized all at once that there was a baby, and he ought to take his grandchild to him and think thoughts about life going on into the future. But he was too empty.

  “Tom wanted him named after you,” she said.

  Did you, Laura? he wondered. Aloud: “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’ll find something.”

  He made himself glance at her. The sunset burned on the willow leaves above and on her face, which was now turned toward the infant he could not see. “Come back to Nakamura,” he said.

&nb
sp; “No. Anywhere else.”

  “You always loved the mountains,” he groped. “We—”

  “No.” She met his eyes. “It isn’t you, Dad. Never you. But Jimmy is not going to grow up a soldier.” She hesitated. “I’m sure some of the Espers will keep going, on a new basis, but with the same goals. I think we should join them. He ought to believe in something different from what killed his father, and work for it to become real. Don’t you agree?”

  Mackenzie climbed to his feet against Earth’s hard pull. “I don’t know,” he said. “Never was a thinker. . . Can I see him?”

  “Oh, Dad—”

  He went over and looked down at the small sleeping form. “If you marry again,” he said, “and have a daughter, would you call her for her mother?” He saw Laura’s head bend downward and her hands clench. Quickly he said, “I’ll go now. I’d like to visit you some more, tomorrow or sometime, if you’ll have me.”

  Then she came to his arms and wept. He stroked her hair and murmured, as he had done when she was a child. “You do want to return to the mountains, don’t you? They’re your country too, your people, where you belong.”

  “Y-you’ll never know how much I want to.”

  “Then why not?” he cried.

  His daughter straightened herself. “I can’t,” she said. “Your war is ended. Mine has just begun.”

  Because he had trained that will, he could only say, “I hope you win it.”

  “Perhaps in a thousand years—” She could not continue. Night had fallen when he left her. Power was still out in the city, so the street lamps were dark and the stars stood forth above all roofs. The squad that waited to accompany their colonel to barracks looked wolfish by lantern light. They saluted him and rode at his back, rifles ready for trouble; but there was only the iron sound of horseshoes.

  The End

  *******************************

  The Sharing of Flesh,