They all turned to the shy-looking girl who sat next to Karl. She
looked hard at the man next to her before speaking. "Yes, me too," she
almost whispered.
"Good. That's two. Kathryn, what about you?"
She looked Sten squarely in the eye. "I've decided to stay. Why should
I leave this good life to be devoured by beasts or Root-Diggers on the
outside?"
Sten sighed. "Then we need more. And quickly. We must leave by tomorrow
night at the latest."
After the women had been escorted to their cubicles, Franz led the men
through the corridors toward the center of the city. In each great
square they passed squads of soldiers dressed like themselves, staring
straight ahead in the same unconscious way.
When they paused in the middle of a hall to plan their strategy, Karl
turned to Franz. "Something's bothering me, Franz. Just where do they
put their dead? We haven't passed anything like a graveyard."
Franz laughed. "Death is rare in Panamia, my friend. When a person
grows old or very ill, he is summoned by The Leader. He never comes
back. I never knew anyone to come back. As far as any one knows they're
still at the headquarters of The Leader."
A huge cavern-like room loomed ahead where all the main passage-ways
intersected. In the middle of the square sat a great round building,
forbidding, yet beautiful. Doors opened on all sides leading into the
great domed structure.
"And this is where The Leader dwells. Nice, eh?" Franz said.
The men stood looking at the huge dome until it seemed to them that
they were being noticed, then they passed on through the square. At the
far edge, Franz suddenly stiffened. "Walk fast. Hurry," he muttered.
Sten quickened his pace to keep up with the others, then felt a chill
run over him as he saw the officer with the thick glasses watching them
from a window in the dome.
"I wonder what would happen," Karl muttered, "if a guy could get into
that dome for a few minutes to play with the machinery?"
"Perhaps it could be done," Franz replied. "But it would be your last
act on earth. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see what would
happen to the people if the machinery stopped."
Sten noted the thoughtful expression on Franz's face. The man's eyes
searched the corridor, where, by listening carefully, he could hear the
high whine of The Leader.
Kathryn was home from her job when they returned.
"Well, how is your enlistment program coming?" she asked when they
entered.
Sten looked at her and felt his stomach pull tight within him.
"Not so well," Franz replied. "Those I knew when I was here have
forgotten what they believed then or are gone. It's too dangerous to
speak to many new ones."
"There aren't many fools in Panamia," she retorted.
Johnathon grasped Sten's arm entreatingly. "Sten, come with us, we'll
see the girls. They have friends who may be interested. We only have a
few more hours, let's not waste them."
"No, you go on. I'll stay here for a while."
"As for me," Franz said, rising, "I'll go with Karl and Johnathon. I
have to check on something."
Kathryn sat at the table watching Sten as the others left. He looked
away from her eyes. "You'll be alone again soon. Tell me, don't you
ever get lonesome all by yourself all the time?"
"I have The Leader. He is always near."
"You have nothing then. Don't you realize it is nothing?" He rose
and walked to the nook where her recreation machine sat on a shelf.
Grasping it with both hands, he wrenched it from the wall and let it
fall to the floor, smashed. She stared at it dumbly.
"See! There is your Leader--a smashed machine!" Sten shouted. He moved
to her side and leaned close to her. "Kathryn, you're a woman. You're
not stone! Don't you feel anything at all?" Her neck turned slowly red
as he pulled her toward him.
"No, I feel nothing," she said woodenly. "Is this supposed to be
something special, the touch of a man?"
"It can be." He put his face into her hair. Slowly he pulled her head
back and looked into her eyes, then he kissed her, hard.
She fought free of him and began pacing back and forth. "I don't know.
I don't know. Perhaps you are right, but I don't know if I can do it."
"Here, what's this?" Johnathon entered smiling. "Has there been a
change of heart? Good. Then we can leave. Franz here tells me he found
the lady he went looking for too."
Kathryn looked again at the dream machine lying on the floor, then at
Sten. She seemed to gather up strength for a brief moment. "I'll go,"
she whispered.
"I'm glad," Sten said. "We can leave right away then. What about your
girl, Franz?"
"She is waiting for me," Franz smiled. "I made sure of that. But it is
a long way. Give me an hour. Better yet, I'll meet you at the tunnel in
an hour and a half."
Franz laid his hand on Sten's shoulder and spoke in a low voice. "If
I'm not there in an hour and a half, go on. I'll catch you outside." He
squeezed Sten's shoulder. "Be careful, my friend. And good luck."
Sten looked at the door for an instant after Franz had gone. "We must
be careful. We don't want to be noticed."
"Soon there will be nobody to notice us," Johnathon said exuberantly.
"We can yell and run and laugh, and there will be nobody to care, not
even The Leader."
A silence fell over the room as he mentioned the name. Sten broke it
to issue an order for everyone to gather his things. Kathryn gazed
longingly round the room as the others moved out. She bit her lip with
the effort it took to keep from pulling back as Sten led her from the
room.
They passed through the corridors without incident, stopping when they
reached the intersection that led to the tunnel. They stood there at
the edge of the intersection, anxiously awaiting Franz.
Sten stiffened as he saw the officer that had stopped them before
approaching down the corridor, followed by a soldier. The men snapped
to attention and stood as if guarding the women.
The officer swaggered up to Sten. "Here, what are you doing with these
women?" He studied Sten's face. "Don't I know you? Ah yes, you were
with that scar-faced provost that's been snooping around lately. Your
actions are most out of the ordinary. I think we had better go along to
The Leader's headquarters and check on this."
"We have other orders," Sten stated flatly.
"What! You dare disobey!"
"We have orders. But look, here comes our officer now. Ask him."
As the officer turned, Sten lunged forward and struck him a blow on the
neck, knocking him to the floor. Instantly he fell on top of him. There
was a fierce struggle as the officer tried to reach inside his tunic
for his weapon. Suddenly the officer gasped. When his body was still,
Sten slowly withdrew his knife from the man's chest. The soldier stood
staring stupidly at his fallen officer until Karl clubbed him from
behind.
"We've got to get out of here," panted Sten.
"Franz! What about Franz?"
"I don't know. He should be here by now. But he said he'd catch us."
As they fled down the corridor, the view-screens along the way were
blaring the usual message of the glory of The Leader. Abruptly the
voice died away, the whine faded to a diminishing hum, and there was an
increasing stillness. The whine stopped and the corridors were silent.
The women, terror stricken by the stillness, screamed and fell writhing
on the floor. Shouts filled the corridors as panicked throngs left
without the symbols of The Leader ran from their cubicles in terror.
"What is it?" Karl shouted above the din, shaking his head to clear it.
"The whining noise. It stopped." Sten gasped. "Franz! It's Franz! He
must have gotten in and wrecked the dynamos." He pulled Kathryn to her
feet and shook her to stop her sobbing.
Then, as suddenly as it had stopped, the whine began again, slowly
gaining momentum until it reached its former pitch. With this, the
sobs of the women subsided and calmness slowly crept back through the
corridors.
"It's started again," Karl began running toward the tunnel. "They must
have spare dynamos. Poor Franz, all for nothing."
Again the view-speakers were blaring, this time warning the people that
a saboteur had made an attempt to destroy The Leader.
The women were gasping for breath when they reached the door to the
tunnel. Sten plunged through the door, hurrying the others in after
him, and then threw his weight against the wall. With three men pushing
against it, the wall gave way and they entered the tunnel.
It was night outside. They walked slowly, consoling the women, who were
sobbing again at the loss of the shrill god they had known for so long.
The heat that radiated from the sand was suffocating.
"We have to hurry on," Sten told the women. "We can't be caught in this
sand tomorrow. There are foothills ahead where we can rest."
It was morning when the men, carrying the women, entered a rocky canyon
and wearily slumped down in the shade of a cliff. The women barely
moved, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted.
"Lord, I'm tired," Karl groaned.
Sten laughed. "At least we accomplished our mission. Except ... for
Franz."
The men sat silent.
"Maybe Franz fulfilled his purpose, too," Karl said. "That dynamo was
the woman he had waiting for him. He probably got a lot of satisfaction
out of knowing that for one minute, at least, Panamia was without The
Leader."
The other men didn't answer. They were asleep.
They woke as the sun was going down. Sten climbed the cliffs to look
out over the desert in search of the other party. He returned dejected.
"They're half a day overdue now," he said. "Our food's low so we'll
have to go on and hope they catch up later. Bradley has another map."
He noticed the women sitting against the base of the cliff, terrified.
"What's wrong?"
Kathryn looked around them at the barren ground and at the clear sky
stretching away to the horizon. "What's wrong? Look at this. I feel
like I'm floating in air. There's nothing over us!"
The men laughed.
"Don't laugh," Marta wailed. "It's a horrible feeling. This emptiness
is killing me. Sing, shout, do something! But let's not have such
silence!"
Stella, the shy girl with the mouse-colored hair, began crying again.
Karl gently pulled her head over on his shoulder.
* * * * *
They left at dark, winding up through the canyon and back into the
hills where the scrub trees began. All night they traveled, tearing
their flesh on the jagged limbs and rocks in the darkness. Only, the
occasional muffled sob of the women broke the stillness.
In the morning they rested in a small valley where a trickle of water
coarsed through its head. They rested under a pinion tree, the women
receiving some solace from the flimsy natural roof over their heads.
Sten slept three hours, then rose without waking the others and scouted
ahead. He consulted his map and climbed a tall hill to search for the
mountain range they were seeking.
When he returned, Johnathon and Marta were gone.
"He said he had to go," Karl explained. "Marta couldn't take this, and
he wouldn't go on without her. He said he knew he couldn't make you
understand. And asked you to take care of your father's books. He hoped
that someday he could join us in the valley."
"Can he stand living there?" Sten asked glumly.
"Franz said once that it had been done before. I guess they don't
bother you much if you obey."
Sten squatted on his heels and stared out over the desert where
Johnathon and Marta had disappeared, sending them a silent God-speed.
When they started out that afternoon, Stella was still sobbing. Karl
tried to console her, but at every new turn they took, there was fresh
terror in her eyes. Kathryn walked along with her, helping her over
the rough places and trying to cheer her, but she couldn't conceal her
own terror as she stared ahead at the vast distances.
They rested at sundown. While the men were bringing water, Stella rose
and started back down the hillside. Kathryn was thrown aside when she
tried to stop her, and soon the girl was running madly down the hill,
shrieking and sobbing wildly.
Karl dropped his pack and ran after her, begging her to stop. But she
ran on, heedless of obstacles. There was a sudden sharp wail of terror
as she ran blindly off the edge of a cliff.
Sten met Karl carrying her crushed body back up the hill. Karl hugged
the dead girl close to him and did not look at the other man.
That night, for the first time, they built a fire. Karl sat
grief-stricken through most of the night staring into the flames.
Kathryn sat leaning against Sten during the evening, fascinated by the
flickering of the fire--the first she had ever seen.
At dawn Sten awoke and nudged Kathryn. A grey squirrel was scolding
them from a limb above. He laughed at Kathryn's wide-eyed surprise at
the antics of the little animal.
They rose without waking Karl, who was sleeping heavily in front of the
burned-out fire, and walked down to the edge of the creek. A chipmunk
scampered away in front of them and a blue-jay screeched from a near-by
tree. A meadow-lark trilled its fine notes somewhere down the creek.
They sat here at the edge of the creek-bank and leaned back on the
grass.
Kathryn stared to the west where a line of white clouds were playing
along the horizon. "You know something, Sten? I don't notice the
silence so much anymore, and the distance doesn't worry me now, either.
I guess maybe there's something here after all."
Sten pulled her close and smelled the good smell of green grass beneath
them.
The next afternoon they had nearly reached the top of the pass. They
were just below timber-line. Finally, looking to the east, they saw
a great empty space, with a tall mountain range rising jagged on the
other side.
"That's it," Sten exulted. "Fifty miles wide, and in the top of the
mountains."
"I'm glad," Karl said. "But you're on your own now, Sten. I'm going
back."
"Back? To Panamia?"
"Yes. There's nothing for me here. Perhaps back there I can find
something. Maybe I can take up where Franz left off. I don't know.
There must be others who are not afraid of life."
Silently Sten offered his hand. Karl squeezed it hard and looked
into his eyes. "Good luck to you in your valley. I know where it is
now, maybe some day I can return. And perhaps Bradley and the others
will make it yet. Until another day then ..." he turned abruptly, and
started back down the mountain.
Sten and Kathryn, hand in hand, watched him disappear through the
trees. When they could no longer see him, they lifted their eyes to
the hidden valley. They saw, even from this distance, the lakes that
lay scattered through it, and the winding lines of cottonwoods that
grew along the rivers, and the plains where the green and grey of the
sagebrush blended. Sten breathed deeply of the crisp air and let his
breath escape in a low whistle.
"It was worth it, wasn't it? It's ours. And we won't always be alone,
Kathryn. Others will come. Man is not dead. It may take a while, but
others will come."
The woman slipped her arm around the man's waist and they stood for a
time looking out over the valley. Then they started the long descent.