What can you do after the end? What becomes of any plot or plan, when
an indigo-gleaming missile sprays murder into the sky and puts a period
to planning?
I do not think there ever was a battlefield as abruptly quiet as that
square in old Pompeii. Once the bomb had gone, there was not a sound.
The men who had been firing on each other were standing still, jaws
hanging, eyes on the sky.
But it couldn't last. For one man was not surprised; one man knew what
was happening and was ready for it.
A crouching figure at the top of the ruined temple gesticulated and
shouted through a power-megaphone: "Give it up, Defoe! You've lost,
you've lost!" It was Slovetski, and beside him a machine-gun crew
sighted in on the nearest knot of expediters.
Pause, while the Universe waited. And then his answer came; it was a
shot that screamed off a cracked capital, missing him by millimeters.
He dropped from sight, and the battle was raging.
Human beings are odd. Now that the cause of the fight was meaningless,
it doubled in violence. There were fewer than a hundred of Slovetski's
men involved, and not much more than that many expediters. But for
concentrated violence I think they must have overmatched anything in
the Short War's ending.
I was a non-combatant; but the zinging of the hard-pellet fire swarmed
all around me. Gogarty, in his storm sewer, was safe enough, but I was
more exposed. While the rapid-fire weapons pattered all around me, I
jumped up and zigzagged for the shelter of a low-roofed building.
The walls were little enough protection, but at least I had the
illusion of safety. Most of all, I was out of sight.
I wormed my way through a gap in the wall to an inner chamber. It
was as tiny a room as ever I have been in; less than six feet in its
greatest dimension--length--and with most of its floor area taken up by
what seemed to be a rude built-in bed. Claustrophobia hit me there; the
wall on the other side was broken too, and I wriggled through.
The next room was larger; and it was occupied.
A man lay, panting heavily, in a corner. He pushed himself up on
an elbow to look at me. In a ragged voice he said: "Thomas!" And he
slumped back, exhausted by the effort, blood dripping from his shirt.
I leaped over to the side of Benedetto dell'Angela. The noise of the
battle outside rose to a high pitch and dwindled raggedly away.
* * * * *
I suppose it was inertia that kept me going--certainly I could see with
my mind's vision no reason to keep struggling. The world was at an
end. There was no reason to try again to escape from the rubber hoses
of the expediters--and, after I had seen the resistance end, and an
expediter-officer appeared atop the temple where Slovetski had shouted
his defiance, no possibility of rejoining the rebels.
Without Slovetski, they were lost.
But I kept on.
Benedetto helped. He knew every snake-hole entrance and exit of all
the hideouts of Slovetski's group. They had not survived against the
strength of the Company without acquiring skill in escape routes; and
here, too, they had a way out. It required a risky dash across open
ground but, even with Benedetto on my back, I made it.
And then we were in old Pompeii's drainage sewer, the arched stone
tunnel that once had carried sewage from the Roman town to the sea. It
was a hiding place, and then a tunnel to freedom, for the two of us.
We waited there all of that day, Benedetto mumbling almost inaudibly
beside me. In lucid moments, he told me the name of the hotel where
Rena had gone when the Observatory was abandoned, but there seemed few
lucid moments. Toward evening, he began to recover.
We found our way to the seashore just as darkness fell. There was a
lateen-rigged fishing vessel of some sort left untended. I do not
suppose the owner was far away, but he did not return in time to stop
us.
Benedetto was very weak. He was muttering to himself, words that I
could hardly understand. "Wasted, wasted, wasted," was the burden of
his complaint. I did not know what he thought was wasted--except,
perhaps, the world.
We slipped in to one of the deserted wharves under cover of darkness,
and I left Benedetto to find a phone. It was risky, but what risk
mattered when the world was at an end?
Rena was waiting at the hotel. She answered at once. I did not think
the call had been intercepted--or that it would mean anything to anyone
if it had. I went back to the boat to wait with Benedetto for Rena to
arrive, in a rented car. We didn't dare chance a cab.
Benedetto was sitting up, propped rigidly against the mast, staring
off across the water. Perhaps I startled him as I came to the boat; he
turned awkwardly and cried out weakly.
Then he saw that it was I. He said something I could not understand and
pointed out toward the west, where the Sun had gone down long before.
But there was still light there--though certainly not sunset.
Far off over the horizon was a faint glow! I couldn't understand at
first, since I was sure the bomb had been zeroed-in on the Home Offices
in New York; but something must have happened. From that glow, still
showing in the darkness so many hours after the explosion as the dust
particles gleamed bluely, it must have gone off over the Atlantic.
There was no doubt in my mind any longer. The most deadly weapon the
world had ever known had gone off!