IV

The Tenant smiled at Loudons and said, "Your courtesy does not

excuse our stupidity. We know our history and we should have

identified the word accurately.

"Yes, we were originally a ... a pla-toon of soldiers, two hundred

years ago, at the time when the Wars ended. The old Toon, and the

First Tenant, were guarding POWs, and there, sir,"--to Loudons--"is a

word we cannot trace. We have no idea what they were. In any event,

the pows were all killed by a big bomb, and the First Tenant,

Lieutenant Gilbert Dunbar, took his platoon and started to march to

DeeCee, where the government was.

"But there was no government any more.

"They fought with people along the way. When they needed food, or

ammunition, or animals to pull their wagons, they took them, and

killed those who tried to prevent them. Other people joined the

toon, and when they found women they wanted, they took them.

"They did all sorts of things that would have been crimes if

there had been any law, but since there was no law, it was

obvious that they could be no crime.

"The First Ten--Lieutenant--kept his men together, because he had

The Books. Each evening, at the end of each day's march, he read

to his men out of them."

Altamont knew without looking at his associate that Loudons would

be inconspicuously jotting down notes. The last was an item the

sociologist would be sure to record: the white-bearded Tenant had

pronounced that reference to a written testament in capital

letters.

The story was continuing....

"... finally, they came here. There had been a town here, but it

had been burned and destroyed, and there were people camping in

the ruins.

"Some of them fought and were killed, others came in and joined

the platoon.

"At first, they built shelters around this building and made this

their fort. Then they cleared away the ruins, and built new

houses. When the cartridges for the rifles began to get scarce,

they began to make gunpowder, and new rifles, like these we are

using now, to shoot without cartridges.

"Lieutenant Dunbar did this out of his own knowledge because

there is nothing in The Books about making gunpowder. The guns in

The Books are rifles and shotguns and revolvers and airguns.

Except for the airguns, which we haven't been able to make, these

all shot cartridges.

"As with your people, we did not die out because we too had

women. Neither did we increase greatly--too many died or were

killed young. But several times we've had to tear down the wall

and rebuild it, to make room inside for more houses. And we've

been clearing out a little more land for the fields each year.

"We still read and follow the teachings of The Books: we have

made laws for ourselves out of them."

There was a silence during which Altamont felt himself to be the

focus of attention; not obtrusively, but, nonetheless, insistently.

However, this was Loudon's field and Altamont preferred not to

speak.

"And we are waiting for the Slain and Risen One," Tenant Jones

added, and there was no doubt that he was looking at Altamont

intently. "It is impossible that He will not, sooner or later,

deduce the existence of this community, if He has not done so

already."

Again the silence and lack of movement, broken by Loudons this

time, when he picked up the candle to re-lit his cigar.

Mentally, Altamont thanked his partner.

"Well, sir," the Toon Leader changed the subject abruptly,

"enough of this talk about the past. If I understand rightly, it

is the future in which you gentlemen are interested." He pushed

back the cuff of his hunting shirt and looked at an old and worn

wrist watch. "Eleven hundred: we'll have lunch shortly.

"This afternoon, you will meet the other people of the Toon, and

this evening, at eighteen hundred, we'll have a mess together.

Then, when we have everyone together, we can talk over your offer

to help us, and decide what it is that you can give us that we

can use."

"You spoke, a while ago, of what you could do for us, in return,"

Altamont said. He knew that now he would have to be the one to

stress their original mission: Loudons would probably be so

fascinated by this society that the sociologist might never

remember the primary reason for coming to Pittsburgh.

"There's one thing you can do, no further away than tomorrow, if

you're willing."

He had no time to wonder at the interchange of glances around the

table before the Toon Leader said, "And that is--?"

"In Pittsburgh, somewhere, there is an underground crypt, full of

books. Not printed and bound books, but spools of microfilm. Do

you know what that is?"

The men of the Toon shook their heads. Altamont continued:

"They are spools on which strips of films are wound and on which

pictures have been taken of books, page by page. We can make

other, larger pictures from them, big enough to be read--"

"Oh, photographs, which you can enlarge. I can understand that.

You mean, you can make many copies of them?"

"That's right. And you shall have copies, as soon as we can take

the originals back to Fort Ridgeway, where we have the equipment

for enlarging them. But while we have information which will help

us to find the crypt where the books are, we will need help in

getting it open."

"Of course! This is wonderful. Copies of The Books!" the Reader

exclaimed. "We thought that we had the only one left in the

world!"

"Not just The Books, Stamford, other books," the Toon Leader

told him. "The books mentioned in The Books. But of course we

will help you. You have a map to show where they are?"

"Not a map, just some information. But we can work out the

location of the crypt."

"A ritual," Stamford Rawson said happily. "Of course!"

V

They lunched together at the house of Toon Sarge Hughes with the

Toon Leader and the Reader and five or six of the leaders of the

community. The food was plentiful, but Altamont found himself

wishing that the first book they found in the Carnegie Library

crypt would be a cook-book.

In the afternoon, he and Loudons separated.

Loudons attached himself to the Tenant, the Reader and an old

woman, Irene Klein, who was almost a hundred years old and was

the repository and arbiter of most of the community's oral

legends.

Altamont, on the other hand, started with Alex Barrett, the

gunsmith, and Mordecai Ricci, the miller, to inspect the gunshop

and the grist mill. They were later joined by a half dozen more

of the village craftsmen and so also visited the forge and

foundry, the sawmill and the wagon shop. Altamont additionally

looked at the flume, a rough structure of logs lined with sheet

aluminum; and at the nitriary, a shed-roofed pit in which

potassium nitrate was extracted from the community's animal

refuse.

But he reversed matters when it came to visiting the powder mill

on the island: he became the host and took them by helicopter to

the island and then for a trip up the river.

The guests were a badly-scared lot, for the first few minutes, as

they watched the ground receding under them through the

transparent plastic nose. Then, when nothing serious seemed to be

happening, exhilaration took the place of fear. By the time they

set down on the tip of the island, the eight men were confirmed

aviation enthusiasts.

The trip up-river was an even bigger success, the high point

coming when Altamont set his controls for Hover, pointed out a

snarl of driftwood in the stream, and allowed his passengers to

fire one of the machine-guns at it.

The lead balls of their own black-powder rifles would have

plunked into the water-logged wood without visible effect. The

copper-jacketed machine-gun bullets ripped it to splinters.

They returned for a final visit to the distillery awed by what

they had seen.