_And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night._
--Dover Beach,
_by Matthew Arnold_
I am not going to try to describe point by point all that happened the
next half hour because there was too much of it and it involved all
three of us, sometimes doing different things at the same time, and
although we were told a lot of things, we were seldom if ever told the
why of them, and through it all was the constant impression that we
were dealing with human beings (I almost left out the "human" and I'm
still not absolutely sure whether I shouldn't) of vastly greater
scope--and probably intelligence too--than ourselves.
And that was just the _basic_ confusion, to give it a name. After a
while the situation got more difficult, as I'll try to tell in due
course.
* * * * *
To begin with, it was extremely weird to plunge from a rather leisurely
confab about a fairy-tale fellowship of non-practicing murderers into a
shooting war between a violet blob and a dark red puddle on a shadowy
fluorescent map. The voice didn't throw any great shining lights on this
topic, because after the first--and perhaps unguarded--revelation, we
learned little more of the war between Atla-Hi and Savannah Fortress and
nothing of the reasons behind it. Presumably Savannah was the aggressor,
reaching out north after the conquest of Birmingham, but even that was
just a guess. It is hard to describe how shadowy it all felt to me;
there were some minutes while my mind kept mixing up the whole thing
with what I'd read long ago about the Civil War: Savannah was Lee,
Atla-Hi was Grant, and we had been dropped spang into the middle of the
second Battle of the Wilderness.
Apparently the Savannah planes had some sort of needle ray as part of
their armament--at any rate I was warned to watch out for "swinging
lines in the haze, like straight strings of pink stars" and later told
to aim at the sources of such lines. And naturally I guessed that the
steel cubes must be some crucial weapon for Atla-Hi, or ammunition for a
weapon, or parts for some essential instrument like a giant computer,
but the voice ignored my questions on that point and didn't fall into
the couple of crude conversational traps I tried to set. We were to drop
the cubes when told, that was all. Pop had the box of them closed again
and rigged to the parachute--he took over that job because Alice and me
were busy with other things when the instructions on that came
through--and he was told how to open the door of the plane for the drop
(you just held your hand steadily on a point beside the door), but, as I
say, that was all.
Naturally it occurred to me that once we had made the drop, Atla-Hi
would have no more use for us and might simply let us be destroyed by
Savannah or otherwise--perhaps _want_ us to be destroyed--so that it
might be wisest for us to refuse to make the drop when the signal came
and hang onto those myriad steel cubes as our only bargaining point.
Still, I could see no advantage to refusing _before_ the signal came.
I'd have liked to discuss the point with Alice and maybe Pop too, but
apparently everything we said, even whispered, could be overheard by
Atla-Hi. (We never did determine, incidentally, whether Atla-Hi could
_see_ into the cabin of the plane also. I don't believe they could,
though they sure had it bugged for sound.)
All in all, we found out almost nothing about Atla-Hi. In fact, three
witless germs traveling in a cabin in an iron filing wasn't a bad
description of us at all. As I often say of my deductive
faculties--think--shmink! But Atla-Hi (always meaning, of course, the
personality behind the voice from the screen) found out all it wanted
about us--and apparently knew a good deal to start with. For one thing,
they must have been tracking our plane for some time, because they
guessed it was on automatic and that we could reverse its course but
nothing else. Though they seemed under the impression that we could
reverse its course to Los Alamos, not the cracking plant. Here obviously
I did get a nugget of new data, though it was just about the only one.
For a moment the voice from the screen got real unguarded--anxious as it
asked, "Do you know if it is true that they have stopped dying at Los
Alamos, or are they merely broadcasting that to cheer us up?"
I answered, "Oh yes, they're all fine," to that, but I couldn't have
made it very convincing, because the next thing I knew the voice was
getting me to admit that we'd only boarded the plane somewhere in the
Central Deathlands. I even had to describe the cracking plant and
freeway and gas tanks--I couldn't think of a lie that mightn't get us
into as much trouble as the truth--and the voice said, "Oh, did Grayl
stay there?" and I said, "Yes," and braced myself to do some more
admitting, or some heavy lying, as the inspiration took me.
But the voice continued to skirt around the question of what exactly had
happened to Grayl. I guess they knew well enough we'd bumped him off,
but didn't bring it up because they needed our cooperation--they were
handling us like children or savages, you see.
* * * * *
One pretty amazing point--Atla-Hi apparently knew something about Pop's
fairy-tale fellowship of non-practicing murderers, because when he had
to speak up, while he was getting instructions on preparing the stuff
for the drop, the voice said, "Excuse me, but you sound like one of
those M. A. boys."
Murderers Anonymous, Pop had said some of their boys called their
unorganized organization.
"Yep, I am," Pop admitted uncomfortably.
"Well, a word of advice then, or perhaps I only mean gossip," the screen
said, for once getting on a side track. "Most of our people do not
believe you are serious about it, although you may think that you are.
Our skeptics (which includes all but a very few of us) split quite
evenly between those who think that the M. A. spirit is a terminal
psychotic illusion and those who believe it is an elaborate ruse in
preparation for some concerted attack on cities by Deathlanders."
"Can't say that I blame the either of them," was Pop's only comment. "I
think I'm nuts myself and a murderer forever." Alice glared at him for
that admission, but it seemed to do us no damage. Pop really did seem
out of his depth though during this part of our adventure, more out of
his depth than even Alice and me--I mean, as if he could only really
function in the Deathland with Deathlanders and wanted to get anything
else over quickly.
* * * * *
I think one reason Pop was that way was that he was feeling very
intensely something I was feeling myself: a sort of sadness and
bewilderment that beings as smart as the voice from the screen sounded
should still be fighting wars. Murder, as you must know by now, I can
understand and sympathize with deeply, but war?--no!
Oh, I can understand cultural queers fighting city squares and even get
a kick out of it and whoop 'em on, but these Atla-Hi and Alamos folk
seemed a different sort of cat altogether (though I'd only come to that
point of view today)--the kind of cat that ought to have outgrown war or
thought its way around it. Maybe Savannah Fortress had simply forced the
war on them and they had to defend themselves. I hadn't contacted any
Savannans--they might be as blood-simple as the Porterites. Still, I
don't know that it's always a good excuse that somebody else forced you
into war. That sort of justification can keep on until the end of time.
But who's a germ to judge?
A minute later I was feeling doubly like a germ and a very lowly one,
because the situation had just got more difficult and depressing
too--the thing had happened that I said I'd tell you about in due
course.
The voice was just repeating its instructions to Pop on making the drop,
when it broke off of a sudden and a second voice came in, a deep voice
with a sort of European accent (not Chinese, oddly)--not talking _to_
us, I think, but to the first voice and overlooking or not caring that
we could hear.
"_Also_ tell them," the second voice said, "that we will blow them out
of the sky the instant they stop obeying us! If they should hesitate to
make the drop or if they should put a finger on the button that reverses
their course, then--_pouf!_ Such brutes understand only the language of
force. _Also_ warn them that the blocks are atomic grenades that will
blow them out of the sky too if--"
"Dr. Kovalsky, will you permit me to point out--" the first voice
interrupted, getting as close to expressing irritation as I imagine it
ever allowed itself to do. Then both voices cut off abruptly and the
screen was silent for ten seconds or so. I guess the first voice thought
it wasn't nice for us to overhear Atla-Hi bickering with itself, even if
the second voice didn't give a damn (any more than a farmer would mind
the pigs overhearing him squabble with his hired man; of course this guy
seemed to overlook that we were killer-pigs, but there wasn't anything
we could do in that line just now except get burned up).
When the screen came on again, it was just the first voice talking once
more, but it had something to say that was probably the result of a
rapid conference and compromise.
"Attention, everyone! I wish to inform you that the plane in which you
are traveling can be exploded--melted in the air, rather--if we activate
a certain control at this end. We will _not_ do so, now or subsequently,
if you make the drop when we give the signal and if you remain on your
present course until then. Afterwards you will be at liberty to reverse
your course and escape as best you may. Let me re-emphasize that when
you told me you had taken over for Grayl I accepted that assertion in
full faith and still so accept it. Is that all fully understood?"
We all told him "Yes," though I don't imagine we sounded very happy
about it, even Pop. However I did get that funny feeling again that the
voice was being really sincere--an illusion, I supposed, but still a
comforting one.
Now while all these things were going on, believe it or not, and while
the plane continued to bullet through the orange haze--which hadn't
shown any foreign objects in it so far, thank God, even vultures, let
alone "straight strings of pink stars"--I was receiving a cram course in
gunnery! (Do you wonder I don't try to tell this part of my story
consecutively?)
* * * * *
It turned out that Alice had been brilliantly right about one thing: if
you pushed some of the buttons simultaneously in patterns of five they
unlocked and you could play on them like organ keys. Two sets of five
keys, played properly, would rig out a sight just in front of the
viewport and let you aim and fire the plane's main gun in any forward
direction. There was a rearward firing gun too, that you aimed by
changing over the World Screen to a rear-view TV window, but we didn't
get around to mastering that one. In fact, in spite of my special
talents it was all I could do to achieve a beginner's control over the
main gun, and I wouldn't have managed even that except that Alice, from
the thinking she'd been doing about patterns of five, was quick at
understanding from the voice's descriptions which buttons were meant.
She couldn't work them herself of course, what with her stump and burnt
hand, but she could point them out for me.
After twenty minutes of drill I was a gunner of sorts, sprawled in the
right-hand kneeling seat and intently scanning the onrushing orange haze
which at last was beginning to change toward the bronze of evening. If
something showed up in it I'd be able to make a stab at getting a shot
in. Not that I knew what my gun fired--the voice wasn't giving away any
unnecessary data.
Naturally I had asked why didn't the voice teach me to fly the plane so
that I could maneuver in case of attack, and naturally the voice had
told me it was out of the question--much too difficult and besides they
wanted us on a known course so they could plan better for the drop and
recovery. (I think maybe the voice would have given me some hints--and
maybe even told me more about the steel cubes too and how much danger we
were in from them--if it hadn't been for the second voice, which
presumably had issued from a being who was keeping watch to make sure
among other things that the first voice didn't get soft-hearted.)
So there I was being a front gunner. Actually a part of me was getting a
big bang out of it--from antique Banker's Special to needle cannon (or
whatever it was)--but at the same time another part of me was disgusted
with the idea of acting like I belonged to a live culture (even a smart,
unqueer one) and working in a war (even just so as to get out of it
fast), while a third part of me--one that I normally keep down--was very
simply horrified.
Pop was back by the door with the box and 'chute, ready to make the
drop.
Alice had no duties for the moment, but she'd suddenly started gathering
up food cans and packing them in one bag--I couldn't figure out at first
what she had in mind. Orderly housewife wouldn't be exactly my
description of her occupational personality.
Then of course everything had to happen at once.
The voice said, "Make the drop!"
Alice crossed to Pop and thrust out the bag of cans toward him, writhing
her lips in silent "talk" to tell him something. She had a knife in her
burnt hand too.
* * * * *
But I didn't have time to do any lip-reading, because just then a
glittering pink asterisk showed up in the darkening haze ahead--a whole
half dozen straight lines spreading out from a blank central spot, as if
a super-fast gigantic spider had laid in the first strands of its web.
Wind whistled as the door of the plane started to open.
I fought to center my sight on the blank central spot, which drifted
toward the left.
One of the straight lines grew dazzlingly bright.
I heard Alice whisper fiercely, "Drop _these_!" and the part of my mind
that couldn't be applied to gunnery instantly deduced that she'd had
some last-minute inspiration about dropping a bunch of cans instead of
the steel cubes.
I got the sight centered and held down the firing combo. The thought
flashed to me: _it's a city you're firing at, not a plane_, and I
flinched.
The dazzlingly pink line dipped down toward me.
Behind me, the sound of a struggle. Alice snarling and Pop giving a
grunt.
Then all at once a scream from Alice, a big whoosh of wind, a flash way
ahead (where I'd aimed), a spatter of hot metal inside the cabin, a
blinding spot in the middle of the World Screen, a searing beam inches
from my neck, an electric shock that lifted me from my seat and ripped
at my consciousness!
* * * * *
When I came to (if I really ever was out--seconds later, at most) there
were no more pink lines. The haze was just its disgustingly tawny
evening self with black spots that were only after-images. The cabin
stunk of ozone, but wind funneling through a hole in the one-time World
Screen was blowing it out fast enough--Savannah had gotten in one lick,
all right. And we were falling, the plane was swinging down like a
crippled bird--I could feel it and there was no use kidding myself.
But staring at the control panel wouldn't keep us from crashing if that
was in the cards. I looked around and there were Pop and Alice glaring
at each other across the closing door. He looked mean. She looked
agonized and was pressing her burnt hand into her side with her elbow as
if he'd stamped on the hand, maybe. I didn't see any blood though. I
didn't see the box and 'chute either, though I did see Alice's bag of
groceries. I guessed Pop had made the drop.
Now, it occurred to me, was a bully time for Voice Two to melt the
plane--if he hadn't already tried. My first thought had been that the
spatter of hot metal had come from the Savannah craft spitting us, but
there was no way to be sure.
I looked around at the viewport in time to see rocks and stunted trees
jump out of the haze. _Good old Ray_, I thought, _always in at the
death_. But just then the plane took a sickening bounce, as if its
antigravity had only started to operate within yards of the ground.
Another lurching fall and another bounce, less violent. A couple of
repetitions of that, each one a little gentler, and then we were sort of
bumping along on an even keel with the rocks and such sliding past fast
about a hundred feet below, I judged. We'd been spoiled for altitude
work, it seemed, but we could still cripple along in some sort of
low-power repulsion field.
I looked at the North America screen and the buttons, wondering if I
should start us back west again or leave us set on Atla-Hi and see what
the hell happened--at the moment I hardly cared what else Savannah did
to us. I needn't have wasted the mental energy. The decision was made
for me. As I watched, the Atla-Hi button jumped up by itself and the
button for the cracking plant went down and there was some extra bumping
as we swung around.
Also, the violet patch of Atla-Hi went real dim and the button for it no
longer had a violet nimbus. The Los Alamos blue went dull too. The
cracking-plant dot glowed a brighter green--that was all.
All except for one thing. As the violet dimmed I thought I heard Voice
One very faintly (not as if speaking directly but as if the screen had
heard and remembered--not a voice but the fluorescent ghost of one):
"Thank you and good luck!"