* * * * *
Autumn, the New England fall of rain and chill whistling wind, smoky
days and flame-like leaves and the far wild honking of southbound
geese. The crash came in late September: a reeling market hit bottom
and stayed there. Gasoline sales were down twenty-five percent already,
and the industry was laying men off by the hundreds of thousands. That
cut out their purchasing power and hit the rest of the economy.
"It's what you'd expect, laddie," said Culquhoun. They were over at his
house. Outside, a slow cold rain washed endlessly down the windows.
"Over production--over-capitalization--I could have predicted all this."
"Damn it to hell, it doesn't make _sense_!" protested Arch. "A new
energy source should make everything cheaper for everybody--more
production available for less work." He felt a nervous tic beginning in
one cheek.
"Production for use instead of for profit--"
"Oh, dry up, will you? Any system is a profit system. It has to show a
profit in some terms or other, or it would just be wasted effort. And
the profit has to go to individuals, not to some mythical state. The
state doesn't eat--people do."
"Would you have the oil interests simply write off their investment?"
"No, of course not. Why couldn't they--Look. Gasoline can still
run generators. Oil can still lubricate. Byproducts can still be
synthesized. It's a matter of shifting the emphasis of production,
that's all. All that's needed is a little common sense."
"Which is a rather scarce commodity."
"There," said Arch gloomily, "we find ourselves in agreement."
"The trouble is," said Bob earnestly, "we're faced with a real
situation, not a paper problem. It calls for a real solution. For an
idea."
"There aren't any ideas," said Elizabeth. "Not big sweeping ones to
solve everything overnight. Man doesn't work that way. What happens is
that somebody solves his own immediate, personal problems, somebody
else does the same, and eventually society as a whole fumbles its way
out of the dilemma."
Arch sighed. "This is getting over my head," he admitted. "Thanks for
small blessings: the thing has grown so big that I, personally, am
becoming forgotten."
He rose. "I'm kind of tired tonight," he went on. "Maybe we better be
running along. Thanks for the drinks and all."
He and his wife slipped into their raincoats and galoshes for the short
walk home. The street outside was dark, a rare lamp glowing off slick
wet concrete. Rain misted his face and glasses, he had trouble seeing.
"Poor darling," Elizabeth took his arm. "Don't worry. We'll get through
all right."
"I hope so," he said fervently. No money had come in for some time
now. Bob's enterprise was levelling off as initial demand was filled,
and a lurching industry wasn't buying many electronic valves. The bank
account was getting low.
He saw the figure ahead as a vague shadow against the night. It stood
waiting till they came up, and then stepped in their path. The voice
was unfamiliar: "Arch?"
"Yes--"
He could see only that the face was heavy and unshaven, with something
wild about the mouth. Then his eyes dropped to the revolver barrel
protruding from the slicker. "What the devil--"
"Don't move, you." It was a harsh, broken tone. "Right now I'm aiming
at your wife. I'd as soon shoot her, too."
Fear leaped crazily in Arch's breast. He stood unable to stir, coldness
crawling in his guts. He tried to speak, and couldn't.
"Not a word, you--. Not another word. You've said too goddam much
already." The gun poked forward, savagely. "I'm going to kill you. You
did your best to kill me."
Elizabeth's face was white in the gloom. "What do you mean?" she
whispered. "We never saw you before."
"No. But you took away my job. I was in the breadlines back in the
thirties. I'm there again, and it's your fault, you--Got any prayers to
say?"
A gibbering ran through Arch's brain. He stood motionless, thinking
through a lunatic mind-tilt that there must be some way to jump that
gun, the heroes of stories always did it, that might--
Someone moved out of the night into the wan radiance. An arm went about
the man's throat, another seized his gun wrist and snapped it down. The
weapon went off, sounding like the crack of doom in the stillness.
They struggled on the slippery sidewalk, panting, the rain running over
dimly glimpsed faces. Arch's paralysis broke, he moved in and circled
around, looking for a chance to help. There! Crouching, he got hold of
the assassin's ankle and clung.
There was a meaty smack above him, and the body sagged.
Elizabeth held her hand over her mouth, as if to force back a scream.
"Mr. Horrisford," she whispered.
"The same," said the FBI man. "That was a close one. You can be
thankful you're an object of suspicion, Arch. What was he after?"
Arch stared blankly at his rescuer. Slowly, meaning penetrated.
"Unemployed--" he mumbled. "Bitter about it--"
"Yeah. I thought so. You may be having more trouble of that sort. This
depression, people have someone concrete to blame." Horrisford stuck
the gun in his pocket and helped up his half-conscious victim. "Let's
get this one down to the lockup. Here, you support him while I put on
some handcuffs."
"But I wanted to help his kind," said Arch feebly.
"You didn't," said Horrisford. "I'd better arrange for a police guard."
* * * * *
Arch spent the following day in a nearly suicidal depression. Elizabeth
tried to pull him out of it, failed, and went downtown after a fifth of
whiskey. That helped. The hangover helped too. It's hard to concentrate
on remorse when ten thousand red-hot devils are building an annex to
Hell in your skull. Toward evening, he was almost cheerful again. A
certain case-hardening was setting in.
After dark, there was a knock on the door. When he opened it,
Horrisford and a stranger stood there.
"Oh--come in," he said "Excuse the mess. I--haven't been feeling so
well."
"Anyone here?" asked the agent.
"Just my wife."
"She'll be all right," said the stranger impatiently. He was a big,
stiff, gray-haired man. "Bring her in, please. This is important."
They were settled in the living room before Horrisford performed the
introductions. "Major General Brackney of Strategic Services." Arch's
hand was wet as he acknowledged the handclasp.
"This is most irregular," said the general. "However, we've put through
a special check on you. A fast but very thorough check. In spite of
your errors of judgment, the FBI is convinced of your essential
loyalty. Your discretion is another matter."
"I can keep my mouth shut, if that's what you mean," said Arch.
"Yes. You kept one secret for ten years," said Horrisford. "The
business of Mrs. Ramirez."
Arch started. "How the deuce--? That was a personal affair. I've never
told a soul, not even my wife!"
"We have our little ways." Horrisford grinned, humanly enough. "The
point is that you could have gained somewhat by blabbing, but didn't.
It speaks well for you."
General Brackney cleared his throat. "We want your help on a certain
top-secret project," he said. "You still know more about capacitite
than anybody else. But if one word of this leaks out prematurely,
it means war. Atomic war. It also means that all of us, and you
particularly, will be crucified."
"I--"
"You're an independent so-and-so, I realize. What we have in mind is a
scheme to prevent such a war. We want you in on it both for your own
value and because we can't protect you forever from Soviet agents."
Brackney's smile had no humor. "Didn't know that, did you? It's one
reason you're being co-opted, in spite of all you've done.
"I can't say more till you take the oath, and once you've done that
you're under all the usual restrictions. Care to help out?"
Arch hesitated. He had little faith in government ... any government.
Still--
Horrisford of the FBI had saved his life.
"I'm game," he said.
Elizabeth nodded. The oath was administered.
Brackney leaned back and lit a cigar. "All right," he said. "I'll come
to the point.
"Offhand, it looks as if you've done a grave disservice to your
country. It's been pointed out in the press that transporting fuel is
the major problem of logistics. In fact, for the Russians it's _the_
problem, since they can live off the countries they invade to a degree
we can't match. You've solved that for them, and once they convert
their vehicles we can expect them to start rolling. They and their
allies--especially the Chinese. This discovery is going to make them a
first-class power."
"I've heard that," said Arch thinly.
"However, we also know that the communist regimes are not popular. Look
at the millions of refugees, look at all the prisoners who refused
repatriation, look at the Ukrainian insurrection--I needn't elaborate.
The trouble has been that the people aren't armed. To say anything at
home means the concentration camp.
"Now, then. Basically, the idea is this. We've got plants set up to
turn out capacitite in trainload lots. We can, I think, make weapons
capable of stopping a tank for a couple of dollars apiece. Do you
agree?"
"Why--yes," said Arch. "I've been considering it lately. A
rifle discharging its current through magnetic coils to drive a
steel-jacketed bullet--the bullet could be loaded with electricity
too. Or a Buck Rogers energy gun: a hand weapon with a blower run off
the capacitor, sucking in air at the rear and spewing it out between
two electrodes like a gigantic arc-welding flame. Or--yes, there are
all kinds of possibilities."
Brackney nodded with an air of satisfaction. "Good. I see you do have
the kind of imagination we need.
"Now, we'll be giving nothing away, because they already know how to
make the stuff and can think up anything we can. But, we have a long
jump as far as production facilities are concerned.
"The idea is this. We want to make really enormous quantities of
such weapons. By various means--through underground channels, by air
if necessary--we want to distribute them to all the Iron Curtain
countries. The people will be armed, and hell is going to break loose!
"We want you in on it as design and production consultants. Leave
tomorrow, be gone for several months probably. It's going to have to
be highly organized, so it can be sprung as a surprise; otherwise the
Soviet bosses, who are no fools, will hit. But your part will be in
production. Are you game?"
"It's--astonishing," said Elizabeth. "Frankly, I didn't think the
government had that much imagination."
"We're probably exceeding our authority," admitted Brackney. "By
rights, of course, Congress should be consulted, but this is like the
Louisiana Purchase: there's no time to do so."
It was the historical note which decided Arch. Grade-school history,
yes--but it didn't fit in with his preconceptions of the red-necked
militarist. Suddenly, almost hysterically, he was laughing.
"What's so funny?" asked Horrisford sharply.
"The idea--what old Clausewitz would say--winning wars by arming the
enemy! Sure--sure, I'm in. Gladly!"
* * * * *
Six months on a secret reservation in Colorado which nobody but the
top brass left, six months of the hardest, most concentrated work a
man could endure, got Arch out of touch with the world. He saw an
occasional newspaper, was vaguely aware of trouble on the outside, but
there was too much immediately at hand for him to consider the reality.
Everything outside the barbed-wire borders of his universe grew vague.
Designing and testing capacitite weapons was harder than he had
expected, and took longer: though experienced engineers assured him
the project was moving with unprecedented speed and ease. Production
details were out of his department, but the process of tooling up and
getting mass output going was not one for overnight solution.
The magnetic rifle; the arc gun; the electric bomb and grenade; the
capacitite land mine, set to fry the crew of any tank which passed
over--he knew their hideous uses, but there was a cool ecstasy in
working with them which made him forget, most of the time. And after
all, the idea was to arm men who would be free.
In March, General Brackney entered the Quonset hut which Arch and
Elizabeth had been inhabiting and sat down with a weary smile. "I guess
you're all through now," he said.
"About time," grumbled the girl. "We've been sitting on our hands here
for a month, just puttering."
"The stuff had to be shipped out," said the general mildly. "We didn't
dare risk having the secret revealed. But we're rolling overseas, it's
too late to stop anything." He shrugged. "Naturally, the government
isn't admitting its part in this. Officially, the weapons were
manufactured by independent operators in Europe and Asia, and you'll
have to keep quiet about the truth for a long time--not that the
comrades won't be pretty sure, but it just can't be openly admitted.
However, there are no security restrictions on the gadgets themselves,
as of today."
"That surprises me," said Arch.
"It's simple enough. Everything is so obvious, really--any handyman can
make the same things for himself. A lot have been doing it, too. No
secrets exist to be given away, that's all." Brackney hesitated. "We'll
fly you back home anytime you wish. But if you want to stay on a more
permanent basis, we'll be glad to have you."
"No, thanks!" Elizabeth's eyes went distastefully around the sleazy
interior of the shack.
"This has all been temporary," said the general. "We were in such a
hell of a hurry. Better housing will be built now."
"Nevertheless, no," said Arch.
Brackney frowned. "I can't stop you, of course. But I don't think you
realize how tough it's getting outside, and how much worse it's going
to get. A revolution is starting, in more senses than one, and you'll
be safer here."
"I heard something about that," agreed Arch. "Discontented elements
making their own weapons, similar to ours--what of it?"
"Plenty," said the officer with a note of grimness. "It's an ugly
situation. A lot of people are out of work, and even those who still
have jobs don't feel secure in them. There are a dozen crank solutions
floating around, everything from new political theories to new
religious sects, and each one is finding wider acceptance than I'd have
believed possible."
"It doesn't surprise me," said Arch. "There's a queer strain of the
True Believer in American culture. You know how many utopian colonies
we've had throughout our history? And the single tax party, and
prohibition, and communism in the thirties. People in this country want
something concrete to believe in, and all but a few of the churches
have long ago degenerated into social clubs."
"Whatever the cause," said Brackney, "there are all these new groups,
clashing with the old authorities and with each other. And the
underworld is gleefully pitching in, and getting a lot of recruits from
the ranks of hungry, frightened, embittered people.
"The regular armed forces have to be mobilized to stop anything the
Soviets may try. The police and the National Guard have their hands
full in the big cities. The result is, that authority is breaking down
everywhere else. There's real trouble ahead, I tell you."
"All right," said Arch. "That's as may be. But our town is a collection
of pretty solid folk--and we want to go home."
"On your heads be it. There'll be a plane at six tomorrow."
--The fact did not strike home till they were stopping over at Idlewild
and saw uniformed men and machine-gun emplacements. In the coffee shop,
Arch asked the counterman just how bad things really were.
"Rough," he answered. "See this?" He flipped back his jacket, showing a
homemade capacitite pistol in a holster.
"Oh, look now--"
"Mister, I live in Brooklyn. I don't get home till after dark, and the
police cordons don't go closer than six blocks to my place. I've had to
shoot twice already in the past couple months."
"Bandits?"
"In gangs, mister. If I could work somewhere closer to home, I'd be off
like a shot."
Arch set down his cup. Suddenly he didn't want any more coffee. _My
God_, he thought, _am I responsible for that?_
A smaller plane carried them to Boston, where they caught a bus for
Westfield. The driver had an automatic rifle by his seat. Arch huddled
into himself, waiting for he knew not what; but the trip was uneventful.
The town didn't seem to have changed much. Most of the cars were
converted, but it didn't show externally. The drug store still flashed
neon at a drowsy sidewalk, the Carnegie library waited rather wistfully
for someone to come in, the dress shop had the same old dummies in
the window. Elizabeth pointed at them. "Look," she said. "See those
clothes?"
"They're dresses," said Arch moodily. "What about them?"
"No style change in six months, that's all," said Elizabeth. "It gives
me the creeps."
They walked along streets banked with dirty, half-melted snow, under
a leaden sky and a small whimpering wind. Their house had not changed
when they entered, someone had been in to dust and it looked like the
home they remembered. Arch sank tiredly into his old armchair and
accepted a drink. He studied the newspaper he'd bought at the depot.
Screaming headlines announced revolt in Russia--mass uprisings in the
Siberian prison camps--announcements from the Copenhagen office of the
Ukrainian nationalist movement--It all seemed very far away. The fact
that there were no new dress styles was somehow closer and more eerie.
A thunderous knock at the door informed him that Culquhoun had noticed
their lights. "Mon, it's guid to see ye again!" The great paw engulfed
his hand. "Where've ye been a' the while?"
"Can't tell you that," said Arch.
"Aweel, you'll permit me to make my own guesses, then." Culquhoun
cocked an eye at the paper. "Who do they think they're fooling, anyhow?
We can look for the Russian bombers any day now."
Arch considered his reply. That aspect had been thoroughly discussed
at the project, but he wasn't sure how much he could tell. "Quite
possibly," he said at last. "But with their internal troubles, they
won't be able to make many raids, or any big ones--and the little they
will be able to throw at us should be stopped while they're still over
northern Canada."
"Let's hope so," nodded Culquhoun. "But the people in the large
cities won't want to take the chance. There's going to be an exodus
of considerable dimensions in the next few days, with all that that
implies." He paused, frowning. "I've spent the last couple of months
organizing a kind of local militia. Bob has been making capacitite
guns, and there are about a hundred of us trying to train ourselves.
Want in on it?"
"They'd probably shoot me first," whispered Arch.
The red head shook, bear-like. "No. There's less feeling against you
locally than you seem to think. After all, few if any of the people in
this area have been hurt--they're farmers, small shopkeepers trading in
the essentials, students, college employees. Many of them have actually
benefited. You have your enemies here, but you have more friends."
"I think," said Arch thinly, "that I'm becoming one of my own enemies."
"Ah, foosh, mon! If you hadn't brought the stuff out, somebody else
would have. It's not your fault that we don't have the kind of economy
to absorb it smoothly."
"All right," said Arch without tone. "I'll join your minute men. There
doesn't seem to be anything else to do."
* * * * *
The wave of automobiles began coming around noon of the next day.
Westfield lay off the main highway, so it didn't get the full impact of
the jam which tied up traffic from Philadelphia to Boston; but there
were some thousands of cars which passed through.
Arch stood in the ranks of men who lined Main Street. The gun felt
awkward in his hands. Breath smoked from his nostrils, and the air was
raw and damp. On one side of him was Mr. Hinkel, bundled up so that
only the glasses and a long red nose seemed visible; on the other was a
burly farmer whom he didn't know.
Outside the city limits a sign had been planted, directing traffic to
keep moving and to stay on the highway. There were barriers on all the
side streets. Arch heard an occasional argument when someone tried to
stop, to be urged on by a guard and by the angry horns behind him.
"But what'll they do?" he asked blindly. "Where will they stay? My God,
there are women and children in those cars!"
"Women and children here in town too," said Hinkel. "We've got to look
after our own. It won't kill these characters to go a few days without
eating. Every house here is filled already--there've been refugees
trickling in for weeks."
"We could bunk down a family in our place," ventured Arch.
"Save that space," answered Hinkel. "It'll be needed later."
Briefly, a certain pride rose through the darkness of guilt which lay
in Arch. These were the old Americans, the same folk who had stood at
Concord and gone west into Indian country. They were a survivor type.
But most of their countrymen weren't, he realized sickly. Urban
civilization had become too big, too specialized. There were people in
the millions who had never pitched a tent, butchered a pig, fixed a
machine. What was going to become of them?
Toward evening, he was relieved and slogged home, too numb with cold
and weariness to think much. He gulped down the dinner his wife had
ready and tumbled into bed.
It seemed as if he had not slept at all when the phone was ringing. He
groped toward it, cursing as he tried to unglue his eyes. Culquhoun's
voice rattled at him:
"You and Betty come up to the college, Somerset Hall, right away.
There's hell to pay."
"How--?"
"Our lookout on the water tower has seen fires starting to the south.
Something's approaching, and it doesn't look friendly."
Sleep drained from Arch and he stood in a grayness where Satan jeered
at him: "_Si monumentum requiris, circumspice!_" Slowly, he nodded.
"We'll be right along."
The campus was jammed with townspeople. In the vague pre-dawn light,
Arch saw them as a moving river of white, frightened faces. Farmer,
merchant, laborer, student, teacher, housewife, they had all receded
into a muttering anonymity through which he pushed toward the steps
of the hall. The irregular militia was forming ranks there, with
Culquhoun's shaggy form dominating the scene.
"There you are," he snapped. "Betty, can you help take charge of the
women and children and old people? Get them inside--this one building
ought to hold them all, with some crowding. Kind of circulate around,
keep them calm. We'll pass out coffee and doughnuts as soon as the
Salvation Army bunch can set up a canteen."
"What's the plan?" asked a guardsman. To Arch, his voice had a dim
dreamlike quality, none of this was real, it couldn't be.
"I don't know what those arsonists intend or where they're bound," said
Culquhoun, "but we'd better be ready to meet them. The traffic through
town stopped completely a few hours ago--I think there's a gang of
highwaymen operating."
"Colin, it can't be! Plain people like us--"
"Hungry, frightened, angry, desperate, confused people. A mob has
nothing to do with the individuals in it, my friend. And one small push
is enough to knock down a row of dominoes. Once lawlessness really
gets started, a lot of others are driven into it in self-defense."
They waited. The sun came up, throwing a pale bleak light over the late
snow and the naked trees. The canteen handed out a sort of breakfast.
Little was said.
At nine-thirty, a boy on a clumsy plowhorse came galloping up toward
them. "About a hundred, marching down the highway," he panted. "They
threw a couple shots at me."
"Stay here," said Culquhoun. "I'm going down to see if we can't parley.
I'll want about ten men with me. Volunteers?"
Arch found himself among the first. It didn't matter much what happened
to him, now when the work of his hands was setting aflame homes all
across the land. They trudged down the hillside and out toward the
viaduct leading south. Culquhoun broke into a deserted house and
stationed them in its entrance hall.
Peering out, Arch saw the ragged column moving in. They were all men,
unshaven and dirty. A few trucks accompanied them, loaded with a
strange mass of plunder, but most were on foot and all were armed.
Culquhoun bound a towel to his rifle barrel and waved it through the
front door. After what seemed like a long time, a voice outside said:
"Okay, if yuh wanna talk, go ahead."
"Cover me," murmured Culquhoun, stepping onto the porch. Looking around
his shoulder, Arch made out three of the invaders, with their troop
standing in tired, slumped attitudes some yards behind. They didn't
look fiendish, merely worn and hungry.
"Okay, pal," said the leader. "This is O'Farrell's bunch, and we're
after food and shelter. What can yuh do for us?"
"Food and shelter?" Culquhoun glanced at the trucks. "You seem to've
been helping yourselves pretty generously already."