For all he knew, there could be another Hawksbill Station somewhere else in this very year, and no one living here would have any way of knowing about it. A camp of women living on the far side of the Atlantic, say, or perhaps just across the Inland Sea.
It wasn’t very likely, Barrett realized. With the entire past to dump the exiles into, the edgy men Up Front wouldn’t take any chance that the two groups of deportees might somehow get together and spawn a tribe of little subversives. They’d take every precaution to put an impenetrable barrier of epochs between the men and the women.
Yet it was a tempting thing to consider. From time to time Barrett wondered if Janet might not be at that other Hawksbill Station.
When he examined the idea rationally, he knew it was impossible. Janet had been arrested in the summer of 1994, and had never been traced thereafter. The first deportations to Hawksbill Station had not begun until 2005. Hawksbill himself hadn’t perfected the time-transfer process when Barrett had discussed it with him as late as 1998. Which meant that a minimum of four years, and more probably eleven, had elapsed between the time of Janet’s arrest and the beginning of the shipments to the Late Cambrian era.
If Janet had been in a government prison that long, the underground would surely have found out about it, one way or another. But there hadn’t been any news of her at all. And therefore it was logical to conclude that the government had disposed of her, in all likelihood within a few days after her arrest. It was folly to think that Janet had lived to see 1995, let alone that she had been kept incommunicado by the government until Hawksbill had finished his research, then had been shot back into this segment of the past.
No, Janet was dead. But Barrett allowed himself the luxury of a few illusions, like anyone else. So he permitted himself sometimes to enjoy the fantasy that she had been sent back, which led him to the even more gargantuan fantasy that he might find her right here in this very epoch. She would be nearly seventy now, he thought. He had not seen her for thirty-five years. He tried and failed to picture her as a fat little old lady. The Janet who had lived in his memory all these decades was quite different, he knew, from any conceivable Janet who might possibly have survived. Better to be realistic and admit she’s dead, he thought. Better not to hope to find her again, because the wish might just come true, and a dream would die a terrible death if it did.
But the idea of a female Hawksbill Station on this time-level raised interesting possibilities of a more useful sort. Barrett wondered if he could make the concept sound convincing to the other men. Perhaps. Perhaps with a little effort he could get them to believe in the existence of two simultaneous Hawksbill Stations on this level of time, separated not by epochs but merely by geography.
If they’d believe that, he thought, it could be our salvation.
The instances of degenerative psychosis were beginning to snowball, now. Too many men had been here too long, and one crackup was starting to feed the next. The strain of dwelling in this blank lifeless world where humans were never meant to live was eroding one after another of the Station’s inmates. What had happened to Valdosto and Altman and the other psychos would ultimately overtake the rest. The men needed sustained projects to keep them going, to hold back the deadly boredom. As it was, they were starting to slip off into schizophrenia, like Valdosto, or else they were beginning to involve themselves in harebrained enterprises like Altman’s Frankenstein girlfriend and Latimer’s pursuit of a psionic gateway.
Suppose, Barrett thought, I could get them steamed up about reaching the other continents?
A round-the-world expedition. Maybe they could construct some kind of big ship. That would keep a lot of men busy for a long time. And they’d need to work up some navigational equipment—compasses, sextants, chronometers, whatnot. Somebody would have to design an improvised radio, too. Of course, the Phoenicians had got along pretty well without radios and chronometers, but they hadn’t done open-sea voyaging, had they? They had kept close to the coast. But in this world there was hardly any coast, and the Station inmates weren’t Phoenicians, either. They’d need navigational aids.
It was the kind of project that might take thirty or forty years, designing and building the ship and its equipment. A long-term focus for our energies, Barrett thought. Of course, I won’t live to see the ship set sail, but that’s all right. Even so, it’s a way of staving off collapse. I don’t really care what’s across the sea, but I care very much about what’s happening to my people here. We’ve built our staircase to the sea, but it’s finished. Now we need something bigger to do. Idle hands make for idle minds…sick minds…
He liked the idea he had hatched. He had been worrying for weeks, now, about the deteriorating state of affairs at the Station, and looking for some fresh way to cope with it. Now he thought he had his way. A voyage! Barrett’s ark!
Turning, he saw Don Latimer and Ned Altman standing behind him.
“How long have you been there?” he asked.
“Two minutes,” said Latimer. “We didn’t want to interrupt you. You seemed to be thinking so hard.”
“Just dreaming,” Barrett said.
“We brought you something to look at,” Latimer told him. Barrett saw the papers now, clutched in his hand.
Altman nodded vigorously. “You ought to read it. We brought it for you to read.”
“What is it?” Barrett asked.
“Hahn’s notes,” said Latimer.
TEN
Barrett hesitated for a moment, saying nothing, making no attempt to take the papers from Latimer’s hand. He was pleased that Latimer had done this, but yet he had to be delicate about it. Private property was sacred at Hawksbill Station. It was very much a breach of ethics to meddle with something another man had written. That was why Barrett had not specifically ordered Latimer to search Hahn’s bunk. He could not afford to implicate himself in so flagrant a misdeed.
But of course he had to know what Hahn thought he was doing here. His responsibilities as leader of the Station transcended the moral code, he told himself. So he had asked Latimer to keep an eye on Hahn. And he had asked Rudiger to take Hahn out on a fishing trip. Latimer had taken the next step without needing to be prodded.
Barrett said finally, “I’m not sure I like this, Don. To disturb his belongings—”
“We have to know about this man, Jim.”
“Yes, but a society has to obey its own morality, even when it’s defending itself against possible enemies. That was our gripe against the syndicalists, remember? They didn’t play fair.”
Latimer said, “Are we a society?”
“We sure as hell are. We’re the whole population of the world. A microcosm. And I represent the State, which has to keep its rules. I don’t know if I want to look at those papers you’ve got there, Don.”
“I think you ought to. When important evidence falls into the State’s hands, the State has an obligation to examine it. I mean, you aren’t just watching out for Hahn’s welfare. You’ve got the rest of us to look after too.”
“Is there anything significant in Hahn’s papers?”
“You bet there is,” Altman put in. “He’s guilty as hell!”
Barrett said calmly, “Remember, I never requested you to bring these documents to my attention. The fact that you went snooping is a matter between you and Hahn, at least until I see if there’s cause to take action against him. Do we have that much clear?”
Latimer looked a little hurt. “I suppose. I found the papers tucked away in Hahn’s bunk after he went out in Rudiger’s boat. I know I’m not supposed to be invading his privacy, but I had to have a look at what he’s been writing. There it is. He’s a spy, all right.”
He offered the folded sheaf of papers to Barrett. Barrett took them, glanced quickly at them without reading them, and tucked the sheaf into his hand. “I’ll look them over a little later,” he said. “What’s Hahn been writing, anyway? In a few words.”
“It’s a description of the Station, an
d a profile of most of the men in it that he’s met,” said Latimer. He smiled frostily. “The profiles are very detailed and not very complimentary. Hahn’s private opinion of me is that I’ve gone mad and won’t admit it. His private opinion of you is a little more flattering, Jim, but not much.”
“The man’s opinions aren’t all that important,” said Barrett. “He’s entitled to think that we’re nothing but a bunch of cockeyed old crackpots. Very likely we are. All right, so he’s been having a bit of literary exercise at our expense, but I don’t see that that’s any cause for alarm. We—”
Altman said flatly, “He’s also been hanging around the Hammer.”
“What?”
“I saw him going there late last night. He went into the building. I followed him, and he didn’t notice me. He was looking at the Hammer for a long time. Walking around it, studying it. He didn’t touch it.”
“Why the devil didn’t you tell me that right away?” Barrett snapped.
Altman looked confused and terrified. He blinked his eyes five or six times and backed nervously away from Barrett, running his hands through his yellow hair. “I wasn’t sure it was important,” he said finally. “Maybe he was just curious about it, I mean. I had to talk things over with Don first. And I couldn’t do that until Hahn had gone out fishing.”
Sweat burst out on Barrett’s face. He reminded himself that he was dealing with a mildly psychotic individual, and he kept his voice as steady as he could, masking the sudden alarm that gripped him. “Listen, Ned, if you ever catch Hahn going near the time-travel equipment again, you let me know in a hurry. You come right to me, whether I’m awake or asleep, eating, resting. Without consulting Don or anyone else. Clear?”
“Clear,” said Altman.
“You knew about this?” Barrett asked Latimer.
Latimer nodded. “Ned told me just before we came down here. But I figured it was more urgent to give you the papers, first. That is, Hahn couldn’t damage the Hammer while he’s out in the boat, anyway, and whatever he might have done last night is already done.”
Barrett had to admit that that made sense. But he could not easily shake off his distress. The Hammer was their only contact point, unsatisfactory though it was, with the world that had cast them out. They were dependent on it for their supplies, for their fresh personnel, for such shards of news about the world Up Front as the new men brought. Let some disturbed individual wreck the Hammer, and the choking silence of total isolation would descend on them. Cut off from everything, living in a world without vegetation, without raw materials, without machines, they’d be back to savagery within months.
But why would Hahn be fooling with the Hammer, Barrett wondered?
Altman giggled. “You know what I think? They’ve decided to exterminate us, Up Front. They want to get rid of us. Hahn’s been sent here as a suicide volunteer. He’s checking us out, getting everything ready. Then they’re going to send a cobalt bomb through the Hammer and blow the Station up. We ought to wreck the Hammer and Anvil before they get a chance.”
“But why would they send a suicide volunteer?” Latimer asked reasonably. “If their aim was to wipe us out, they could simply transmit a bomb, without wasting an agent. Unless they’ve got some way to rescue their spy—”
“In any case, we shouldn’t take chances,” Altman argued. “Wreck the Hammer, first thing. Make it impossible for them to bomb us from Up Front.”
“That might be a good idea. Jim, what do you think?”
Barrett thought that Altman was crazy and that Latimer was far down the same road. But he said simply, “I’m inclined not to worry much about this bomb theory of yours, Ned. Up Front’s got no reason to want to wipe us out. And if they did, Don’s right—they wouldn’t send an agent to us. Just a bomb.”
“Even so, perhaps we should disable the Hammer on the possibility that—”
“No,” Barrett said. He made it emphatic. “If we do anything to the Hammer, we’re chopping off our own heads. That’s why it’s so serious that Hahn’s been messing with it. And don’t you get any ideas about the Hammer either, Ned. The Hammer sends us food and clothing. Not bombs.”
“But—”
“And yet—”
“Shut up, both of you,” Barrett growled. “Let me look at these papers.”
The Hammer, he thought, would have to be protected. He and Quesada would have to rig some kind of guardian system for it, the way they had done for the drug supplies. But a more effective one, he added.
He walked a few steps away from Altman and Latimer and sat down on a shelf of rock. He unfolded the sheaf of papers.
He began to read.
Hahn had a cramped, crabbed handwriting that enabled him to pack a maximum of information into a minimum of space, as though he regarded it as a mortal sin to waste paper. Fair enough; paper was a scarce commodity here. Evidently Hahn had brought these sheets with him from Up Front, though. They were thin and had a metallic texture. When one piece slid against another, a soft whispering sound was produced.
Small though the writing was, Barrett had no difficulty in deciphering it. Hahn’s script was clear. So were his opinions.
Painfully so.
He had written a detailed analysis of conditions at Hawksbill Station, and it was an impressive job. In about five thousand well-organized words Hahn had set forth everything that Barrett knew was going sour here. His objectivity was merciless. He had neatly ticked off the men as aging revolutionaries in whom the old fervor had turned rancid; he listed the ones who were certifiably psychotic, and the ones who were on the edge, and in a separate category he noted the ones who were hanging on, like Quesada and Norton and Rudiger. Barrett was interested to see that Hahn rated even those three as suffering from severe strain and likely to fly apart at any moment. To him, Quesada and Norton and Rudiger seemed to be just about as stable as when they had first dropped onto the Anvil of Hawksbill Station; but that was possibly the distorting effect of his own blurred perceptions. To an outsider like Hahn, the view was different and perhaps more accurate.
Barrett forced himself not to skip ahead to Hahn’s evaluation of him.
He read doggedly on through Hahn’s assessment of the likely future of Hawksbill’s population: not bright. Hahn thought that the process of deterioration was cumulative and self-generating, and that any man who had been in the place more than a year or two would shortly be brought to his knees by the pressures of loneliness and rootlessness. Barrett thought so too, although he believed it would take a little longer for the younger men to cave in. But Hahn’s reasoning was inexorable and his evaluation of the possibilities sounded convincing. How has he learned so much about us so fast, Barrett wondered? Is he that sharp? Or are we so totally transparent?
On the fifth page, Barrett found Hahn’s description of him. He wasn’t pleased when he came to it.
“The Station,” Hahn had written, “is nominally under the authority of Jim Barrett, an old-line revolutionary who’s been here about twenty years. Barrett is the ranking prisoner in terms of seniority. He makes the administrative decisions and seems to act as a stabilizing force. Some of the men worship him, but I am not convinced that he would be able to exert any real influence in the event of a serious challenge to his rule, such as a blood feud in the Station or an attempt to depose him. In the loose-knit anarchy of Hawksbill Station society, Barrett rules very much by the consent of the governed, and since the Station is lacking in weapons he would have no actual recourse if that consent were to be withdrawn. However, I see no likelihood of that, since the men here are generally devitalized and demoralized, and an anti-Barrett insurrection would be beyond their capabilities even if they had any need to mount one.
“By and large Barrett has been a positive force within the Station. Though some of the other men here have qualities of leadership, doubtless the place would have fragmented into disastrous confusion long ago without him. However, Barrett is like a mighty beam that’s been gnawed from within by termi
tes. He looks solid, but one good push would break him apart. A recent injury to his foot has evidently had a bad effect on him. The other men say he used to be physically vigorous and derived much of his authority from his size and strength. Now Barrett can hardly walk. But I feel that the trouble with Barrett is inherent in the life of Hawksbill Station, and does not have much to do with his lameness. He’s been cut off from normal human drives for too many years. The exercise of power here has provided the illusion of stability for him and allowed him to keep functioning, but it’s power in a vacuum, and things have happened within him of which he’s totally unaware. He’s in bad need of therapy. He may be beyond help.”
Stunned, Barrett read that passage several times. Words stuck to him like clinging burrs.
Gnawed from within by termites…
…one good push…
…things have happened within him…
…bad need of therapy…
…beyond help…
Barrett was less angered by Hahn’s words than he thought he should have been. Hahn was entitled to his views. He might even be right. Barrett had lived too long as a man apart from the others here; no one dared to speak bluntly to him. Had he decayed? Were the others being too kind to him?
Finally Barrett stopped going over and over Hahn’s profile of him, and pushed his way to the last page of the notes. The essay ended with the words, “Therefore I recommend prompt termination of the Hawksbill Station penal colony and, where possible, the therapeutic rehabilitation of its inmates.”
Hawksbill Station Page 11
