by Larry Niven
It was a strange feeling.
There were men waiting for them on the porch. They waved Dan Forrester on into the house without speaking to him. George Christopher jerked his thumb at Harry. “They need you inside,” he said.
“In a minute.” Harry helped Hugo Beck get down from the truck, then lifted off Forrester’s backpack. When he turned, George had his shotgun pointed at Hugo’s midsection.
“I brought him,” Harry said. “You must have heard that on the telegraph.”
“We heard about Dr. Forrester. Not this creep. Beck, you were put on the road. I sent you out myself. Didn’t I remember to say ‘Don’t come back’? I’m sure I did.”
“He’s with me,” Harry repeated.
“Harry, have you lost your mind? This scummy little thief isn’t worth—”
“George, if I have to start going around Christopher territory, the Senator will no doubt tell you any news he thinks you should hear.”
“Don’t push it,” George said; but the shotgun moved slightly, so it wasn’t pointed at anyone. “Why?”
“You can put him back on the road if you like,” Harry said. “But I think you should listen to him first.”
Christopher thought about it for a moment. Then he shrugged. “They’re waiting inside. Let’s go.”
Hugo Beck stood before his judges. “I came bringing information,” he said, too softly.
His judges were few. Deke Wilson, Al Hardy, George Christopher. And the others. It struck Harry as it had the rest: The astronauts looked like gods. Harry recognized Baker from his photograph on the cover of Time, and it wasn’t hard to know who the others were. The lovely woman who didn’t speak must be the Soviet kosmonaut. Harry burned to talk to her. Meanwhile, there were other things to be said.
“Do you know what you’re doing, Harry?” Al Hardy asked. His tone made it a sincere question, as if he were half certain that Harry had lost his mind. “You’re the information service. Not Beck.”
“I know,” Harry said. “I thought you should have this firsthand. It’s a little hard to believe.”
“And that I can believe,” George Christopher said.
“Don’t I get a seat?” Harry asked. Hardy waved him toward a chair and Harry settled back, wishing that Hugo would show more backbone. His behavior reflected on Harry. This reception wasn’t what Harry was used to, and it was Beck that caused it. No china cups and coffee. No shot of whiskey.
The balance of power was life and death at the Stronghold. One played the game well or stayed out of it. Harry tried to stay out of it, enjoy his utility without getting involved in local politics. This time he’d had to play. Had he seriously offended Christopher? And did he give a damn? It was strange, how Harry’s macho instincts had kicked in after Hammerfall.
“We put him on the road,” George Christopher was saying. “Him and that Jerry Owen, on my orders. Hell, even the Shire threw them out, and those scummy jerks tried to live by stealing off the rest of us, and Owen tried teaching communism to my ranch-hands! Beck comes back in over my dead body.”
There was a chuckle from the back of the room, from either Leonilla Malik or Pieter Jakov. No one paid any attention. There was nothing humorous in the situation, and Harry wondered if he’d gone too far. “While you’re discussing Hugo Beck, Dr. Forrester is about dead on his feet,” Harry said. “Can you do something for him, or does it depend on getting Beck settled first?”
Al Hardy didn’t look away from the center of the room, where Christopher was glaring at Beck. “Eileen,” he called. “Take Dr. Forrester out to the kitchen and take care of him.”
“Right.” Eileen came in; she must have been standing in the hall. She led Dan Forrester out. The astrophysicist followed woodenly, clearly about to pass out from exhaustion.
Hugo Beck licked his thick lips. “I’ll settle for a meal,” Hugo said, sweating. “H-hell, I’d settle for a stale soda cracker. I just want to know you’re still here.”
That earned him puzzled looks. “We’re here,” said Al Hardy. “Have you got information or not? I haven’t wakened the Senator yet, and he wants to talk to Harry.”
Hugo gulped. “I’ve been with the bandits. The New Brotherhood Army.”
“Son of a bitch,” Deke Wilson said.
“How long?” Al Hardy demanded. He was suddenly alert. “Did you learn anything?”
“Or,” Christopher asked, “did you just run the first chance you got?”
“I learned enough to want my damn brain wiped clean,” Hugo said, and Harry nodded; it was the strict truth.
“Maybe you’d better tell us,” Hardy said. He turned toward the kitchen. “Alice, get us a glass of water.”
He’s got their attention, Harry thought. Now, goddammit, talk like a man!
“There are over a thousand of them,” Hugo said. He watched Deke Wilson flinch at that. “Maybe ten percent are women, maybe more. It doesn’t matter much. Most of the women are armed. I couldn’t tell who was really in charge. It seems to be a committee. Other than that, they’re pretty well organized, but God, they’re madder than hatters” This crazy preacher is one of the leaders—”
Deke Wilson broke in. “Preacher? Did they give up cannibalism, then?”
Hugo swallowed and shook his head. “No. The Angels of the Lord have not given up cannibalism.”
“I’d better get the Senator.” Al Hardy left the room. Alice Cox came in with a glass of water, and looked around uncertainly.
“Just put it down on the table,” George Christopher said. “Hugo, you may as well wait to tell your story.”
Hugo said, “I told you why I left the Shire. My own land. Mine, dammit! They were giving me twice the work of anyone else. After Hammerfall they said their claim on the land was as good as anybody’s, right? All of us equals, just the way I set it up. Well, every damned one of them had to prove he was my equal some way, now they all had the chance.”
Nobody answered.
“All I want is work and a place to sleep,” Hugo said. He looked around the room. What he saw was not good: Christopher’s contempt for a man who couldn’t handle his own hands; Deke Wilson afraid to listen, afraid not to; Eileen standing at the door, the spacewoman in her chair, both taking it all in and giving nothing back; Harry looking sour and wondering if he should have brought Hugo after all; Mayor Seitz…
The Mayor stood up suddenly and swung a chair into place. Hugo dropped into it, hard. “Thanks,” he whispered. The Mayor silently handed Hugo the glass of water and went back to his own place.
Leonilla spoke softly to Pieter. The room was still and everyone heard the fluid syllables. They looked at her, and she translated. “A meeting of the Presidium,” she said. “At least it is as I imagine such meetings must have been. Excuse me.”
George Christopher frowned, then took a chair. They waited a few moments longer, and Al Hardy came in leading the Senator. He stopped in the doorway and spoke down the hall. “Alice, could you ride up for Randall? And Mr. Hamner, I think. Better take horses for them.”
Senator Jellison wore carpet slippers and a dressing gown over slacks and white shirt, his gray-white hair only partially combed. He came into the room and nodded to everyone, then looked at Harry. “Welcome back,” he said. “We were getting worried about you. Al, why hasn’t anyone brought Harry a cup of tea?”
“I’ll see to it,” Hardy said.
“Thank you.” Jellison went to his high-backed chair and sat. “Sorry to keep you waiting. They like me to take a nap in the afternoon. Mr. Beck, has anyone made you any promises?”
“Just Harry.” The gift of a chair had restored some of Hugo’s composure. “I get to leave here alive. That’s all.”
“All right. Tell your story.”
Hugo nodded. “You put Jerry Owen and me on the road, remember? Jerry was mad enough to kill. He talked about… well, revenge, about the seeds of rebellion he’d planted in your men, Mr. Christopher.”
George smiled broadly. “They damn near kick
ed him to death.”
“Right, Jerry couldn’t move very fast, and I didn’t want to go on alone. It was spooky out there. Somebody shot at us once, no warning, just zing! and we ran like hell. We went south because that’s the way the road faced, and Jerry wasn’t in shape to climb up into the Sierra. Neither was I. We walked all day and most of the night, and I don’t know how far we got because all we had was an old Union Oil map and everything’s changed now. Jerry found some grain growing by the side of the road. It looked like weeds, but he said we could eat it, and the next day we managed a fire and cooked it. It’s good.”
“Okay, we don’t need the story of every meal you scrounged,” Christopher growled.
“Sorry. The next part’s important, though. Jerry was telling me weird things. Did you know he was wanted by the FBI and everyone else too? He was a general — in the” — Hugo paused — “New Brotherhood Liberation Army.” Hugo paused to let it sink in.
“New Brotherhood,” Al Hardy mused. “I guess that does fit.”
“I think so,” Hugo said. “Anyway, he was using the Shire as a hideout. He kept his mouth shut and we never knew, until after Hammerfall. We were probably in Mr. Wilson’s territory, and I was thinking about ditching Jerry. Being slowed down didn’t bother me, but how was I going to join Mr. Wilson’s crew if Jerry wanted to start a people’s revolution? If I’d seen so much as a lighted window I’d have been gone, and Jerry’d never have known where.
“But we didn’t see anything much. A truck once, but it didn’t stop. And barricaded farmhouses, where they set the dogs on us if we tried to get close. So we kept going south and getting hungrier, and about the third or fourth day we saw this scraggly-looking bunch of people. Every one of them looked like he’d lost his last chance, but there were at least fifty of them, and they didn’t look like they were starving.
“I was thinking about running, but Jerry walked right up to them. He called to me to come on with him, but they didn’t look like any outfit I wanted to join. I thought it might be the cannibals Harry told us about, but they didn’t look dangerous, they just looked finished.”
“No Army uniforms? No guns?” Deke Wilson asked.
“I didn’t get close enough to see what weapons they had, but there sure as hell weren’t any Army uniforms,” Hugo Beck said.
“Then that wasn’t the New Brotherhood Army—”
“Just listen,” Harry interrupted. “He’s not finished yet.”
Eileen came in with a tray. “Here’s your tea, Harry.” She poured a cup and set it on the table next to the mailman. “And yours, Senator.”
Beck looked at Harry’s tea, then sipped at his glass of water. “Well, Jerry went in with that outfit, and I split. I figured I’d seen the last of him, and I could get back up to Mr. Wilson’s turf again. Instead I ran into an old lady and her daughter. They lived in a little house in the middle of an almond grove, and they didn’t have any guns. Nobody’d bothered them because they lived way off the road, and they hadn’t been out since Hammerfall. The girl was seventeen, and she wasn’t in good shape. She had fever, bad, probably from the water. I took care of them.” Hugo Beck said it defiantly. “And I earned my keep, too.”
“What did you live on?” Mayor Seitz asked.
“Almonds, mostly. Some canned stuff the old lady had put up. And a couple of bushels of potatoes.”
“What happened to them?” George Christopher demanded.
“I’m coming to that.” Hugo Beck shuddered. “I stayed there three weeks. Cheryl was pretty sick, but I made them boil all the water, and she came out of it. She was looking pretty good, when — ” Beck broke off, and visibly fought for self-control. There were tears in his eyes. “I really got to like her.” He broke off again. Everyone waited.
“We couldn’t go anywhere because of Mrs. Horne. Cheryl’s grandmother. Mrs. Horne kept telling us to light out, leave before somebody found us, but we couldn’t do that.” Beck shrugged. “So they found us. First a jeep went by. It didn’t stop, but the people in it looked tough. We thought we’d make a run for it, but we hadn’t got a mile when a truck came up to the house, and people got out of it looking for us. I guess they tracked us, because it wasn’t long after that about ten people with guns came and grabbed us. They didn’t talk to us at all. They just threw Cheryl and me in the truck and drove. I think some of the others moved into the house with Mrs. Home. From what happened afterwards I’m sure of it. They wouldn’t waste a place like that. And I’m sure now they killed her, but we didn’t know that.
“They took us a few miles in the truck. It was dark by the time we got there. They had campfires. Three or four anyway. I kept asking what was going to happen to us, and they kept telling me to shut up. Finally one of them told me with his fist, and I didn’t say anything else. When we got to the camp they threw us in with a couple of dozen other people. There were others with guns all around.
“Some of the people in with us were hurt, covered with blood. Gunshot wounds, stab wounds, broken bones…” Hugo shuddered again. “We were glad we didn’t resist. Two of the hurt ones died while we were waiting. There was barbed wire all around us, and three guys with machine guns watching, and all these other people with guns were running around.”
“Uniforms?” Deke Wilson asked.
“Some. One of the guys with a machine gun. A black man with corporal’s stripes.” Hugo seemed reluctant to talk now. The words came slowly, with effort.
Al Hardy looked a question at the Senator. He got a nod and turned to Eileen, who stood in the doorway. He tilted his head toward the study, and she left, walking quickly so she wouldn’t miss the story.
“Cheryl and I got the prisoners to talking,” Hugo Beck said. “There’d been a war, and these lost. They were farmers, they had a setup like Mr. Wilson’s, I think, a bunch of neighbors trying to be left alone.”
“Where was this?” Deke Wilson asked.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. They’re not there anymore,” Hugo said.
Eileen came in with a half-full glass. She took it to Hugo Beck. “Here.”
He drank, looked startled, and drank again, downing half of it. “Thank you. Oh, God, thank you.” The whiskey helped his voice, but it didn’t change the haunted look he gave them. “Then the preacher came,” Hugo said. “He came up to the barbed wire and started in. Listen, I was so scared I don’t remember everything he said. His name was Henry Armitage, and we were in the hands of the Angels of the Lord. He kept talking, sometimes just talk like anybody sometimes in a singsong voice with a lot of ‘my brethren’ and ‘ye people of God, hear and believe.’ We’d all been spared, he said. We’d lived through the end of the world, and we had a purpose in this life. We had to complete the Lord’s work. The Hammer of God had fallen, and the people of God had a holy mission. The part I really listened to was when he told us we could join up or we could die. If we joined we’d get to shoot the ones who didn’t join, and then—”
“Just a minute.” George Christopher’s voice was a mixture of interest and incredulity. “Henry Armitage was a preacher on the radio. I used to listen to him. He was a good man. Now you say he’s crazy?”
Hugo had trouble looking Christopher in the eye, but his voice was firm enough. “Mr. Christopher, he’s so far around the bend that he can’t see the bend from there. Listen, people, you know there were people driven nuts by Hammerfall. Armitage had more reason than most.”
“He made sense. He always made sense. All right, go on. What drove him nuts, and why would he tell you about it?”
“Why, it was part of his speech! He told us how he knew the Hammer of God was bringing an end to the world. He warned the world as best he could — radio, television, newspaper—”
“That part’s straight,” George said.
“And on the last day he took fifty good friends, not just members of his congregation, but friends, and his family, up to the top of a mountain to watch. They saw three of the strikes. They went through that weird rai
n that started with pellets of hot mud and ended like Noah’s Flood, and Armitage waited for the angels.
“None of us laughed when he said that. But then it wasn’t just the prisoners listening, a lot of the… Angels of the Lord, they call themselves, were circled around listening. Every so often they’d shout, ‘Amen!’ and wave their guns at us. We didn’t dare laugh.
“Armitage waited for the angels to come for his flock. They never came. By and by they went downhill again, looking for safety.
“They went along the shore of the San Joaquin Sea, and everywhere they saw corpses. Some of Armitage’s friends lost hope and died. He was in despair. They found all kinds of horrors, places where the cannibals had been. Some of them got sick, a couple got shot when they tried to go up to a half-submerged school—”
“Get on with it,” said the Senator.
“Yessir, I’m trying. The next part’s hazy. All this time Armitage was trying to figure out where the hell all the angels had gone — so to speak. Somewhere in his wanderings he got it. Also, Jerry Owen fits in somehow.”
“Owen?”
“Yes. This was the group he’d joined. According to Jerry, it was him who put new life into Armitage. I don’t know if any of that’s true. I do know that just after Jerry hooked up with him, Armitage ran into the cannibal band and now it’s calling itself the New Brotherhood Army, and it’s led by the Angels of the Lord.”
“And Jerry Owen is their general?” George Christopher said. He seemed to think that was funny.
“No, sir. I don’t know what he is. He’s some kind of leader, but I don’t think he’s all that important. Let me tell this please. I have to tell somebody.” He lifted the whiskey glass and stared at it. “This is what Armitage told the cannibals, and this is what he told us.”
