by Thomas Disch
Hansard ran out of the labyrinth and down the thirty-four flights of stairs to the street. In his haste he would sometimes plunge through walls or trample over the residents of the building who used the stairwells as their community center, faute de mieux. But at street level he had to rest. He had not eaten for five days. He was very weak. Without having intended to, he fell into a light slumber.
And he was there again, in the country that was so intensely green. But now it was black, and a buzzing was in his ears. It was black, and the flame thrower was in his hands, his own hands. The little boy who had broken out from the stockade -- he could not have been more than four years old -- was running across the blackened field toward him. Such a small boy, such a very small boy: how could he run carrying that heavy carbine? His arms were too short for him to raise it to his shoulder, so that when he fired it he had to let the devastated earth itself receive the recoil. He ran forward screaming his hatred, but for some reason Hansard could hear nothing but the buzzing of the flame thrower. He ran forward, such a very small boy, and when he was close enough Hansard let him have it with the flame thrower.
But the face that caught fire was no longer a little chink face. It was Nathan Junior's.
When Hansard, considerably weakened by his exertions of the afternoon, returned to the reservoir that night to drink and fill his canteen, he found that the high barrier that had been built around the pumping station was being patrolled by Worsaw's men. Throughout the night the men kept doggedly to their posts. From a distance Hansard reconnoitered their position and found no flaw in it. The lamps of the Real World shone brightly on the streets surrounding the barrier, and there was no angle from which Hansard might approach near enough unseen to the barrier to be able to swim the rest of the way underground.
At dawn the men surrendered their posts to a second shift. They must be running out of meat, Hansard thought. His canteen had given out. He had very little strength left. In a siege he had no doubt that they would outlast him.
And therefore, he decided, I shall have to make my raid tonight.
He returned to the library stacks to sleep, not daring to go to sleep within hearing range of his hunters, for it was only too likely that he would wake up screaming. He usually did now.
SEVEN
SCIAMACHY
Since there was a danger that he might exhaust all his strength in rehearsals, after the second trial run he rested on the library steps and basked in the warm air of late April. He could not, so weak as this, so hungry as this, take much satisfaction in mere warmth and quiet -- unless it could be called a satisfaction to drift off into cloudy, unthinking distances. The sun swooped down from noonday to the horizon in seeming minutes. The simulated stars of the dome winked on, winked off.
Now.
He walked over to the Gove Street intersection. Half a mile further down, Gove Street ran past the pumping station. A number of cars were stopped at the intersection for a red light. Hansard got into the back seat of a taxi beside a young lady in a mink suit. The taxi did not start off with too sudden a jerk, and Hansard was able to stay on the seat.
The pumping station came in sight. The taxi would pass by it, many feet nearer than Hansard would have been able to approach by himself. He took a deep breath and tensed his body. As soon as the taxi was driving parallel with the barrier Hansard leaped through the floor and down into the roadway. He could only hope that he had vanished into the pavement before either of the men guarding this face of the barrier had had a chance to notice him.
He had rehearsed the dive, but not the swimming. Earlier, he had discovered that without the onus of necessity he possessed neither the strength nor the breath for sustained effort. This was not a clear guarantee that, given the necessity, he would find the strength. (It is all very well to praise the heroic virtues, but strength is finally a simple matter of carbohydrates and proteins.) It was a chance he had to take.
A foolish chance -- for already he could feel his strength failing, his arms refusing another stroke, his lungs demanding air, taking control of his protesting will; his arms reaching up, to the air; his body breaking through the surface, into the air; his lungs, the air, ah, ah yes!
And it was not after all a failure -- not yet, for he had come up seven feet on the other side of the barrier. Seven feet! He would have been surprised to find he'd swum that far altogether.
Ives had said there were at least seventeen men, and probably more. Two men guarded each of the four faces of the barrier and they worked in two shifts. That would account for sixteen. And the seventeenth -- wouldn't he be guarding the reservoir itself?
He would be.
And he would be Worsaw.
Reasoning thus, Hansard decided, in spite of his weariness, to swim up the hill. It wasn't necessary to go the whole distance in a single effort. He stripped for easier swimming, hung the .45 he had taken from Ives's pack in a sling fixed to his belt. Then, inchmeal, keeping as much as possible within the interstices of flowerbeds and shrubs, he advanced up the slope. He could see guards about the station, but they seemed to be guards of the Real World.
Swimming, he thought of water, of the dryness in his throat, of water, the water filling the immaterial shell of the pumping station. He had, since his first visit here, developed a theory to account for what he had seen then. The ghostly water produced by the echo-effect of transmission was contained by the floor and walls of the station, just as the ground of the Real World supported the ghostly Hansard. The why of this was as yet obscure to him, but he was pragmatist enough to content himself with the how of most things.
When the pressure of the mounting water became too great, the excess quantity of it simply sank through the floor of the station. Just so, Hansard could submerge himself in the ground by entering it with sufficient force. As for the turbulent bubbling he had observed, that was undoubtedly caused by the "echo" of the air that the other pump was producing as it transmitted air to the Mars Command Posts. The air pump was below the level attained by the water, and so the ghostly air would be constantly bubbling up through the ghostly water and escaping through the skylight in the ceiling.
About thirty feet from the station Hansard was confronted with a blank stretch of lawn from which the nearest cover, a plot of tulips, was eight feet distant. Hansard decided to swim for it underground.
He came up on the wrong side of the flowerbed and was blinded at once by the beam of a flashlight. He ducked back into the ethereal subsurface with Warsaw's rebel yell still ringing in his ears. Below the surface he could hear nothing, though he deduced, from the sudden stinging sensation in his left shoulder, that Worsaw was firing at him.
Without knowing it was stupid or cunning, only because he was desperate and had no better plan (though none worse either), Hansard swam straight toward his enemy, toward where he supposed him still to be. He surfaced only a few feet away.
Swearing, Worsaw threw his emptied pistol at the head that had just bobbed up out of the lawn.
Hansard had taken out his .45, but before he could use it he had to fend off Worsaw's kick. The man's heavy combat boot grazed Hansard's brow and struck full force against the hand that held the automatic. The weapon flew out of his hand.
Hansard had drawn himself halfway out of the ground, but before he could get to his feet Worsaw had thrown himself on top of him, grabbing hold of Hansard's shoulders and pressing them back into the earth. Hansard tried to pull Worsaw's hands away, but he was at a disadvantage -- and he was weak.
Slowly Worsaw forced Hansard's face below the surface of the earth and into the airless, opaque ether below. Hansard grappled with the other man, not in an effort to resist him -- he had too little strength for that -- but to guarantee that when he went under Worsaw would go under with him. So long as they maintained the struggle, there was no force to prevent their sinking thus, together, into the earth; eyes open but unseeing, going down ineluctably, neither weakening yet, though surely the first to weaken would be Hansard. And then?
And then, curiously, the chill turpentine-like substance of the earth seemed to give way to another substance. Hansard could feel the water -- real and tangible -- fill his nostrils and the hollows of his ears. The water within the building, seeping through the floor under its own pressure, had spread out to form a sort of fan-shaped water table beneath the station. It was to the edge of this water table that the two men had descended in their struggle.
Worsaw's grip loosened -- he did not assimilate novelty so quickly -- and Hansard was able to break away from him. He swam now into the water table and upward, and in a short time he was within the transmitting station, though still under water. He surfaced and caught his breath. If only Warsaw did not realize too quickly where . . .
But already Warsaw, deducing where Hansard had gone, had entered the transmitting station and was swimming up after him -- like the relentless monster of a nightmare that pursues the dreamer through any landscape that is conjured up, which, even when it has once been killed, rises up again to continue the pursuit.
Hansard took a deep breath and dove down to confront the nightmare. He caught hold of Worsaw's throat, but his grip was weak and Worsaw tore his hands away. Improbably, he was smiling, and his red hair and beard waved dreamily in the clear water. Warsaw's knee came up hard against Hansard's diaphragm, and he felt the breath go out of his lungs.
Then Hansard was unable to see any more. His upper body was once more plunged into "solid" matter. Surely they had not already sunk as far as the floor in their struggle?
Suddenly Warsaw released his grip. Hansard fought free and surfaced. The water was tinged a deep pink. Had his shoulder wound bled that much?
The headless corpse of ex-Sergeant Warsaw floated up lazily to the surface, air still bubbling out the windpipe.
Hansard did not at once understand. Their fight had carried them into the transmitter itself. It was then that Hansard had found himself unable to see. Warsaw, unthinkingly pursuing his advantage, had entered the transmitter at a point several inches above Hansard's point of entry, and passed through the plane of transmission. The various molecules of his head had joined the stream of water that was being transmitted continuously to Mars.
Finding an area of water as yet untainted by the blood, Hansard drank, then filled his canteen. He dragged the decapitated body down through the water and outside the station. There he shoved it beneath a tulip bed. It was a better burial than he would have received at Worsaw's hands.
He checked the wound in his shoulder. It was superficial. It seemed strange, now that he thought of it, that Worsaw's confederates had not come in response to the shots that had been fired; more than strange. He looked about desperately for the lost .45.
Then Hansard heard it.
It sounded like a marching band advancing down Gove Street. From the prominence of the hill Hansard could see much of Gove Street, and it was filled with nothing but its usual swift stream of headlights. The invisible marching band became very loud. It was playing The Stars and Stripes Forever .
EIGHT
BRIDGETTA
The same afternoon that Hansard had waited out, drowsy, hungry, half aware, on the steps of the Arlington Library witnessed elsewhere a dialogue that was to be of decisive consequence for our story. Herewith a small part of that conversation:
" We are all in agreement."
"But when aren't you, popsicle? We're in agreement too, you know."
"If it's a question of food, then one of us is perfectly willing to go without. We're already overpopulated, or we will be by tomorrow. Besides, I should think you'd enjoy a new face around here."
"It is not a matter of largesse, and you are mistaken to think that I could prefer any face to your own. Your cheeks are like pomegranates, your nose like a cherry. You are another Tuesday Weld."
"For heaven's sake, Tuesday Weld is pushing fifty , grandfather!"
"Grandfather, indeed! I'm your husband. Sometimes I think you don't believe it. Is that why you want that young stud around here, so you can be unfaithful to me? Frailty, thy name is -- "
"I should like to have the opportunity . What good is virtue that is never tried?"
"I am deeply hurt." Then, after a suitable pause: "But it is so typically American a name, like Coca-Cola on the tongue: Tuesday Weld."
"The Army's also typically American. But you won't give him a chance."
" You will, I'm sure, my darling. Is it his uniform you love him for?"
"He cuts a handsome figure in his uniform. I can't deny it."
"Oof! I hate uniforms. I hate people from the Army. They want to destroy the world. They are going to destroy the world. And they would like to keep me prisoner forever -- God damn the Army. There is no justice. I am outraged."
She, calmly: "But if they're going to destroy the world, it seems all the better reason why, while there's still time, we might show some charity."
"All right, then, you can have his head on a silver platter. I knew from the first you wouldn't stop till you'd had your way. If you can find him before they do, you can bring him home and feed him a meal. Like a stray dog, eh? But if he makes messes, or whines at night . . ."
"We get rid of him, my love. Of course."
"Kiss me, popsicle. No, not there -- on the nose."
Hansard walked down the slope to where he had left his clothes. He dressed, hesitated, then walked through the wall built about the power station. Worsaw's confederates had disappeared. A very few late strollers passed by on the sidewalk; taxis and buses sped past in the street; and all these soundless goings-on were accompanied by the incongruous Sousa march-tune, as though a film were being shown with the wrong sound track.
He was very weak. Indeed if it had not been for this supererogatory strangeness, he would very likely have let himself bed down for the night on the roof of the power station.
Among the strollers a woman came down the street toward Hansard. Even worn down as he was, even knowing she was of the Real World, and hence inaccessible, he could not help noticing her. In the lamplight her red hair took on a murky tinge of purple. And admirable eyes -- what joke made them glint as they did now? The same, doubtless, that curled the corners of her lavender lips. And her figure -- what could be inferred of it beneath the jumble of synthetic ostrich plumes of her evening coat -- that was admirable too. She reminded him . . .
The woman stopped on the sidewalk, not three feet away from Hansard. She turned to study the blank face of the wall behind Hansard. She seemed, almost, to be looking at him .
"I wish she were," he said aloud.
The smile on the woman's thin lips widened. The Sousa march was now very loud, but not too loud to drown the sound of her laughter. It was a discreet laugh, scarcely more than a titter. But he had heard it. She lifted a gloved hand and touched the tip of a finger to the end of Hansard's nose. And he felt it.
"She is, she is," the woman said softly. "Or isn't that what you'd wished?"
"I -- " Hansard's mouth hung open stupidly. Too many things needed to be said all at once, and the one that took priority was only a banal: "I -- I'm hungry."
"And so, perhaps, are those other little men who may still be watching our carcasses for all that John Philip Sousa can do. And therefore I suggest that you follow me, keeping at a healthy distance, until we're well out of the neighborhood. You have strength left in you for another couple miles, I hope."
He nodded his head, and with no more ado she turned on her heel (a low heel, out of keeping with the elegance of the coat) and returned in the direction from which she'd come. Halfway up Gove Street she reached into a window recess and took out a pocket radio and two miniature amplifying units. She turned the radio off, and the music ceased.
"Good thing they were playing Sousa," she commented. "A Brahms quartet wouldn't have been half as frightful. On the other hand a little Moussorgsky . . . And by the way, here's a chocolate bar. That should help for now."
His hand trembled taking off the tinsel wrapping.
The taste of the chocolate exploded through his mouth like a bomb, and tears welled from his eyes. "Thank you," he said, when he had finished eating it.
"I should hope so. But this is still not the place to talk. Follow me a little further. I know a lovely little place on ahead where we can sit down and rest. Are you bleeding? Do you need a bandage? No? Then, come along."
As he followed her this time, the paranoid suspicion came to him that she was fattening him up on chocolate bars, as the witch fattened Hansel, so that when it was time to cook him he would make a better meal. It did not occur to him, then, that if she had a source of chocolate bars she wouldn't have to cook him . But he was very weak and most of his attention had to be devoted, lightheaded as he was, to the business of staying upright.
After a few turnings and short-cuts through opaque obstacles, she led him up the steps of a brightly-lighted Howard Johnson's. They sat across from each other in a green-and-orange plastic booth, where she presented him with a second candy bar and accepted his offer of a drink from the canteen.
