Stillman moved unsteadily to a shelf in one corner of the small wooden room and took down a slim book.
“Here she is, Mr. H. Your greatest. The one you wrote cleanest and best —The Old Man and the Sea. You showed how one man could fight the whole damn ocean.” He paused, voice strained and rising. “Well, by God, show me, now, how to fight this ocean. My ocean is full of killer fish and I'm one man and I'm alone in it. I'm ready to listen.”
The seated figure remained silent.
“Got you now, haven't I, Papa? No answer to this one, eh? Courage isn't enough. Man was not meant to live alone or fight alone—or drink alone. Even with courage he can only do so much alone, and then it's useless. Well, I say it's useless. I say the hell with your book and the hell with you!”
Lewis Stillman flung the book straight at the head of the motionless figure. The victim spilled back in the chair; his arms slipped off the table, hung swinging. They were lumpy and handless.
More and more, Lewis Stillman found his thoughts turning to the memory of his father and of long hikes through the moonlit Missouri countryside, of hunting trips and warm campfires, of the deep woods, rich and green in summer. He thought of his father's hopes for his future, and the words of that tall, gray-haired figure often came back to him.
“You'll be a fine doctor, Lewis. Study and work hard and you'll succeed. I know you will.”
He remembered the long winter evenings of study at his father's great mahogany desk, pouring over medical books and journals, taking notes, sifting and resifting facts. He remembered one set of books in particular—Erickson's monumental three-volume text on surgery, richly bound and stamped in gold. He had always loved those books, above all others.
What had gone wrong along the way? Somehow, the dream had faded; the bright goal vanished and was lost. After a year of pre-med at the University of California he had given up medicine; he had become discouraged and quit college to take a laborer's job with a construction company. How ironic that this move should have saved his life! He'd wanted to work with his hands, to sweat and labor with the muscles of his body. He'd wanted to earn enough to marry Joan and then, later perhaps, he would have returned to finish his courses. It all seemed so far away now, his reason for quitting, for letting his father down.
Now, at this moment, an overwhelming desire gripped him, a desire to pore over Erickson's pages once again, to re-create, even for a brief moment, the comfort and happiness of his childhood.
He'd once seen a duplicate set on the second floor of Pickwick's book store in Hollywood, in their used book department, and now he knew he must go after them, bring the books back with him to the drains. It was a dangerous and foolish desire, but he knew he would obey it. Despite the risk of death, he would go after the books tonight. Tonight.
One corner of Lewis Stillman's room was reserved for weapons. His prize, a Thompson submachine gun, had been procured from the Los Angeles police arsenal. Supplementing the Thompson were two automatic rifles, a Luger, a Colt .45, and a.22 Hornet pistol equipped with a silencer. He always kept the smallest gun in a spring-clip holster beneath his armpit, but it was not his habit to carry any of the larger weapons with him into the city. On this night, however, things were different.
The drains ended two miles short of Hollywood—which meant he would be forced to cover a long and particularly hazardous stretch of ground in order to reach the book store. He therefore decided to take along the .30 caliber Savage rifle in addition to the small hand weapon.
You're a fool, Lewis, he told himself as he slid the oiled Savage from its leather case. Risking your life for a set of books. Are they that important? Yes, part of him replied, they are that important. You want these books, then go after what you want. If fear keeps you from seeking that which you truly want, if fear holds you like a rat in the dark, then you are worse than a coward. You are a traitor, betraying yourself and the civilization you repre sent. If a man wants a thing and the thing is good he must go after it, no natter what the cost, or relinquish the right to be called a man. It is better o die with courage than to live with cowardice.
Ah, Papa Hemingway, breathed Stillman, smiling at his own thoughts. I see that you are back with me. I see that your words have rubbed off after all. Well then, all right—let us go after our fish, let us seek him out. Perhaps the ocean will be calm …
Slinging the heavy rifle over one shoulder, Lewis Stillman set off down the tunnels.
Running in the chill night wind. Grass, now pavement, now grass beneath his feet. Ducking into shadows, moving stealthily past shops and theaters, rushing under the cold high moon. Santa Monica Boulevard, then Highland, then Hollywood Boulevard, and finally—after an eternity of heartbeats—the book store.
The Pickwick.
Lewis Stillman, his rifle over one shoulder, the small automatic gleaming in his hand, edged silently into the store.
A paper battleground met his eyes.
In the filtered moonlight, a white blanket of broken-backed volumes spilled across the entire lower floor. Stillman shuddered; he could envision them, shrieking, scrabbling at the shelves, throwing books wildly across the room at one another. Screaming, ripping, destroying.
What of the other floors? What of the medical section?
He crossed to the stairs, spilled pages crackling like a fall of dry autumn leaves under his step, and sprinted up the first short flight to the mezzanine. Similar chaos!
He hurried up to the second floor, stumbling, terribly afraid of what he might find. Reaching the top, heart thudding, he squinted into the dimness. The books were undisturbed. Apparently they had tired of their game before reaching these.
He slipped the rifle from his shoulder and placed it near the stairs. Dust lay thick all around him, powdering up and swirling as he moved down the narrow aisles; a damp, leathery mustiness lived in the air, an odor of mold and neglect.
Lewis Stillman paused before a dim hand-lettered sign: MEDICAL SECTION. It was just as he remembered it. Holstering the small automatic, he struck a match, shading the flame with a cupped hand as he moved it along the rows of faded titles. Carter … Davidson … Enright … Erickson. He drew in his breath sharply. All three volumes, their gold stamping dust-dulled but legible, stood in tall and perfect order on the shelf.
In the darkness, Lewis Stillman carefully removed each volume, blowing it free of dust. At last all three books were clean and solid in his hands.
Well, you've done it. You've reached the books and now they belong to you.
He smiled, thinking of the moment when he would be able to sit down at the table with his treasure, and linger again over the wondrous pages.
He found an empty carton at the rear of the store and placed the books inside. Returning to the stairs, he shouldered the rifle and began his descent to the lower floor.
So far, he told himself, my luck is still holding.
But as Lewis Stillman's foot touched the final stair, his luck ran out. The entire lower floor was alive with them!
Rustling like a mass of great insects, gliding toward him, eyes gleaming in the half light, they converged upon the stairs. They'd been waiting for him.
Now, suddenly, the books no longer mattered. Now only his life mattered and nothing else. He moved back against the hard wood of the stair-rail, the carton of books sliding from his hands. They had stopped at the foot of the stairs; they were silent, looking up at him, the hate in their eyes.
If you can reach the street, Stillman told himself, then you've still got half a chance. That means you've got to get through them to the door. All right then, move.
Lewis Stillman squeezed the trigger of the automatic. Two of them fell under his bullets as Stillman rushed into their midst.
He felt sharp nails claw at his shirt, heard the cloth ripping away in their grasp. He kept firing the small automatic into them, and three more dropped under the hail of bullets, shrieking in pain and surprise. The others spilled back, screaming, from the door.
The pistol was empty. He tossed it away, swinging the heavy Savage free from his shoulder as he reached the street. The night air, crisp and cool in his lungs, gave him instant hope.
I can still make it, thought Stillman, as he leaped the curb and plunged across the pavement. If those shots weren't heard, then I've still got the edge. My legs are strong. I can outdistance them.
Luck, however, had failed him completely on this night. Near the intersec tion of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland, a fresh pack of them swarmed toward him over the street.
He dropped to one knee and fired into their ranks, the Savage jerking in his hands. They scattered to either side.
He began to run steadily down the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, using the butt of the heavy rifle like a battering ram as they came at him. As he neared Highland, three of them darted directly into his path. Stillman fired. One doubled over, lurching crazily into a jagged plate-glass store-front. An other clawed at him as he swept around the corner to Highland, but he managed to shake free.
The street ahead of him was clear. Now his superior leg-power would count heavily in his favor. Two miles. Could he make it before others cut him off?
Running, reloading, firing. Sweat soaking his shirt, rivering down his face, stinging his eyes. A mile covered. Halfway to the drains. They had fallen back behind his swift stride.
But more of them were coming, drawn by the rifle shots, pouring in from side streets, from stores and houses.
His heart jarred in his body, his breath was ragged. How many of them around him? A hundred? Two hundred? More coming. God!
He bit down on his lower lip until the salty taste of blood was on his tongue.
You can't make it! a voice inside him shouted, they'll have you in another block and you know it!
He fitted the rifle to his shoulder, adjusted his aim, and fired. The long rolling crack of the big weapon filled the night. Again and again he fired, the butt jerking into the flesh of his shoulder, the bitter smell of burnt powder in his nostrils.
It was no use. Too many of them. He could not clear a path. Lewis Stillman knew that he was going to die.
The rifle was empty at last, the final bullet had been fired. He had no place to run because they were all around him, in a slowly closing circle.
He looked at the ring of small cruel faces and he thought: The aliens did their job perfectly; they stopped Earth before she could reach the age of the rocket, before she could threaten planets beyond her own moon. What an immensely clever plan it had been! To destroy every human being on Earth above the age of six—and then to leave as quickly as they had come, allowing our civilization to continue on a primitive level, knowing that Earth's back had been broken, that her survivors would revert to savagery as they grew into adulthood.
Lewis Stillman dropped the empty rifle at his feet and threw out his hands. “Listen,” he pleaded, “I'm really one of you. You'll all be like me soon. Please, listen to me.”
But the circle tightened relentlessly around Lewis Stillman. He was screaming when the children closed in.
LUCIFER
Roger Zelazny
CARLSON STOOD ON the hill in the silent center of the city whose people had died.
He stared up at the building—the one structure that dwarfed every hotel-grid, skyscraper-needle, or apartment-cheesebox packed into all the miles that lay about him. Tall as a mountain, it caught the rays of the bloody sun. Somehow it turned their red into golden halfway up its height.
Carlson suddenly felt that he should not have come back.
It had been more than two years, as he figured it, since last he had been here. He wanted to return to the mountains now. One look was enough. Yet still he stood before it, transfixed by the huge building, by the long shadow that bridged the entire valley. He shrugged his thick shoulders then, in an unsuccessful attempt to shake off memories of the days, five (or was it six?) years ago, when he had worked within the giant unit.
Then he climbed the rest of the way up the hill and entered the high, wide doorway.
His fiber sandals cast a variety of echoes as he passed through the deserted offices and into the long hallway that led to the belts. The belts, of course, were still. There were no thousands riding them. There was no one alive to ride. Their deep belly-rumble was only a noisy phantom in his mind as he climbed onto the one nearest him and walked ahead into the pitchy insides of the place.
It was like a mausoleum. There seemed to be no ceiling, no walls, only the soft pat-pat of his soles on the flexible fabric of the belt.
He reached a junction and mounted a cross-belt, instinctively standing still for a moment and waiting for the forward lurch as it sensed his weight.
Then he chuckled silently and began walking again.
When he reached the lift, he set off to the right of it until his memory led him to the maintenance stairs. Shouldering his bundle, he began the long, groping ascent.
He blinked at the light when he came into the power room. Filtered through its hundred high windows, the sunlight trickled across the dusty acres of machinery.
Carlson sagged against the wall, breathing heavily from the climb. After a while he wiped a workbench clean and set down his parcel.
Then he removed his faded shirt, for the place would soon be stifling. He brushed his hair from his eyes and advanced down the narrow metal stair to where the generators stood, row on row, like an army of dead, black beetles. It took him six hours to give them all a cursory check.
He selected three in the second row and systematically began tearing them down, cleaning them, soldering their loose connec tions with the auto-iron, greasing them, oiling them and sweeping away all the dust, cobwebs, and pieces of cracked insulation that lay at their bases.
Great rivulets of perspiration ran into his eyes and down along his sides and thighs, spilling in little droplets onto the hot flooring and vanishing quickly.
Finally, he put down his broom, remounted the stair and returned to his parcel. He removed one of the water bottles and drank off half its contents. He ate a piece of dried meat and finished the bottle. He allowed himself one cigarette then, and returned to work.
He was forced to stop when it grew dark. He had planned on sleep ing right there, but the room was too oppressive. So he departed the way he had come and slept beneath the stars, on the roof of a low building at the foot of the hill.
It took him two more days to get the generators ready. Then he began work on the huge Broadcast Panel. It was in better condition than the generators, because it had last been used two years ago. Whereas the generators, save for the three he had burned out last time, had slept for over five (or was it six?) years.
He soldered and wiped and inspected until he was satisfied. Then only one task remained.
All the maintenance robots stood frozen in mid-gesture. Carlson would have to wrestle a three-hundred-pound power cube without assistance. If he could get one down from the rack and onto a cart without breaking a wrist he would probably be able to convey it to the Igniter without much difficulty. Then he would have to place it within the oven. He had almost ruptured himself when he did it two years ago, but he hoped that he was somewhat stronger—and luckier—this time.
It took him ten minutes to clean the igniter oven. Then he located a cart and pushed it back to the rack.
One cube was resting at just the right height, approximately eight inches above the level of the cart's bed. He kicked down the anchor chocks and moved around to study the rack. The cube lay on a downward-slanting shelf, restrained by a two-inch metal guard. He pushed at the guard. It was bolted to the shelf.
Returning to the work area, he searched the tool boxes for a wrench. Then he moved back to the rack and set to work on the nuts.
The guard came loose as he was working on the fourth nut. He heard a dangerous creak and threw himself back out of the way, dropping the wrench on his toes.
The cube slid forward, crushed the loosened rail, teetered a bare moment, then dropped w
ith a resounding crash onto the heavy bed of the cart. The bed surface bent and began to crease beneath its weight; the cart swayed toward the outside. The cube continued to slide until over half a foot projected beyond the edge. Then the cart righted itself and shivered into steadiness.
Carlson sighed and kicked loose the chocks, ready to jump back should it suddenly give way in his direction. It held.
Gingerly, he guided it up the aisle and between the rows of generators, until he stood before the igniter. He anchored the cart again, stopped for water and a cigarette, then searched up a pinch bar, a small jack, and a long, flat metal plate.
He laid the plate to bridge the front end of the cart and the opening to the oven. He wedged the far end in beneath the igniter's doorframe.
Unlocking the rear chocks, he inserted the jack and began to raise the back end of the wagon, slowly, working with one hand and holding the bar ready in the other.
The cart groaned as it moved higher. Then a sliding, grating sound began and he raised it faster.
With a sound like the stroke of a cracked bell, the cube tumbled onto the bridgeway; it slid forward and to the left. He struck at it with the bar, bearing to the right with all his strength. About half an inch of it caught against the left edge of the oven frame. The gap between the cube and the frame was widest at the bottom.
He inserted the bar and heaved his weight against it—three times.
Then it moved forward and came to rest within the igniter.
He began to laugh. He laughed until he felt weak. He sat on the broken cart, swinging his legs and chuckling to himself, until the sounds coming from his throat seemed alien and out of place. He stopped abruptly and slammed the door.
The broadcast panel had a thousand eyes, but none of them winked back at him. He made the final adjustments for transmit, then gave the generators their last checkout.
The End Of The World Page 11
