Two in Time

by Wilson Tucker

  "Do you know the year? The number?"

  A minute movement of her head. "The power went out many years ago. I'm sorry, Brian, but I have lost the count."

  "I don't suppose it really matters--not now, not with what we've already learned. I agree with Pindar."

  She looked her question.

  He said: "Pindar lived about twenty-five hundred years ago but he was wiser than a lot of men alive today. He warned man of peering too far into the future, he warned of not liking what would be found." An apologetic gesture; a grin. "Bartlett again: my vice. The Commander was always teasing me about my affair with Bartlett."

  "Arthur waited long to see you. He hoped you would come early, that he might see you again."

  "I would have liked-- Didn't anyone _know?_"

  "No."

  "But why not? That gyroscope was tracking me."

  "No one knew your arrival date; no one would guess. The gyroscope device could not measure your progress after the power failed _here_. We knew only the date of failure, when the TDV suddenly stopped transmitting signals to the computer _there_. You were wholly lost to us, Brian."

  "Sheeg! Those goddam infallible engineers and their goddam infallible inventions!" He caught himself and was embarrassed at the outburst. "Excuse me, Katrina," Chaney reached across the table and closed his hands over hers. "I found the Commander's grave outside--I wish I had been on time. And I had already decided not to tell you about that grave when I went back, when I turned in my report." He peered at her. "I _didn't_ tell anyone, did I?"

  "No, you reported nothing."

  A satisfied nod. "Good for me--I'm still keeping my mouth shut. The Commander made me promise not to tell you about your future marriage, a week or so ago when we returned from the Joliet trials. But you tried to pry the secret out of me, remember?"

  She smiled at his words. "A week or so ago."

  Chaney mentally kicked himself. "I have this bad habit of putting my foot in my mouth."

  A little movement of her head to placate him. "But I guessed at your secret, Brian. Between your manner and Arthur's deport-ment, I guessed it. You put yourself away from me."

  "I think you had already made up your mind. The little signs were beginning to show, Katrina." He had a vivid memory of the victory party the night of their return.

  She said: "I had almost decided at that time, and I _did_ decide a short while afterward; I _did_ decide when he came back hurt froth his survey. He was so helpless, so near death when you and the doctor took him from the vehicle I decided on the spot." She glanced at his enfolding hands and then raised her eyes. "But I was aware of your own intentions. I knew you would be hurt."

  He squeezed her fingers with encouragement. "Long ago and far away, Katrina. I'm getting over it."

  She made no reply, knowing it to be a half-truth.

  "I met the children--" He stopped, aware of the awkwardness. "Children they are not--they're older than I am! I met Arthur and Kathryn out there but they were afraid of me."

  Katrina nodded and again her gaze slid away from him to rest on his enveloping hands.

  "Arthur is ten years older than you, I think, but Kathryn should be about the same age. I am sorry I can't be more precise than that; I am sorry I can't tell you how long my husband has been dead. We no longer know time here, Brian; we only live from one summer to the next. It is not the happiest existence." After a while her hands moved inside his, and she glanced up again. "They were afraid of you because they've known no other man since the station was overrun, since the military personnel left here and we stayed within the fence for safety. For a year or two we dared not even leave this building."

  Bitterly: "The people out there were afraid of me, too. They ran away from me."

  She was quickly astonished, and betrayed alarm.

  "Which people? Where?"

  "The family I found outside the fence--down there by the railroad tracks."

  "There is no one alive out there."

  "Katrina, there _is_--I saw them, called to them, begged them to come back, but they ran away in fear."

  "How many? Were there many of them?"

  "Three. A family of three: father, mother, and a little boy. I found them walking along the railroad track out there beyond the northwest corner. The little fellow was picking up something--pieces of coal, perhaps--and putting them in a bag his mother carried; they seemed to be making a game of it. They were walking in peace, in contentment until I called to them."

  Tersely: "Why did you do that? Why did you call attention to yourself?"

  "Because I was lonely! Because I was sick and hurt at sight of an empty world! I yelled out because those people were the only living things I'd found here, other than a frightened rabbit. I wanted their company, I wanted their news! I would have given them everything I owned for only an hour of their time. Katrina, I wanted to know if people were still living in this world." He stopped and took tighter rein on his emotions. More quietly: "I wanted to talk to them, to ask questions, but they were afraid of me--scared witless, shocked by sight of me. They ran like that frightened rabbit and I never saw them again. I can't tell you how much that hurt me."

  She pulled her hands from his and dropped them into her lap.

  "Katrina--"

  She wouldn't look up at once, but steadfastly kept her gaze on the tabletop. The movement of her hands had left small trails in the dust. He thought the tiny bundle of her seemed more wilted and withdrawn than before: the taut skin on her face appeared to have aged in the last few minutes--or perhaps that age had been claiming her all the while they talked.

  "Katrina, please."

  After a long while she said: "I am sorry, Brian. I will apologize for my children, and for that family. They dared not trust you, none of them, and the poor family felt they had good reason to fear you." Her head came up and he felt shock. "Everyone fears you; no one will trust you since the rebellion. I am the only one here who does not fear a black man."

  He was hurt again, not by her words but because she was crying. It was painful to watch her cry.

  Brian Chaney came into the briefing room a second time. He was carrying another lantern, two plastic cups, and a container of water from the stores. He would have brought along a bottle of whiskey if that had been available, but it was likely that the Commander had long ago consumed the whiskey on his successive birthdays.

  The old woman had wiped her eyes dry.

  Chaney filled both cups and set the first one on the table before her. "Drink up--we'll drink a toast."

  "To what, Brian?"

  "To what? Do we need an excuse?" He swung his arm in an expansive gesture which took in the room. "To that damned clock up there: knocking off sixtyone seconds while my ears suffered. To that red telephone: I never used it to call the President and tell him he was a dunce. To us: a demographer from the Indiana Corporation, and a research supervisor from the Bureau of Standards--the last two misfits sitting at the end of the world. We're out of place and out of time, Katrina: they don't need demographers and researchers here--they don't have corporations and bureaus here. Drink to us."

  "Brian, you are a clown."

  "Oh, yes." He sat down and looked at her closely in the lantern light. "Yes, I am that. And I think you are almost smiling again. Please smile for me."

  Katrina smiled: pale shadow of an old smile.

  Chaney said: "Now _that_ is why I still love you!" He lifted his cup. "To the most beautiful researcher in the world--and you may drink to the most frustrated demographer in the world. Bottoms up!" Chaney emptied the cup, and thought the water tasted flat--stale.

  She nodded over the rim of her cup and sipped.

  Chaney stared at the long table, the darkened lights overhead, the stopped clock, the dead telephones. "I'm supposed to be working--making a survey."

  "It doesn't matter."

  "Have to keep Seabrooke happy. I can report a family out there: at least one family alive and living in peace. I suppose there are more--
there has to be more. Do you know of anyone else? Anyone at all?"

  Patiently: "There were a few at first, those many years ago; we managed to keep in touch with some survivors by radio before the power failure. Arthur located a small group in Virginia, a military group living underground in an Army command post; and later he contacted a family in Maine. Sometimes we would make brief contact with one or two individuals in the west, in the mountain states, but it was always poor news. Each of them survived for the same reasons: by a series of lucky circumstances, or by their skills and their wits, or because they were unusually well protected as we were. Their numbers were always small and it was always discouraging news."

  "But _some_ survived. That's important, Katrina. How long have you been alone on the station?"

  "Since the rebellion, since the Major's year."

  Chaney gestured. "That could be--" He peered at her, guessing at her age. "That could be thirty years ago."

  "Perhaps."

  "But what happened to the other people here?"

  She said: "Almost all the military personnel were withdrawn at the beginning; they were posted to overseas duty. The few who remained did not survive the attack when the rebels overran the station. A very few civilian technicians stayed with us for a time, but then left to rejoin their families--or search for their families. The laboratory was already empty in Arthur's year. We had been ordered underground for the duration."

  "The duration. How long was that?"

  The sharp old eyes studied him. "I would think it is ending just now, Brian. Your description of the family outside the fence suggests it is ending now."

  Bitterly: "And nobody around but you and me to sign the peace treaty and pose for the cameras. Seabrooke?"

  "Mr. Seabrooke was relieved of his post, dismissed, shortly after the three launches. I believe he returned to the Dakotas. The President had blamed _him_ for the failure of the survey, and he was made the scapegoat."

  Chaney struck the table with a fist.

  "I _said_ that man was a dunce--just one more in a long line of idiots and dunces inhabiting the White House! Katrina, I don't understand how this country has managed to survive with so many incompetent fools at the top."

  Softly-spoken reminder: "It hasn't, Brian."

  He muttered under his breath and glared at the dust on the table. Aloud: "Excuse me."

  She nodded easily but said nothing.

  A memory prodded him. "What happened to the JCS, to those men who tried to take Camp David?"

  She closed her eyes for a moment, as if to close off the past. Her expression was bitter. "The Joint Chiefs of Staff were executed before a firing squad, a public spectacle. The President had declared a business moratorium on the day of the execution; government offices closed and the children were let out of school, all to witness the spectacle on the networks. He was determined to give the country a warning. It was ghastly, depressing, and I hated him for it."

  Chaney stared at her. "And I have to go back and tell him what he's going to do. What a hell of a chore _this_ survey is!" He hurled the drinking cup across the room, unable to stifle the angry impulse. "Katrina, I wish you had never found me on the beach. I wish I had walked away from you, or thrown you into the sea, or kidnapped you and ran away to Israel--anything."

  She smiled again, perhaps at the memory of the beach. "But that would have accomplished nothing, Brian. The Arab Federation overran Israel and drove the people into the sea. We wouldn't have escaped anything."

  He uttered a single word and then had to apologize again, although the woman didn't understand the epithet. "The Major certainly jumped into the beginning of hell."

  She corrected him. "The Major jumped into the end of it; the wars had been underway for nearly twenty years and the nation was on the brink of disaster. Major Moresby came forward only in time to witness the end for us, for the United States. After him, the government ceased to be. After twenty years we were wholly exhausted, used up, and could not defend ourselves against anyone."

  The old woman spoke with a dry weariness, a long fatigue, and he could listen to her voice and her spirit running down as she talked.

  The wars began just after the Presidential election of 1980, just after the field trials into Joliet. Arthur Saltus had told her of the two Chinese railroad towns blown off the map, and suddenly one day in December the Chinese bombed Darwin, Australia, in long-delayed retaliation. The whole of northern Australia was made uninhabitable by radiation. The public was never told of the first strike against the railroad towns but only of the second: it was painted an act of brutal savagery against an innocent populace. Radioactivity spread across the Arafura Sea to the islands to the north, and drifted toward the Phillipines. Great Britain appealed to the United States for aid.

  The re-elected President and his Congress declared war on the Chinese Peoples' Republic in the week following his inauguration, after having waged an undeclared war since 1954. The Pentagon had privately assured him the matter could be terminated and the enemy subdued in three weeks. Some months later the President committed massive numbers of troops to the Asian Theater: now involving eleven nations from the Phillipine Republic westward to Pakistan, and to the defense of Australia. He was then compelled to send troops to Korea, to counteract renewed hostilities there, but lost them all when the Chinese and the Mongolians overran the peninsula and ended foreign occupation.

  She said tiredly: "The President was re-elected in 1980, and again for a third term in 1984. After Arthur brought back the terrible news from Joliet, the man seemed unable to control himself and unable to do anything right. The third-term prohibition was repealed at his urging, and some time during that third term the Constitution was suspended altogether 'for the duration of the emergency.' The emergency never ended. Brian, that man was the last elected President the country ever had. After him there was nothing."

  Chaney said bitterly: "The meek, the terrible meek. I hope he is still alive to see this!"

  "He isn't, he wasn't. He was assassinated and his body thrown into the burning White House. They burned Washington to destroy a symbol of oppression."

  "Burned it! Wait until I tell him _that_."

  She made a little gesture to hush him or contradict him. "All that and more, much more. Those twenty years were a frightful ordeal; the last few years were numbing. Life appeared to stop, to give way to savagery. We missed the little things at first: passenger trains and airliners were forbidden to civilian traffic, mail deliveries were cut back to twice a week and then halted altogether, the news telecasts were restricted to only one a day and then as the war worsened, further restricted, to only local news not of a military nature. We were isolated from the world and nearly isolated from Washington.

  "Our trucks were taken away for use elsewhere; food was not brought in, nor medicines, nor clothing, nor fuel, and we fell back on the supplies stored on station. The military personnel were transferred to other posts or to points overseas, leaving only a token crew to guard this installation.

  "Brian, that guard was compelled to fire on nearby townspeople attempting to raid our stores: the rumor had been spread that enormous stockpiles of food were here, and they were desperately hungry."

  Katrina looked down at her hands and swallowed painfully. "The twenty years finally ended for us in a shocking civil war."

  Chaney said: "Ramjets."

  "They were called that, once they came into the open, once their statement of intent was publicized: Revolution And Morality. Sometimes we would see banners bearing the word RAM, but the name soon became something dirty--something akin to that other name they were called for centuries: it was a very bitter time and you would have suffered if you had remained on station.

  "Brian, people everywhere were starving, dying of disease, rotting in neglect and misery, but those people possessed a leadership we now lacked. Ramjets had efficient leadership. Their leaders used them against us and it was our turn to suffer. There _was_ revolution but little or no morality
; whatever morality they may have possessed was quickly lost in the rebellion and we all suffered. The country was caught up in a senseless savagery."

  "That's when Moresby came up?"

  A weary nod.

  Major Moresby witnessed the beginning of the civil war when he emerged on his target date. _They_ had chosen the same date for the outbreak of the rebellion--they had selected the Fourth of July as _their_ target in a bid for independence from white America and the bombing of Chicago was intended to be the signal. Ramjet liaison agents in Peiping had arranged that: Chicago--not Atlanta or Memphis or Birmingham--was the object of their greatest hatred after the wall. But the plan went awry.

  The rebellion broke out almost a week earlier--quite by accident--when triggered by a riot in the little river town of Cairo, Illinois. A traffic arrest there, followed by a street shooting and then a wholesale jail delivery of black prisoners, upset the schedule: the revolt was quickly out of control. The state militia and the police were helpless, depleted in number, their reserve manpower long since spent overseas; there was no regular army left standing in the United States except for token troops at various posts and stations, and even the ceremonial guards at national monuments had been removed and assigned to foreign duty. There was no remaining force to prevent the rebellion. Major Moresby climbed out of the vehicle and into the middle of the holocaust.

  The agony went on for almost seventeen months.

  The President was assassinated, Congress fled--or died while trying to flee--and Washington burned. They burned many of the cities where they were numerically strong. In their passion they burned themselves out of their homes and destroyed the fields and crops which had fed them.

  The few remaining lines of transportation which were open up to that moment ceased entirely. Trucks were intercepted, looted and burned, their drivers shot. Buses were stopped on interstate highways and white passengers killed. Railroad trains were abandoned wherever they stopped, or wherever the tracks were torn up, engineers and crews were murdered wherever they were caught. Desperate hunger soon followed the stoppage of traffic.