by Cole, Robert
But the harsh laws of the community paid off. There had never been a significant outbreak of disease, their external defences had not been seriously breached, and vast agricultural and building projects were constantly pushing the frontier eastward through the Welsh highlands. As a matter of policy, all arable land had been converted to agriculture and the hills to the rough grazing of sheep and cattle. Extensive chicken farms had been set up in the lowlands and the seas were being harvested again. With these successes the community's own produce now accounted for over eighty percent of the total food consumption. Dried foods, such as fruit and cereal, were still being supplied from the dwindling reserves of the mine.
However, the future of the community remained uncertain. After the war, the land had changed from a dark smoky wasteland, tortured by snow storms and gale force winds to the climate of a savannah. Midday temperatures often climbed into the high thirties, little rain fell and winds constantly ripped through the land.
The first harvest had been an unqualified disaster. Radiation and freezing conditions had laid a poisonous frozen crust on the ground, which had to be peeled off and taken away by hand before any crops could be planted. Even then, each fall of rain or snow brought down more radiation. The new crops germinated and withered under the poor half-light of the sun. The poor harvest was then attacked by an insect plague from the east and their ravages had scarcely ceased when a rat plague followed, devouring the insects and anything else in their path. Even tethered cattle were attacked. The rats tore at the legs of these beasts until they collapsed, kicking and grunting, under a tide of gnashing teeth and ripping claws. Then they in turn starved and disappeared from the land.
The next harvest was better. This time the improved weather conditions had allowed most of the crops to germinate and start shooting. The insects appeared again, but now the colonists were ready for them with pesticides drawn from the store in the mine. Very slowly the crops struggled towards the sun. As the rain was more infrequent, huge irrigation channels were dug and water pumped by hand from pre-war reservoirs near Mount Snowdon. The whole community held its breath while the crops grew, but as harvesting day approached it became evident that the cereals had not swelled in the ear, and the vegetables, small and parched above the ground, were withered in their roots.
Fortunately, there were a number of environmental and agricultural experts among the survivors in the community. They explained how the drastically altered climatic conditions were affecting the whole cycle of nature. Apart from smoke, the incineration of the world’s forests and cities had also released billions of tonnes of nitrogen. This nitrogen combined with oxygen to form nitric oxides, which in turn produced ozone on the earth's surface. In the stratosphere, however, the formation of these nitric oxides actually had the reverse effect and destroyed the ozone layer. Previously, by converting ultra violet light to heat, the ozone had formed a warm, protective envelope around the earth’s surface. Now that the ozone was on the planet's surface and not in the stratosphere, UV light penetrated to the surface and heated it, creating a greenhouse effect. Apart from raising the surface temperatures both the UV light and ozone also affected plant growth by destroying vulnerable shoot tips.
To add to these problems the mine was critically short of fertilisers and farming implements. Without fertilisers the type of intensive agriculture that had evolved in Great Britain before the holocaust was not possible. Although the machinery for such farming still existed and could be repaired, the fuel to power it was not available. The supplies the mine possessed had to be used on essentia1 services, like the transport of materials and on generators for the production of light and heat. The farmers amongst the community had therefore to revert to skills they had discarded as old fashioned and in which they had no experience.
These difficulties were debated in committee for weeks before a new farming strategy emerged. In broad terms, this entailed protecting the crops in every conceivable way; nothing was left to chance. Vast glass houses were to be constructed covering many hectares of land. The glass would exclude UV light, radioactive fallout and any sudden insect plaques, and at the same time provide a safe working environment. All water to be used in irrigation was first to be sand filtered in huge tanks, under the force of gravity, to remove any radioactive particles. Large amounts of decomposing vegetable matter were also scavenged from the surrounding countryside and placed in these glass houses to provide the carbon dioxide vital for plant growth. These changes, once introduced, were soon rewarded with results.
Although the number of crops grown was relatively small because of the labour involved and the difficulty in finding materials to build the glass houses, the potatoes flourished, and the corn grew high. The community had achieved its first major success.
The rearing of farm animals, however, presented an entirely different set of problems, which were not so happily solved. Finding sufficient feed was easy enough since grass was one of the most resistant forms of plant life. The surrounding hills and plains had quickly become blanketed with a flowing mat of green, but heavy fallout limited their apparent usefulness. When cattle and sheep grazed in the open they concentrated certain long life isotopes, such as caesium 137 in their tissues, and iodine 131 and Strontium 90 in their milk. Only by cultivating grass especially for feed could this drawback be overcome, and there just was not the manpower or the glass covering available to do this. So if meat was to be eaten, a proportion of radioactivity had to be tolerated in the diet. Specialist teams were formed to investigate the problem. A partial solution was found by converting all milk into hard products such as cheese, where the radioactive mineral content had been reduced. But for this generation at least, a complete alteration of diet was deemed essential, and was introduced. Cereals such as barley, oats, maize, rye and oilseed rape, which before the war had been used largely for animal feed, now had to be made palatable for human consumption. Meats and fresh eggs were to be taken only in small quantities, so as not to exceed the radiation tolerance level of the body. In effect, the community became almost vegetarian, eating mostly cereals, breads, cheeses, fruits and small amounts of salted meats.
Long before Alex drew near in his Land Rover, his presence had been detected by look outs in a series of black slate turrets and radioed back to the mine. With the manpower at their command, the community had been able to deploy a force of over four thousand men and women in turrets like these, along the whole length of the border. Like the threads of a spider's web, the slightest twitch or disturbance in the surrounding countryside could bring reinforcements scurrying to the scene.
Alex passed through without incident and was driving for another hour before he reached the nerve centre of the mine. He parked the Land Rover in the service and maintenance area, where it would receive a thorough overhaul after each mission, and climbed out and stretched his limbs.
Three years had wrought its changes in Alex. He was barely twenty five, but he looked ten years older. Like most survivors all fleshiness had disappeared from his face. His skin now clung in a taut, lined mask to his bones, giving him an almost haunted look. The wasting of his face had also enlarged his eyes, making them more intense and sad somehow, as though he was keeping some enormous flood of emotion bottled up there.
Alex turned from gazing down the valley, walked round to the front of the Land Rover and began slowly packing various papers into a small leather satchel on the front seat. He had just completed this task when Cliff suddenly appeared from behind one of the vehicles. The sight of him both delighted and perturbed Alex. The little carpenter had become his closest and most treasured companion. Cliff possessed a rare quality of total, incorruptible honesty. His opinions were his own and he stated them with a bluntness which most people found upsetting, but which Alex never failed to admire. Their discussions had no hidden undertones; each man spoke out and respected the opinion of the other. Together they shared a strange type of alliance against the community, Cliff because of his natural hatred of rules a
nd regulations, Alex because he hated everything the community stood for. He loathed its harshness, its inhumanity. The system was working; they were winning against the elements but at what a cost! The day of human individuality was gone forever.
And it saddened Alex to see how sick Cliff looked. Much of his hair had dropped out and refused to grow again. A skin cancer was starting to swell on his face, and his arms and legs had withered, as though some malign thing was eating away at him from the inside. It was sickening to watch and always became more noticeable after long trips away.
The carpenter stood up and embraced him. ‘It's great to see you,’ he grinned, barely able to contain his own relief. ‘Everyone's been concerned, you're two weeks overdue. What the hell was so bloody interesting?’
The intensity of Cliff's greeting surprised Alex. ‘Things just took longer than I anticipated,’ he answered mildly.
Cliff shook his head. After each mission Alex seemed to come back more withdrawn into himself than ever. ‘I thought you were finished this time. I prayed you weren't, but by God I was worried. Give it up, man, you've already run more missions than anyone still alive. Stop before you get yourself killed.’
Alex raised his eyebrows, but did not speak.
They had been over this ground before. Cliff was aware of Alex’s suicidal tendencies and had done his best to snap him out of them, but Alex had so little desire for life left.
Cliff sighed deeply, but decided not to pursue the matter for the moment. ‘What did you find in London?’
‘Just more unsolved mysteries, I'm afraid.’
Cliff frowned. ‘So London is the same as the other cities?’
‘Worse in some respects. There seem to be pockets of radiation all over the city.’
‘The committee isn't going to be pleased.’
Alex nodded slightly. In his opinion, the committee would have every right to feel concerned. He walked around to the front of the Land Rover and stared out at the sunset. ‘That's eight cities that have registered high radiation counts,’ he said, more to himself than to Cliff. ‘It’s not right. If this was fallout, it would be all over the place. There wouldn't be intense patches everywhere.’
‘So you don't think your readings are from fallout?’
‘I don't know what to think.’
‘Maybe the committee will come up with the answer.’
‘Maybe.’
Cliff watched the exhausted silhouette of his friend. He knew that something else was troubling him, but Alex rarely revealed what he was thinking these days. Although he was open enough about minor problems, it always seemed to Cliff that he had permanently closed off that part of him that Tina had once shared. He drew nearer to him, studying his face and trying to assess his mood. ‘Did you run into any problems on the trip?’
‘No… no the trip was fine.’ He fell silent, as though reliving his experiences in his mind. ‘It was like walking back in time and seeing it all over again,’ he said after a pause. ‘No one has been there since the holocaust. Skeletons all over the place, very little plant life and the rats, and flies…’ He shook his head. ‘So many rats! And they were so hungry they started to tear into my clothing. I had to continually kick them away.’
‘Not nice, eh?’ Cliff agreed. ‘But there's no point in dwelling on the past, is there? You've always been one for that.’
‘Yes,’ Alex said distantly.
‘We can't dwell on the past, we have to look to the future,’ Cliff persisted as though trying to reinforce his point.
‘What future, Cliff?’ Alex suddenly blurted out. ‘Don't you see? I don't pity these skeletons, I envy them. They suffered for a few minutes, maybe a few hours or days, but then they were free. And us? We are still here, still struggling, and for what? A few more years of life scratched out of a wasteland until our own deaths?’
‘You always were a pessimist, Alex. I agree the world will never be the same, but the land will regenerate. The animals and plant life will slowly start to return.’
But Alex would have none of it. ‘No, no. We’ve destroyed the animal life forever. There will never be enough carnivores to keep down the insects or rats. The land will be ravaged forever by plagues.’
‘Wild dogs will keep the rats down,’ Cliff countered.
‘Then why aren't there thousands of packs of wild dogs roaming the countryside?’ Alex asked, feeling unreasonably annoyed. ‘They can't tolerate the radiation, don't you see? Every time they eat they concentrate radiation in their tissues. The ones that don't die are too sterile to breed.’
‘It won't always be like this,’ Cliff argued, determined not to be beaten. ‘The radiation levels will drop and the animals will start to multiply again.’
Alex took a deep breath, and then looked back at the sunset. As the sun approached the horizon, the huge dust burdens in the stratosphere magnified it to many times its normal size. Like some grotesque, flaming fireball, it stained the sky in rainbows of deep purples and crimsons, and the land in the colour of blood. The irony of that never failed to make him smile. ‘I don't know,’ he said finally. ‘Does fertility return just because the radiation level drops? Or is the damage permanent?’
Cliff knew without asking what was being referred to here. Over the past three years there had been just over twelve hundred births in the community, and over half of these had had to be terminated because of physical or mental defects. There would be precious few children to inherit this mess.
‘Even if most of the survivors remain sterile, their children won't,’ Cliff said.
‘How can you say that? It may take generations before the population becomes fertile again. Our children's children will still be eating contaminated food before some of the longer life isotopes have fully decayed.’
Cliff shook his head slowly. At times like these, there was little point in trying to reason with Alex. He would pick holes in any argument, however convincingly put. In truth, the root cause was not his physical or mental exhaustion, though these did play their part. Alex belonged to the former order; he was an antique of the old world, with none of the will to live of the more adaptable colonists. He had lost all that was most dear to him, and he dwelt on that, almost to the exclusion of hope.
The two friends parted, Alex to get something to eat, Cliff to return to work. Alex knew he had put a damper on Cliff's cheerfulness and that he seemed to be doing it constantly these days. But he could draw on experiences of which the little carpenter had no inkling. Cliff had not seen what lay beyond the frontiers of the community. He was buoyed up by his own driving optimism, like a swimmer in an enclosed pool who has never had to face the waves. The land wasn't regenerating; it was rotting under the blazing sun, ravaged by cycles of plague, growth and more plague. And Cliff couldn't see himself, how aged and physically how much weaker he had become in the brief month that Alex had been away. It would only be a matter of time before someone in authority noticed as well. He was slowing up, sinking visibly before the onset of disease. As long as his work didn't suffer and he wasn't contagious he would be ignored, but let some jumped up jack in office force him to attend a medical and the truth would be out. He would be placed on the short list of the sick, and one fine day he would be given his week's rations and told to leave, the payment for all the work he had done.
Alex strolled to the open air eating area, hugging these unhappy thoughts. All around him people were busy preparing the evening meal. Huge charred pots were gently simmering over log fires. The cooks were adding the final touches and the kitchen staff were preparing the necessary plates and cutlery for the three hundred odd residents of the mine. Now that the community had pushed its boundaries further eastward, the underground population had steeply declined, and only administration staff still lived there.
After a few minutes, he was joined at his fire by Terry Aldiss, the mine's chief motor mechanic, a very tall, ungainly looking fellow with skinny limbs and an expressionless face, which always gave the impression of boredom. He re
sted his elbows on his knees and studied Alex without speaking. Alex made no move to greet or acknowledge him in any way, but continued raising his cup of herbal tea to his mouth.
‘It's a good thing you can't see yourself in a mirror,’ Terry said, after he had finished his inspection. ‘You look like death warmed up.’
Alex ran his fingers through his hair, opened his mouth to speak and then decided it wasn't worth it. He went on sipping his tea.
Terry smiled briefly at this deliberate slight. ‘I can understand if you don't want to talk,’ he said. ‘I'm probably not your idea of a welcome home party.’
‘You're the last person I want to speak to,’ Alex said coldly.
This response drew a loud burst of laugher from Terry.
Fuming Alex rose to his feet, tossed the dregs into the fire and strode off without another word.
The next morning Alex reported formally to the full meeting of the committee in the main conference room. Eight men and four women faced him around a large, oval shaped table. Each member was responsible for a facet of community life, rather like the minister in the cabinet of the old government, except that here there was no election and no House of Representatives. Most of these eminent citizens had been with the community since its inception; only three were not from Wales.
A man with greying hair and dark, bristly eyebrows stood up and announced the topics for the day's discussion. Alex's trip was first on the agenda. Alex followed him and delivered his conclusions from the data he had recovered at length, including the high incidence of radiation in the cities which had been examined. The committee listened quietly, some frowning, others expressing surprise. When he finished he remained standing for questions.
