Her scowl changed to a suspicious stare. Her stare blossomed into the smile that converts a girl to a goddess. Then she flung her arms around me.
I replied with an avuncular hug. “You saved the Pen when you saved those women.”
“I did it for you!” Her hand was stroking the back of my neck. She tipped up her face, eyes closed, mouth half open, lips moist.
I kissed her gently.
She responded by pushing her tongue into my mouth.
I tried to ease back; she pulled me forward. I had not planned on carrying congratulations this far; she wanted them to go all the way. She nibbled my ear. “Gav—I’ve waited so long for you to say something nice to me.”
“You’ve what?” I tried to sit up.
She pulled me down. “I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you! I told Judy so. She said you were a sweet guy. But you weren’t sweet to me. Gav—why were you so hostile?”
“Hostile? Me? Barb—I’ve always admired you.”
“Then why didn’t you show it? Why were you so fond of putting me down?”
“Me putting you down?” But this was no time to argue. “I guess I was afraid.” Afraid of what Judith might say or Enoch might do. She was a broadminded woman; he was a broadminded man. But breadth of mind and acute jealousy coexist in the best of women. And few fathers are broadminded about their daughters. “Better your dog than your daughter!” as Gramps used to say. I fell back on my old defense line. “I couldn’t trust myself!”
“You were afraid of being carried away?”
I nodded and kissed her.
She raised her head and studied my face. “Gav, why am I so worked up all of a sudden? I don’t usually get homy this easily. And why are you?”
“Post-combat heat!” I muttered, trying to cool my own. “Fear—rage—guilt—desire. Classical sequence. Kill the men and rape the women. Now women are joining the action—” “So that’s it!” She slid her hand inside my shirt. “Never felt this hot before!” She might never have felt the heat her-fcelf but she certainly knew how to raise mine.
Her hands were below my belt and mine were on her breasts when my com pinged. I cursed but continued to explore. Her fingers froze. “Gav—you’d better answer. You’re still in command of this show, and that may be important.” Reluctantly I took my right hand from her left breast and eased the com from my belt. It was Midge. “Mister Gavin— Jehu and Margaret and some of the others are going to that Coast Guard cutter. They’re ashore on the Needles and with the swell rising she’s starting to pound. She’ll have broken up by morning. We’d like to rescue the sailors and marines, if that’s okay by you?”
“It’s okay if you’re armed and they’re not when you take them aboard. And keep them standing out on the foredeck after you’ve pulled them from the drink.” 1 shivered as Barbara’s fingers started moving again.
“I can’t find Barb. So me and Sam are going to take Sea Eagle."
Her hands left me abruptly.
“Stand by, Midge!” I looked at Barbara. “What’s up?”
“Tell her you’ll find me. And tell her to wait!’ She was on her feet, tugging up her slacks. “Eagle's my boat. I’ll take her out!”
I nodded, frustration tempered with relief. “Midge—hold it! I’ll get a message to Barbara. You’d better wait for her!”
“Okay. But tell her to move it! We’ve got to reach that cutter before dark.”
“She’ll get the signal!” She had already got it And so had I. Her infatuation with her boat was a love exceeding the love of men.
She tucked in her blouse and kissed me. “We’ll have our victory orgy later!” Then she was away, jumping over the low bushes and the trailing vines, disappearing into the wilderness of the orchard.
I composed myself and my clothes and went slowly back to the Surveillance Center, distributing encouragement and advice to those Believers I met. Judith was still busy watching her displays.
“I congratulated Barbara,” I said.
“So I saw!”
“Christ! Is that camera still working? Listen Judy—”
“I listened too!” She swung round to face me. She was laughing. “Saved by the ping!” She moved toward me. “What’s this line of yours about post-combat lust? I knew I felt something; I wasn’t sure what.”
“Judy, I didn’t mean—”
She caught my arm. “Let’s use my old cell. I left it empty especially for us!”
Epilogue
Within two years the Settlement had moved back to Sutton Cove, leaving a rotating squad with launchers to protect the riches of the Pen and taking with us sufficient weaponry to hold off an armored brigade. By then the nearest thing to any kind of army in the northeast was a few companies of the National Guard, behaving more like bandits than soldiers. They left us alone, following Gramps’ old dictum that it is safer to shear sheep than spear Wolves.
Barbara and I never enjoyed our victory orgy. For the first few days we were too busy sorting out prisoners, settling in the rescued women, and preparing to defend the Pen against an attack which never came. Once all that was done we found that our mutual fascination had faded with our postcombat heat, and Barbara had developed other interests.
As soon as the Pen was secure, Chairman Yackle broadcast the news of its capture on the inter-Settlement radio network, and thereafter our boats spent more time picking up refugees from overrun Settlements and escapees from “reeducation centers” than they did in fishing. Among the reasons for our eventual return to Sutton Cove was the population explosion which resulted as more and more Believers managed to reach us.
A month after Yackle spread the news that we held the Pen, Barbara’s mysterious sister appeared literally out of the blue, flying a chopper, and whisked the kid off to some unknown but exciting future. After an evening talking with her sister, Barbara transferred her infatuation from boats to choppers, leaving Sea Eagle to Sam, much as she left me to Judith. Enoch looked sad for a while but had already resigned himself to losing his daughter, sooner or later. “She’s got too much of her grandma in her to ever settle down to a quiet life like the rest of us.”
Midge left with Futrell and the Marines she rescued from the Coast Guard cutter. She dumped Futrell at Fairhaven, watched him limping away into the forest, and then radioed that she was staying with the Marines. Their Sergeant had heard some story about a gang of mercenaries who had set themselves up as a protection organization somewhere. Sam, who brought the Eagle back from Clarport, assured us that she was going of her own free will—she was in love with the Sergeant. Midge was another not cut out for the quiet life of a Settlement.
Neither was I, but that was what I had to endure. Judith was still hoping for children. I tried to share her enthusiasm and fulfill her need, but in truth I had lost what little urge I might have had to reproduce. I was disgusted with myself and the human race; the past had been wasted and the future mortgaged. The beginning of the Chaos was the time when Benevolent Presentism was abandoned for Factual Futurism. When civilized men used sophisticated weapons to grab women too uncivilized to have been made sterile by Impermease.
The first excitement to enter our placid lives in the three years after we had captured the Pen was a signal from the Teacher himself. He had returned from wherever he had been meditating during the onset of the Chaos to set up shop in an area called the Enclave, a patch of territory controlled by Believers somewhere in Syria. His signal was an invitation for Doctor Judith Grenfell to come and join his entourage.
Of course she accepted. With tears in her eyes she swore that only the Teacher could take her from me. She must go. The amphibian which had started to operate a kind of Inter Settlement Airline would arrive in the Cove some time during August to pick her up.
After all my attempts to dissuade her had failed, I went to see Chuck Yackle. “You’re the local representative of the Light. When we first came here you called the break-up of a marriage a sin against the Light. Remember? So why isn’t this
seduction of my wife by your Teacher a sin?”
He fiddled with his stylus and rubbed his bald head. “We had hoped that this wouldn’t break up your marriage. We had hoped you would go with Judith.”
“Me? Go to the Enclave? What the hel! could I do there? Anyway, they’d never take me. I’m an unbeliever.”
Yackle shrugged. “They’ll accept you. In fact—” He hesitated. “In fact it’s you the Teacher wants.”
“Me? Your Teacher doesn’t even know I exist.”
“Apparently he does. I had a signal some time back asking if I thought you’d go. I answered that I thought you wouldn’t.”
“You never asked me!”
“I knew your answer, Gavin.” He sighed. “I was right, wasn’t I?”
I admitted he was, but it would have been nice to have been asked.
He sighed again. “We didn’t want to lose you.”
“But you’re prepared to lose Judith. I know there are two other Docs in the Cove now. But they’re quacks compared to her!”
“True! But if the Teacher calls—we must answer.”
“You claimed he was calling me!” Then what he had just said sank in, and it took all my willpower not to reach across the table, grab Chairman Yackle by the throat, and ram his head against the wall.
He eased back his chair, moving out of my reach. “Judith is answering the call. We hope you will follow.”
“What a lousy trick! Wait until I tell Judy!” I started for the door.
“And lacerate her pride? Would you do that to her?”
I stopped and turned. I could see her face collapsed if I claimed that her beloved Teacher was using her as a bait to entice me. Entice me for what? Once again I was being manipulated. Once again I was being maneuvered into the service of some authority I didn’t understand. Proving the truth of what Judy had once called me—a feudal retainer always looking for a Lord to serve.
“Tell her you’re going with her!” urged Yackle. “Follow her the way you followed her when you both came here. Be honest, Gavin! You’re bored with our peaceful life. In the Enclave there’ll be excitement. Probably more than you want!”
“To hell with the Enclave!” But I still stood facing him. “Aren’t you curious to find out why the Teacher should want you?”
Of course I was.
And I did.
Table of Contents
Prologue
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XIII
XIX
XX
Epilogue
Edward Llewellyn Page 30
