"The bugs control most of this area," another said. "We have to fight our way through." Around his neck hung a pair of binoculars. The runners were armed with slug-pistols and knives.
"Are you really a human being?" a runner asked. "The original stock?"
"That's right," Trent muttered in unsteady tones.
The runners were awed. Their beady eyes grew wide. They touched his metal suit, his viewplate. His oxygen tank and pack. One squatted down and expertly traced the circuit of his transmitter apparatus.
"Where are you from?" the leader asked in his deep purr-like voice. "You're the first human we've seen in months."
Trent spun, choking. "Months? Then…"
"None around here. We're from Canada. Up around Montreal. There's a human settlement up there."
Trent's breath came fast. "Walking distance?"
"Well, we made it in a couple of days. But we go fairly fast." The runner eyed Trent's metal-clad legs doubtfully. "I don't know. For you it would take longer."
Humans. A human settlement. "How many? A big settlement? Advanced?"
"It's hard to remember. I saw their settlement once. Down underground—levels, cells. We traded some cold plants for salt. That was a long time ago."
"They're operating successfully? They have tools—machinery—compressors? Food tanks to keep going?"
The runner twisted uneasily. "As a matter of fact they may not be there any more."
Trent froze. Fear cut through him like a knife. "Not there? What do you mean?"
"They may be gone."
"Gone where?" Trent's voice was bleak. "What happened to them?"
"I don't know," the runner said. "I don't know what happened to them. Nobody knows."
He pushed on, hurrying frantically north. The jungle gave way to a bitterly cold fern-like forest. Great silent trees on all sides. The air was thin and brittle.
He was exhausted. And only one tube of oxygen remained in the tank. After that he would have to open his helmet. How long would he last? The first rain cloud would bring lethal particles sweeping into his lungs. Or the first strong wind, blowing from the ocean.
He halted, gasping for breath. He had reached the top of a long slope. At the bottom a plain stretched out—tree-covered—a dark green expanse, almost brown. Here and there a spot of white gleamed. Ruins of some kind. A human city had been here three centuries ago.
Nothing stirred—no sign of life. No sign anywhere.
Trent made his way down the slope. Around him the forest was silent. A dismal oppression hung over everything. Even the usual rustling of small animals was lacking. Animals, insects, men—all were gone. Most of the runners had moved south. The small things probably had died. And the men?
He came out among the ruins. This had been a great city once. Then men had probably gone down in air-raid shelters and mines and subways. Later on they had enlarged their underground chambers. For three centuries men—true men—had held on, living below the surface. Wearing lead-lined suits when they came up, growing food in tanks, filtering their water, compressing particle-free air. Shielding their eyes against the glare of the bright sun.
And now—nothing at all.
He lifted his transmitter. "Mine," he snapped. "This is Trent."
The transmitter sputtered feebly. It was a long time before it responded. The voice was faint, distant. Almost lost in the static. "Well? Did you find them?"
"They're gone."
"But…"
"Nothing. No one. Completely abandoned." Trent sat down on a broken stump of concrete. His body was dead. Drained of life. "They were here recently. The ruins aren't covered. They must have left in the last few weeks."
"It doesn't make sense. Mason and Douglas are on their way. Douglas has the tractor car. He should be there in a couple of days. How long will your oxygen last?"
"Twenty-four hours."
"We'll tell him to make time."
"I'm sorry I don't have more to report. Something better." Bitterness welled up in his voice. "After all these years. They were here all this time. And now that we've finally got to them…"
"Any clues? Can you tell what became of them?"
"I'll look." Trent got heavily to his feet. "If I find anything I'll report."
"Good luck." The faint voice faded off into static. "We'll be waiting."
Trent returned the transmitter to his belt. He peered up at the gray sky. Evening—almost night. The forest was bleak and ominous. A faint blanket of snow was falling silently over the brown growth, hiding it under a layer of grimy white. Snow mixed with particles. Lethal dust—still falling, after three hundred years.
He switched on his helmet-beam. The beam cut a pale swath ahead of him through the trees, among the ruined columns of concrete, the occasional heaps of rusted slag. He entered the ruins.
In their center he found the towers and installations. Great pillars laced with mesh scaffolding—still bright. Open tunnels from underground lay like black pools. Silent deserted tunnels. He peered down one, flashing his helmet beam into it. The tunnel went straight down, deep into the heart of the Earth. But it was empty.
Where had they gone? What had happened to them? Trent wandered around dully. Human beings had lived here, worked here, survived. They had come up to the surface. He could see the bore-nosed cars parked among the towers, now gray with the night snow. They had come up and then—gone.
Where?
He sat down in the shelter of a ruined column and flicked on his heater. His suit warmed up, a slow red glow that made him feel better. He examined his counter. The area was hot. If he intended to eat and drink he'd have to move on.
He was tired. Too damn tired to move on. He sat resting, hunched over in a heap, his helmet-beam lighting up a circle of gray snow ahead of him. Over him the snow fell silently. Presently he was covered, a gray lump sitting among the ruined concrete. As silent and unmoving as the towers and scaffolding around him.
He dozed. His heater hummed gently. Around him a wind came up, swirling the snow, blowing it up against him. He slid forward a little until his metal and plastic helmet came to rest against the concrete.
Towards midnight he woke up. He straightened, suddenly alert. Something—a noise. He listened.
Far off, a dull roaring.
Douglas in the car? No, not yet—not for another two days. He stood up, snow pouring off him. The roar was growing, getting louder. His heart began to hammer wildly. He peered around, his beam flashing through the night.
The ground shook, vibrating through him, rattling his almost empty oxygen tank. He gazed up at the sky—and gasped.
A glowing trail slashed over the sky, igniting the early morning darkness. A deep red, swelling each second. He watched it, open-mouthed.
Something was coming down—landing.
A rocket.
The long metal hull glittered in the morning sun. Men were working busily, loading supplies and equipment. Tunnel cars raced up and down, hauling material from the undersurface levels to the waiting ship. The men worked carefully and efficiently, each in his metal-and-plastic suit, in his carefully sealed lead-lined protection shield.
"How many back at your Mine?" Norris asked quietly.
"About thirty." Trent's eyes were on the ship. "Thirty-three, including all those out."
"Out?"
"Looking. Like me. A couple are on their way here. They should arrive soon. Late today or tomorrow."
Norris made some notes on his chart. "We can handle about fifteen with this load. We'll catch the rest next time. They can hold out another week?"
"Yes."
Norris eyed him curiously. "How did you find us? This is a long way from Pennsylvania. We're making our last stop. If you had come a couple days later…"
"Some runners sent me this way. They said you had gone they didn't know where."
Norris laughed. "We didn't know where either."
"You must be taking all this stuff some place. This ship. It's old, isn't it? Fixe
d up."
"Originally it was some kind of bomb. We located it and repaired it—worked on it from time to time. We weren't sure what we wanted to do. We're not sure yet. But we know we have to leave."
"Leave? Leave Earth?"
"Of course." Norris motioned him toward the ship. They made their way up the ramp to one of the hatches. Norris pointed back down. "Look down there—at the men loading."
The men were almost finished. The last cars were half empty, bringing up the final remains from underground. Books, records, pictures, artifacts—the remains of a culture. A multitude of representative objects, shot into the hold of the ship to be carried off, away from Earth.
"Where?" Trent asked.
"To Mars for the time being. But we're not staying there. We'll probably go on out, towards the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Ganymede may turn out to be something. If not Ganymede, one of the others. If worse comes to worst we can stay on Mars. It's pretty dry and barren but it's not radioactive."
"There's no chance here—no possibility of reclaiming the radioactive areas? If we could cool off Earth, neutralize the hot clouds and—"
"If we did that," Norris said, "they'd all die."
"They?"
"Rollers, runners, worms, toads, bugs, all the rest. The endless varieties of life. Countless forms adapted to this Earth—this hot Earth. These plants and animals use the radioactive metals. Essentially the new basis of life here is an assimilation of hot metallic salts. Salts which are utterly lethal to us."
"But even so—"
"Even so, it's not really our world."
"We're the true humans," Trent said.
"Not any more. Earth is alive, teeming with life. Growing wildly—in all directions. We're one form, an old form. To live here, we'd have to restore the old conditions, the old factors, the balance as it was three hundred and fifty years ago. A colossal job. And if we succeeded, if we managed to cool Earth, none of this would remain."
Norris pointed at the great brown forest. And beyond it, towards the south, at the beginning of the steaming jungle that continued all the way to the Straits of Magellan.
"In a way it's what we deserve. We brought the War. We changed Earth. Not destroyed—changed. Made it so different we can't live here any longer."
Norris indicated the lines of helmeted men. Men sheathed in lead, in heavy protection suits, covered with layers of metal and wiring, counters, oxygen tanks, shields, food pellets, filtered water. The men worked, sweated in their heavy suits. "See them? What do they resemble?"
A worker came up, gasping and panting. For a brief second he lifted his viewplate and took a hasty breath of air. He slammed his plate and nervously locked it in place. "Ready to go, sir. All loaded."
"Change of plan," Norris said. "We're going to wait until this man's companions get here. Their camp is breaking up. Another day won't make any difference."
"All right, sir." The worker pushed off, climbing back down to the surface, a weird figure in his heavy lead-lined suit and bulging helmet and intricate gear.
"We're visitors," Norris told him.
Trent flinched violently. "What?"
"Visitors on a strange planet. Look at us. Shielded suits and helmets, spacesuits—for exploring. We're a rocket-ship stopping at an alien world on which we can't survive. Stopping for a brief period to load up—and then take off again."
"Closed helmets," Trent said, in a strange voice.
"Closed helmets. Lead shields. Counters and special food and water. Look over there."
A small group of runners were standing together, gazing up in awe at the great gleaming ship. Off to the right, visible among the trees, was a runner village. Checker-board crops and animal pens and board houses.
"The natives," Norris said. "The inhabitants of the planet. They can breathe the air, drink the water, eat the plant-life. We can't. This is their planet—not ours. They can live here, build up a society."
"I hope we can come back."
"Back?"
"To visit—some time."
Norris smiled ruefully. "I hope so too. But we'll have to get permission from the inhabitants—permission to land." His eyes were bright with amusement—and, abruptly, pain. A sudden agony that gleamed out over everything else. "We'll have to ask them if it's all right. And they may say no. They may not want us."
SMALL TOWN
VERNE HASKEL crept miserably up the front steps of his house, his overcoat dragging behind him. He was tired. Tired and discouraged. And his feet ached.
"My God," Madge exclaimed, as he closed the door and peeled off his coat and hat. "You home already?"
Haskel dumped his briefcase and began untying his shoes. His body sagged. His face was drawn and gray.
"Say something!"
"Dinner ready?"
"No, dinner isn't ready. What's wrong this time? Another fight with Larson?"
Haskel stumped into the kitchen and filled a glass with warm water and soda. "Let's move," he said.
"Move?"
"Away from Woodland. To San Francisco. Anywhere." Haskel drank his soda, his middle-aged flabby body supported by the gleaming sink. "I feel lousy. Maybe I ought to see Doc Barnes again. I wish this was Friday and tomorrow was Saturday."
"What do you want for dinner?"
"Nothing. I don't know." Haskel shook his head wearily. "Anything." He sank down at the kitchen table. "All I want is rest. Open a can of stew. Pork and beans. Anything."
"I suggest we go out to Don's Steakhouse. On Monday they have good sirloins."
"No. I've seen enough human faces today."
"I suppose you're too tired to drive me over to Helen Grant's."
"The car's in the garage. Busted again."
"If you took better care of it—"
"What the hell do you want me to do? Carry it around in a cellophane bag?"
"Don't shout at me, Verne Haskel!" Madge flushed with anger. "Maybe you want to fix your own dinner."
Haskel got wearily to his feet. He shuffled toward the cellar door. "I'll see you."
"Where are you going?"
"Downstairs in the basement."
"Oh, Lord!" Madge cried wildly. "Those trains! Those toys! How can a grown man, a middle-aged man—"
Haskel said nothing. He was already half way down the stairs, feeling around for the basement light.
The basement was cool and moist. Haskel took his engineer's cap from the hook and fitted it on his head. Excitement and a faint surge of renewed energy filled his tired body. He approached the great plywood table with eager steps.
Trains ran everywhere. Along the floor, under the coal bin, among the steam pipes of the furnace. The tracks converged at the table, rising up on carefully graded ramps. The table itself was littered with transformers and signals and switches and heaps of equipment and wiring. And—
And the town.
The detailed, painfully accurate model of Woodland. Every tree and house, every store and building and street and fireplug. A minute town, each facet in perfect order. Constructed with elaborate care throughout the years. As long as he could remember. Since he was a kid, building and glueing and working after school.
Haskel turned on the main transformer. All along the track signal lights glowed. He fed power to the heavy Lionel engine parked with its load of freight cars. The engine sped smoothly into life, gliding along the track. A flashing dark projectile of metal that made his breath catch in his throat. He opened an electric switch and the engine headed down the ramp, through a tunnel and off the table. It raced under the workbench.
His trains. And his town. Haskel bent over the miniature houses and streets, his heart glowing with pride. He had built it—himself. Every inch. Every perfect inch. The whole town. He touched the corner of Fred's Grocery Store. Not a detail lacking. Even the windows. The displays of food. The signs. The counters.
The Uptown Hotel. He ran his hand over its flat roof. The sofas and chairs in the lobby. He could see them through the window.
> Green's Drugstore. Bunion pad displays. Magazines. Frazier's Auto Parts. Mexico City Dining. Sharpstein's Apparel. Bob's Liquor Store. Ace Billiard Parlor.
The whole town. He ran his hands over it. He had built it; the town was his.
The train came rushing back, out from under the workbench. Its wheels passed over an automatic switch and a drawbridge lowered itself obediently. The train swept over and beyond, dragging its cars behind it.
Haskel turned up the power. The train gained speed. Its whistle sounded. It turned a sharp curve and grated across a cross-track. More speed. Haskel's hands jerked convulsively at the transformer. The train leaped and shot ahead. It swayed and bucked as it shot around a curve. The transformer was turned up to maximum. The train was a clattering blur of speed, rushing along the track, across bridges and switches, behind the big pipes of the floor furnace.
It disappeared into the coal bin. A moment later it swept out the other side, rocking wildly.
Haskel slowed the train down. He was breathing hard, his chest rising painfully. He sat down on the stool by the workbench and lit a cigarette with shaking fingers.
The train, the model town, gave him a strange feeling. It was hard to explain. He had always loved trains, model engines and signals and buildings. Since he was a little kid, maybe six or seven. His father had given him his first train. An engine and a few pieces of track. An old wind-up train. When he was nine he got his first real electric train. And two switches.
He added to it, year after year. Track, engines, switches, cars, signals. More powerful transformers. And the beginnings of the town.
He had built the town up carefully. Piece by piece. First, when he was in junior high, a model of the Southern Pacific Depot. Then the taxi stand next door. The cafe where the drivers ate. Broad Street.
And so on. More and more. Houses, buildings, stores. A whole town, growing under his hands, as the years went by. Every afternoon he came home from school and worked. Glued and cut and painted and sawed.
Now it was virtually complete. Almost done. He was forty-three years old and the town was almost done.
Haskel moved around the big plywood table, his hands extended reverently. He touched a miniature store here and there. The flower shop. The theater. The Telephone Company. Larson's Pump and Valve Works.
The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Page 95
