And scattered among them were human skeletons. Kruger drove the halftrack right over them, making no effort to detour.
“The universe doesn’t owe us a living, Major,” murmured the Swede.
Yet how the Lord had helped those who helped themselves! Oh yes indeed, those who had helped themselves to the fruits of the earth all along had had their great granaries to hide in from His wrath—and hide successfully they did! Sweden had done all right out of the Clean Up too, with over ninety per cent of her population saved. Not that Sweden, to be fair, could be accused of having “helped itself” compared with the other developed countries. The record was honorable. Was this why Gunnar Marholm acted so icily chauvinistic? wondered Simeon. Because he felt his own people’s survival to be tainted by that of the real pirates of the globe, who weathered the storm a shade less successfully than social democratic Sweden, to a lesser degree of antiseptic perfection? Yet still magisterially successful beside India, with only one half of one per cent of her people saved; or Nigeria, with one tenth of one per cent! Britain, prime ex-colonist, saved 52 per cent. American saved 54 per cent, mainly whites. While this South Africa they were now riding through scored 80 per cent—all of them Whites since no non-White was considered to be a South African, by definition.
The Swedes, after all, were Whites. They were whitewashed with the same brush as Britain, America, Germany and France.
The Lord helps those who help themselves. The meek and the poor are burnt like chaff.
Is God then illogical? Inconsistent? Yet surely it couldn’t be that it had nothing to do with God? From this thought Simeon recoiled. God could neither overlook, nor could He commit illogic or evil. There must be a Purpose.
One half of one per cent: no, India hadn’t done at all well. Thus the caresses of the English woman, guilt that could only assuage itself by her surrender to Dr. Subbaiah Sharma as slave to his erotic demands . . .
“Geological record, Gunnar?’’ argued Simeon, worried and upset—while the halftrack crunched over the bones of those Zulu or Xhosa people. “The only comparable event we really know is the Bethlehem supernova—the star of the Magi which God kindled to tell us of the coming of his Son. Now there comes this second.’’
“This second what? Second Coming? Ha! A
random accident. Let it have happened fifty years ago and only the merest remnant of the human race would have pulled through, if any. As it is—” “Yes?” cried Andrea, hugging Dr. Sharma to her, twisting the knife in her conscience. “And as it is?”
“As it is,” shrugged Marholm—for they had been through the argument before, “assuredly hundreds of millions survived. Maybe as many as five hundred million. The populations of the developed countries, by and large . . .
“All the statistics aren’t in,” he reminded her. Sharma laughed. His presence: a walking corpse’s, a ghost’s—a living reminder of the forever dispossessed.
“It seems that the meek haven’t inherited the earth after all, as your Bible promised, except as this bonemeal around us!”
Andrea hugged him, loving him for the whole abruptly terminated agony of underdevelopment. She herself had weathered the cosmic storm down in Goblin’s Pit near Bath, in the Wansdyke Commercial Deposit, as a Priority A Survivor, class of Agricultural Botanist.
“But hell,” blurted Woltjer, just when it seemed the matter was losing its momentum, “it did come as a kind of blessing, let’s be honest. I mean, population problem’s solved! We don’t need to worry about squeezing ourselves off the planet. Using up all our resources. See what I mean?” “Oh yes,” cried Sharma. “Yes I do see, Sir. Was it not generous of us three billion people to move aside out of your way?”
Thought Simeon: he identifies himself as a corpse, yet his erotic clamorings nightly deny this—unless we regard it as a form of necrophilia in reverse.
“Oh Subby! Please!”
But oh, how the mere presence of the Indian scientist spelt imperfection and untidiness in a God-given clearance programme, to Major Wolt- jer’s mind!
“Many more creatures besides us colored people need not feel guilty at taking up room any more!” And oh, how he was exploiting Andrea. “Such as all large mammels—a good thing, Major? Byebye elephants, giraffes and camels. Byebye whales and seals and dolphins. Byebye crows and eagles, doves and hawks. Byebye byebye.”
Lord God, Who in Thy mercy didst send the plagues upon Egypt to save Thy people, did You also send this plague from the Dog Star to save Your people—that this human race might not entirely destroy itself by its own hand, as seemed so very likely, and thus rob Thy Earth of its fairest crown of creation? Too soon, Dear Lord, too soon, to terminate Thy plan?
“Second Deliverance? Second Bethlehem?” Simeon murmured the words aloud; and Sub- baiah Sharma greedily battened on them.
“Those that have, shall have more, Simeon. That is the new Bible. Those that have little, shall have nothing. Even the dignity of burial is denied them.”
The halftrack crushed another African skeleton. Many lay bunched about here—like a migration. A resumptiqn of the Bantu migrations of old.
Woltjer merely smirked. “God helps those that help themselves.”
They passed through heaps of dry bones which the new grass was forcing between: a thousand cattle skeletons, a thousand human skeletons. Though we drive through the valley of dry bones, let us fear no evil, prayed Simeon to God, Who must know.
Anonymous bonemeal in rags and tatters of cast-off European garments.
“They did not ought to be in this zone!” grumbled Woltjer. “Wasn’t authorized for Bantu, you know, hereabouts. Silly Kafirs must have thought they could make the jump on us when we evacuated.”
“Maybe their only remaining dignity,” the Indian said quietly, “was to be walking across this land that was once theirs, when the roentgen storms arrived. To die saying: this is our land after all, and you can’t ever take it from us again. Because now there’s nobody to take it away from!”
“You can see the cultivations ahead,” Kruger pointed.
As they worked among the queerly prolific corn and mealies and sorghum, Woltjer strode about kicking the occasional bone. Kruger left his driver’s seat, approaching Andrea and Sharma with a leer on his face.
“You think there’ll be mutations? You think there’s mutations in insects and things? Read about mutants in a book once. What monsters there might be after an atomic war. What miscegenations.”
Sharma eyed him distastefully. “But it wasn’t a nuclear war, Sir. So no radioactive isotopes lie around. The radioactivity of isotopes made by cosmic rays is a very secondary matter. There shan’t be any monsters breeding to roam the earth.”
“Is that so?”
“Sorry, nothing so interesting. Just a kill-off process. Most exposed fauna. From now on it will be a world of very little things—and Man. Man will be big and overwhelming. Otherwise, insects and micro-organisms and of course some fish in the sea. But mainly man: six foot tall man towering over it all. Seeds are highly radio-resistant, so man will manage to feed himself cereals and vegetables. A vegetarian world at last! A few million more people will die before enough food is available. In the more impoverished countries, needless to say.”
“That so?”
“Then Western Man will have the planet to himself. European Man. Man of the Future. What a rich technological civilization he will enjoy in another few decades, when all this unpleasantness is no longer remembered—-no more social irritants or aberrations to disturb the order of things!”
“Don’t, Subby. Don’t demean yourself talking to him. You’re worth ten Afrikaners.”
Petulantly Sharma shook off Andrea’s hand.
“Ten Indians and a dog! A westerner’s dog used to eat ten Indians’ food, did you know? I wonder how many dogs and cats were saved in the shelters of the West?”
“There were rules, Subby. They were strict. But there had to be some kind of Noah’s Ark operation.”
“Ha,
ha.”
“For chickens and pigs and such. If only to restock. We must have some animal protein.” “How many Indians was an English pig worth? Or an English chicken?”
“But we lost our people too, Subby!”
“Yes, your Indians and West Indians. How careless of you.”
“We lost white people too.”
He shrugged. “The working class.”
Andrea turned back to her botany. Her eyes seemed moist but Simeon couldn’t be certain, for just then Kruger let out a shout of surprise and sprinted back to the halftrack. He brought a couple of rifles with telescopic sights and tossed one to Woltjer.
Simeon stared at the hills, shading his eyes against the bright sun—and shading his mind against those dancing veils of heaven high above the fleeting cottonball clouds.
He saw a ragged column of raggy people trekking down from the direction of Broederskop, led by a tall bearded white man carrying a red and white flag flying from a gilded Latin cross.
As they came closer Simeon worked out the design of the flag. It was a white skull on a blood- red background.
Alpha Canis Majoris A, Sirius the Dog Star—an energy spendthrift not quite nine light years distant from the Earth, twice as massive as the Sun and twenty-five times as bright, though only one third as dense, and hardly a candidate for supernova status judged by its place in the Hertz- sprung-Russell diagram—exploded nevertheless, discharging between 1049and 10soergs as cosmic rays, producing a massive flux at the top of the Earth's atmosphere and a worldwide radiation dosage at sea-level, over a three day period, peaking at 8,500 roentgens—where the normal natural background dosage is only 0.03 roentgens per year . . .
Three billion human beings died as a consequence. Those who were unsheltered.
Most birds and beasts and shallow-water fishes died.
Most flora was defoliated (but would recuperate asexually or through seeds and spores).
The sky flamed rose and green and violet with charged particles trapped in Earth's magnetic field. The sky had never been more beautiful.
However, few stood up to praise the glory in the sky.
In a million years, the reason why would appear in the record of the rocks . . .
“I thought you didn’t grant shelter to any Africans, Major?” said Sharma innocently.
“Africans? What Africans? We are the Africans. Is what Afrikaner means! Bantu, is what you mean.”
“The terminology of a twisted mind.”
“No, it is accurate. We was here first, before the Bantu.”
“And you’re still here, after them?’’
“Damn right!’’
Woltjer gripped the rifle tighter, squinting through the sights.
“You’re not just going to shoot, for no reason?’’
“Naw, Miss Diversley. I’m looking at them. But they’re crossing a non-permitted zone, those Bantu.”
“A what?” cackled Sharma. “You must be mad!”
“Unless they are servants or hired labor with passes.”
“Oh fine—that lets me in! I qualify as hired labor, don’t I? Thank you for reassuring me, Major.”
“Subby—!”
“Yes, all right Andrea.” Yes, it would be all right for Subby later on, thought Simeon, with a smirk of the mind which he couldn’t quite control. Subby would sublimate his racial humiliations later on. Feeling ashamed of himself, Simeon caught a fold of flesh between his fingers and pinched hard till it ached.
“Unh, I know the fellow with the flag, Frensch > is his name, was a pastor. I thought he’d have died; must have found shelter. Wonder where he’s been the past year?
“Kaffir-lover,” the Major added.
“It looks like they plan on coming on down through the plantings, Major.”
“So I see, Mr. Marholm. Spoil the plantings. Trample our food with their dirty feet.”
Woltjer swung his rifle away from the column and fired off a shot. It crashed horridly, leaving a silence of deafness behind it. Andrea covered her ears, bottling up the sound of the gunshot in her head.
Marholm laid a calming hand on Woltjer’s arm.
“I’m a good shot, don’t worry. I aim to miss. Send them round the plantings. Just looking now. Watching.”
The column did veer away, to angle round one comer of the plantings.
“Good enough,” grunted Woltjer, lowering his rifle. “I recognize one of the Bantu. Name of Stephen Ambola. Had trouble with him. Not a political extremist exactly. A religious agitator, like Alice Lenshina. Remember her Native African Church?”
The gilded cross, the white skull flag, tottered round the perimeter of the cultivated area and headed their way again.
At first, the column struck Simeon as a parody of nineteenth century explorations of Africa with its white leader bearing aloft the symbol of empire, pursued by a gang of skinny black bodies. Then his vision readjusted and the troop was . . . a wretched medieval crusade. Not of knights and squires, but of starving people. Of diseased people, burning with blind faith. It belonged in the corner of some medieval horror by Hieronymous Bosch. A children’s crusade. A crusade of innocents and wretched.
“What you want?” bellowed Woltjer. “I know you, Frensch, what you doing here?”
The bearded man handed the cross and flag to the African behind him, who gripped it. with fierce determination and rammed it into the soil.
Most of his followers squatted down exhausted. Stephen Ambola and Frensch approached.
“Put those damn guns away. Who do you want to kill? We’re not going to attack you.”
“Bantu shouldn’t be on this land. Government Experimental Farm. Can’t risk trampling the crops with their dirty feet. Get them off, Frensch.” “What does it matter?” cried Ambola. “Old feuds! Forget them. We have the News. Don’t we?” He turned to Frensch.
“As though it wasn’t staring us right in the face!” Frensch raked over a human skull with his boot, then gestured vaguely and derisively at the veils of color flickering above the scudding clouds.
“News? What news?” Anxiety gripped Simeon. He could be tipped any way in his beliefs, out in this vale of bones, in the face of this r'aggy anachronistic band of people. Fanatics. Yes indeed. But had they thought out any better explanation than himself? Or than the Pope, whom the bulk of masonry over the Vatican’s vaults had sheltered with his College of Cardinals and a mass of faithful, from the roentgen storm?
The Papal Encyclical In Hoc Tempore Mortis, issued three months afterwards, had been a temporizing rather than a mortifying document. It injected placid placebos into an implacable situation. Pious wishes for the success of the Food and Agriculture Organization and other world agencies. It was a programme for survival—while the whole theological dilemma remained unsolved: the why and wherefore of God’s permitting only one tenth of His flock, principally the one tenth that was white and rich, to survive, when nine tenths of the meek and humble perished. The why and wherefore of His refashioning the Eye of the Needle so that the rich merchants could pass through, replete with bag and baggage, leaving the starving hordes to perish outside the city walls.
This skinny African in torn shirt and broken plastic flipflop sandals, with burning intelligent eyes, stared into Simeon’s face.
“I bring news for those smug in their survival!” he sang. “They did not survive. They’ve been damned by God. Same as you, same as us. Every man, woman and child alive on Earth today are the damned souls. God took the blessed and left the damned behind. He was merciful: He saved so many. All that He could save. But He couldn’t save all and still be the Just God. Those who live today are those he couldn’t redeem in any way. Any way at all.”
“Shut your mouth, Ambola,” Woltjer snapped. But Ambola would not and did not.
“Who are you Damned Souls?”
Andrea Diversley’s voice begged:
“We’re a team from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.”
“So South Africa
’s in the UN these days? Don’t miracles just happen? All the miracles of Hell!”
“We’re botanists, we’re plant geneticists. The irradiated seeds . . .”
“Ha! Cultivating the plains of Hell. Wasting your time, pretty woman.”
Woltjer struck out wildly at Ambola with his gun, but Ambola had already skipped out of the way.
“Apologies, baas. I forgot Hell still has its policemen.”
“I became aware of the News, you see, Damned People,” Frensch interrupted. “Blessed souls in the skies—look at them. You see them even in daylight.” His finger jerked up, pointing beyond the cottonball clouds at those fearful veils of glory.
“Yes,” Simeon whispered, horrified. “I do see now.”
“Simeon! What are you saying?”
“But I do see, Gunnar. The Pope was wrong. In Hoc Tempore Mortis—so inadequate. Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death ...”
“Don’t you see, Damned Man, we walk through the valley of the shadow of life! That life of souls up there. Blessed life casts the shadow of its glory on us here below.”
“So charged particles are souls, are they?” The Swede laughed scornfully. “Now I’ve heard everything. You could expect messianic cults to spring up like weeds in these circumstances, Simeon—but my friend, we’ve got a big job to do.”
Frensch faced the Swede squarely. “This is no Messiah cult, Damned Man. For there never will be any Messiah. The Messiah, He has come and chosen and gone. Left us behind Him. Yet the authority of His church still stands—there’s no reason to doubt our faith. Only, our faith is not now in salvation but damnation. A Church of the Abandonment. The bleached skull flying from the cross. So we must go forth to waken people—so smug in their survifal, when they have already been weighed in the balance and found wanting.”
“A Church of the Abandonment—yes, that fits,” murmured Simeon. “Otherwise, God would have acted illogically. He would be unjust. And that can’t be.”
Frensch stepped forward and grasped Simeon by the shoulder.
“Welcome to Damnation, Damned Friend. Help spread this news. We must move on to the towns and other lands now—to tell the Damned of their Damnation.”
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