by Jerry Sohl
She looks beautiful in her white suit, Travis thought. Then his heart gave a wrench. A haploid. But haploid or not she was an attractive girl, a girl it still warmed his heart to look at. How could you be a haploid, he said to himself, with those eyes, that wonderful blonde hair, that red mouth? Then he gave a start. It didn't matter, really. If the doctor's plans were carried through he would be gone soon. Unless the girl still had thoughts of helping him.
"You know Mr. Travis, Betty," her mother said.
"Of course." She betrayed no feeling.
Dr. Garner smiled slightly as she looked her daughter straight in the eyes. "Now perhaps we both can think of a suitable way to dispose of him and his friends."
"I'm sure we can," Betty said coldly.
"There's no need to talk about it down here," Dr. Garner said. "We will discuss it back at the office."
They had just entered the corridor again—the five of them, including the two guards who had accompanied them all the way—when a girl rushed out of the communications room and called for Dr. Garner.
"I'll be up there in a moment," the doctor said. "You go ahead."
The group walked slowly up the corridor, the men in front, the guards immediately behind them, Betty Garner to one side. She walked stiffly and self-consciously. She said nothing.
What was she thinking? Travis asked himself. Does she intend to help? Or is she finally convinced the haploids are really going to create a new and better world? I've got to find out while I have a chance, before the old woman comes back.
At the office door he turned to her. Her eyes were cold.
"Could I speak to you alone, Betty?" he asked.
She eyed him severely. "I don't see why it should be necessary."
"There's something you need to know."
She stood undecided for a moment. Then she turned to the guards. "The rest of you wait out here. I will speak with Mr. Travis."
Travis's heart jumped as they entered the office. She closed the door as he turned to her.
"I know what you want," she said before he could speak. "You expect me to help you. I cannot."
He started to reach his arms for her, but she moved away to behind the desk.
"Please," she said. "None of that. My mind is made up. I admit your appearance has unnerved me. I frankly never expected to see you again. I don't see how you survived. But of course I've heard about the AB blood. It will make our job more difficult."
"But Betty, you're so unlike those others. I saw kindness in your eyes once. There's really a gentleness in your nature. You can't conscientiously be a part of a thing .like this!"
"How do you know what I can be a part of?" Her blue eyes were flashing. "You know so little about me, really."
"I know you're a haploid, if that's what you mean. But I tell you I don't care. Does it mean anything to you to know that I love you in spite of everything?"
"It's easy to make a speech," she said testily. "Easy when your life depends on it."
Travis sighed. "I'm not thinking of that. What I'm thinking is that if you love me, then you know this thing should not be. It's contrary to the laws of nature."
"A fine one you are to talk about the laws of nature," she retorted. "Dr. Garner is right. You and men like you would kill us all because of some foolish vanity."
"I don't deny wars are ungodly and uncivilized. But the fact that there are wars proves it is natural. Even ants have wars."
"And you said our program is contrary to the laws of nature. I suppose if your appendix flares up we ought to leave it alone and not take it out! No, Travis, men are a blight on the earth. They are the diseased portion of the world's population."
"You talk like Dr. Garner. I can't believe that you really believe that hogwash."
"It may be hogwash to you," she said sternly, "but it isn't to me. You can't talk about it because you're a man and therefore prejudiced."
Travis was gratified to see the red spots of color appearing on her cheeks.
You really don't believe that," he said.
She looked at him. Her lips were set firmly. But her eyes did not convey the same determination.
Travis walked around the desk, took her savagely in his arms, kissed her.
In a moment she was in his arms again, holding him to her.
"Travis," she breathed. "I had thought of you. I—I prayed for you. Thank God you're alive. I'd hoped you'd kiss me."
"I have thought of you, too," he said tenderly. "Why didn't you go with me when I asked you to?"
"They would have found me. Oh, you don't know how organized they all are. They would have found us both and killed us."
He released her. "How can we get out of here?" She shook her head sadly. "What I said was the truth. I'm not going to help you."
"For God's sake, why not?"
"Oh, Travis," she said wearily. "You don't know how much Dr. Garner means to me. This is her life. She has lived and breathed every minute for this very night. I could not betray her now."
He pushed her from him, held her away from him. "She's insane, darling. Can't you see that?"
"I don't care what she is. She has been good to me. She believes in what she feels is right."
"But she alone holds this whole thing together through a dream of her own, through her promises of selfish gain, through the fear she instills, through a ruthless rule of the haploid race she has created. Do you think the world would be better off if things went the way she wants them to go?"
"Oh, I don't know, I don't know!" Betty put her hands to the sides of her head as if she were trying to keep out his voice. "I've thought and thought about this and I get nowhere."
"Do you think the haploids would be happy in a world without men? Don't you think some day you all might regret the decision you had made to rid the earth of the male population?"
"I've heard some of them talk, I'll admit," Betty said. "There are some doubters. But we all owe it to Dr. Garner. She brought us into the world. It was through her that we were able to live and grow. She is our leader."
"A leader who will probably rule with an iron hand. Do you think war and strife would end with a single race—a haploid race?" He shook his head. "I don't think so. There's just enough of man in every woman, haploid or not, to breed conflicts."
He took her in his arms again. "Can't you see, darling, I'm not thinking of just us. I'm thinking of all humanity —even the haploids. They could be happy."
She broke away. "What you're asking is that I turn traitor. I can't do that."
"All right," he said heatedly. "In the meantime there are millions of people who are going to be saddened. Little babies just born with doting mothers and fathers, turning gray and filled with red blotches and turning cancerous just like the old man—"
"Don't! Don't! I can't stand that talk!"
"Have you seen any of them? Do you know the torture-they go through? Oh, it's not just the men. It's the little boys with the slingshots, the kids who go to the store for their mothers, who play Hopalong Cassidy, little bright-eyed hopefuls who have innocent hearts and innocent minds. Those are the living things Dr. Garner is really destroying. The men don't matter.
"Oh, sure, the men are going, too. But it's worse for the children. Children just don't understand. There'll be the little sister who'll look at her little brother and see him there in his cradle or crib, with his gray hands and face, his labored breath, his pleading eyes. The mother and the sister can't do anything but sit there and watch the little tyke die."
"Oh, Trav!" She was in his arms, her head buried on his shoulder. "It's awful, I know."
"It's in your power to help them," he said softly, stroking her hair. "Not just for us. For them. For the children. For the mothers. For the fathers."
He released her again and she hung her head, her long blonde hair grazing his arms. Suddenly the office door started to swing open and Travis hurriedly dropped the girl's arms and moved away.
"Dr. Garner's coming," one of the women guard
s said, entering the office. The other guard and Dr. Leaf came in, Dr. Leaf looking at Travis curiously, saying nothing. Betty sat in a chair next to the desk. Travis sank into another chair and lit a cigarette.
Dr. Garner strode into the office, took her chair behind the desk.
"I'm happy to report, gentlemen," she said, "that the -first gratifying results are in from Chicago. The men are getting frantic." She rubbed her hands. "There are similar situations in most of the other big population centers. We'll kill them all there first, then move out to lesser populated areas."
She looked at her watch. "It's 2:20 a.m. Pretty soon now it will be morning." She looked first at Travis, then at Dr. Leaf. "It seems I made a promise about the morning. The guards had better take you two back to the cellar. We'll think of something, won't we, Betty? There must be something AB blood is vulnerable to, even if it is something as basic as a bullet."
FOURTEEN
The gloom in the cellar seemed to seep in from under the basement windows, from cracks under the doors, from the monotonous glare of the single light bulb much as if the haploids had invented a new radiation that depressed the spirit and created a feeling of hopelessness. The men sat around, talked out, staring dejectedly before them.
The novelty of cards had worn out, there were no more efforts at humor, no more talk of hope. The two who had been upstairs recounted their tour of the place. It was only interpreted as meaning the haploids were sufficiently organized to do away with them any time they wished; it only meant the doctor was prepared to keep her promise about the morning.
Though Travis had tried to be cheerful, he, too, finally succumbed to the contagion of despair and found himself sitting cross-legged on the floor, his back against a wall, staring stupidly across the room to the opposite wall. Scenes of the past few hours crowded together in his head. The sense of imminent danger, death by morning, the urge to escape, the remembrance of how pretty Betty's lips were, the thought that the world ought to be told of the identity of the haploids, the scenes in the streets in Union City, Mayor Barnston's falling to the floor inside the city hall, his mouth opened to utter a sound that never came—they all wound in and out of his mind like a winding path, hard to follow and confusing.
A week ago I was taking it easy in a hospital, he thought. I was relaxing after ten years of nerve-wracking newspaper experience, taking penicillin shots for my sinuses. I had never heard of a haploid. All I had to do was worry about what I was going to do with my year off. Well, the haploids have decided I'm not to have that year, I guess. It looks like there are only a few hours left.
He began to wonder how the radiations were coming along in Chicago and the other big cities mentioned by Dr. Garner. Unless they were stopped, unless people were given instructions, based on the knowledge acquired firsthand by Gibson Travis and Dr. Leaf, the whole world would be torn apart..
Travis had no doubt the haploids intended rooting out every last man so that no male could exist to ruin their plan. Then they would grow their own civilization like a hothouse plant, using fertilized ova either in retorts or in the haploids themselves. There were probably enough eggs on ice for thousands of years.
He tried to visualize what it would be like. Men would be unknown then. If the haploids permitted true history to be known, what would the ensuing generations think of men? And if, by chance, one group of men were to survive somewhere, think of what a furor their appearance would create in the world of the haploids! They would probably be looked upon as anatomical wonders, anachronisms! The thought of union with such a being would probably be abhorrent to a haploid several thousand years removed. I'm for it," he heard someone whisper.
Travis awakened from his reverie, looked around and saw Bill Skelley talking in low tones to a small group. He went over.
"You're for what?" Travis queried, also in a whisper.
"Breaking out of here. If that woman means what she says, if we're all going to be dead by morning we might as well make a run for it."
"Maybe that's just what the haploids are hoping we'll do," Dr. Leaf said. "Maybe that's what she meant when she said we'd all be dead by morning because she knew we'd try to do something if she told us that."
"But if we all worked together and made a run for it, maybe one of us could get through," Bill continued.
"It's an idea," Travis said. "But what would the one person do who escaped?"
"If I escaped I'd try to get down the road here about thirty miles. There's a friend of mine down near Fostoria who has one of the biggest amateur radio rigs in the country. I'd blast this on the air so fast—"
"But," Travis said. "Suppose you weren't the one?"
Bill shook his head. "I don't know. Somebody else could beat it there and tell him about it, maybe."
"Perhaps your friend wouldn't believe a stranger."
"Maybe not. But surely he must know something is going on."
The plan did not move the men to immediate action. They still were glum. Travis looked at his watch. It was 3:30 a.m. Dawn in the summer comes around 5:30 or 6, he guessed, though he reflected he was never in position to pay much attention to it when it did come, should he be awake at that hour.
"I can't stand it!" a voice screamed. It was Perry Williams. He rose and put his hands to his head. "If they're going to kill us why don't they do it? I can't stand this waiting. I waited for death in town. I waited and it never came. I nearly went mad waiting for it. And now I'm waiting for it again. It's more than a man can stand. I can't stand it any more, I tell you! I can't stand it! I can't! I can't!"
Travis went over, took the man by the shoulders, shook him.
"Let go of me! Let go! Let go or I'll kill you!" the man screamed, now threshing around with his arms.
Travis let him go. Perry Williams wheeled wildly, swung a fist at Travis's jaw. Travis stepped aside, planted his knuckles squarely on the other's jaw. The man toppled to the floor, lay still.
"He acted just like I feel," Charlie McClintock said. "Scared to death." There were grunts of assent from some of the other men. "Maybe somebody ought to put me out so I could rest." There were some laughs at this.
"Bill's right," Travis said quietly. "We ought to do something. We'll go crazy like Perry Williams if we have to sit around like this. Let's try to figure it out."
The men gathered in the center of the room. After a few minutes it was agreed one of them would pretend to become violently ill. The men would raise such a fuss thumping on the rafters and everything else some of the haploids would be forced to come down and into the room. They would then jump the haploids.
"Some of us will be killed," Travis said. "Some of us will not. We'll try for their guns. Once we have a gun we're in a better position. Those of us who are left will run through whichever door they enter. We'll keep going as long as we can. If some get outside we'll scatter, to meet at Bill's rendezvous. What's that place, Bill?"
"Ernie Somers' place," Bill whispered. "Just follow Route 180 south about thirty miles. You'll find his name on a rural mailbox. It's a white farmhouse on top of a hill about a block back from the road. Tell him I sent you and give him all you know so he can send it out right away. He'll have trouble, he won't be able to penetrate cities where the haploids have started the waves, but he can contact other hams in out-of-the-way places."
"Concentrate on getting the information out that all AB men are immune," Dr. Leaf added. "They'll be able to do battle with the haploids."
"I don't want to throw a monkey wrench into the works," Charlie McClintock said, "but I don't think any of us will get out."
"Maybe not," Bill said gravely, "but I'd rather be on the offensive than the defensive."
The will to action subsided once again as the men sat around, each weighing his chances under the proposed plan.
Suddenly there was a tap at one of the windows. It was only the softest of taps, yet the men jumped and looked at one another in surprise. Travis walked quietly to the barred window. He could see someone crouching
just outside in the small pit in front of the window. He could also see a leg, a thigh. It was a pretty leg. His heart did a flip-flop and he hurriedly undid the window latch, raising the window. Betty Garner poked her head as close to the bars as possible, put a finger to her lips.
"I—I changed my mind, after all, Travis," she whispered. "I came to give you this." Betty handed him an automatic through the bars. "I took it from the arms supply." She handed four more through the window. "All I could carry," she explained.
"Good girl," Travis breathed. "If we succeed in letting the world know about this you will not be forgotten."
"I felt better as soon as I decided to help you," she said. "It was . . . as if something had washed me clean for the first time in a long time. What are you going to do?"
"We'll create a fuss to get some of them down here," he said. "Or do you have a key?"
"I have a key. You'd better not create any disturbance. It's the key to the outside door. I took it off the ring upstairs." She handed it through the window. "Now here's what you do: Form two groups and be ready. There are two trucks in the garage about a hundred feet down the driveway here. Each will hold two in a cab and ten in the rear. I'll get one of them and drive it up to the door here.
"The first group ought to come out at that time, rush for the other truck in the garage. Then the second group will come out and get into my truck. I want you in mine, Travis." She smiled. "Here's the key to the other truck. I'll give you five minutes."
She was gone.
Travis closed the window, turned to the men. In a few moments they had divided themselves into two units. Three of the automatics went to the second group, two to the first. Travis would climb in with Betty carrying an automatic. Bill Skelley, carrying the other, would get in the rear of the first truck with Dr. Leaf, the two boys and six of the older men, since the first truck would be more likely to escape. The second group, led by Charlie McClintock, would run for the other truck.
Hope, which had been dead for so long, now glittered brightly in every eye. Travis stood by the door, the key inserted in the lock, ready to swing the door open when the truck stopped outside. They took their places. Those with guns gripped them firmly, stood with tense faces and bodies. They were like statues. Not a word was said.
