And All the Stars Shall Fall

by Hugh MacDonald

  Adam knew what the doctor meant. He knew about the elevator that led to the level below, and the narrow staircase that went farther down to where the ceramic heat pipes disappeared deep into the earth, extracting thermal energy from the fiery depths. He also knew that this is where the tunnels were found, the tunnels and the tracks that carried manufactured goods and agricultural products to Aahimsa and to the great waters called Ontario. It was from there that all of the city’s electric power and heat were delivered through heavy cables, pipes, and tubes to the homes and businesses, to the streets and parks and even to the electronic moat that protected the city from any and all intruders, animal or otherwise. Adam’s thoughts were interrupted by the loud beep indicating that they had reached the basement and Ueland had opened the door into the subterranean corridor.

  “Let’s go,” said Ueland, who ran ahead in his blue silk pyjamas and red slippers. Adam almost laughed to see him out of his apartment without one of his many fine tailored suits and shiny black leather shoes.

  After a couple of minutes, Ueland unlocked the door to the private administrative stairway they had come to on their right and they ran downstairs. When the doctor opened the door to the sub-basement, Adam was hit by waves of intense heat generated by the ceramic lined insulated heating pipes and heard the shouting voices coming from off to their left. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “We’re trying to evacuate as many of the surviving workers from the Manuhome as we can. The vast majority of the Agrihome workers are likely dead by now. It’s too late to help them. I’ve vastly underrated the determination of the World Council to get rid of us all. Our Manuhome labourers are loading themselves onto cars that will take them far to the north. I’ve been building the escape tunnels and planning for this for some time, though I never thought it would happen this soon,” said Doctor Ueland, who was now leading Adam toward another unfamiliar door along the side of the corridor.

  “I never figured on them destroying the Agrihome first. They never had a chance, my poor farmer lads,” the doctor said, his eyes damp and his voice cracking.

  Adam had never heard Ueland like this. He hadn’t seen the man express himself with such feeling on any matter. He watched anxiously as the doctor unlocked the door and they went in.

  “Are we going with the workers?” asked Adam, his face hot and red from exertion and the heat of the confined, underground space. He watched impatiently as Ueland opened a closet door and was quick to help out as the older man began pulling out bundles of clothing and sleeping rolls for both of them and a large suitcase decorated with white flowers.

  Adam set down the clothing bundles and took the suitcase.

  “Holy,” he said. “This case is heavy. What’s in it, anyway?”

  “Take the small bundle and get dressed. Quickly now.” Ueland turned his back and removed his pyjama top. Adam did likewise and dressed quickly, feeling embarrassed, although he knew the doctor had regularly thoroughly examined him for medical reasons. But it felt different somehow outside the medical office.

  “To answer your questions, we are leaving just like the workers, but not just yet. We have something important to do first. A sort of rescue,” said the doctor.

  “A rescue?” asked Adam, his eyes bright with curiosity.

  “We are off to rescue some damsels in distress,” Ueland said, smiling mischievously.

  “Damsels? What are damsels?” Adam asked, wondering if the doctor was teasing him.

  “I was told that you and your mother, Nora, were both avid readers.”

  “We were both good readers. We loved reading books and I still love to read,” he said. “Who told you that?”

  “Several of the old ones mentioned all the books you were devouring more than once.” He paused. “I’m surprised you don’t know the word damsel. A damsel is a helpless female,” said Doctor Ueland, his eyes twinkling.

  Adam was dumbstruck, as he had never heard of a helpless female. He had no idea what to expect next from Doctor Ueland. “Who are these damsels?” he asked.

  “Are you ready to go?” the doctor asked, picking up the big suitcase.

  “What’s in that suitcase? It’s so heavy,” asked Adam, as he hurried to catch up.

  “Lots of things. One of them is very important. There’s a smaller metal case inside the large one. We mustn’t ever lose that inside one. No matter what happens.” He stopped a moment and looked at Adam, his face concerned. “You understand?”

  “Sure. What’s in it, anyway?” Adam said, serious and filled with curiosity.

  “Not now, Adam. There isn’t time. Are you ready?”

  “I understand and I’m ready. Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see,” said the doctor. “You may be surprised. Whatever happens, you must trust me; it will be for the best.”

  They opened another mysterious locked door, the next one they came to, and quickly descended yet another stairway to the next level, where they found a good-sized electric railcar sitting at a siding. The car was brightly painted and elegantly made. They climbed on board and entered a compartment that was done up with plush furnishings and equipment. It was a car fit for the kings and queens of old, the rich ones from the old history books. Adam set down the bedding he was carrying and sat on one of the comfortable padded armchairs.

  “Those seats are not intended for us. Come on. You’ll like these practical ones up ahead far better.”

  Ueland took the large suitcase and led Adam, arms full of the sleeping rolls, through a metal door with a thick black window into the forward compartment that was obviously where the driver of the railcar would sit with his helper. “Put your things on the shelf at the back and sit down,” Ueland said, pointing to the chair on his left. Adam sat.

  Ueland took the seat to Adam’s right, in front of an instrument panel and a set of hand controls. He pulled his wallet from an inside pocket and extracted a small brass key. He inserted the key into a slot and turned it so the electric engine hummed into life and ran quietly and smoothly. He pulled back a metal lever and the railcar headed away from the siding and switched smoothly onto one of the main tracks.

  Adam was suddenly excited and full of questions, which he kept to himself at first. What was going on? Then he saw an arrow on a rail-side sign pointed in the direction they were headed. It read in large bold letters: “AAHIMSA CITY CENTRE.” He looked toward Ueland and asked the first question, the one he wanted answered most. “Will we be saving Nora and Mabon and Lucky? And are we safe going inside the city walls, where I was born and my mother Nora escaped to save my life? Males are forbidden to enter there.”

  Ueland was startled by the first question and hesitated, although he quickly realized they were obvious questions for Adam to ask. Ueland was about to answer when the earth shuddered and the railcar shook violently as an enormous explosion occurred far behind them. Ueland turned instantly back to the controls and pulled the handle close to them. Adam held on for dear life as their world was darkened by a huge cloud of dust and smoke. After a gut-wrenching bump and a hesitation, the railcar accelerated rapidly away in the direction of downtown Aahimsa.

  Chapter 3:

  Nora, Mabon, and Lucky

  Nora was the first to hear an explosion. She had been standing in her underclothes, brushing the water out of her drenched hair that reflected lines of dark copper in the bright moonlight. The sky was laced with drifting wisps of dark cloud.

  Just as she had emerged, dripping, from the cool lake, she had witnessed a brilliant burst of light coming from somewhere inside the city walls, inside or from the direction of the Manuhome, and, only moments later felt the earth shudder, and heard the percussive whump of a massive explosion. Mabon, who was still swimming in the cool water of the lake with Lucky the dog paddling beside him, emerged from the waves a moment later, wondering why Nora stood gesturing frantically toward the city walls. Lucky
shook the lake water from his thick black-and-tan fur, and as Mabon, her huge companion, gazed beyond Aahimsa, there came a second bright flash, followed by another, larger explosion. Mabon sped to Nora’s side.

  “We’d better get ourselves back out of sight,” said Mabon. “I thought we’d be safe getting cleaned up just before daylight and at this distance from Aahimsa. But dawn is breaking.”

  “We’re never safe, are we? But the clean-up and swim were worth the risk,” said Nora. “I felt so much better just a minute ago.” But what was happening to Aahimsa? She knew lots of people in there and even if the city was the home of her enemies, she hated thinking of the trouble the insiders might be in. The insiders hadn’t always been her enemies; she had been raised and lived happily there until her teen years as a female with full privileges to live inside any of the walled cities on the planet. But on the day she and Alice, the mayor’s daughter, discovered the baby crying under a tree, that all changed forever. The safety of she and Mabon and the foundling Adam, if they ever got him back, had to come ahead of Aahimsa and its residents.

  She watched her man as he used his cotton shirt to dry his reddish-brown hair. His recent injuries had healed well and apart from a few prominent, angry fresh scars on his thigh, he seemed as good as new. He was still her lovely man, tall and broad-shouldered, his powerful muscles still rippling as one would have expected of a former Forest Ranger, but his soft eyes and his tender, long-fingered hands suited the loving, gentle giant she had learned he was.

  When he noticed her staring at him, his generous mouth curled into a broad smile. She grinned at him in turn, her green, gold-specked eyes sparkling in the waning moonlight and lighting their hurried dash to the shelter, as she called back over her shoulder past him, to the hesitant dog, “Come on, Lucky, hurry!”

  All three scurried up the sandy lakefront and disappeared through an opening in the fractured concrete basement, all that remained of a tall building long ago destroyed in the wars between the outsiders of long ago. The ruined basement jutted out from the crumpled sandbank and had served them well as a temporary shelter.

  “What will we do?” Mabon asked. “Head out or wait and see? Are you worried about what the explosions inside the city might be doing to old friends of yours?”

  “Of course I’m concerned. But we have to lay low for the time being. With the racket of these explosions we can’t hear well enough to tell if something is moving and watching us from the air overhead. Come sit by me,” she invited Mabon. But it was Lucky, his tail wagging happily, who first danced happily over to her. Mabon laughed and joined the pair. Nora ran her fingers through the old dog’s thick, tri-coloured fur. “It’s hard not to be concerned about what’s happening. I don’t wish harm on anyone and I don’t want Alice and her family injured. But my life in Aahimsa is far enough in the past that, other than a few people, I find it hard to be too concerned about what happens in there. I’m too worried about Adam. I think about him every hour of the day.”

  “I’m sure Ueland is watching over him,” said Mabon. “We had little choice but to try and save his life by placing him within the safety of the Manuhome. Life with us is just too risky.”

  “And I miss all the old ones who were murdered by Blanchfleur’s Rangers,” continued Nora. “What about you, do you miss them very much?”

  “Yes, all of them, especially Adam and the old ones. My heart aches when I think of the life we all had together there in the Happy Valley with them. Right at this moment, though, we have to think about getting safely out of here before we are discovered. We’ll wait a short while, but we should get on the move as soon as possible. We’ll grab our things and head east past Aahimsa and along the lakeshore a few kilometres and find a secure new hiding place, and then try to stay put until it looks like the coast is clear. Maybe by tomorrow night we can get moving along the lake toward the east again,” said Mabon.

  “If we’re going to change hiding places, we might as well keep heading north along the lake until we can head east across the river that empties into it just north of the lake. Still farther north there used to be huge bridges that went to the other side, but I think those were destroyed long ago.”

  “Where did you learn about river bridges?” asked Mabon.

  “One of the old books the old ones had in their collection was called an atlas. It was a book full of maps that showed the old boundaries of outsider territories. I’m surprised I didn’t ever show it to you.”

  “You probably did, but there were a lot of books and I was usually interested in other things I wanted to do in the valley. But we could use that atlas now,” said Mabon.

  “You still have me, and I can picture lots of those maps and how they looked. I used to dream about places we could run to, you and I and Adam. I can remember that one large map and see it in my head. I used to imagine us living in the abandoned places in the east. But I don’t know distances — how long it takes to get anywhere on foot. Let’s head out soon. The invaders attacking the city likely aren’t looking for us at the moment. They have other things on their minds. We’ll stay close to the water and keep to the shadows. If we follow the coast we will get to the river we seek. What do you think?” said Nora.

  Mabon shrugged, looking into her worried eyes. “Makes sense,” he said, reaching down and pulling her gently to her feet. “Let’s get going. Come, Lucky. Heel! Stay close to us.”

  They were able to travel with relative ease along the edge of the lake for what they guessed was at least two hours before the sky began to really lighten. Nora turned back to look toward Aahimsa and was startled to discover what she first thought were dark clouds off to her right. Then it dawned on her what she was looking at. “Mabon,” she said, pointing, her voice showing her alarm, “what is that over there?”

  Mabon stopped suddenly and ran up beside her. “Thick, black smoke. It looks like it’s coming from the Manuhome—”

  “Adam, our Adam is over there!” Her face turned ashen and a thin, muffled squeal of something between pain and frustration escaped her lips. She let drop her bags and her bow and quiver of precious arrows, and began first to walk and then to run out of the protection of the trees and brush into the open in the direction of the Manuhome. Mabon dashed to catch up, Lucky at his heels, and on arriving beside Nora, wrapped his warm, thick arms around her snugly and held her close, stopping her progress.

  “We won’t be any help to him if they see us and kill us,” he said, still hugging her and drawing her gradually back toward the protection of the trees along the shore. She ceased struggling for the moment and walked beside him, her heart racing and her mind an overwhelming blur. Lucky trotted ahead, looking back at them every now and then. They slowed a moment while he set the remainder of his things beside the bags and the bow she had dropped moments before, and organized everything into a neat pile. “We can head back toward where the black smoke is rising, but we’ll have to try to stay under cover, move slowly, and be very careful.”

  A series of distant, brilliant flashes came from where they knew the Manuhome ought to be, followed closely by a corresponding number of thundering explosions that caused the ground to shudder, but they could not leave their shelter yet. They were forced to keep low to the ground as a seemingly endless convoy of large helicopters roared directly over their heads after crossing the massive lake behind them. One after the other dropped rapidly down inside Aahimsa’s high walls. The helicopters kept coming, engines rattling and roaring, their rotors whirring, entering the city like a giant swarm of ugly locusts. After about thirty minutes, several of them emerged from the city and headed back across the lake in the direction from which they’d originally come. Still many more of the frightening machines of war arrived in a steady, seemingly unending stream.

  “What are they doing?” wondered Mabon as he lifted his head just enough to safely observe without being seen.

  “I don’t know,” said Nora.
She could make a dozen guesses but nothing that would explain these startling events.

  As they spoke, two of the massive steel insects seemed headed directly for them, sweeping low to the ground, uncomfortably close to their grassy hiding place before swinging away and following roughly the same course out onto the lake as the others which left before them. Both Mabon and Nora got a good look through the tall windows of the copter doors and were startled to see that both were jammed full of the insider women, residents of the walled city.

  “This is all so strange. What’s going on?” asked Nora, shivering involuntarily and moving closer to Mabon for comfort.

  “I’m not sure, but it looks to me like they’re evacuating the city,” said Mabon, looking into her eyes.

  “Why do that?” she asked him.

  He shrugged. Through this exchange their voices had been rising until they found themselves almost shouting. The deafening noise of the constant stream of helicopters coming and going continued for what seemed hours until Nora was thinking the whole city must have been emptied. The distant brilliant flashes of light and heart-rending explosions from the direction where they had not long ago left Adam, and their powerlessness in these moments left Nora’s heart close to bursting from hopelessness and terror. Her heart was telling her she had to get back to the Manuhome and try to find her adopted son, but for the moment there was no question that it would be suicidal to try.

  As suddenly as they had begun, the huge explosions stopped, and as the daylight began to sweep away the natural darkness, the sky above the land where the Manuhome should be growing crops and manufacturing its goods was marred by smaller but equally horrid explosions, and the massive clouds of dark smoke kept rising higher into the heavens. No more helicopters were arriving and none were leaving the city. Mabon stood up slowly and looked around. Nora rose up stiffly and cautiously beside him; he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close. Lucky pushed against their legs, whining quietly.