Star SHort Novels - [Anthology]

by Edited By Frederik Pohl

  “No, Amos.” Doc sighed. “But it won’t matter. You’d better go in to her now. She seems to be coming to. I’ll wake the girl and get her ready.”

  Amos went into the bedroom as quietly as he could, but there was no need for silence. Ruth was already conscious, as if some awareness of her approaching death had forced her to use the last few minutes of her life. She put out a frail hand timidly to him. Her voice was weak, but clear.

  “Amos, I know. And I don’t mind now, except for you. But there’s something I had to ask you. Amos, do you-?”

  He dropped beside her when her voice faltered, wanting to bury his head against her, but not daring to lose the few remaining moments of her sight. He fought the words out of the depths of his mind, and then realized it would take more than words. He bent over and kissed her again, as he had first kissed her so many years ago.

  “I’ve always loved you, Ruth,” he said. “I still do love you.”

  She sighed and relaxed. “Then I won’t be jealous of God any more, Amos. I had to know.”

  Her hand reached up weakly, to find his hair and to run through it. She smiled, the worn lines of her face softening. Her voice was soft and almost young. “And forsaking all others, cleave only unto thee-”

  The last syllable whispered out, and the hand dropped.

  Amos dropped his head at last, and a single sob choked out of him. He folded her hands tenderly, with the worn, cheap wedding ring uppermost, and arose slowly with his head bowed.

  “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Father, I thank thee for this moment with her. Bless her, O Lord, and keep her for me.”

  He nodded to Doc and Anne. The girl looked sick and sat staring at him with eyes that mixed shock and pity.

  “You’ll need some money, Anne,” he told her as Doc went into the bedroom. “I don’t have much, but there’s a little-”

  She drew back, choking, and shook her head. “I’ve got enough, Reverend Strong. I’ll make out. Doctor Miller has told me to take his car. But what about you?”

  “There’s still work to be done,” he said. “I haven’t even written my sermon. And the people who are giving up their homes will need comfort. In such hours as these, we all need God to sustain us.”

  She stumbled to her feet and into the bedroom after Miller. Amos opened his old desk and reached for pencil and paper.

  * * * *

  III

  The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.

  I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.

  psalms, XXXVII, 14, 35.

  Darkness was just beginning to fall when they helped Anne out into the doctor’s car, making sure that the tank was full. She was quiet, and had recovered herself, but avoided Amos whenever possible. She turned at last to Doc Miller.

  “What are you going to do? I should have asked before, but-”

  “Don’t worry about me, girl,” he told her, his voice as hearty as when he was telling an old man he still had forty years to live. “I’ve got other ways. The switchboard girl is going to be one of the last to leave, and I’m driving her in her car. You go ahead, the way we mapped it out. And pick up anyone else you find on the way. It’s safe; it’s still too early for men to start turning to looting, rape, or robbery. They’ll think of that a little later.”

  She held out a hand to him, and climbed in. At the last minute, she pressed Amos’ hand briefly. Then she stepped on the accelerator and the car took off down the street at its top speed.

  “She hates me,” Amos said. “She loves men too much and God too little to understand.”

  “And maybe you love your God too much to understand that you love men, Amos. Don’t worry, she’ll figure it out The next time you see her, she’ll feel different. I’ll see you later.”

  Doc swung off toward the telephone office, carrying his bag. Amos watched him, puzzled as always at anyone who could so fervently deny God and yet could live up to every commandment of the Lord except worship. They had been friends for a long-time, while the parish stopped fretting about it and took it for granted, yet the riddle was no nearer solution.

  There was the sound of a great rocket landing, and the smaller stutterings of the peculiar alien ram-jets. The ships passed directly overhead, yet there was no shooting this time.

  Amos faced the bedroom window for a moment, and then turned toward the church. He opened it, throwing the doors wide. There was no sign of the sexton, but he had rung the bell in the tower often enough before. He took off his worn coat and grabbed the rope.

  It was hard work, and his hands were soft. Once it had been a pleasure, but now his blood seemed too thin to suck up the needed oxygen. The shirt stuck wetly to his back, and he felt giddy when he finished.

  Almost at once, the telephone in his little office began jangling nervously. He staggered to it, panting as he lifted it, to hear the voice of Nellie, shrill with fright. “Reverend, what’s up? Why’s the bell ringing?”

  “For prayer meeting, of course,” he told her. “What else?”

  “Tonight? Well, I’ll be-” She hung up.

  He lighted a few candles and put them on the altar, where their glow could be seen from the dark street, but where no light would shine upwards for alien eyes. Then he sat down to wait, wondering what was keeping the organist.

  There were hushed calls from the street and nervous cries. A car started, to be followed by another. Then a group took off at once. He went to the door, partly for the slightly cooler air. All along the street, men were moving out their possessions and loading up, while others took off. They waved to him, but hurried on by. He heard telephones begin to ring, but if Nellie was passing on some urgent word, she had forgotten him.

  He turned back to the altar, kneeling before it. There was no articulate prayer in his mind. He simply clasped his gnarled fingers together and rested on his knee, looking up at the outward symbol of his life. Outside, the sounds went on, blending together. It did not matter whether anyone chose to use the church tonight. It was open, as the house of God must always be in times of stress. He had long since stopped trying to force religion on those not ready for it.

  And slowly, the strains of the day began to weave themselves into the pattern of his life. He had learned to accept; from the death of his baby daughter on, he had found no way to end the pain that seemed so much a part of life. But he could bury it behind the world of his devotion, and meet whatever his lot was to be without anger at the will of the Lord. Now, again, he accepted things as they were ordered.

  There was a step behind him. He turned, not bothering to rise, and saw the dressmaker, Angela Anduccini, hesitating at the door. She had never entered, though she had lived in Wesley since she was eighteen. She crossed herself doubtfully, and waited.

  He stood up. “Come in, Angela. This is the house of God, and all His daughters are welcome.”

  There was a dark, tight fear in her eyes as she glanced back to the street. “I thought—maybe the organ——”

  He opened it for her and found the switch. He started to explain the controls, but the smile on her lips warned him that it was unnecessary. Her calloused fingers ran over the stops, and she began playing, softly as if to herself. He went back to one of the pews, listening. For two years he had blamed the organ, but now he knew that there was no fault with the instrument, but only with its player before. The music was sometimes strange for his church, but he liked it

  A couple who had moved into the old Surrey farm beyond the town came in, holding hands, as if holding each other up. And a minute later, Buzz Williams stumbled in and tried to tiptoe down the aisle to where Amos sat. Since his parents had died, he’d been the town problem. Now he was half-drunk, though without his usual boisterousness.

  “I ain’t got no car and I been drinking,” he whispered. “Can I stay here
till maybe somebody comes or something?”

  Amos sighed, motioning Buzz to a seat where the boy’s eyes had centered. Somewhere, there must be a car for the four waifs who had remembered God when everything else had failed them. If one of the young couple could drive, and he could locate some kind of a vehicle, it was his duty to see that they were sent to safety.

  Abruptly, the haven of the church and the music came to an end, leavinghim back in the real world—a curiously unreal world now.

  He was heading down the steps, trying to remember whether the Jameson boy had taken his flivver, when a panel truck pulled up in front of the church. Doc Miller got out, wheezing as he squeezed through the door.

  He took in the situation at a glance. “Only four strays, Amos? I thought we might have to pack them in.” He headed for Buzz. “I’ve got a car outside, Buzz. Gather up the rest of this flock and get going!”

  “I been drinking,” Buzz said, his face reddening hotly.

  “Okay, you’ve been drinking. At least you know it, and there’s no traffic problem. Head for Salina and hold it under forty and you’ll be all right.” Doc swept little Angela Anduccini from the organ and herded her out, while Buzz collected the couple. “Get going, all of you!”

  They got, with Buzz enthroned behind the wheel and Angela beside him. The town was dead. Amos closed the organ and began shutting the doors to the church.

  “I’ve got a farm tractor up the street for us, Amos,” Doc said at last. “I almost ran out of tricks. There were more fools than you’d think who thought they could hide out right here. At that, I probably missed some. Well, the tractor’s nothing elegant, but it can take those back roads. We’d better get going.”

  Amos shook his head. He had never thought it out, but the decision had been in his mind from the beginning. Ruth still lay waiting a decent burial. He could no more leave her now than when she was alive. “You’ll have to go alone, Doc.”

  “I figured.” The doctor sighed, wiping the sweat from his forehead “. . . I’d remember to my dying day that believers have more courage than an atheist! No sale, Amos. It isn’t sensible, but that’s how I feel. We’d better put out the candles, I guess.”

  Amos snuffed them reluctantly, wondering how he could persuade the other to leave. His ears had already caught the faint sounds of shooting; the aliens were on their way.

  The uncertain thumping of a laboring motor sounded from the street, to wheeze to silence. There was a shout, a pause, and the motor caught again. It might have run for ten seconds before it backfired, and was still.

  Doc opened one of the doors. In the middle of the street, a man was pushing an ancient car while his wife steered. But it refused to start again. He grabbed for tools, threw up the hood, and began a frantic search for the trouble.

  “If you can drive a tractor, there’s one half a block down,” Doc called out.

  The man looked up, snapped one quick glance behind him, and pulled the woman hastily out of the car. In almost no time, the heavy roar of the tractor sounded. The man revved it up to full throttle and tore off down the road, leaving Doc and Amos stranded. The sounds of the aliens were clearer now, and there was some light coming from beyond the bend of the street.

  There was no place to hide. They found a window where the paint on the imitation stained glass was loose, and peeled it back enough for a peephole. The advance scouts of the aliens were already within view. They were dashing from house to house. Behind them, they left something that sent up clouds of glowing smoke that seemed to have no fire connected to their brilliance. At least, no buildings were burning.

  Just as the main group of aliens came into view, the door of one house burst open. A scrawny man leaped out, with his fat wife and fatter daughter behind him. They raced up the street, tearing at their clothes and scratching frantically at their reddened skin.

  Shots sounded. All three jerked, but went racing on. More shots sounded. At first, Amos thought it was incredibly bad shooting. Then he realized that it was even more unbelievably good marksmanship. The aliens were shooting at the hands first, then moving up the arms methodically, wasting no chance for torture.

  For the first time in years, Amos felt fear and anger curdle solidly in his stomach. He stood up, feeling his shoulders square back and his head come up as he moved toward the door. His lips were moving in words that he only half understood. “Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand; forget not the humble. Wherefore doth the wicked condemn God? He hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not requite it. Thou hast seen it, for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless. Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil ones; seek out their wickedness till thou find none . . .”

  “Stop it, Amos!” Doc’s voice rasped harshly in his ear. “Don’t be a fool! And you’re misquoting that last verse!”

  It cut through the fog of his anger. He knew that Doc had deliberately reminded him of his father, but the trick worked, and the memory of his father’s anger at misquotations replaced his cold fury. “We can’t let that go on!”

  Then he saw it was over. They had used up their targets. But there was the sight of another wretch, unrecognizable in half of his skin . . .

  Doc’s voice was as sick as he felt. “We can’t do anything, Amos. I can’t understand a race smart enough to build star ships and still going in for this. But it’s good for our side, in the long run. While our armies are organizing, they’re wasting time on this. And it makes resistance tougher, too.”

  The aliens didn’t confine their sport to humans. They worked just as busily on a huge old tomcat they found. And all the corpses were being loaded onto a big wagon pulled by twenty of the creatures.

  The aliens obviously had some knowledge of human behavior. At first they had passed up all stores, and had concentrated on living quarters. The scouts had passed on by the church without a second glance. But they moved into a butcher shop at once, to come out again, carrying meat which was piled on the wagon with the corpses.

  Now a group was assembling before the church, pointing up toward the steeple where the bell was. Two of them shoved up a mortar of some sort. It was pointed quickly and a load was dropped in. There was a muffled explosion, and the bell rang sharply, its pieces rattling down the roof and into the yard below.

  Another shoved the mortar into a new position, aiming it straight for the door of the church. Doc yanked Amos down between two pews. “They don’t like churches, damn it! A fine spot we picked. Watch out for splinters!”

  The door smashed in and a heavy object struck the altar, ruining it and ricocheting onto the organ. Amos groaned at the sound it made.

  There was no further activity when they slipped back to their peepholes. The aliens were on the march again, moving along slowly. In spite of the delta planes, they seemed to have no motorized ground vehicles, and the wagon moved on under the power of the twenty green-skinned things, coming directly in front of the church.

  Amos stared at it in the flickering light from the big torches burning in the hands of some of the aliens. Most of the corpses were strangers to him. A few he knew. And then his eyes picked out the twisted, distorted upper part of Ruth’s body, her face empty in death’s relaxation.

  He stood up wearily, and this time Doc made no effort to stop him. He walked down a line of pews and around the wreck of one of the doors. Outside the church, the air was still hot and dry, but he drew a long breath into his lungs. The front of the church was in the shadows, and no aliens seemed to be watching him.

  He moved down the stone steps. His legs were firm now. His heart was pounding heavily, but the clot of feelings that rested leadenly in his stomach had no fear left in it. Nor was there any anger left, nor any purpose.

  He saw the aliens stop and stare at him, while a jabbering began among them.

  He moved forward with the measured tread that had led him to his wedding the first time. He came to the wagon, and put
his hand out, lifting one of Ruth’s dead-limp arms back across her body.

  “This is my wife,” he told the staring aliens quietly. “I am taking her home with me.”

  He reached up and began trying to move the other bodies away from her. Without surprise, he saw Doc’s arms moving up to help him, while a steady stream of whispered profanity came from the man’s lips.

  He hadn’t expected to succeed. He had expected nothing.

  Abruptly, a dozen of the aliens leaped for the two men. Amos let them overpower him without resistance. For a second, Doc struggled, and then he too relaxed while the aliens bound them and tossed them onto the wagon.

  * * * *

  IV

  He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.