The Shadow People

by Margaret St. Clair

  I looked at the pictures with scanty interest. One riot is pretty much like another, and I had learned over the lab radio at noon that the Oakland "disturbance" had been contained and was almost over. Then a name in one of the accompanying stories caught my eye.

  I read that Howard Abaccia, thirty-four, of Hiawatha Terrace, Oakland, had been badly burned by a Molotov cocktail during the rioting. His injuries, third- and fourth-degree burns, had been so extensive that he had died shortly after arrival at the hospital.

  I raised my eyebrows a little. Howie was certainly dead; I trusted the newspaper account that far. But Molotov cocktails, at least unsophisticated ones, don't usually cause such extensive burns on people. And where had Howard been between the time of his broken date with me and the time of his death? It seemed to me that the shadowy power with which Howard had been involved—Mafia, CIA, internal-security agency—had acted to eliminate him.

  I hoped Carol wouldn't see the newspaper item. This was reasonable. Usually she barely glanced at such news. But Howard's name must have caught her eye very much as it had mine. She said, "That's our Howie, isn't it?"

  "I suppose so."

  "So they got him. I mean, it can't have been an accident. Poor Howard, always so gloomy and morose. He certainly had something to be morose about."

  "He did," I agreed.

  "I hope he didn't have our exit permits on him."

  "It probably wouldn't make any difference if he did," I said. "He wouldn't have spilled what he was working on to his employers. He wanted it to be a surprise. If our names were on the permits, they'd think we were just people Howard was doing a favor for."

  "I hope you're right." She folded the paper carefully and laid it on the coffee table. "You know, Dick, I was really expecting you'd tell him what we knew about the corn. And—I was glad about it. It wouldn't have been my fault, and we'd have been able to get out of here. But there's no chance of it now."

  I nodded. She was certainly right. That gate—if it had ever been open—was closed.

  Chapter Twenty

  The observation platform at Point Reyes Light Station is located above the light; we could see the light itself far below us, clinging desperately to the rock. And below the light, more than six hundred feet down, was the sea.

  Wind whistled in our ears. There are always great gusts of wind at Point Reyes, and often choking fog as well. But we had had good luck with the weather. The day was radiantly, preternaturally clear.

  North of us we could see the long, straight white line of Point Reyes beach, beginning to be edged with rose-purple rock cress and sand daisies. And ahead, due west, lay the broad Pacific, noblest of oceans, stretching unfettered clear to Asia. It was an incredible view.

  Carol had been leaning out over the railing, looking westward, while her long hair, despite the scarf in which she had tied it, whipped in the wind. Now she turned to face me. "Isn't this," she said, and paused to bite her lip, "isn't this the beauty of the world? Light, air, sea, space! The beauty of the world!"

  How long was it since I had seen her so happy? Years and years, before we had had our quarrel, before she had been taken away from me. But that day she was radiant. I felt she was bathing in light and space.

  "Can't we stay here, Dick?" she said coaxingly. I thought she was more than half-serious. "I can't bear to go back to Berkeley after this."

  "The light station is closed to visitors at four," I said, feeling objectionably square.

  She laughed, said something that I didn't catch, because of the wind, and went back to looking at the view. She was wearing an outfit of the style that was currently fashionable—billowy Oriental-style trousers gathered in at the ankles, and a tight-fitting little jacket, both bright turquoise. She looked extremely pretty in it, because of her long legs and slender waist, but I preferred her in dresses. Pants on a woman are the next thing to a girdle of chastity.

  The wind was rising. I thought she must be getting chilled, but she didn't seem to notice that she was shivering. We stayed on the platform until an attendant told us it was closing time, and then she left reluctantly. It made me realize how confined and pressed-in she had felt. "Oh, I hate to go back!" she said on the way to the car.

  We drove back down Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, gently downhill, through fields brilliant with the flowers of California spring. They were set so solid with blossoms we could hardly see the green of grass and leaves. " 'The winter is over and done, the flowers appear in the fields'," Carol quoted. "Dick, could you stop the car? I'd like to get out and walk in them."

  I pulled over to the side and stopped. We both got out. "I know the names of some of them," Carol said. "Blue-eyed grass, and brodiaeas and California poppies, of course. But what are those blue pealike flowers, and those, and those, and those?" She pointed.

  "Lupines," I said, "and larkspur and Franciscan wallflowers. Those are sun cups, those are sea pinks, and that little plant is owl's clover. And all that yellow is gold fields."

  "How do you know the names of so many?" she asked.

  "From high-school botany. We had a teacher who used to bring us here on field trips."

  "Bless her," Carol said. "I'd like to lie down and roll in them. I'm going to pick a few."

  I opened my mouth to tell her picking wild flowers was illegal, and then shut it again. I didn't want to dull the happiness on her face, and the flowers would stay fresh long enough to brighten our apartment in Berkeley for several days.

  A 'copter from the sheriff's office flew over while she was picking her bouquet, but it didn't come down or bullhorn at us to stop. It was the third 'copter we had seen flying above the boulevard; it seemed to me the police state had already arrived when an unimportant byway in Marin County was so thoroughly patrolled. I suppose they thought somebody might be trying to escape from California in a rowboat.

  "California poppies are the loveliest of all," Carol said as she got back in the car with her little bunch of flowers. "People speak of royal blue, and royal gold, but they're royal orange." She touched the silky, glowing petals delicately. "But are they really of the poppy family? They don't look much like them."

  "They're not true poppies—Papaver—but they are members of the poppy family," I told her, pleased to be informative. "They even have some of the narcotic and analgesic properties of poppies generally. The California Indians used them to relieve pain."

  She was thoughtful. "That's interesting. Where would the opiate in them be? I mean, in what part of the plant?"

  "I don't know for sure. It's not the sort of thing they tell you in high-school botany. But I imagine the sap exuding from the seed capsules would have narcotic qualities. It's that way with poppies generally. The gum that's collected from the wounded seed pods of the opium poppy is the source of opium."

  She didn't say much on the drive back. The sun was sinking, and the beautiful day was growing cold. But she arranged her illegal wildflowers carefully in a vase and put it on our dining table. I was glad I hadn't warned her against picking them.

  We had a good supper; we had found a market in Inverness where we had been able to buy eggs, tomatoes, cheese, canned goods, and even a gallon of wine. We had the Berkeley food shortages licked temporarily, and it made us both feel good.

  She washed the supper dishes, and I wiped. She looked so pretty when she was hanging up her apron that I couldn't help kissing her. To my surprise, she kissed me back—a real kiss, with her mouth open and her eyes half-closed.

  I wasn't too surprised to be able to act. I put my arm around her—she was smiling—and led her into the bedroom. She got out of her harem pants under her own power. She always used to be a fine, responsive girl.

  That night she outdid herself. She was ardent, inventive, exciting, funny, and sweet. No wonder she had been quoting Canticles in the flower fields at Point Reyes! We went to sleep in each other's arms and woke up in more embraces. Indubitably, the winter was over and it was spring.

  "What helped you so much, sweethea
rt?" I asked in one of our waking intervals. "Getting away from Berkeley for a while?"

  "It was mainly that," she said sleepily. "The whole day was lovely." She seemed about to say more, but checked herself. I thought of her pensiveness when I had told her about the narcotic properties of California poppies. Well, we'd cross that bridge when we got to it.

  "We'll go back soon," I promised.

  "I'd like that."

  We didn't get back to Point Reyes, but Carol didn't backslide. She was plainly much better (for that matter, I was feeling much better myself). I did notice that there were scratches on the sides of the long, pointed California poppy pods, and that she kept the pods in the vase even after all the petals had fallen. Whether she was making any use of the sap from the pods I didn't know. I didn't think it mattered much if she was. The amount of opiate she would be able to extract from a handful of Eschscholtzia californica pods would be about like the amount in half a codeine tablet. The pods were more of a psychological crutch than anything else.

  One evening about the middle of April we came home to find that our apartment had been robbed. Carol's camera, since she had had the forethought to hide it under the bed, was safe. But the TV—a new wafer-thin hologramatic model—was gone, and most of our clothing, and the electric appliances in the kitchen. Worst of all, the five big volumes of Sierra Club photographs had been taken from the bookcase. Carol had been particularly fond of them.

  "I knew something like this would happen," Carol said. "We've been so happy, and there haven't been any disturbances in the streets. It was too good to last. But I don't see why they had to take my books." There was an odd look m her eyes.

  "I may be able to buy some of the things back," I told her. "Thieves have been offering what they stole for ransom to their victims lately. Don't cry, sweetheart. I may be able to get your books back."

  "I'm not crying," she said. This was true, but her self-control bothered me a little. It seemed unnatural.

  Next day came a phone call from the thieves. After some haggling, I got four of the Sierra Club books back, as well as a favorite costume of Carol's and the electric toaster. The other things I had to let go unransomed, to the annoyance of my caller.

  The incident didn't drive Carol back into sexual disinclination, as I had been afraid it might. But she took to sleepwalking, and several times I found her in the living room, crawling about on her hands and knees, with all the lights on. When I asked her, newly awakened, what she had been trying to do, she told me that she had been dreaming that her soul had become a marble and was rolling along the floor. She had been trying to retrieve it before it got lost under the furniture.

  I arranged a couple of excursions in the country—one to Mt. Diablo and one to Mill Valley—and she seemed better. Then the health department moved me from my laboratory job to the rat detail.

  The rat detail went around Berkeley trapping and bagging rats, which were then taken back to the laboratory and examined for signs of plague or plague-infected fleas. I met with some hostility in my tours of duty, but most people were cooperative and glad to see me. I was wearing a health-department uniform, which may have helped. I didn't feel particularly dignified catching rats, but I didn't really mind it. And the job carried a small wage increase. I liked that.

  One morning I woke with a splitting headache and sharp pains in my back and limbs. My eyes felt sore and inflamed; the light coming in the bedroom hurt them.

  I staggered into the bathroom and vomited. Carol, who was getting breakfast, heard me and came running in. "What's the matter?" she asked anxiously.

  "Sick," I croaked, and lurched back to bed.

  Carol knew there was no chance of getting a physician to make a house call. She could have phoned for an ambulance and had me taken to the hospital, but she didn't know what would happen to me after I got there: they were all understaffed and underbedded. She tried to get a nurse to come to see me, and was told she'd have to wait at least a couple of days. Meantime, I lay on the bed and groaned. Finally, she called the health department and asked for my boss.

  When he heard what my symptoms were, he came over right away. He felt in my armpits and groin and discovered the typical lumps.

  "What is it?" Carol asked, who was watching him anxiously.

  "Plague," Dr. Myers answered. "Actually, the causative organism isn't old-fashioned Bacillus pestis. It's one of those nasty bacillus-virus amalgams, with the virus component being furnished by the virus the selenauts brought back.

  "I'll give him an injection of penicillin. Let's hope it will split the bacillus off from the amalgam, and leave us only the virus to deal with. As for you, young lady, you'd better have an immunizing shot. We only got the serum in this morning. The military had priority on it."

  Dr. Myers rolled me over in the bed and gave me an injection in the buttock. "Stay on your belly for a while," he said. "It makes quite a lump."

  "How did he get plague?" I heard Carol ask.

  "Oh, from a plague-infected rat. We couldn't immunize our people because, as I told you, we only got the serum in this morning.

  "Well. Your shot ought to keep you from getting it from him, though it may make you feel a little woozy for a while. As soon as I get back to the office, I'll send out a general rat alert, for the whole east bay. We don't want a pandemic. Hayward is said to have had excellent results in trapping with chemical sex lures.

  "I'll be back this evening to give him another shot. Try to make him comfortable."

  I was sick for a long time. Myers came in twice a day to give me injections of penicillin. Part of the time I was delirious, in the "busy" style ofdelirium tremens. Carol nursed me devotedly. I remember wondering several times how long I had been sick; I knew that in plague the chances of survival are good if the victim can get through to the twelfth day.

  It wasn't until late July that I was able to be up and around again. My clothes were too large for me, and my joints felt weak. The first time I left the apartment, to go shopping for groceries with Carol, was a great event.

  I pushed the cart for her. We stopped at the refrigerator counter, in front of the eggs and cheese. "I'm so glad you're well," she said, squeezing my arm. "Dick, you don't know how glad."

  There was nobody near us. I asked, "Were you afraid I'd die?"

  "Oh, I knew you wouldn't die," she answered serenely.

  "You'd saved me twice before, when I had given up all hope. I knew you wouldn't leave me this time, even though you were so sick. I asked Dr. Myers once, and he said you'd probably get well. But there was the time a burglar tried to break into the apartment, and the time there was a big fire quite near—you were delirious then—and the time—well, I'm so glad you're well again."

  She looked tired and worn but, as she said, extraordinarily glad. I kissed her quickly. "Things will be better from now on, sweetheart," I said.

  There wasn't much to buy in the market except eggs, cheese, and that imported Mexican vegetable, jicama. As we were checking out, I noticed that the clerk was giving me odd looks, but I decided it must be because my BDPH uniform was so loose on me.

  We started home. I was carrying the groceries. We had got to the corner of Dana when I noticed that several men were eying me hostilely. One of them, a little, dry, wrinkle-foreheaded man, like a monkey, was particularly provocative. He spat in front of my feet, and then laughed.

  I may have jostled him; if I did, it was lightly. But he planted himself squarely in front of Carol and me, with his hands on his hips.

  "Look at the rat catcher!" he said in a buzzing, falsetto voice. "Cute little rat catcher, hogging all the serum for himself and the dirty chick he works. In his cute little green uniform, stiff with rat blood! Let's"—he turned and grinned at the men around him—"let's have a party with him!"

  For an instant I didn't realize he was talking to me; I even turned my head to see whom he could be addressing. Then I realized it must be myself.

  Angry people were standing around Carol and me in a
circle. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't fight successfully with eight or ten men, even if I hadn't been weak from illness and had Carol to take care of. And I was unstrung with surprise: I couldn't see why my uniform should make me so unpopular. (I didn't know it at the time, but Myers' rat alert had started a lot of wild rumors. There had really been a minor epidemic of plague, and though only one person, an elderly woman, had died, the popular belief was that the public-health people were responsible for hundreds of deaths. We were accused of keeping plague serum—which was certainly in short supply—for ourselves.)

  My tormentor was bawling more loudly. He grabbed me by the sleeve. I tore loose, and he followed us, yelling.

  There weren't many people behind us, though they were beginning to close in. I thought we could get through. The small man launched a wild haymaker at my chin, which I managed to dodge. But the next minute somebody else hit me, quite hard, in front of the ear.

  I was stunned, but I knew if I fell I'd be badly trampled. I stayed on my feet, and before more blows could come at me, I swung the bag of groceries in an arc in front of me, at the level of my chest.

  The bag burst. Eggs, cheese and vegetables shot out. In the ensuing instant of confusion, Carol and I got through the people behind us. The man with the wrinkled forehead was after us the next second, and others followed him, like the tail on a kite.

  I don't know what would have happened next if downtown Berkeley hadn't been under surveillance from the air. As it was, a police 'copter flew over with a deafening roar, and ah amplified voice began to roll out, saying, "Disperse. You are declared in a state of insurrection and are subject to military law. You are ordered to disperse. Disperse. Disperse. Or we will dust."

  There was a long "aaah" of rage from the crowd, but it began to scatter. An instant later there came the spiteful rattle of bullets from an upper window. Somebody had made private preparations for a riot earlier.