Doomsday Eve

by Robert Moore Williams

  "Right," West said. His voice was very grim.

  "Then it's a race to see which side gets its bomb built first?" Zen asked. He did not know whether or not he liked what his eyes were seeing and the interpretation his mind was giving him.

  "I am afraid that is true," West reluctantly agreed. "But doesn't that change the picture, colonel?"

  "How?" Zen demanded. "We're going to win a war. We've got to win it." The words were firmly spoken but somewhere a lingering doubt remained as if some point had not been considered.

  "The other side also thinks it has to win," West pointed out.

  "To hell with what they think. They started it. We didn't. Man, you don't intend to tell me that you are going to sit right here and watch two nations frantically try to destroy each other—and maybe the Earth with them—when you have the means to stop it in your hand?" Horror exploded in Zen's words.

  "I am going to do just that," West stated. His voice was as firm and as solid as the granite core of a mountain.

  "But you can't!" Zen expostulated.

  "Why can't I?" West demanded. "I am not a citizen of either country and I owe nothing to any nation."

  "Even if you are not a citizen of either country, you're still a human being. You owe loyalty to your own race," Zen said.

  The craggy man showed faint signs of discomfort. But when he spoke, his voice was still imperturbable. "Granting your statement, what do you propose I do?"

  "Stop the Asians," Zen answered promptly. "Give us complete information on the location of their super-bomb. We'll make certain we get ours finished first and we'll use it to blow their installation out of existence." At the moment, his plan seemed feasible.

  "That would create the very danger you are trying to avoid, would it not?" West pointed out. "Both super bombs would explode simultaneously. Do you think the Earth would remain in its orbit if this happened?"

  "I don't know," Zen answered. "That would be up to the astronomers and the astronomical physicists to decide. In any case, if the danger is too great, we'll use ordinary weapons to touch off their super bomb. Well get the job done before they finish."

  "They are working underground, in a cavern at least three thousand feet deep," West pointed out. "Do you have a weapon that will penetrate to this depth?"

  "We'll build one!"

  "You talk very glibly, colonel."

  "Somebody has got to talk!" Zen said fiercely. "Even if they are building their bomb underground, they must have an exit for it somewhere. We'll locate their exit and drop an H-bomb on it."

  "And thus destroy their bomb and the best of their scientists and engineers?"

  "This is war. You can't have sympathy in war."

  "This is my point, colonel," West said patiently. "I have no sympathy—with either side."

  "Then what do you propose—to sit here and do nothing?"

  "I propose to let each side destroy the other as much as they wish and can. Then, when they have completely demonstrated the futility of their efforts, when it is utterly clear to the few who have survived that warfare is not the way to the future, then the new people will emerge to show the way to those who have survived." West's voice was calm. He seemed to be considering a situation often pondered and to be stating a conclusion firmly and definitely reached.

  "But that involves senseless slaughter," Zen protested. "This was the reason that lay back of the dropping of the first atom bomb—to stop senseless slaughter."

  "All slaughter is senseless, colonel, though from the viewpoint of the individual or nation doing it, slaughter is generally considered to be right at the time."

  Zen started to comment on what the craggy man had just said, then changed his mind. Was he dealing with a madman? This seemed possible. West's words certainly did not fit any pattern that Zen knew. The act of sitting by and letting two nations commit suicide went beyond the bounds of rational thinking.

  "I beg you, let me report this to the high command," Zen said, making one last plea.

  "In reply, I want to ask one question," West answered. "What would happen to the people here, and to me, if I revealed the existence of this instrument?"

  "You would be a hero," Zen said promptly, and knew he was lying as he spoke. "Your people would be protected."

  "I dislike calling you a liar, colonel, but that is exactly what you are," West answered. "We would all be taken care of, as long as all of us did exactly what the high command wanted. The instant I tried to do anything else, my actions would be called treason and I would be considered a traitor. My equipment would be confiscated, 'for the convenience of the government,' and I would be lucky if I did not face a firing squad. Tell me honestly, colonel, would not this happen?" For the first time, West's words had a tinge of anger in them. Or was it sorrow?

  "Sam—" Nedra said. "Something—" Her voice was a whisper from some far-off land.

  "What is it, Nedra?" West asked. In an instant, he had forgotten all about Kurt Zen.

  The nurse sat up straight and stiff. All color fled from her face. "Something—" Her voice was the faintest whisper of sound in this quiet room.

  "Nedra, what is it?" West's tones had alarm in them.

  Instead of answering, the nurse slid from her chair to the floor, in a faint.

  Dim and distant in the silence that followed came a popping sound.

  Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—

  Zen had heard this death-dealing rattle too often to mistake its identity.

  "A sub-machine gun!"

  The drapes that covered the archway leading into this hidden room were shoved aside. A man fell through them. Zen knew at a glance that he was another of the kids who lived here in this hidden cavern inside a mountain. Blood was spewing from a hole in his back and he was fighting desperately for breath.

  "They're—coming with guns!" he gasped.

  West dropped to his knees and took the head of the youth in his lap. His face was dark as he saw the wound on the back. Cuddling the youth's head in his lap as one would a frightened child, he asked, "What happened, Carl?"

  "I don't know. They came out of nowhere. There was no one. Then these men were here. They came—shooting." Blood came out of his mouth as he spoke. He tried to cough it away, and failed. His hand went to his mouth and wiped at the blood, then he lifted his hand to his eyes and saw what was there.

  "How many are there?" Zen asked.

  Carl's eyes wandered until he found the source of this question. "Dozens," he said, his voice dull. Blood was draining from his mouth across West's legs and was forming a pool on the floor.

  Listening, Zen could distinguish three machine guns going now. Men were yelling. A girl was screaming. At the sounds, the colonel's lips formed into a line as sharp as the edge of a knife.

  "How did they get past your fear generators?" he said to West.

  "I don't know," the craggy man answered. "Perhaps they found an unguarded tunnel."

  Zen could not see what difference it made how the intruders had secured entry. They were here. "Where are your weapons?" he demanded. In his mind was the thought that the new people would have weapons adequate to defend their own citadel.

  "Weapons?" West did not seem to understand the term. "We have none."

  "What?" Zen said. Hadn't West understood him. Every farmer, every rancher, and every householder had his stock of weapons. Almost all people went armed. "No rifles?"

  "No."

  "Not even tear gas?"

  "No, colonel."

  "Then how in the hell did you expect to stay alive?" Zen burst out. "You surely knew they would find you sometime."

  "Staying alive is actually not as important as you think. Yes, son." West bent again to listen to the youth's words.

  "Good—good—" The whisper was very faint.

  West understood. "Goodbye," he said. "We will meet again. But, goodbye for now."

  The youth sighed. All pain and all fear went from his face. Peace came to him.

  But when West rose to his feet, his fac
e was bleak. "He was new here," he said as if this explained something that he felt needed explaining.

  Somewhere a woman was screaming. West listened to the sound, then started toward it. Zen caught his arm.

  "The invaders have guns." His tone conveyed the impression that West was at fault because no weapons existed inside the mine. "Or do you want to go join him?" He nodded toward the body on the floor. Blood had stopped spilling from that body now. The essence of life had gone elsewhere and the tides of life had ceased flowing.

  "Yes," West said bluntly. "I want to go with him." His face had grown more black. Heat lightning was dancing in his eyes.

  Zen caught the impulse to say that this made two of them who wanted to join the bronze-skinned youth. He knew how to deal with this reaction.

  "Okay," he said. "Good bye."

  West blinked startled eyes at him.

  "Run along," Zen said.

  "Eh?"

  "I'll take over here and fight the battle you are running from," Zen continued.

  As if he were dispelling a mist from some hidden corner of his mind, the craggy man shook his head. "Sorry," he apologized. "However, the call is very strong. Only the sense of a job not yet done has kept me from going for—a long time." He shook his head again. "No, I shall not follow him, for another while, though I am positive that he is luckier than we are."

  "I agree," Zen said.

  Stooping, West picked up Nedra. She lay in his arms like a tired, sleeping child. Had she followed the youth? Kurt Zen had a moment of heartbreak as the thought passed through his mind before he saw that she was still breathing regularly.

  "Follow me," West said.

  The heat lightning still danced in the eyes of the craggy man as he moved across the room. The solid wall swung aside into another hidden door. "None of my people know this is here," he explained. "The combination lock is actuated only by my body."

  As Kurt Zen went through the door he could hear the girl still screaming somewhere.

  The passage was narrow. To one side, another passage led into a room where Zen caught a glimpse of some kind of electrical equipment in operation, the technical guts of the super-radar, he suspected.

  Ahead, West growled, a sound that came from deep in his throat. He had stopped and was staring down into a hidden opening in the wall. Zen saw that the opening, through some hidden arrangement of mirrors, revealed the interior of the big gallery where he had spent the night.

  Hell was loose in there now.

  XI

  Jake, Ed, and Cal were part of that hell. Each carried a smoking weapon in his hands. A body lay on the floor. Somewhere in one of the small rooms a woman was screaming. In the middle of the room stood the man who was obviously in charge of the situation. At the sight of this man, Kurt Zen felt his breath draw into his body so heavily that it whistled through his nostrils.

  Cuso's lieutenant!

  The others in the room were the Asians who had been with the lieutenant the night before.

  "I should have slit their throats while they were asleep and in my power last night," Zen raged.

  The only sound in the passage was that of West breathing heavily, like a man who had run a marathon and had lost. No, there were two men! Additional shock came up in Kurt Zen when he realized he was the second man. He seized the craggy man by the shoulder.

  "West! They can't have that super radar. If we lose that, we have lost the war."

  The craggy man did not move.

  Anguish grew in Zen's voice. "If we lose this one, it will be the first war we have ever lost. And the last one. Nothing will remain to come after us except death and desolation."

  "I know," West said. "The race soul will have to start over, in the swamps and on the mud flats, trying to rebuild the race with tools long since worn out and out of place in time." Again the tones of a bell were in his voice. But now the bell was tolling the death of a people, wailing that the glory that once had been was truly gone, wailing that the brave world that some men had tried to build was going into ashes and into doom.

  "Do you believe in the race soul too?" West gasped.

  "Belief is too weak a word. I know it exists."

  Nedra sighed in West's arms and opened her eyes. Seeing who was holding her, she lay back in the arms of the craggy man, more than ever like a tired child. "What was it?" she whispered. "What's wrong? I—I took a little nap."

  West set her on her feet and pointed at the opening. She clutched at the stone wall as she saw what was happening inside.

  Running, the bronze girl who had danced to the slow music the night before, came fleeing from a room. One of Cuso's soldiers was pursuing her. She fled like a deer before some great hound that was interested in pulling her down but she did not flee fast enough. The soldier caught her and dragged her back into a room.

  "West, how many of these kids did you have here?" Zen asked.

  "About fifty," the craggy man answered. "I don't know how many are left nor can I guess how many will choose to stay alive if they are conquered before their training is completed."

  "And no weapons?"

  "None."

  "What about my gun that was taken from me while I slept?"

  "What good would one gun do now?"

  "None, I guess," Zen said, helplessly. "But as they try to run me down, I'd like to have it in my hands. I'd at least take a few of them with me before they got me."

  "We will survive," West said, his voice a mumble.

  Zen pointed through the opening to the bodies lying on the floor below them. "They didn't," he said.

  The craggy man groaned. "If I had time I would try to explain to you that survival does not lie in the body and can never be achieved there."

  Zen answered, "I have no time for metaphysics. For purposes of defense, I'm taking command." He felt foolish as he spoke. What resources were his to command, what troops, what weapons? He knew the answer as the thought crossed his mind. If he only had the remnants of the broken column moving down the mountains after its disastrous encounter with Cuso's blooper. An idea came into his mind. Perhaps he could have these troops. "Where's my pack?" he demanded. His radio equipment was in that.

  "It went with your gun into the deep hole," West said. "The deep hole is a fault the old miners uncovered here. It's miles deep." He shook his head.

  "Damn!" Kurt Zen said. The depression in him was as deep as the fault in the mountain. "Isn't there any place where we can hide?"

  "Many places," West said. "This whole mountain is a honeycomb of tunnels and shafts. We have explored fifteen separate levels and there are others which lie below the present water line." He did not protest at Zen's statement that the latter was taking command, but seemed willing to submit to the colonel's authority, and also interested in seeing how Zen would handle the problem.

  "Then find us a place to hide until we can decide what to do to eliminate Cuso's men. A hiding hole first, then radio equipment. As soon as I can gain access to short-wave transmitting equipment, I can have a regiment of paratroopers on their way here."

  "You sound as if you have authority," Nedra commented.

  "I have."

  "But you gave me the impression you were a deserter."

  "They haven't discovered that yet, at headquarters. So far as they are concerned, I'm on a secret mission. And I haven't deserted the human race." Zen put sting into his words. The implication was that two people present were really deserters.

  "Ah, well, colonel, we shall see about that." West had recovered most of his aplomb. Again he seemed to be observing from a great distance the antics of this strange species called human. But his face remained bleak and his eyes had flickers of lightning in them. He started away from the opening.

  And stopped as metal clanged ahead of them.

  A door opened there. An Asian soldier with his rifle at the ready came through. A second one followed the first. The rifles of both covered West.

  Zen jerked his arms toward the roof. Neither the craggy man no
r Nedra moved a muscle.

  Slowly, West and Nedra raised their hands. At gun point, the two soldiers herded them toward the main gallery. At the sight of them the lieutenant hastily called Cal to him.

  "Is this the one?" he demanded, pointing at West.

  "That's him," Cal answered. "He's the leader here. He's the one you want."

  Elation appeared as a shock-wave on the yellow face of the Asian lieutenant. Calling two men to him, he had West step aside, treating the craggy man with respect that bordered on deference but also with great firmness.

  "You two stand against the wall with the others," he said to Nedra and Kurt Zen. There was no deference in his voice as he spoke to them. "If they move, shoot them!" he ordered his men. As Kurt and Nedra obeyed, the lieutenant drew West to one side and began a conversation with him. His men were still busy searching the old mine tunnels. Now and then they brought more captives to the main gallery.

  Cal, Jake, and Ed remained in the center of the big room. Cal was trying to look important but the expression on his face indicated he was hiding guilt pangs somewhere inside. As soon as he saw Nedra, Ed's eyes became fixed on her though he did not look at her face. Jake's murky eyes were roving the chamber. He did not seem to comprehend what he was seeing but seemed to be living in some other world that was even more confusing and more clouded than this one.

  The bronze girl, utterly naked, came limping into the gallery from one of the small rooms. She had a dazed expression on her face and she looked around the room as if she could not comprehend what was happening. At the sight of her, the lieutenant left off talking to West for a moment, his eyes glowing. But his conversation with West was more important than his lust. He motioned with his gun for the bronze girl to take her place against the wall. She stared at him as if she did not understand him. He waved the gun again.

  Some dull comprehension of his meaning penetrated her mind. She stumbled to the wall but fell face downward on the stone floor.

  Nedra, with a little cry of pity on her lips, moved quickly to the side of the bronze girl. Zen started to move, then stopped, but not because the rifle of one of the guards was swinging up to menace him. Nedra gave a quick examination of the girl, then got slowly to her feet.