Edward Llewellyn - [Douglas Convolution 03]

by Prelude to Chaos (epub)

  That was the wrong joke. She looked up at me and snarled, “I’ve been demoted to orderly. They’ll have me scrubbing floors soon!” She straightened and pushed back a lock of her Titian hair. “Those macho incompetents! They don’t know their ass from their elbow!” Her language had deteriorated with her status. “I tried to tell ’em some of the ways surgery’s advanced since Lister. So they tossed me out as OR nurse. And now I’m cleaning toilets to earn my keep.” She studied me and her green eyes were hard. “How’s the Deacon’s pet military adviser making out?”

  I shrugged. “Somebody’s got to do it. And nobody else can. But I didn’t come here to swap insults. I came here to help you.”

  “Help me? How?”

  I shifted uncomfortably. How the hell was I going to introduce the subject of matrimony? A subject I had always avoided. “Judy, you’re the only unmarried woman in the place.”

  “So?”

  “Well—I’m not the marrying kind. But I’m willing to make an exception in your case.” I again attempted humor. “Let me take you away from all this!” I pointed at the bedpans.

  She threw down the one she was cleaning and advanced to face me. “Put it plainer, Gavin Smith!”

  “I’ve decided to stay in Sherando for a while.” I took the plunge. “I’m willing to marry you.”

  She stared at me. “You think you’re doing me a favor by offering me your unpleasant self? Rescuing me from spinster-hood?” She took a deep breath and blasted on. “Why didn’t you mention marriage before? When you were trying to back me up onto your bed?”

  “Judy—I’m not trying to do you a favor. I mean, if you’re going to stay here—well—it’ll make it easier for you if you’re tied up with some man. Like all the other women are. We could split later if you didn’t like—” My voice trailed away under her glare.

  “Is this an original idea of yours? Or am I part of the package Anslinger’s selling you?”

  “Of course you’re not a part of any deal! There isn’t any deal! I’m only suggesting you marry me for your own good.”

  I wasn’t saying what I meant to say, and what I was saying was the wrong thing.

  She stood with her hands on her hips; the classical picture of the outraged female. “And who suggested marrying you would be good for me?”

  “Nobody. But Anslinger did mention—”

  “Tell your pal Anslinger to go and jump into that lake he’s having dug! I didn’t break out of the Pen to hole up in this hcretic Settlement with an escaped con as a husband!” She snatched up her washrag. “I’d rather go on cleaning shit out of bedpans for the rest of my life than share a bed with you, Gavin Knox—-or whatever your name is!” And with that verbal overkill she swung on her heel and marched back into the hospital, her face flushed and her hair gleaming.

  IX

  The constructions of surface fortifications is an art which declined with the development of high explosives in the nineteenth century, and was made archaic with the arrival of nuclear warheads in the twentieth. Military engineers were ordered to build fortresses long after they had become obsolete death-traps—Maginot, Corregidor, Siegfried, Dienbienphu, Moonbase—gaunt memorials to engineering success and military error. From the time when Jubal Early fought his way north up this very valley every infantryman has known that the best fortress is a hole in the ground and his best defensive weapon an entrenching tool.

  However if Sherando was ever attacked, something I still though unlikely, it would be by mobs or bandits with neither nukes nor artillery. In designing its defenses, therefore, I had looked to military history rather than current practice (the Settlement had an excellent library, with restricted access). Standing on the earthworks the bulldozers had flung up on each side of the main entrance I felt rather like an artist viewing his first attempt to paint in tempera because oils were no longer available: the reviver of an antiquated art. The last great builder of effective fortresses had been Vauban, Marshal of France and Chief Engineer to Louis XIV; I was his lonely successor, building this small fortress in the Shenandoah Valley after the pattern of the great fortresses he had built to defend France. And I had enjoyed learning what he had taught. The placing of inner and outer ramparts, of running outworks, of angling defensive faces flanked by other faces; a polygon of major and minor bastions with intersecting fields of fire. All utterly useless against airborne attack, heavy artillery, or properly handled armor. But impregnable, if properly defended, to unorganized mobs or untrained troops.

  1 had worked hard through the first half of the summer creating something of doubtful value in real war but impressive to those who knew nothing of war. The mere fact I hat masses of earth were being bulldozed around, ramparts raised, ditches dug, angles measured, fire fields laid out, had •lone much to convince the Council that all this activity proved its own necessity. That defenses were needed. And (hat I was needed.

  One of Sheriff Jenkins’s new deputies came scrambling up the rampart. “The Deacon has a visitor in the Council Chamber, Mister Smith. He would like you to meet him there.” The Deputy spoke with respect. The population of Sherando had become increasingly respectful of Anslinger as his influence had increased and, by extension, had shown increased respect for me. The fate of certain Settlements in countries where government was collapsing had added weight to An-slinger’s insistence that if we didn’t want that to happen to us we had better start doing something about it now while we still had powerful friends in Washington and Richmond. He had also quoted the Teacher to prove that failure to defend the Centers of Light (the Settlements) against the Forces of Darkness (all outsiders except collaborators like me) was a sin against the Light. Deacon Anslinger had a genius for combining common sense, political insight, and religious dogma into an argument for reaching Puritan goals by draconian methods.

  A request from him was tantamount to a command. I slid down the rampart and walked across the plaza, wondering which of the friendly outsiders now regularly visiting Sherando I was to meet. Of one thing I was sure; until the defenses of the Settlement were finished Anslinger was not going to betray me to anybody.

  I was not quite so sure when I arrived in the Council Chamber to find Anslinger and three of his tame Elders in conference with a small brusque man whose clothes were civilian but whose manner was Army. “This is Gavin Smith, Colonel Forsyth,” said Anslinger when I entered. “He has had some military experience.”

  “Military experience?” barked the Colonel, turning to give me a parade-ground inspection. “What kind of military experience?”

  “Special Strike Force. Ten years ago.” I returned his in-

  spection with the stare with which we of the elite had surveyed lesser breeds within the armed forces of the United States “SSF?” He looked at me sharply. “What rank?”

  “Lieutenant, sir.”

  He liked the “Sir.” “What unit?”

  “The Third.”

  “Third, eh?” He warmed slightly. “Then you were in Bolivia.”

  “Not Bolivia, sir. It was the Second that got cut up in Bolivia. I was in Libya, Socotra, Brunei—and others!” I decided not to mention Moonbase.

  “And your Commanding Officer?” He was still not sure of me.

  “In Libya and Socotra—Colonel Fowler. Until he got zapped. Then Colonel Jewett.”

  “Jewett eh? So you served with Jewett” He nodded his head approvingly. “Know anything about stores and supplies?”

  “Only that they usually didn’t arrive. Or went to the wrong mob. In the Third we learned to live on what we took in. And off the country!” I was becoming irritated at this peremptory interrogation by some little Quartermaster Corps Colonel.

  “By God—that’s right!” Instead of being insulted, he laughed and slapped his right leg. It was a prosthesis. “That’s why I got this. And why I’m in the Corps. When I had both legs I was in the Second.”

  So that was the source of his disdain! It was not the fussy self-importance of a Quartermaster Corps Colon
el, but the attitude natural to anyone who had ever served in the Special Strike Force.

  Anslinger, dismayed by the abruptness of the interchange between the Colonel and myself, broke in, “Mister Smith didn’t give me the details of his military service.”

  “He was Third Strike—so I’m not surprised! Does he know what we want him to do?”

  “I haven’t mentioned it to him, Colonel. I thought you had better meet him first.”

  “Now I have!” He swung on me. “Lieutenant—your past is your business. Did you realize that a general dispensation was issued over Socotra? Probably not—it was only circulated to those under threat of civil action. You weren’t one, eh? I’m just as glad. Bad business that!” He shook his head. “Well, these days I’m only concerned with the proper care and maintenance of stores and supplies controlled by the Department of Defense. Did you know that the Sherando Settlement is likely to be designated an official Defense Depot?”

  “No sir.”

  “Good! You weren’t supposed to know. But you know now! You will not mention the fact to anybody else.”

  “Colonel—one of the things I learned with the Third was to keep my mouth shut about anything the Army did—however crazy.”

  Anslinger again looked dismayed, showing how far away he had been from the real Army. The Colonel laughed. “Sometimes crazy like a fool! Sometimes crazy like a foxl” “They were both the same to me then. They still are now.” “Spoken like a Trooper! Well, since you’re here, I’m prepared to approve the establishment of a Defense Depot at Sherando. Deacon Anslinger will explain the details.” The Colonel turned to Anslinger whose concern had changed to relief. “Tell your Council that the Depot is in being as from today. Shipments will start arriving shortly. They will come in civilian trucks with armed escorts wearing civilian clothing. The escorts will be responsible for the unloading and proper storage in those stone warehouses you’ve built. Let Lieutenant Smith keep an eye on them—he should know about weaponry. Who were you with, Deacon? Intelligence Corps—of course!” He managed to inject just the correct amount of contempt into that last phrase. Anslinger looked pleased; he did not realize he had been insulted. Colonel Forsyth was the genuine article!

  “And you’ll be visiting us upon occasion, Colonel?” “Depends on the occasion, Deacon. But I’ll certainly be back. Good day, gentlemen.” He turned toward the door. “Smith, I’d like a word with you outside.”

  I glanced at Anslinger, who nodded approval, so I followed the Colonel out onto the plaza. He went limping across it and only stopped for me to catch up when he was well out of earshot of the buildings. “Persuade these yokels to keep their hands off the hot stuff or they’ll blow their bodies to Hell and their brains to Hades! Understand?”

  “There’ll be CBW agents among the supplies you’re going to store here?”

  “There will. Some real beauts! Horrible stuff, most of it!” He shook his head. “But there’ll be plenty of small arms ammo. And other standard items they can use to bang away with—if they have to!” He looked at the earthworks. “You planned this layout?”

  “No sir. It’s modified Vauban.”

  “Vauban?” He looked puzzled, then laughed. “Back to the seventeenth century, eh? Well, you’re probably right. And you’re doing a good job. Glad to see it.” He paused, then added softly, “I’m going to retire here—when the time comes.” He held out his hand. “Nice to know I’ll have somebody to talk to.”

  I watched his car drive out through the gateway and walked back to the Council Chamber. Anslinger and his allies were in animated discussion, and the Deacon broke it off to greet me. “Nicely done, Gavin. You had me worried for a moment. But we’ve passed the test. The Colonel was hesitant about approving a Depot here until he was sure there would be somebody familiar with the material he’s going to store.” He rubbed his hands together. “Once the Army fills the Depot—then I guess we’ll have everything we need. In case of need! Eh, Gavin?”

  “Only after we’ve got men who know how to use it.” Use it on whom, I wondered.

  I had hardly spoken to Judith for a month; I had seen her shaking out rags or dumping garbage, and on those occasions she had made quite a performance of not seeing me. She had continued to retain her spinsterhood, and I decided that An-slinger’s warning was a distant threat; that his old tried and true methods of maintaining discipline would have to wait until the situation outside the Settlement made it obvious to the whole population that their existence was at stake. Law and order were still being maintained in most parts of the United States, and Anslinger had no immediate excuse for persuading Council to revive the methods of Dracon.

  Judith was changing. In the Pen she had been a competent and self-contained person. During our escape she had shown herself to be brave and essentially sensible. Her rejection of me as a husband was not sensible from the practical point of view. From our brief exchanges, from her looks and words, I felt that she was on the verge of doing something desperate.

  I thought I could understand why; she had lost her cause, the reason for which she had risked her life and her memory. It was now obvious that Paxin was a dead issue. Most outsiders knew it was a chemical reenforcer of learned behavior and didn’t seem to care. They used it as an escape from concern about their personal futures. And in Sherando it was not needed—Believers were quite sure of their physical and spiritual futures. In any case it was a post-1990 chemical and therefore evil by definition and banned by rule. Even if she recovered her report from the data banks of NIH its publication now would cause hardly a ripple. And all this meant not only had Judith lost her reason for suffering and escaping, it meant that Eugene Drummond had died in a pointless undertaking.

  The rigid social structure of the Settlement made it difficult for any single man and woman to be alone together. I, as an outsider, was free from many of the restrictions which constrained Believers; Judith, as an insider was not only constrained but watched to make sure that her behavior did not offend the Light. The first chance I had of talking to her privately was on the night that President Michael Randolph spoke on the State of the Union.

  The importance of his address to the nation was emphasized by the fact that it was carried live in prime time by all US and Canadian networks, and relayed by Settlement cable. Outside TV was banned in Sherando, and as most of the cable programs were educational or inspirational I had given up watching television. That night I went to the General Assembly, one of the few opportunities for men and women to mix, and managed to get a seat next to Judith.

  She greeted me without warmth but with relief. My presence as an ostensible suitor was of some value to her as protection against the disapproval of those around us. And when the President started to speak we became too engrossed to worry about what they thought.

  Michael Randolph was a good speaker, a better speaker in fact than Grainer, for whom he had often spoken. That evening he spoke without notes, an honest American speaking to other honest Americans. Simple, straightforward, and utterly convincing. He must have convinced most viewers across the nation. The words were his, the voice was his, the phrases were his. Only afterward did I realize that the concepts were those of the Teacher and the plans were those of Grainer.

  He started with the traditional Presidential invocation, “My fellow Americans,” but thereafter said little that was traditional. He told the youth of the nation that they must prepare to carry a double burden. “The burden you carry now and the burden which the generation after you would usually carry. Because statistics make it certain that generation will be smaller than even the pessimists have suggested. In middle age you will have to support us as we grow old and the new generation of children who will be bom when the birth rate again starts to rise, as rise it surely will!”

  “The poor dumb bastard believes that!” whispered Judith.

  “We Americans can meet the challenge, as we have met other challenges in the past You of the rising generation will not be left to meet it unaided
. Today I am placing the nation on a war footing. But not the kind of war in which the youngest and best of us have to suffer and die. A new kind of war; a war against future poverty and suffering. Now, while America is in the bloom of her full strength, all of us must direct our every nerve and sinew to serve the nation after we are gone.”

  “Now he’s misquoting Kipling!” muttered Judith.

  “Quiet damn you!” I hissed.

  “At present American industrial production is increasing at a rate unprecedented in our history. A rate of increase not achieved even in past wars. The programs initiated by my great predecessor, President Grainer, are now bearing fruit”

  “Grainer?” whispered Judith. ‘The President who thought himself king!” I almost slapped her.

  “I am shifting America into a war economy. But not to produce the weapons of war. I am not diverting the energies and skills of the American people toward the creation of engineering and scientific miracles whose only purpose is to destroy, whose only end is to be destroyed. Our efforts will be to build every variety of useful product, from the most complex electronic equipment to the simplest of hand tools. To build things to serve both the present and the future.

  “We live in a prosperous age, the most affluent age in human history. That prosperity, that affluence, will continue. But it must be an affluence without excessive luxury. The kind of prosperity which demands sacrifices, the full-employ-ment which in the past has only occurred during periods of rearmament and war, the times when every citizen was needed to produce the weapons our fighting men and women needed to defend our country. From now on the skills and labor of every American will be needed to create products of permanent value. Not to be shot in the air, or sunk in the sea, or exploded in the earth. We must start to produce for preservation. We must produce to serve our posterity.”

  I began to see the object of all this political rhetoric.

  “In this tremendous national effort we must all make sacrifices, as we have willingly made sacrifices in the past when our nation was in peril. We must practice accelerated cost-containment intervention, turn away from the tawdry and the superfluous. We must not squander energy, materials, and human effort on making things to fill a created demand, on novelties to titillate our taste for novelty, on responses to the caprice of changing fashions. We must concentrate on the creation of things which have durability and use. And, as a personal opinion, educated as I am in the views of that great creative American, Thomas Jefferson, I believe that in creating such things we will also be creating beauty. The real beauty shown by the useful and the good.”