Edward Llewellyn - [Douglas Convolution 03]

by Prelude to Chaos (epub)

  “You can sure handle traffic fast!”

  “Two half-decent code operators can pass traffic with zero error at twice the speed of two oldsters bellowing over mikes and misunderstanding each other. You should listen to some of our boats trying to report where they’ve found fish!”

  “I have!”

  “If it wasn’t for the scramblers so would the whole of the Eastern seaboard. If the Council want to keep us out of the public ear they’d better lock up the radiophones on half the boats in the fleet” She paused. “I’ll bet the Coast Guard have decoders.”

  “Not any that’ll sort out our mix,” I said. “Not since I lined ’em up. But how come you don’t attract attention? I mean, this whole net you’ve set up between Settlements?”

  “We use minimum power and stay in the ham bands. Fourteen megahertz at twenty watts lets us contact Almost anywhere in the world at some time of the day or night. And we always follow ham procedures—although we usually work too fast for any normal ham to copy unless they go to the trouble of taping. And we always answer any ham who calls us in code. There were hardly any before last year. Now a lot more are starting to switch to CW from radiophone. They’re starting to learn code again. I guess that means more and more of them are being isolated, running out of power and spares. In some parts of the world—the things I hear! It’s pathetic!” She listened a moment. “There’re those bastards at Sherando calling. That’s a Settlement somewhere in Virginia.

  Blasting away at full power as usual. Guess I’ll have to answer.” And she turned to her task, the headphones around her neck, the morse echoing loud and hard through the room. I went slowly back to my workshop, sentimental enough to enjoy hearing about the revival of an old communication skill, depressed by the reasons for its revival.

  Judith and I seemed to be the only people in the Settlement who were depressed, or even much interested, in what was happening in the outside world. All through the winter news bulletins on radio and TV became increasingly cheerful as the news itself worsened. The population decline was accelerating, there were few convincing examples of women under twenty becoming pregnant. News from some parts of the world, especially those where a girl of fourteen was considered to be of marriageable age, was catastrophic. Whole populations were beginning to see disaster ahead and, lacking the Affluence’s faith in Science, were turning to older faiths, resurrecting fertility rites which tended to be barbarous and bloody.

  Believers, while deploring what was going on, tended to show an element of self-satisfaction as they heard of these disasters. One of the least attractive aspects of a “chosen people” is their indifference to what happens to the nonchosen. There was some excuse for those Settlements which were already suffering from persecution, for persecution seldom develops unselfishness or improves the character of those persecuted. So far the Believers in Sutton Cove, thanks to their isolation and their economic importance to the merchants of Standish, had only had black looks and curses hurled at them. But, after all, they too were Americans and should have been as anguished as I when, in the spring, the news broadcasts started to play the flip side of the American dream.

  Yet even Judith, a fine scientist, who might have been adding her brains and skill to the struggle to discover some solution to the Impermease disaster, was more worried about the health of the few hundred children in the Settlement than the sterility of millions of American girls.

  I mentioned this to her once. She sighed and said, “I’ve told you already, Gavin. All their research is hopeless. The eggs in those girls were sterilized years ago. I won’t waste my time trying to bring the dead back to life. What I can do is to help the living to grow up healthy and strong, fit to build a better world.”

  “So America means nothing to you anymore?”

  She turned to stare at me. “Oh yes it does! The new America. The America which will rise from the cesspool of the Affluence. That is what we are working for here!”

  That was what she was working for. Since my moment of enlightenment when she had saved me from getting killed trying to kill Futrell I had been working chiefly for my own survival—and hers. If any marriage can be called satisfactory, ours was satisfactory. Because of our shared love, or our shared guilt, or because we were both working so hard we had neither the inclination nor the energy to criticize each other. Marriage was less of an entrapment than I had feared. In fact that first winter in Sutton Cove was among the happiest times of my life.

  XIII

  “Want to take a ride into town?” Barbara was standing in the door of my workshop. “Truck’s leaving in half an hour.” “Sorry!” I gestured toward the bench. “I promised to fix Jehu’s radar by tonight.”

  “It was Jehu who sent me to ask. He’s the trader. Sam and I are driving. But there’s room for a third. Especially if the third has a gun.”

  “You’re expecting—?”

  “I’m just passing on Jehu’s message. Trailer’s loading from the lobster pens. We’re taking the Brinks.” She gave me a cool stare and turned back toward the wharf.

  It was the first time that Barbara and I had exchanged more than a few words since my arrival. As Judith had remarked, Barbara was out of my age group—a hint that had kept me away from her through the winter. But if we live as men we dream as boys, and Barbara’s face often floated into my dreams, usually regarding me with disdain. Had I really been her age I would have been chasing her ass with the other youngsters; a prize which few of them seemed to win.

  Now she had thrown down a clear challenge. The Settlement owned five large trucks and one second-hand armored car—the Brinks. A beast of a vehicle whose only virtues were its armor and an ability to go cross-country. As rural roads became more dangerous the Settlement had started using it more often to haul lobsters to Standish and bring back the proceeds in gold. I walked to the door and looked toward the cove. The lobster pens were large slatted boxes floating just beneath the surface of the water. Trapped lobsters, their claws pegged to stop them from fighting, were stored in the pens until they could be trucked in one ship-

  ment to the Standish dealers and thence air-freighted all over the United States.

  An old coaster, the Ranula, lay alongside the wharf. The Council had bought her to shop fish down the coast to Clar-port, now that the dealers could no longer persuade their drivers to make the risky run to Sutton Cove. But she was too slow for the rapid transit from sea to table demanded by the epicures who paid astronomical prices for our free-ranging lobsters. So Settlement trucks continued to go into Standish. Jehu was asking me to join Mm on this trip; Barbara was challenging me to come.

  Jehu must be expecting trouble; Barbara was probably hoping for it. Damnation! Judith had been insistent that I keep my bloody past to myself. But the news that I was a professional gunman must have leaked out. Jehu’s invitation had the force of an appeal. Barbara’s delivery had turned it into a challenge. I cursed again, put on my windbreaker and cap, took my Luger from the locked cupboard where I kept it, and went down to watch the large trailer being loaded.

  “Glad to have you along, Mister Gavin,” said Jehu, looking up from his tally sheet as he counted the crates going aboard.

  “Nice day for a ride through the woods!” I remarked. “Are we in for a storm?”

  “Maybe! Maybe! Time’s about ripe for one.”

  “Do you think that kid should be driving if it starts?”

  “If a blow comes I’d rather have that kid at the wheel than any man in the Cove. That’s why I asked her to drive this trip. And why I asked you along. We’ll be coming back with more gold than I like to consider. This is settling-up day!” Which meant we’d be returning with payment for the last six loads.

  “The last settling-up day, Jehu?”

  ‘The last for me. Chuck can collect the next payment himself.” The final sling-load of crated prisoners swung up onto the trailer and Jehu slammed the tailgate closed. He shouted to Sam, “Back her up, lad! Let’s get moving.”

 
I watched Sam backing the Brinks onto the wharf, and helped Jehu hitch on the trailer. Not an easy task. The Brinks had been designed to frustrate robbers, not tow trailers.

  Jehu opened its rear door. “Mind riding up front, Mister Gavin? Nothing won’t happen on the way into town.”

  I glanced past him into the back and saw Midge, a girl of small size and immense energy, sitting with headphones around her neck. “What’s she doing?” *-

  “Workin’ the radio.” Jehu climbed aboard.

  “But to take another kid on a trip like this—”

  “Barbara wants her along.” Jehu closed the door.

  “Mister Gavin, are you coming?” Barbara called from the cab.

  Sam, a lean and loose-jointed youth, was behind the wheel. He grinned at me. “I drive up. Barb drives back. So if I sight a deer—or something—I can use that!” And he pointed to a hunting rifle in the roof rack. We had at least one other decent weapon aboard.

  The dirt road had deteriorated since Judith and I had ridden down it ten months before. “Damn the Department of Highways!” said Sam as he steered the Brinks between the ruts and past an overhanging bank. “We’ve told ’em a dozen times that lot’s going to slide and block the road.”

  “We pay our taxes and they do nothing for us,” complained Barbara.

  The shutter between the cab and the back of the Brinks slid open and Midge’s freckled face appeared. “I’ve made contact with the State Police. They say the road’s clear right into Standish.”

  “So they say!” muttered Sam. “How the hell do they know when they don’t look?” But he began to drive faster, which was not very fast with the heavy trailer lurching along behind.

  The forest stretched away unbroken on each side of the road. “Do outsiders ever go into these woods?” I asked.

  “Nope. Too many unexploded missiles lying around.”

  “But you kids hunt in them?”

  “We know where the missiles are!” Sam and Barbara both laughed. “The folks in Standish—they hear explosions in the woods at times. When a deer steps on one.” Or when some kid sets off a stick of dynamite to scare the townsfolk!

  Judith and I had not been impressed by what little we had seen of Standish when we had ridden through it on our bikes. Now that I saw more of it as we drove in from the highway I was even less impressed. A small decaying town on a railroad where few trains ran, off a thruway which now led to nowhere. The inhabitants seemed as unattractive as their town. The expression on the faces of the people we passed as the Brinks jolted down Main Street showed their dislike of us, and loungers on the comer of the town square shouted abuse as we turned into the trucking center where the semitrailer was waiting to take our lobsters to the airport at Augusta.

  Jehu climbed stiffly from the rear of the Brinks as the dealer, a short fat man, came bustling up. “Good to see you, Jehu! Good to see you! You’ve got a full load?”

  “A full load, Mister Goodson,” said Jehu. “You’ve got what’s due us? I aim to start back for the Cove afore dark.” “Sergeant Carver’s escorting the gold over from the bank now. Nuisance you people not taking paper anymore. But I can’t say I blame you. Maybe it’s best to have your capital in something solid these days—even at the premium. Here comes the Sergeant now.”

  A police cruiser was turning into the trucking center and I slipped out of the cab. It wasn’t likely that I would be recognized by a local cop, but there was no point in taking chances. I was dressed like the out-of-town truckers who were standing and talking together while their trucks were being loaded. I joined them. Nobody took any notice of me. I heard the Sergeant saying to Jehu, “I checked it at the bank. It’s all there.”

  “Thanks, Mike.” Jehu accepted the Sergeant’s word without question. And he did look like the type of cop I remembered. “Expecting trouble?”

  “I’m always expecting trouble these days!” The Sergeant sighed. “And you folks down at the Cove aren’t getting more popular. There’s a lot of ugly stories going around about what you’re doing down there. Grabbing kids, keeping young girls against their will. That sort of thing. All lies—I know!” He glanced round, then added, “Best not come come up with your lobsters for a while. Those dealers will be mad at me for saying so, ’cos your Settlement’s just about the only thing that’s keeping this town afloat. But I don’t like some of the talk I hear.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Mike.”

  “I hope it don’t come to nothing!” The Sergeant noticed Midge, Barbara, and Sam getting out of the Brinks and started toward a soda fountain across the street. “Hey—you kids! Get back in your truck.”

  “Why?” asked Sam, swinging around.

  The Sergeant nodded to a group of youths who had gathered at the entrance of the trucking center, and were starting to jeer. “Want to mix it with those bums?”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” said Sam.

  “Do like the Sergeant says!” ordered Jehu.

  Sam cursed, Barbara scowled, and Midge grumbled, “I only came on this trip to get a fudge sundae!” But all three climbed back into the Brinks.

  The dealer was tallying the lobsters while Jehu and the Sergeant went to the police cruiser, and returned carrying a small money chest between them. After they had stowed it in the back of the Brinks the Seregant dusted his hands and hitched up his belt. “Think I’ll go and break up that gang of young loafers!” He walked toward them and they responded first by shifting their insults from us to him, and then by piling into their autos and roaring away.

  The Sergeant came back and got into his cruiser. “Gotta go into Augusta now, Jehu. Don’t hang around town, and have a safe trip Home. Radio the station if you run into trouble.” He raised his hand and drove off.

  “Wish there were more like Mike,” said Jehu, when I joined him. “He’s been a good friend to the Settlement for a long time. We ain’t got too many friends left no more. Maybe he’s our last friend in this damned town.”

  “I’d like to pick up some stuff from the hardware,” I said. “Mind if I take off for half an hour?”

  “Sure! You don’t look like no Believer. And we’re safe enough here in the loading bay. These truckers are out of town and they’d beat shit outta anybody who tried to jump a track. Even ours! But don’t hang around. I want to get out of this dump.”

  I promised to be quick and looked into the cab of the Brinks. “Midge, I’ll fetch you a pack of sundae.”

  “Me too!” Barbara and Sam showed their residual youth.

  I promised to bring them all sundaes and walked around the warehouse to emerge at the side of the square. Dressed like a trucker nobody took any particular notice of me. I bought the items I wanted in the hardware at the end of Main Street, then walked back toward the loading bays. There was a bar on the comer, and I hesitated. I hadn’t tasted bourbon since our arrival in Sutton Cove, and God knows when I’d get another chance.

  Although it was early afternoon, the place was full of drinkers; noisy evidence of Standish’s commercial stagnation. The drinkers along the bar were complaining about the Government, the drinkers standing grouped at the window were looking at the Brinks on the far side of the square and exchanging absurd and scurrilous stories about what went on at Sutton Cove.

  Stories that Believers were polygamous, which was absurd. Descriptions of supposed sexual orgies in obscene and fantastic detail. Rumors that the Settlement was kidnapping children, when there were few children around to kidnap. These were men and women who had started to realize that something terrible was happening and were looking for scapegoats. The Believers at Sutton Cove filled the bill, as far as this part of Maine was concerned.

  The stories circulating among the watchers in the bar followed the same hate-raising pattern as the slanders which in the past had been aimed at Jews, Mormons, Catholics, Quakers, Masons, Protestants, and almost every minority which claimed superiority and appeared better off than their neighbors. Rumors listened to with excitement and passed on with eagerness for the
same conscious or unconscious reason; to raise a sense of public indignation which might later justify burning the homes and looting the property of the minority concerned. And the hatred behind that desire was fueled by more than common resentment. It was fired by the fact that the Sutton Settlement still contained fertile women.

  Even ordinarily decent people were looking for targets on whom to vent their anger at the impending collapse of their civilization. Most of them had realized by this time that the real fault lay with frightened and incompetent governments. But the Federal Government was remote and still too strong and brutal to attack. The Settlement, on the other hand, was nearby and apparently defenseless.

  The more I listened to the talk in the bar the angrier and more alarmed I became. By the time I had finished my bourbon I had heard all the lies I could stomach. I myself was no Believer, but I knew they were a moral, hard-working, and decent group of men and women, even if their own view of the future was essentially selfish and they believed they were the elect. More important, they were raising a crop of youngsters with decent manners and some morals. Children who might grow into self-reliant civilized adults, capable of rebuilding the kind of free and strong society which the United States had once been. Or which I hoped it had once been. Anyway, whatever the truth about the past, the kids in Sutton Cove were a notable improvement on the kids I had encountered elsewhere in America, and particularly the examples of arrested social development hanging around the square.

  I left the bar, stopped at the supermarket to pick up the sundaes I had promised the three child-adults in the Brinks, and made my way back to where the group of truckers were still smoking and talking. They were talking about neither the Settlements nor the Government, but about how many women they had managed to lay during their last trip. And how much easier it was to lay a woman now that the bitches didn’t worry about getting knocked up.