The bow twanged, a great bass throb of music in the silent misty street. The policeman pitched out of his saddle, the arrow through his breast, the astonishment on his face so ridiculous that a couple of gangmen guffawed. Hammer cursed; the horse had reared, screamed, and then galloped on down the street. The clattering echoes beat at the walls of the house like alarm-crying sentries.
A man stuck his head out the window of a dwelling. He was drowsy, but he saw the unkempt band outside and yelled—a choked gurgle it was, drowned in an arrow’s blood-track before it had been properly born.
“Snagtooth an’ Mex, get in that house an’, silence anyone else!” rapped Hammer. “You five”—he swept an arm in an unconsciously imperial gesture—“take care o’ anyone else here who heard. The rest come on!”
They ran down the street, disregarding noise but not making much anyway. The town had changed considerably, but Hammer remembered the layout. The police station, he thought briefly and wryly, he knew very well—just about every Saturday night, in the old days.
They burst onto that block and raced for the station. There it was, the same square and solid structure, dingy now with years, the trimmings gone, but there were horses hitched before it and the door stood ajar—
Through the door! The desk sergeant and a couple of men gaped blankly down the muzzle of Hammer’s gun, their minds refusing to comprehend, their hands rising by stunned automatism. Others of the gang poured down the short halls, into every room. There came yells, the clatter of feet, the brief sharp bark of a gun and the racket of combat.
Hoofs pounded outside. A gun cracked, and one of Hammer’s men standing guard at the door, fell. Hammer himself jumped to the window, smashed the glass of it with his rifle butt, and shot at the half-dozen or so mounted police outside—returning from their beats, no doubt, and alarmed at what they saw.
He had little opportunity to practice. Shells were too scarce. His first shot went wild, the second hit a horse, the third was as ineffectual as the first. But the police did retreat. They weren’t such good shots either, though a couple of slugs whined viciously close, through the window and thudding into the wall beyond.
“Here, Dick!” His men were returning from the interior,of the building, and they bore firearms, bore them as they would something holy and infinitely beautiful, for these were the way to a life worth living. “Here—shootin’ weapons!”
Hammer grabbed a submachinegun and cut loose. The troopers scattered, leaving their dead, and fled down the streets. And there were those other two bands entering—Hammer laughed for sheer joy.
“We got the whole station,” reported one of his men. “Bob got it in the leg, an’ I see they plugged Little Jack an’ Tony. But the place is ours!”
“Yeah. Lock up these cops, take what weapons an’ horses you need, an’ ride aroun’ town. Herd ever’body down into the main square in the center o’ town. Be careful, there’ll be some trouble an’ killin’, but we don’t have to be on the receivin’ end o’ any o’ it. Mart. Rog, an’ One-Ear, hold the station here an’ look after our wounded, Sambo an’ Putzy, follow me. I’m goin’ t’ the square now to—take possession!”
There was noise in the street, running and stamping feet, shouts and oaths and screams. Now ana then laughter or gunfire. Roderick
Wayne gasped out of sleep, sweating. What a dream! Nightmare recollection of the black years—
No dream!
There was a tremendous kicking and beating on the door, and a voice bawling in some uncouth accent: “Open up in there! Open up in the name o’ the law!”
More laughter, like wolves baying. Someone yelling. A cry that choked off into silence. Wayne jumped out of bed. Even then he was dimly surprised to find he wasn’t shaking and gibbering in blind panic. “Get Al, Karen,’’ he said. “Stay inside, in a back room. I’ve got to look into this.”
He stopped in the living room to get his rifle. It was only a souvenir now, few cartridges left, but he had killed men with it in the black years. And must I go through that again? No—please not!
Wood split and crashed, and a man leaped into the house over the fallen door. Wayne saw the pistol and dropped his own unloaded rifle. He remembered such ragged figures, the shaggy wolf-eyed men whose weapons were all too ready'. The outlaws had returned.
“Smart,” nodded the gangman. “ 'Nother sec ’n’ I'd’a scragged you. Outside.”
“What. . . is . . . this ?” Wayne’s lips were stiff.
“Get out!”.
Wayne went obliquely, praying he could draw the bandit out of the house. “If it’s loot you want,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level, “I’ll show you where the silver is.”
Another gangman entered. He had abondoned his unaccustomed gun for his old ax. “Ever’body out o’ here?” he asked.
“I just got in,” said the first. “I’ll search it myself. Find y’r own house.” He turned on Wayne and slammed him in the stomach with one fist, “Scram, you—down t’ the main square!”
Retching, Wayne staggered back, and outside mostly by chance. Sick and dizzy, head roaring like his collapsing world, he leaned against the wall.
“Rod!”
He turned, unbelieving. Karen had just come around the side of the house, pale but outwardly composed. “Are you all right, Rod?” she whispered.
“Yeah . . . yeah . . . but you . . . how— ?”
“I heard them talking and slipped out a window. But Rod—Al’s gone.”
“Gone!” Briefly, new dismay shook Wayne. Al—whatever the mutant was, Al was his son. Then relief came, realization. “He must have sneaked out, too. He’s all right. He knows how to run and hide—all mutant kids learn that.” His mind added grayly: And in the next generation all human kids will have to learn it.
“But us—Rod, what is this?”
Wayne shrugged and started down the street. “Town’s apparently captured,” he said.
“Outlaws—we have to run, Rod! Have to get away!”
“Not much use, I’m afraid. This is the work of a well-disciplined group under a smart leader. They must have come up from the south, resisting the temptation to plunder on the way. They took us by complete flat-footed surprise, overpowered the police—I recognized Ed Haley’s pistol in that bandit’s hand—and are now rounding us up in quite a methodical fashion. I wasn’t just shoved out, I was ordered to report to the square. That suggests they're guarding all ways out. Anyway, we can’t flee right now.”
They had fallen in with a group of citizens moving with the dumb blank obedience of stunned minds toward the square under outlaw guard. The gang was having little trouble. They went from house to house, forcing the inhabitants into the street. The work went fast.
There was fighting now and then, short and sharp, ending in blow of club or knife or bullet. A couple of families with guns stood off the invaders. Wayne saw fire arrows shot into the roofs of those houses.
He shuddered and bent his head to Karen’s ear. “We do have to get out as soon as we can,” he muttered. “If we can. They’re disciplined now, and wholly merciless. Once we’re completely rounded up, the discipline will break but the ruthlessness stay in such an orgy of looting and drinking, burning and rape and murder, as has always followed barbarian conquests.”
"They can’t stay long,” she answered desperately. “The government . . . this is on the air route—”
“That’s what I can't figure out. They must know they can’t remain, so why did they come here in the first place? Why not raid the lands closer to home? Well—we’ll have to see, that’s all.”
The—herd—of citizens entered the square and walked toward the little memorial in its center with the queer blind shuffle that cattle in a stockyard chute have. There were other outlaw guards posted around the square and on the memorial, weapons ready. The monument was a granite shaft with a stone bench on each side, and seated there—
Wayne did not remember the bearded giant, but Karen, caught a sudden gasp of recogni
tion. “It . . . it . . . Rod, it’s Hammer. Richard Hammer!”
“Eh?”
“Don't you recall—the mechanic at the service station—we always used to get our gas there, and once when I smashed a fender on the car he fixed it so you wouldn’t notice—”
The chief heard them. There weren’t many people in the square yet, and the early sun struck dazzling off Karen’s hair. “Why, it’s Miz’ Wayne,” he said. “Howdy Miz’ Wayne.”
“H-h-hello,” faltered Karen.
“Lookin’ purtier ’n ever. too. Wayne, you had all the luck.”
The mathematician shouldered his way forward, suddenly weak with a dreadful clawing fear. “Hammer —what is this?” he got out.
“I’m takin’ over Southvale. Meet y’r new boss.”
“You—” Wayne swallowed. He choked down the panic rising in him and said in a level, toneless voice: “I gather you’ve become chief of this band and led it back here for a raid. But—you must know you can’t get away with it. We’re on an airline route. The government will know.”
Hammer smiled wearily. “I’ve figgered all that out. I intend to stay here. I'm gatherin’ all the folks t’ tell ’em t’ be good, because we don’t mind killin’. But if y’re really interested—” He sketched his further plans.
“You’re crazy—it’s not possible.”
“A lot o’ less possible things have happened. If you all, not too fair no’th, felt safe, what about the gov’ment ’way out in Oregon? We’ll do it!”
“But even if you can—Hammer, do you realize the government is the only link left with our past, our civilization? You’d throw man back a thousand years.”
“So what? Wayne, don’t you nor anybody else hand me none o’ that crap ’bout law an’ order an’ humanity. You’re fifteen years too late. You an’ your kind made us outlaws, drivin’ us away when we came starvin’ to you, houndin’ us south an’ then in your fat smugness forgettin’ about us. It’s been hard, Wayne, battle an’ death an’ hunger all those years. We had t’ get hard ourselves, t’ stay alive.”
“You could have stuck it out in the north as we did, and raised your own food free from most bandits.”
“Free only because so many people like us went south. Nor were most o’ us farmers, with land an’ equipment an’ experience.” Anyway you did drive us out when you were strong. I ain’t blamin’ you. You had t’ live.. But it’s our turn now, so shut up.” Hammer’s eaglesque eyes swung to Karen, he smiled. It was a winter-cold smile, warmth and humor had died long ago in him. “You, I’ll be seein’ more of,” he said. “It’s been so long—”
The square was well filled with people now, and more were arriving and being herded into side streets and buildings. Some were still numb. Some wept or prayed or implored or tried to ingratiate themselves, some cursed and threatened, some retreated into impassive silence. But—prisoners all. Captured, impotent, legitimate prey.
Hammer turned as an outlaw galloped up, thrusting his horse through the crowd without regard for their safety. “What is it?” asked the chief, not anxiously. His victory was too tremendously evident.
“I dunno—some trouble down by the river,” said the gangman. “About half Joe’s detail ain’t showed up yet.”
“Hm-m-m? Musta found some likker.”
“Yeah—Hey—What’s that?”
Hammer turned. He couldn’t see much sitting down. Huge and shaggy and ablaze with the arrogance of his triumph, he sprang lithely onto the bench and looked north along the street. He grinned, then laughed, then shouted with humorless mirth. “Lamp that, boys. Some crazy mutie—look at him!”
Wayne was so placed that he could also see down that street. His heart staggered, for a black instant he couldn’t believe, refused to comprehend, then—
“Alaric.”
The boy was coming down the street, walking slowly and carrying an object, a fantastic wire-tangled grotesquerie of electronic surrealism, thrown together in the wildest haste and with no recognizable design. A wire led from it to a reel of cable mounted on a mule’s back, and the cable snaked behind, along the road—it must go clear to the powerhouse!
How had Al done it? That cable was sacrosanct, reserved for electrifying the airport. That apparatus, the invaluable parts in it— how had he gotten them? How— why? Why? What mad vagary of a reasonless brain had prompted him to go thus on this darkest of mornings ? What—
“Come on, kid,” shouted Hammer boisterously. “Whatcha got?”
Alaric came closer. His delicately cast features were set in concentration, his strange light eyes flashing like glacial ice, not a human gleam. He lifted his device and twirled a pair of dials.
"May be a weapon,” said a bandit uneasily and raised his rifle.
“Not . . . Alaric—” It was a hoarse cry from Wayne’s throat, and he made a clumsy lunge for the outlaw. Hammer swept one long arm in a careless blow and sent him crashing to the ground.
The gangman squeezed the trigger on his rifle but never completed the motion. He was dead before that. Wayne, sprawled on his back, looking up through a whirling fog of grief. and horror and hopeless defeat, saw the man's body explode.
It went up in a white burst of steam, a crash of rending bone and tissue and a brief glare of incandescence. The rifle flying from him glowed cherry red, blowing up as its cartridges detonated. Before the fragments had fallen, something had swept the outer edges of the square, and where the guards had stood were steamclouded heaps of charred bone and shredded flesh.
The crowd yelled, a single beast cry half of terror, half of surging death-lusting triumph, and swept down on the remaining gangmen. Most were too demoralized to resist. Others struggled, and got a few townspeople before they were trampled under.
Hammer roared, the bellow of a pain-crazed bull, as the mob raged toward him. A horse reared as its outlaw rider was yanked from the saddle. Two slugging blows, and Hammer had cleared a way to the mount. He sprang upon its back, howling, and the attackers fell away from his insane charge.
Almost, he made it. He was on the edge of the square when a man whose brother had been killed made a long jump and grabbed the horse’s bridle—grabbed it, and hung on till a dozen men held the gang boss secured.
Only one or two outlaws escaped. The rest, with the town in no mood for trials, were hanged that afternoon. Hammer asked not to be blindfolded, and they granted him that much. To the end, he stood looking out over the sun-glittering river, the rolling tree-clad hills, and the fair broad land green to harvest.
Wayne took no part in the executions. He had other things to think about.
After the celebrations, the unending parades and parties and speeches, the reorganization and the defense tightening, there was a rather grim conference in Wayne’s house. He and Karen were there, seated together before the fire, and Alaric sat opposite them, nervous and bewildered. A government representative was present, a lean man who looked older than he was, Robert Boyd by name and roving presidential agent by profession. In the corner, shadow-cloaked and unnoticed, squatted the shaggy troll-shape of the dog, his sullen eyes brooding redly on the others.
“You’ve heard the official account,” said Wayne. “Alaric, a mutant idiot savant, invented and built a weapon to defeat the outlaws. He’s been much made of, and nobody pays any attention to Pop Hanson—he’s the powerhouse watchman, and was rather rudely treated. One must make allowance for the eccentricity of genius, or so they say.”
“Well, one must,” nodded Boyd.
“Hardly. If so many of our people hadn’t died, I’d say this was a good thing. If taught us not to be complacent and careless. More important, it at least indicated that mutants can serve society as talented members.” Wayne’s eyes were haggard. “Only, you see, Al didn't behave like a genius. He acted like a low-grade moron.”
"Inventing that—”
"Yes, going all around Robin Hood’s barn, committing violence and theft, working like a slave, risking his neck, all to build that
weapon and use it. But he told me his dog warned him hours ahead of time. Certainly he was at the powerhouse early. Don’t you see, we could have been ready for the outlaws, we could have stood them off, driven their ill-armed force away with no loss to us if Alaric had merely gone to the police with that warning.” Thunderstruck, Boyd swung his eyes to meet the blue vacancy of Alaric’s. “Why . . . why didn’t you ?”
The boy stared, slowly focusing his vision and mind, face twisted with effort. He ... his father had told him the day before . . . what was it now? Yes—“I . . . didn’t . . . think of it,” he fumbled.
“You didn’t think of it. It just never occurred to you.” Dazed, Boyd turned to Wayne. “As long as you said it yourself, I agree— idiot savant.”
“No.” Karen spoke very quietly. “No, not in any ordinary sense. Such a person is feeble-minded in all but one respect, where he is brilliant. I used to teach school, and know a little psychology. Yesterday I gave Al some special tests I’d worked out. Science, mechanical skill, comprehension—in too many respects he’s a genius.”
“I give up. What is he, then?”
“A mutant,” said Karen.
“And . . . this weapon—?”
“Alaric tried to tell me, but we couldn’t understand each other,” said Wayne. “And the thing itself burned out very quickly in use. It’s just fused junk now. From what I could gather, though, and by deduction on that basis, I think it projected an intense beam of an inconceivably complex wave form to which one or more important organic compounds in the body resonate. They disintegrated, releasing their binding forces. Or perhaps it was body colloids that were destroyed, releasing terrific surface energies. I'm just as glad I don’t know. There are too many weapons in the world.”
“Mm-m-m—officially I can’t agree with you. but privately I do. Anyway, the inventor is still here—the genius.”
“It takes more than genius,” said Wayne. “It just isn’t possible for any human being to sit down and figure such a thing out in detail. All the facts are available, in handbooks and texts and papers—quantum mechanics, circuit characteristics, physical constants. But even if he knew exactly what he was after, the greatest genius in the world would have to spend months or years in analytical thought, then more time in putting all those facts together into the pattern he was after. And even then he wouldn’t know it all. There’d be a near infinitude of small factors interacting on each other, that he couldn’t allow for. He’d have to build a model and experiment with it, the empirical process known to engineers as getting the bugs out.
Anderson, Poul - Tomorrow's Children 02 Page 3
