Alas, Babylon Part 15

"I had to pull my gun this morning to get Porky Logan buried. I had no authority. Now I do have authority, legally." His thoughts on the proclamation, at the moment, went no further. "That's fine. Now get into a chair."

He walked into his office. Because of the swivel chair, it was also the barbershop. Helen tied a towel around his neck and began snipping, deftly and rapidly. She was some woman, he thought. Under any conditions she could keep a household running smoothly. In ten minutes it was done.

Her hand ruffled and then smoothed his hair. He could feel her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, round and warm, pressing against his shoulder blades. "You're getting gray hairs, Randy," she said. The timbre of her voice was deeper than usual.

"W110 isn't?"

She rubbed and smoothed his temples. Her fingers kneaded the back of his neck. "Do you like that?" she whispered. "Mark loved it. When he came home, tense and worried, I always rubbed his temples and his neck like this."

Randy said, "It feels fine." He wished she wouldn't talk like that. She made him nervous. He put his hands on the arms of the chair and started to rise.

She pulled him back and whirled the chair so that he faced her. Her eyes were round. He could see beads of perspiration at the corners of her nose, and on her forehead. "You are Mark," she said. "Don't you believe me? Here, look!" She lifted the mirror from the desk and thrust it before his face.

He looked, wondering how he could gracefully escape, wondering what was wrong with her. It was true that his face, leaner and harder, looked like Mark's face now. "I do look something like him," he admitted, "but why shouldn't I? I'm his brother."

Her arms pinning him with unexpected strength, she kissed him wildly, as if her mouth could subdue and mold and change him.

His hands found her wrists and he forced her back. The mirror fell and smashed.

"Don't!" she cried. "Don't push me away! You're Mark! You can't deny it! You're Mark!"

He struggled out of the chair, clamping her wrists, trying not to injure her. He knew that she was mad and he fought to control the panic within himself. "Stop it!" he heard himself shouting. "Stop it, Helen! Stop it! I'm not Mark! I'm Randy!"

She screamed, "Mark!"

The door was ajar. Through it came Lib's voice, loud and welcome, "Randy, are you shorn? If Helen's finished, come on out. I've got something to show you."

He released Helen's wrists. She leaned against the desk, face averted, shoulders quivering, one hand stifling the sounds erupting from her mouth. He said, gently, "Please, Helen-" He touched her arm. She drew away from him. He fled into the living room.

Lib stood at the porch door, her face somber, beckoning. She said quietly, "Up to the roof, where we can talk."

Randy followed her, knowing that she must have heard and grateful for her interference. It was something he would have had to tell Lib anyway. He would have to tell Dan too. This emotional earthquake could bring down their house. It was a problem for a physician.

Up on the captain's walk, Randy lowered himself carefully into a deck chair. The canvas would rot before summer's end. His hands were shaking. "Did you hear it all?" he asked.

"Yes. All. And saw some too. Don't ever let her know." "What's wrong with her?" It was a protest rather than a question.

Lib sat on the edge of his chair and put her hands on his hands and said, "Stop shaking, Randy. I know you're confused. It was inevitable. I knew it was coming. I'll diagnose it for you as best I can. It's a form of fantasy."

Randy was silent, wondering at her detachment and cool ness.

"It is," she went on, "the sort of transference you find in dreams-the subst.i.tution in dreams of one person for another. Helen allowed herself to slip into a dream. I think she is a completely chaste person. She is, isn't she?"

"I'm sure of it, or I was."

"Yet she is a person who requires love and is used to it. For many years a man has been the greater part of her life. So she has this conflict-intense loyalty to her husband and yet need of a man to receive her abundance of love and affection. She tried to resolve the conflict irrationally. You became Mark. It was an hallucination."

"You're talking like a professional, Lib."

"I'm not a professional. I just wanted to be one. I majored in psychology. Remember?"

It was something she had told him but he had forgotten because it seemed incongruous and not in the least important. Lib looked like a girl who had majored in ballet and water-skiing at Miami rather than psychology at Sarah Lawrence. He knew that she worked for a year in a Cleveland clinic and had abandoned the job only because of her mother's illness. When she spoke of this year, which was seldom, it was with nostalgia, as some girls spoke of a year in Europe or on the stage. He suspected it must have been the most rewarding year of her life, and certainly there must have been a man, or men, in it. Randy said, "Lib, do you think she's crazy?"

"Helen's not psychotic. She's under terrible strain. She let herself go, but only for a moment. She indulged a temporary fantasy. Now it is over. Now she will be ashamed of herself. The best thing you can do is pretend it didn't happen. One day she'll mention it to you, perhaps obliquely, and apologize. Eventually she'll understand why she did it and the sense of guilt will leave her. One day, when we're better friends, I'll make her understand it. You know there is a man in the house for Helen-a perfectly fine man. I'm going to make that my special project."

Randy felt relieved. He looked out over the river, contemplating his ignorance of women and the peace of evening. On the end of the dock Ben Franklin and Peyton were fis.h.i.+ng. It was understood that anyone, child or adult, could go fis.h.i.+ng before breakfast or after a.s.signed ch.o.r.es were done. Fis.h.i.+ng was not only recreation but the necessary daily harvest of a crop providentially swimming at their feet. Presently the bra.s.s s.h.i.+p's bell on the porch sang its sharp, clean, sea note. The bell was a relic of Lieutenant Randolph Rowzee Peyton's longboats. It was the same bell that Randy's mother had used to summon Mark and him from the river to wash for dinner. There was peace and continuity in the sound of the bell. The bell announced that there was food on the table and a women in the kitchen. So it was not only a message to the children but to Randy. Helen had pulled herself together. He watched Ben and Peyton, trailed by Graf, thread their way up through the grove. Graf still shared Randy's couch but all day he shadowed the boy. This was right. A boy needed a dog. A boy also needed a father.

When the children were close to the house Randy yelled down, "What'd you get?"

Ben held up a string of bream and speckled perch. "Sixteen," he shouted, "on worms and crickets. I got fifteen, she only got one."

Peyton danced in indignation, a slim shrill-voiced sprite. "Who cares about fish? If I grow up I'm not going to be a fisherman!"

Helen called from the kitchen window. The children disappeared.

Randy said, "Did you ever hear a little girl say 'If I grow up' before?"

"No, I never did. It gives me the creeps." "Not their fault," Randy said. "Ours." "Would you want children, Randy?"

Randy considered the question. He thought of Jim Hickey's bees, and Peyton's "if," and of cow's milk you would not dare feed a baby in a contaminated zone, even if you had a cow, and of many other things.

Lib waited a long time for an answer and then she leaned across the chair and kissed him and said, "Don't try to answer now. I've got to go down and help with dinner. Don't come downstairs for a few minutes, Randy. We've whipped up a surprise."

At seven, conscious that he had not heard Dan return, Randy went downstairs. The table was set as if for a feast-a white cloth, two new candles; a salad bowl as well as plate at each place. A laden salad-boat of Haitian mahogany rode on the circular linen lagoon. Garnis.h.i.+ng the inevitable platter of broiled fish was a necklace of mushrooms. He tasted the salad. It was delicate, varied, and wonderful. "Who invented this?" he asked. He had not tasted greens in months.

Helen had not met his eyes since he entered the dining room. She said, "Alice Cooksey. Alice found a book listing edible palms, gra.s.ses, and herbs. Lib did most of the picking."

"What all's in it?"

"Fiddlehead ferns, hearts of palm, bamboo shoots, wild onions, some of the Admiral's ornamental peppers, and the first tomatoes out of Hannah Henry's garden."

Lib said, "Wait'll you try the mushrooms. That was Helen's idea. It's furury, for the last week they've been growing all over, right in front of our eyes, and only Helen recognized them as food."

"No toadstools I hope," Randy said.

Helen smiled and for the first time looked at him directly. "Oh, no. Alice thought of that too. I've been wandering around the hammock with an ill.u.s.trated book in one hand and a basket in the other."

Now that she could see he was treating the incident in his office as something that hadn't happened, she was regaining control of herself. He said, "Helen, you be careful in that hammock. And Lib, you stay out of palm trees. We don't want any snake bites or broken legs. Dan has troubles enough." He put down his fork. "Where is Dan?"

n.o.body knew. Dan was usually home before six. Occasionally, he was as late as this or later when he encountered an emergency. Still, it was impossible not to worry. It was at times like this that Randy truly missed the telephone. Without communications, the simplest mechanical failure could turn into a nightmare and disaster. He finished the fish, mushrooms, and salad, but without appet.i.te.

Randy fidgeted until eight and then said, "I'm going to see the Admiral. Maybe Dan stopped there for dinner." He knew this was unlikely, but he tried in any case to visit Sam Hazzard each evening and watch him comb the frequencies. There were other reasons. He stopped at the Wechek and Henry houses like a company commander checking his outposts. He slept uneasily unless he knew all was well around his perimeter. More compelling, Lib usually went with him. It was their opportunity to have a little time alone. It was paradoxical that they lived in the same house, ate almost every meal elbow to elbow or across the bar in his apartment, slept within twenty feet of each other, and yet they could be alone hardly at all.

Ben Franklin said, "Wait until I get the shotgun, Randy. I'll go with you. It's my night to stand guard." He raced upstairs. Helen said, "Do you really think you ought to let him do it, Randy>"

"It'd break his heart if I didn't. I think he'll be okay. Caleb is going to stay up with him and Malachai will be right there. Malachai will sleep with one eye open."

"Why are you letting him have your shotgun?"

"Because if something comes around the Henrys' yard I want him to hit it, not just pop away at it in the dark with a twenty-two. I've taught him how to handle the shotty. It'll be loaded with number two buck. He'll do all right."

Ben came out on the porch carrying the gun. Lib said, "Am I invited?"

Randy said, "Certainly." He turned to Bill McGovern. "If Dan shows up, give me three bells, will you?" Three strokes of the s.h.i.+p's bell meant come home, but it was not an emergency signal. Five bells was the panic b.u.t.ton. The bell could be heard for a mile along the sh.o.r.e and across water.

Pale yellow lamplight showed in the Henrys' windows. Randy knocked and Missouri, looking almost svelte in a newly acquired waistline, opened the door. "Mister Randy. I guessed 'twas you. I want to thank you for the honey. Tasted mighty good. Will you come in and have some tea?"

"Tea!" Randy saw a kettle steaming on a brick oven in the fireplace.

"We calls it tea. I grow mints under the house and dry 'em until they powders. So we has mint tea."

"We'll skip it tonight, Mizzoo. I just came to put Ben Franklin on his stand. Caleb ready?"

Missouri's son stepped out of the shadows, teeth and eyes gleaming. Incredibly, he carried a six-foot spear.

"Let me see that," Randy said. He hefted it. It had been fas.h.i.+oned, he saw, from a broken garden edger, the blade ground to a narrow triangle. It was heavy, well balanced, and lethal. "Uncle Malachai made it for me," Caleb said proudly.

"It's a wicked weapon, all right," Randy said, and returned it to the boy.

Malachai, carrying a lantern, joined them. Malachai said, "I figured that if Ben Franklin missed with the shotgun Caleb best have it for close-in defense, if it's truly a wolf, like Preacher says."

Randy was certain that whatever had stolen the Henrys' hens, and the pig, it wasn't a wolf, but he wanted to impress Ben Franklin with the seriousness of his watch. "Probably not a wolf," he said, "but it could be a cougar-a panther. My father used to hunt 'em when he was young. Plenty of panther in Timucuan County until the first boom brought so many people down. Now there aren't so many people, so there will be more panther."

They walked toward Balaam's tired barn. The mule snorted and rattled the boards in his stall. "It's only me, Balaam," Malachai said. "Balaam, quiet down!" Balaam quieted.

Randy pointed to the bench alongside the barn. "That's your stand, Ben." Bill McGovern had sat on the bench the previous night and seen nothing.

"Stand?" Ben Franklin said.

"That's what you call it in a deer hunt. When I was your age my father used to take me hunting and put me on a stand. There are a couple of things I want you to remember, Ben. Everything depends on you-and you, Caleb-keeping absolutely still. Whatever it is out there, is better equipped than you are. It can see better and hear better and smell better. All you've got on it is brains. Your only chance of getting it is to hear it before it hears or sees you." Randy looked at the sky. There were only stars. Later, there would be a quarter moon. "Chances are you'll hear it before you see it. But if you talk, or make any sound, you'll never see it at all because it'll hear you first and leave. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Ben said.

"You'll get cramped and you'll get tired. So when you sit on the stand you move around all you want at first and find out just how far you can move without making any noise. You got sh.e.l.ls in the chambers?"

"Yes, sir, and four extra in my pocket."

"You'll only need what's in the gun. If you don't get him with two you'll never get him at all. And Ben-"

"Yes, sir."

"Hold steady on it and don't miss. We want to get rid of this thing or somebody will have to sit up all night every night." Ben said, "Randy, suppose it's a man?"

This possibility had been restless in Randy's mind from the first and he had not wanted to mention it, but since it was mentioned he gave the unavoidable answer. "Whatever it is, Ben, shoot it. And Caleb, if he misses I depend on you to stick it." He turned to Malachai. "Thanks for lighting us out. We're going on to Admiral Hazzard's house now. Good night, Malachai."

"Good night," Malachai said. "I sleep light, Mister Randy." Lib took his hand and they walked to the river bank and down the path that led toward the single square of light announcing that Sam Hazzard was in his den. Randy chuckled, thinking of Caleb's spear. "We have just witnessed an historic event," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"North American civilization's return to the Neolithic Age." "I don't think it's funny," Lib said. "I didn't like the way you spoke to Ben Franklin. It was brutal."

"In the Neolithic," Randy said, "a boy either grows up fast or he doesn't grow up at all."

Sam Hazzard's den was compact and crowded, like a s.h.i.+pmaster's cabin stocked for a long and lonely voyage. It was filled with mementos of his service, ceremonial and Samurai swords, nautical instruments, charts, maps, books on shelves and stacked in corners, bound files of the Proceedings, The foreign Affairs Quarterly, and the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. The admiral's L-shaped desk spread along two walls. One side was preempted by the professional-looking shortwave receiver and his radio log. The radio was turned on, but when Randy and Lib entered the room all they heard was a low hum.

Sam Hazzard was not as tall as Lib and his weathered skin was drawn tautly over fine bones. In slippers and dragon blazoned shantung robe-his implacable gray eyes shadowed and softened by the indistinct lighting and horn-rimmed gla.s.ses, cottony hair like a halo-he appeared fragile; a deception. He was tough as an antique ivory figurine which has withstood the vicissitudes of centuries, and can accept more. He said, "A place for the lady to sit." He sailed a plastic model of the carrier Wasp--the old Wasp cited by Churchill for stinging twice in the Mediterranean and then herself stung to death by torpedoes-to the far corner of the desk. "Up there," he ordered Lib, "where you can be properly admired. And you, Randy, lift those books out of that chair. Gently, if you please. Welcome aboard to both of you."

Randy said, "You haven't seen Dan Gunn, have you?" "No. Not today. Why?"

"He hasn't come home."

"Missing, eh? That sounds ungood, Randy."

"If he comes home while we're out Helen or Bill will ring the bell. Can we hear it in here?"

"Yes indeed, so long as the window's open. It always startles me."

Randy saw that the Admiral had been working. The Admiral was writing something he called, without elaboration, "A Footnote to History." A portable typewriter squatted in the center of a ring of books. Research, Randy supposed. He recognized Durant's Caesar and Christ, Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and Von Kriege by Clausewitz, indicating a footnote to ancient history. Randy said, "Any p.o.o.p this evening?"

"I suppose you heard the Civil Defense broadcast."

"I caught part of it. Then my batteries quietly expired." The Admiral gave his attention to the radio. He turned the k.n.o.b changing frequencies. "I've been listening for a station in the thirty-one meter band. Claims to be in Peru. I heard it for the first time last night. It put out some pretty outlandish stuff It doesn't seem to be on yet, so we'll try for it again later. I've just switched to five point seven megacycles. That's an Air Force frequency I can tap sometimes. You've never heard it, Randy. Interesting, but cryptic."

The speaker squealed and whined. "Somebody's transmitter is open," the Admiral interpreted. "Something's coming."

A voice boomed with shocking loudness in the small room: "Sky Queen, Sky Queen. Do not answer. Do not answer. This is Big Rock. This is Big Rock. Applejack. Repeat, Applejack. Authentication X-Ray."

Lip spoke, excitedly, "What is it? What does it mean?" Hazzard smiled. "I don't know. I'm not up on Air Force codes and jargon. I've heard that Sky Queen call two or three times in the past month. Sky Queen could be a bomber, or a patrol plane, or a whole wing or air division. Big Rock-whoever that is-could be telling Sky Queen-whatever she may be-any number of things. Proceed to target, orbit, continue patrol, come home all is forgiven. I can't even make an informed guess. However, I do know this. That was a good American call and so we're still in business." The smile departed. "On the other hand, it indicates that the enemy is still in business too."

"How do you figure?" Randy asked.

"That 'Do not answer' phrase. Why does Big Rock order Sky Queen to be silent? Because if Sky Queen acknowledges the call then somebody might be able to take a radio fix on her, estimate speed and course, and vector fighters-or launch ground-to-air rockets to shoot her down."

Randy considered this. "Then Sky Queen is probably stooging around over enemy territory."

'hat's good deduction but we can't be certain. For all we know, Sky Queen may be hunting a sub off Daytona. It makes me wild, listening to the d.a.m.n Air Force-you will please pardon me, Lib-but if the enemy is listening on this frequency it must make them wild too."

Lib asked, "What did that 'Authentication X-Ray' stand for?"

"X-Ray is simply international code for the letter X. My guess is that before every mission they change the authentication letter so that the enemy can't take over the frequency and give Sky Queen a false heading, or phony instructions."

"You know, I enjoyed hearing that," Lib said. "It gave me a nice feeling. Big Rock has a solid Midwest accent."

Sam Hazzard moved a candle so that better light fell on his dials. "Big Rock won't be back again tonight," he said. "I've never heard him more than once a night. He makes his call and that's it. I'll try the thirty-one meter band again."

In the candlelight Hazzard's hands shone with the silky, translucent patina of age and yet they were remarkably deft. They discovered a fascinating squeal. His fingers worked the band spreader delicately as a master cracksman violating a safe and he pressed his face forward as if he expected to hear tumblers click. Very gradually, a faint voice replaced the squeal. He turned up the power. They heard, in English with an indefinite accent: "Continuing the news to North America "The representative of the Argentine has informed the South American Federation that two s.h.i.+ps with wheat have sailed for Nice, in southern France, responding to radio appeals from that city. The appeals from Nice say that several hundred thousand refugees are camped in makes.h.i.+ft shelter on the Cote d'Azure. Many are starving. The casino at Monaco and the Prince's palace have been converted into hospitals.

"In a Spanish-language broadcast heard here today, Radio Tokyo announced that the Big Three meeting in New Delhi has approved preliminary plans for flying desperately needed vaccines and ant.i.toxins to uncontaminated cities in Europe, North America, and Australia."