New Writings in SF 19 - [Anthology] Read online

  ‘You’re from the dome ?’ X nodded again. ‘What’s it like in there now?’

  ‘What are they wearing?’ The woman turned from the fire. She smiled and X told her all he knew. Then he saw she didn’t really care and only asked to be polite.

  They had a good house there. The walls were three feet thick and made of stone and clay ... the fire was warm and there were no lenses. X talked freely, told them everything they asked. He’d never been in a better place.

  ‘Capital hasn’t changed...’ said the man. He gave X a cheroot. ‘Take the smoke right in,’ he said as he lit it. ‘Hold it in your lungs—it’ll do you good.’

  ‘It hasn’t changed in a thousand years,’ said the woman. ‘What would change it now?’

  ‘Why not? Why shouldn’t things get better if men make them?’ X felt good. Full of food and confidence. There was a warmth in him, a glow of safety. ‘A man could change it.’

  ‘She’s right.’ The man brought another bottle. ‘The machine won’t let anything change.’

  ‘I’ve seen it—even the Generator is trying to cure the desert. I’ve seen aircraft spraying neutralises ... from a gallery in the Nice Part. Decontamination ... they’ve ploughed places, planted them. It’ll work one day ...’ It was all right, X knew everything was for the best. The man laughed and the woman smiled.

  ‘You know the Generator better than that. What it sows is poison, all it ever sprayed is herbicide. The machine needs that desert, it could control the people anyway, but it’s easier when they think there’s nowhere else to go. They’re happy then.’ There was a silence while X realised why they’d laughed at him.

  ‘I’m going to kill the Generator!’ X spoke out of anger, he hadn’t meant to tell them. More than anything he wanted their respect. ‘I can change things! I’m going to.’ They took it seriously, they stopped laughing. There was another long silence and the man looked thoughtful.

  ‘It’s bad in the dome? The crowding? That why you came out?’

  ‘More sad.’ X took a long pull on his cheroot, he found he had to tell them everything. ‘I ... I killed a man. A friend ... an accident, I think. But I wasn’t happy there anyway ...’

  ‘It’ll get better in there.’ The woman looked at X with her big serious eyes. ‘Let it be, let it get better like out here, slowly. Naturally. It’d be dangerous just to stop the Generator. Think of what would happen to all those people. Joe, tell him!’

  ‘Yes, look at the hell they spilled out here. Even then it didn’t kill everything—seeds can survive for millennia and still germinate. I suppose a lot of the bacteria got sterilised in the radiation bombing. I suppose the main attacks were on the dome—it asked for it, just being there. Anyway, things were bad but it all came back. Better to do things slow, organically, without violence.’

  ‘My grandfather came out of the Capital,’ said the woman. ‘Joe’s too. People come out all the time. One day they’ll all be out and then the machine will stop because there’s just nothing else for it to go on for ...’

  ‘That’s why it keeps the people in.’ X saw how it was. Perhaps it was the whiskey, he was seeing things very clearly right then. ‘It’s a big prison. It keeps the people so it’s got a reason to keep going. It diminishes human dignity. It’s got to go!’

  ‘Christ! Is there any of that left?’ The man spat in the fire. ‘Those people could get out any time. Like you. Anybody can get out if he tries. Let them be, they’re happy in there, that’s why they stay. It’s safe! That’s why it’s called the Happiness Generator. They don’t want to be free, it’s too hard!’

  ‘Then why are people always running from it ? If it’s like she said, why call it the Happiness Generator?’

  ‘Because they’re alive and they think everyone else is dead.’ The man stirred the fire. ‘That’s happiness, that’s the best you can expect. Everybody doesn’t have to be dead either. But they were. The bombs, the strikes were designed to kill people, crops, almost nothing else.’ He laughed again. ‘Do you know they had a strain of foot and mouth that only attacked humans?’

  ‘You said the Generator made the desert. Not the Others ?’ X helped himself to more whiskey, took another of the cheroots. ‘It’s got to go. Doing that!’

  ‘Maybe there were Others. But it was their Generator that really did it. They might have called it something else, but it was the same thing really. You can’t distinguish between them, not really.’ The man paused, ran his hand through his hair. ‘Look, it did what it thought best. Everything’s easier in the Capital. I just keep thinking of what’ll happen in the dome if you take out the Generator.’

  ‘You’re free.’ X finished his whiskey. ‘Why not everyone else?’ There was silence again. The woman sighed. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to do it. I killed the Curator to do it. He was my friend. I’ve got to do it for him, or else it’ll have been for nothing. I’ve got a destiny to do something—I’ve got this talent for violence.’

  ‘How? How will you even get near the Generator?’

  ‘I’ll find a way. There’ll be a way ...” X knew there was, there had to be. It was certain that there was a way. ‘I know what I’ll do when I get there.’

  The man changed the subject. He told X how he herded a few sheep and got a little gold from the stream by electrolysis. He told how he only met other people when he went to what he called ‘the town’.

  ‘These things ... the oil for your lamps, tobacco, coffee, the manufactured stuff. They make them still ?’

  ‘Everything wasn’t lost in the Trouble. A lot of machinery left. There aren’t the people, that’s all. Most things are made these days. That’s why I bother with the gold.’

  ‘I’ve got this.’ X put his Luger on the table.

  The weapon had a slight gold sheen in the lamp light. The man handled it, inclined his head and looked at X. Then he laid it back on the table.

  It was still beautiful. X studied it too. It was almost like seeing it for the first time, he was never more aware of it. He looked up and saw the woman staring at him.

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ She wasn’t smiling at all. ‘That thing’s too important to you!’

  ‘I loved it.’ X told them the whole story, how the Curator had shown the Luger to him, how it had seemed to lead him on and on until he had to kill the Generator. ‘I told you a friend died for it. While I think there’s a reason for it all I know I’m not mad ...’

  ‘Shoot the Generator?’ The man looked puzzled.

  ‘Are you sure?’ the woman was frowning. ‘Guns are for killing people. How can you hurt something like the Generator?’

  ‘Bullets ... that’s ... it’s got to be done like that. The gun—it’s from the good era before the Generator, from before the Capital.’ X wanted desperately to convince the quiet woman. To make her see he was right and how important it all was. ‘Because I killed the Curator for it...’

  ‘It’ll be bad if the machine goes—but you can’t hurt it. You won’t get near it.’

  ‘Everything has led me this way. I’ve got no choice. I’ll get there and I’ll do it.’

  Nobody said anything. Later the man showed X where he could sleep. In the morning he came back and gave X bread and a flask of water with whiskey in it.

  ‘She doesn’t want you around,’ he said. ‘I’ll walk a little way with you. She wants me to see you clear, doesn’t want any part of what you might do.’

  They followed the stream down through the valley and the sunlit trees. X could see the man felt bad about what he had to do. At last they stopped and the man turned to face him.

  ‘We’re near the dome here. She’s frightened—so am I. You’ve only got to think ...”

  ‘There is one thing,’ said X. ‘9-mm ammunition. I need ammunition for this.’ He slapped the Luger. ‘Where do you get your manufactured stuff?’

  The man slung his Sten gun and looked back. They were out of sight of the house, he satisfied himself that no one was watching. He passed X a small leather purse.<
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  ‘9-mm Parabellum. Calibre 354 ... it’s what you need.’

  ‘How? How old?’ X hefted the bag. It was heavy. He felt the cartridges move against each other. He couldn’t believe his luck. He tipped the heavy little brass cylinders on to his palm.

  9-mm. Nine rounds. Lucky numbers. It was destiny ... fate. Everything worked for him as if he was on rails.

  ‘Fresh enough. A year maybe. They’re for this.’ The man held up his Sten. ‘Good cordite. We make the Sten. Simple, effective, easy. Same size as your Luger.’ He looked up into X’s face. ‘Lucky ... I suppose ...’

  X pushed in the catch and sprang the magazine out into his hand. He put the pistol carefully on the ground, stood up and moving down the magazine spring the way the Curator had told him, began to slip in the rounds.

  ‘I wanted to help you.’ The man watched him work. ‘I needed to, I suppose. Somebody’s got to do something about that Generator. I had to help you.’

  X pushed in the magazine and heard the catch slip into place. Eight rounds in there made it much heavier. It felt stronger too, the fat butt sat even better in his hand. More potent, different from before. It was the ammunition, the Luger had validity now. It wasn’t only the weight, X felt the power spread into him, warm his hand and arm. He felt really good.

  ‘I ... I’m still not sure she’s wrong. It would be hell for those people in there, if the Generator goes.’ The man laughed shortly. ‘An end of the Happiness ...’

  X pulled back the toggle joint until the breech block was behind the first cartridge and let go. The mechanism sprang forward and the first round was in the barrel and the weapon ready to fire. He put on the safety catch. He held the Luger by his side, the heavy barrel reached below his knee and the power of it was wonderful. He began to listen to what the man was saying.

  ‘Don’t go back by the house. I don’t want her to guess. The Capital is that way. Go over the hill.’

  X nodded. He thanked the man. He held the pistol in one hand and the leather purse with the spare cartridge in the other. He started up through the trees.

  At the top he looked back. The man was still in sight, looking back up at him. He looked small to X, smaller than before. Perhaps it was that he had no great aim, no fate. Maybe, thought X, maybe it was his one important thing, all he had to do was supply that ammunition. Now that was done and there was nothing else for him. X waved back and crossed out of the valley on to the grassy plain. The hills loomed ahead and the Capital was beyond them. The ring of lenses topped the crest. All day X listened to his legs swish through the grass and watched those sensors flash and move in the sun.

  The Generator killed buzzards for crossing and coming too close. X felt the weight of the Luger and was sure that he would get through, but later in the afternoon he began to wonder how. He watched the clouds build over the desert to the east and as the air became still and hot he became steadily more worried.

  Evening found him crawling up a rocky water course into the hills. Soon it was dark and the storm had come again. Muddy waters flooded down and X crawled on through them.

  In a lightning flash he saw the slender metal pole directly ahead. The sensors moved, shone wet up there against the driving rain. He marked the position and when he could see in the darkness he found the pole again, silhouetted against the glow from the Capital.

  X brought up the Luger with both hands. He estimated the range and set the sight. He lay on his belly, spread his legs and pulled off the safety catch. He aimed carefully at the shifting eye. As he took the first pressure on the trigger lightning came again.

  Violent energy lashed down from three hundred feet above. It was as if it came over his left shoulder, the thunderclap was instantaneous. The ground heaved and the pole was a yellow after image straight down below the jagged shape of the lightning.

  He lowered the Luger. There was nothing he could add to that destruction. Sparks moved about the control box, played up and down the split and melted pole. A high pitched humming vibrated in the ground, insulation burned a moment with a guttering red flame and then went out in the rain. X put on the safety catch and walked out into the desert. Everything worked out for him, always. Fate was wonderful.

  In the darknesses between the storm flashes, in the engulfing thunder, X stumbled down the sodden slopes. He hid all the way, timed his dashes in the roaring wind, ran in the obliteration of the rain.

  The Capital loomed out of the murk. The lights were blue and grey, the structures invisible except when parts were lit by lightning. Opal, it was like a great jewel set above the hidden landscape. Lightning splayed and reflected on the wet surfaces and a dozen bolts struck in the ten miles of twisted desert in front of X. The earth rocked in the energy of the storm.

  X stumbled into the rust river of the old cars. He crawled through, partly to hide, but also to escape the stunning rain. He mingled with the bones there, his weight cracked the brittle plastics, he tangled in discoloured rags of clothing, crumbled the paper-thin rust as the rain drummed on what was left of the metal. The last shreds of his own clothes washed off and he crawled, scratched and naked, clutching the Luger, the purse with the one cartridge hung around his neck, sometimes through and sometimes beside the old cars.

  The storm ended at dawn. X reached the end of the cars, let the sun warm him as he lay a hundred yards from the great curve of the Fuller. He dismantled the Luger and carefully cleaned the working parts. A few grains of sand could jam the action. He wiped the cartridges and reloaded the magazine, wished he had a little oil. He thought of food and wondered if he dare drink water from the puddle in front of him, the provisions the man had given him were long since gone.

  By mid-morning the sun had disappeared and X was in the shadow of the Capital. He got up, half crouched and drove his stiff legs to where the great wall reached the earth. Blank concrete rose a hundred feet up before the Fuller began and X felt safe there. Water running off the great catchment had worn a deep ditch there. X climbed in, ten feet below ground level, his feet splashing in pools of clear rain water, he felt safer than ever. He followed the great perimeter around, it was two miles before he found the entrance.

  The port was set at X’s eye level, five feet above the floor of the gully. He stood back a little and saw the door was raised. It was enormous. Fifty yards wide, but only open a few inches. X hesitated, then, pushing the Luger in front, climbed up and struggled into the darkness.

  Light glowed a hundred feet in front. When he had the courage X walked that way, the flapping noises of his feet echoed back from high ceilings and distant walls.

  Jets of water sprayed from the darkness, caught and held him. Hot soapy water, detergents sprayed the imaginary contamination from his body. Radiations came to kill the bacteria. In that hard dull light X scrambled across the slippery floor. The jets followed him, he spat soapiness and the water came clean, washed him pure and stopped the smarting of his cuts. He fought on, when he fell near the far door the water changed to warm air and dried him.

  New and fresh clean, X stood under the small light he had first seen by the far wall. The strip of light where he had crawled in disappeared with a moan and a clang. Somehow he still had the Luger. He leaned on the wall and remembered to hold the weapon barrel down to clear the water out. The wall groaned and then whined up. X pulled off the safety catch and crouched through there.

  ‘So it was you! So you got it...’ The Dealer came stepping out of the half darkness. X pointed the Luger towards him and looked him up and down. It was surprising to meet him there—there shouldn’t have been anyone in the darkness under the Old Capital. Not in that unused place.

  ‘The Luger, I mean.’ The Dealer still came forward. His coat swung heavily from the tools hung inside it. ‘I guessed ... I knew why you wanted those pliers when I heard about the Luger.’

  ‘Why are you here?’ X was still suspicious. It seemed so strange to meet the Dealer again.

  ‘Me? I’m often here.’ He turned, waved his hand
at the dark shapes that surrounded them. His coat flared as he turned back. ‘Things. Down here ... tools. Things.’

  X’s eyes were used to the half light. Now when he looked he could see big machines ranked away into the darkness.

  ‘Agricultural machines ... harvesters,’ said the Dealer. ‘I believe that’s what they are. From when they thought we might be able to go out again one day. Just junk now, until that happens. Like the museum stuff upstairs.’

  X saw the tool box strapped outside of the nearest machine had been broken open. Anti-corrosive padding was hanging out, a ball of the stuff was screwed up on the floor. The Dealer followed his eyes and laughed.

  ‘Where do you think my tools come from? I know where to find anything.’

  ‘What about the Generator? Where’s that?’

  ‘Everywhere...’ The Dealer stopped laughing. ‘All through ... it sees everything. Scans it.’

  ‘It didn’t see me. Where are the central parts ? Where are the parts it made itself?’