Peace in the Wilderness Read online

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  Peace in the Wilderness

  by Marion Zimmer Bradley

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  Science Fiction

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  Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust

  www.mzbworks.com

  Copyright ©1956 by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  First published in Fantastic Universe, 1956

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Peace in the Wilderness

  Marion Zimmer Bradley

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  CONTENTS

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

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  I

  The counterman was getting nervous.

  Kerry Donalson was the last customer in the little cafe. The clatter of dishes had completely subsided and to either side of him the cracked white-tile counter and worn stools were bare and clean and empty. Although Kerry was a well-dressed man far into his forties, the counterman hovered disrespectfully around him, giving a perfunctory toweling to surfaces already spotless. Finally, his starchy apron a-crackle with audible irritation, he demanded, “You got far to go, Mister? It's getting close to curfew!"

  As if to emphasize the man's words, a blinding dazzle of white light flared in the street outside, arching through the glass front of the cafe.

  “Not far,” Kerry said, and paid no attention to the lights. For thirteen years no street on Earth had been dark at night. And during all of those years without darkness Earth had been in a state of total war.

  A young man had come into the cafe with the lights, and was making his way toward the far end of the counter. As the counterman turned toward the new customer, Kerry pointedly buried himself in the front page of the Times-Telegram. Behind his paper he turned his wrist to look at the dial of his watch. Half an hour before curfew, the message had said. I'll come up and speak to you. But don't speak to me.

  Kerry knew the headlines by heart, for he had scribbled his personal blue-pencil okay on every story. For five years now he had been editor, and part owner, of the Times-Telegram. Yet he continued to study the columns, as if something might be hidden there that would give him a clue to the mystery which had led him to seek a possibly dangerous meeting with a total stranger.

  The main story read: EX-GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST AFFIRMS MOON BASE POSSIBLE. Earlier in the day Kerry had skimmed it professionally for typographical errors, and now he shrugged off the story itself with cynical amusement. It was nothing but a rehash of the usual hopeful platitudes. The moon base project had been definitely abandoned.

  United Earth had been trying for twelve years to set a rocket on Luna, and before that, the Free Americas and the Asian Alliance had ruthlessly trampled one another in a futile race for a satellite station. But no drive, no known fuel could successfully propel a rocket beyond the outer limits of Earth's gravity.

  That afternoon, Kerry had received a phone call from a dead man. Ben Thrusher had been a rocket research-expert for the Government of the Free Americas, but a tragic accident had made him one of the earliest casualties in Earth's war against the Pharigs. Or had it been an accident?

  Farther up the counter, he heard the waiter grumble, “Counter's closed, lad. Too near curfew. You want to get picked up by the Night Police?"

  “I only came to meet a friend here,” the newcomer said.

  Kerry, lifting his eyes from a routine headline, Pharig Atrocities Spark Curfew Crackdown in Dallas, looked up quickly and found himself staring at the face of a tanned youngster, maybe nineteen, maybe even younger. He was wearing blue jeans and a leather jacket.

  “You must be Mr. Donalson?” the youngster said.

  Kerry stood up. “And you're Lewis Fallon?” he asked.

  The youngster nodded and touched Kerry's extended hand briefly.

  “I thought you wouldn't show up,” Kerry said. “Coffee?"

  “No time,” Fallon said. “Like the man said, it's near curfew; and we don't want to get picked up by the Night Police, do we, now? The youth spoke with a faint inflection of sarcasm, looking past Kerry at the recruiting poster which hung over the cash register.

  AN EARTH DIVIDED IS AN EARTH CONQUERED

  Join the Night Police

  Serve in Your Own Community!

  Kerry shrugged into his overcoat, and flung a greenie on the counter. The counterman, making change, sounded apologetic. “I didn't mean to hurry you up, Mister. Only I live way out in the suburbs and I don't want to go home under police escort again. My wife gets nervous."

  “That's all right,” Kerry said. “Sorry I kept you from closing on time."

  He left the change and went out into the glare of the streetlights, the Fallon youngster walking easily and warily at his side. He noticed that Fallon glanced nervously to right and left as they came out, as if he expected to see someone waiting. But the street was empty—a bare illuminated cavern that stretched away for endless miles, white with the billions of vapor-lamps that brightened every street and alley.

  Earth was largely a continuous network of cities by now—and every inch of the crammed countryside, every solitary lane or alley.

  “I hope, if you have a wife,” Fallon said, “that she's not the nervous type."

  “I called Ruth before I left the Times-Telegraph building,” Kerry said.

  Fallon jerked his head in sudden anger. “I should think you'd have had sense enough to call her from a public telephone, Mr. Donalson! Damn it, why do you think I went to the trouble to meet you way out here?"

  That did it. Kerry stopped walking and faced the youth. “Look here,” he said, “I'm not going another step with you until you tell me what this is all about. Precisely where are we going, and why are you acting like a criminal conspirator?"

  Lew Fallon frowned. “I should have warned you. Your office phone—can you swear it's not tapped?"

  “Of course it's tapped,” Kerry said, startled. He did not need to be reminded that newspapers—and other organs of information—were heavily censored for purposes of public wartime morale.

  Fallon jammed his hands down in his pockets and sighed. “Well, I've brought you this far, so we may as well go on. But I don't like it. If that's the kind of person you are—” he checked his rising anger with a visible effort, and named a hotel halfway across town.

  “But we can't get there before curfew, can we?” Kerry said. “Hadn't we better give our route and destination to the Night Police?"

  Fallon turned abruptly, his young face tense in the bluish light. “Get this, Mr. Donalson. I'm taking you to Ben Thrusher. If the Night Police get wind of this you'll lose the biggest news story of the year—to say nothing of what would happen to Ben. It was Ben who wanted it this way. Now, are you coming or aren't you, and to hell with the curfew! I can remember when it wasn't a crime to be on the streets whenever you had business to transact."

  Lawbreaking comes hard to a respectable man. “If you'd printed as many stories of Pharig atrocities as I have,” Kerry told him, “you'd know the curfew laws were for your own protection."

  Fallon muttered something under his breath, and went on. Kerry followed, but he was not at all reassured. For many years only the Night Police, equipped with neuron-guns, had dared to walk the streets after curfew.

  The Pha
rigs were immobile in daylight, but at night, despite the inhibiting curfew lights, they marauded the world. If they escaped the unknown menace of Pharig attack, there was still the dangerous risk of a crippling neuron-blast.

  Neuron-guns were fatal to the non-human Pharigs, and the Night Police had orders to shoot first and ask questions afterward. The assumption was that if you were human, a neuron-blast wouldn't do you any lasting damage.

  It was assumed that anyone on the streets after curfew without police escort—except in the protected areas reserved for necessary night workers—was either a criminal or a Pharig. No honest or sane Earthman had any business on the streets at that hour.

  Kerry quickened his steps to match the hasty walk of the younger man. And all at once a random, surprising memory darted through his brain and he said aloud, “Lew Fallon!"

  The youngster turned impatiently, and Kerry repeated, less sure of himself, “Lew Fallon. But no, it can't be! You're much too young to be the Lew Fallon who was killed by Pharigs eight years ago!"

  “The rocket man? That was my father.” Lew Fallon's mouth was tight. “He wasn't dead either—until a week ago."

  “I don't understand,” Kerry said. “Ben Thrusher and I were roommates in college, and we worked at a civilian center during the Three Days war. He was about the best friend I had until the Pharig invasion came, and the Army took Ben for rocket research. He and your father were killed when the Pharigs sabotaged an experimental rocket."

  “Rubbish!” Fallon blurted out, then added quickly, “Look I can't explain. Ben Thrusher will have to do it."

  Kerry had thought, at first, that the whole thing was a cruel or sinister hoax. But now the youngster's attitude convinced him otherwise. He hurried along, trying to match Fallon's stride. It was four minutes to curfew, and the streets were totally empty. But every shadow where the arch of light fell away became the possible lurking configuration of a concealed Pharig, or a uniformed Night Policeman. And there were many shadows.

  He slackened his pace, a hand to the stitch in his side, angry at himself for the upsurge of excitement aroused by his own guilt. He hadn't broken any laws yet!

  “This is the hotel,” Fallon said abruptly. He stopped, and added with a shrug, “With just one minute to spare before curfew. Don't inquire at the desk. Go right up to Room four-o-seven."

  He swung about on his heels and walked swiftly toward the rear of the building.

  Kerry started to follow, feeling a sudden desperate need to insist on a further explanation. But the sudden wail of the curfew siren drowned thought for a few seconds. When the noise died away he was standing inside the lobby, and a bellboy was bolting the doors behind him.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

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  II

  Kerry went on up. When he rapped at the door of Room 407, he was still breathless from climbing and it occurred to him, perhaps tardily, that he might be walking into a trap. But he put up his hand notwithstanding and knocked once loudly, determined to end the mystery as quickly as possible

  “Who is it?” called a muffled voice from within the room.

  “It's Kerry Donalson—"

  “Come in."

  Kerry pushed the door open, and then stepped back in consternation. The room was in total darkness.

  The unseen voice arrested his retreat. “Wait! Don't go. It's me, Kerry—"

  “Ben!” Kerry moved quickly toward the sound, forgetting all caution. No one could have imitated that peculiar nasal inflection, even though the timbre of the voice itself had changed almost beyond recognition.

  “Don't put on the lights just yet,” Ben Thrusher warned from the darkness. “I don't want to frighten you off before you know it's really me. Remember Lavender Hall—the Marshall twins, Nancy and Norma, and that old porch swing? How's Ruthie? How's my godson, little Phil? The baby—Judith, wasn't it?—must be almost ten years old now."

  Kerry found that his own voice was husky. “Okay, you've convinced me. Now can I put some lights on?"

  Ben coughed and his voice grew steadier. “Go ahead. Only—I've changed a lot, Kerry."

  Kerry found the light switch by the door, and managed to flick it upward. A wide swath of light flooded the room. Kerry's breath caught in his throat and he hardly recognized his own voice whispering hoarsely in the darkness.

  “For God's sake, Ben! I—I didn't know—"

  The thing on the bed stretched its mouth in a grimace that ought to have been a smile, but wasn't. The skull was hairless, the face swollen; the lips a festering, toothless sore. The hands were wrapped in bandages that bulged out, awkward and useless, below the split sleeves of flannel pajamas.

  Ben Thrusher moved his head slowly from side to side.

  “Radiation burns,” he said, steadily. “It doesn't hurt much at this stage, Kerry. But now you know why I wanted you to recognize me first in the dark."

  “My God,” Kerry murmured, and it was a prayer. “We—we thought you were dead eight years ago. Did the Pharigs—"

  “Pharigs!” Kerry was horrified to see Ben's toothless mouth twist into a wide, tormented smile. “I might have known you'd say that—"

  “But how—how did it happen? Ben, have you seen a doctor?"

  “No. When I came here I was still recognizably myself in a dim light. A doctor would have reported to the Army, to make sure I'd die in a cell and never get a chance to say what I've got to say."

  Kerry started, feeling suddenly convinced that Ben's mind had been unhinged by suffering. But his eyes—mere slits in angry flesh—met Kerry's with a steady calm.

  “I'm not insane, Kerry. If you don't believe me, call an ambulance. Or to save trouble—call the Night Police. The outcome would be the same. You'd never see or hear of me again. They'd hold me incommunicado and my death would not be long delayed. If you're in mortal terror of the dictatorship, I can die all right without your help! Only I thought you had courage enough from the old days. The courage to be an honest newspaperman and tell the public the truth."

  “Sure,” Kerry soothed. “But first we've got to get you to a hospital, old fellow. I won't let them lock you up."

  Again the slow, tormented smile. “Stop humoring me, Kerry,” One of the bandaged hands moved, clumsily tugging at Kerry's arm in an absurd but heartbreaking gesture of reassurance. “The doctors couldn't do much. I've had it, Kerry. They'd just make sure I didn't talk—"

  Carefully Kerry lowered himself toward the bed. Ben winced, warding him away with a clumsy forward movement of his shoulders. In tight-lipped concern Kerry drew up a chair, and leaned forward. “Why should they do a thing like that?” he asked.

  “I'm trying to tell you!” The raw flesh around Ben's mouth contracted in a spasm that could have been agony—or anger. “I'll give you a story that will shake the world!"

  “If he can print it,” said a tight voice behind them. Lew Fallon came in, shutting the door carefully behind him.

  Instantly Ben twisted on the bed, in a convulsive movement of pain and fear. “What does he mean? Kerry, tell me. I must know. Can you print it? Do we still have a free press?"

  “What the devil—” Kerry remembered that Ben was a very sick man, and compassionately amended his tone. “Of course we have a free press. Why not? Where have you been, to ask that?"

  Ben Thrusher said, his voice muffled, “I've been on the moon."

  In three incredulous strides Kerry was across the room, uncradling the telephone.

  Lew Fallon took a catlike step toward him. “What are you going to do?” he demanded.

  Kerry let the dial spin back. “I'm going to call a doctor,” he said, “Ben needs help."

  Lew Fallon wrenched the receiver from his hand. “Oh, no you're not,” he said, his voice defiant.

  As Kerry broke away the bandaged man on the bed stirred.

  “Let him alone, Lew,” Ben pleaded. Then, more quietly, “Kerry, you idiot, come over here and listen to me. I'm not going to be able to talk much longer. My throat's givi
ng me hell. I haven't the time nor the strength to spend hours softening you up and trying to convince you. You've got to trust me, Kerry! I haven't got many words left and I'll be damned if I'll waste them—” His voice thinned and he lay back, his face ashen. There were dark stains on the rumpled pillow.

  Kerry returned to the bed, and sat down. He said, “Do you mean the Pharigs have a prison base on—our moon?"

  “No, not the Pharigs!” Ben spoke with a flare of furious energy, then sank back helplessly, pressing one of his useless hands against his throat.

  Lew Fallon brought him a glass of water from a pitcher on the bureau, and Kerry supported him while he drank it, in great greedy swallows. Kerry could feel the fever heat in the man's skin.

  He pleaded, “Ben, if you're afraid to go to a hospital, let me take you home to Ruthie. I know a doctor who can be trusted—"

  “Ruthie!” Ben's eyes brightened in momentary warm gratefulness. Then he shook his head. “Thanks, Kerry. But I've no intention of making it difficult for her. I've only a day or two left. It's just that—I didn't want to crawl in a hole and die like a rat without a word to anybody."

  His eyes closed and Kerry thought for a moment that he had fainted. He arose, and began to tiptoe across the room. Maybe he could persuade Lew Fallon to some logical course of action.

  But at the first step, Ben's eyes opened, “Come back here, Kerry, and sit down!” he said, raising himself with an effort. “I'm not dead yet! The Army men picked up Chapman, and—I'm supposed to have died in the crash.” His voice held a brief trace of its old vigor, and he put a completely steady hand to his ruined face.

  “There was faulty radiation shielding in our ship. It was privately built, but you'd be surprised if I told you who financed it. We didn't have proper facilities to test it. Quite as important, we weren't fit to stand acceleration. That takes young men—tough, experienced test pilots. Fallon died when we took off. I made it—there and back. But Chapman and I won't live to be heroes. How about it, Kerry? Is the story worth it?"