The Long Twilight (28 page)

"Please try to understand, Lieutenant," Senator Eubank said to the hard, expressionless face on the screen. "I have reason to believe that the boy is operating a borrowed, manually controlled vehicle on the Canada autopike, northbound from Philadelphia, ETD forty minutes ago. He's just received some very shocking news, and he's probably driving at a very high speed. He'll be in an agitated condition, and—"

"You have a description of this vehicle, Senator?"

"No. But surely you have means for identifying a car that's not locked into the system."

"That's correct—but it sometimes takes a few minutes. There are a lot of vehicles on the pike, Senator."

"You understand he's under great stress. The circumstances—"

"We'll take him off as gently as we can."

"And you'll keep me informed? I must see him at the first possible instant, you understand?"

"We'll keep you advised—" The police officer turned his head as if looking at someone off-screen.

"This may be something, Senator," he said. "I have a report on a four-seater Supercad at Exit 2983. He took the ramp too fast—he was doing a little over two hundred. He went airborne and crashed." He paused, listening, then nodded. "Looks like pay dirt, Senator. The ID checks on the hot-list out of Philly. And it was on manual control."

The officer used his screamlight to clear a path through the crowd to the spot where the heavy car lay on its side under the arches of the overpass. Two men with cutting torches were crouched on top of it, sending up showers of molten droplets.

"He's alive in there?" Senator Eubank asked.

The lieutenant nodded. "The boys will have him out in a couple of minutes. The crash copter is standing by."

The torches stopped sputtering. The two men lifted the door, tossed it down behind the car. A white-suited medic with a bundle under his arm climbed up and dropped inside. Half a minute later the crane arm at the back of the big police cruiser hoisted the shock-seat clear of the wreck. From the distance of fifty feet, the driver's face was clay-white under the polyarcs.

"It's Ron."

The medic climbed down, bent over the victim as the senator and his escort hurried up.

"How does it look?" the lieutenant asked.

"Not too good. Internals. Skull looks OK. If he's some rich man's pup, he may walk again—with a new set of innards—" The man broke off as he glanced up and saw the civilian beside the officer. "But I wouldn't waste any time taking him in," he finished.

The duty medtech shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir. He's on the table right at this moment. There's no way in the world for you to see him until he comes out. He's in very serious condition, Senator."

"I understand." As the tech turned away Eubank called after him: "Is there a private screen I could use?"

"In the office, sir."

Alone, he punched his apartment code. The operator's face appeared on the screen. "I'm sorry, no—Oh, it's you, Senator. I did-n't know you'd gone out—"

"Buzz my flat, Jerry."

The screen winked and cleared. After fifteen seconds' wait, the image of a small, sharp-eyed man appeared, rubbing at his elbows with a towel.

"About time you called in, John," he said. "First time in thirty years I've let myself be hauled out of my home in the midst of dinner."

"How is she?"

The elderly man wagged his head. "I'm sorry, John. She slipped away from me."

"You mean—she's dead?"

"What do you expect? A post-terminal pregnancy—she'd been taking drugs for a week to delay the birth. She'd had no medical attention whatever. And your living room rug doesn't make the best possible delivery table! There was massive hemorrhaging; it might have been different if I'd been working in a fully equipped labor room—but under the circumstances, that was out of the question, of course, even if there'd been time."

"You know . . .?"

"The woman told me something of the circumstances."

"What about the child?"

"Child?" The little man frowned. "I suppose you refer to the fetus. It wasn't born."

"You're going to leave it inside the corpse?"

"What would you have me do?" The doctor lowered his voice. "John—is what she said true? About Ron being the father?"

"Yes—I think so."

The little man's mouth tightened. "Her heart stopped three and a half minutes ago. There's still time for a Caesarian—if that's what you want."

"I . . . I don't know, Walter."

"John, you devoted thirty years of your life to the amendment and the enabling act. It passed by a very thin cat's whisker. And the opposition hasn't given up, not by a damn sight. The repeal movement is already underway, and it has plenty of support." The doctor paused, peering at the senator. "I can bring the child out—but John—a lot of this is already in the record. There'd be no way of keeping it out of the hands of the other side:
your
law—violated by you, the first week it was in force. It would finish you, John—and Population Control, too, for a generation."

"There's no hope of resuscitating the mother?"

"None at all. Even today people sometimes die, John."

"I see. Thank you, Walter. You did your best."

"About the child . . .?"

"There is no child. Just an illegal pregnancy."

"You may go in now," the nurse said. Ron was on his back, his shaven head protruding from the bloated cocoon of the life-support tank. His eyes opened as his father bent over him.

"Dad—I was a damned fool. Knew I was going too fast . . ."

The senator leaned closer to catch his whisper.

"I had to try . . . to get back in time . . ." He paused and his eyelids flickered. "Limmy told me . . . she went to you. I knew . . . you'd take care . . . my wife."

"Easy, Ron, easy. No need to talk now—"

"When Rink told me . . . about the baby . . . I ran out on her. She handed me a contract, all made up. But I couldn't see it, bringing a child into this mess. I thought . . . when I left she'd go in and have it taken care of. Then I heard . . . she didn't. It . . . did something to me. I still had the papers. I registered 'em in Phil. I used your name to get the birth permit. You don't mind . . .?"

"Ron . . ."

"I wanted to be there. Too late; damned fool. I always was a damn fool, Dad. It'll be different, now. A lot different. Being a father . . . not so easy, eh, Dad? But good. Worth it. Worth everything . . ." The boy's voice faded.

"Better to let him rest now, sir," the nurse whispered.

The senator rose stiffly. At the door, he looked back. Ron seemed to be smiling in his sleep.

"Did you say something, sir?" the nurse asked. He looked down at her bright face.

"What is there to say?"

Her eyes followed him as he walked away down the bright-lit corridor.

I

The man faced the monster at a distance of twenty feet.

Dr. Reed Nolan, khaki-clad, gray-haired, compactly built, dark-tanned by the big sun of the world called Kaka Nine, would hardly have been recognized by his former colleagues at the university where he had spent the earlier decades of his life.

The creature confronting him would have been even less familiar. Massive as a rhino, horned, fanged like a warthog, with a mottled hide and slim, curiously jointed legs, the tusker lowered its head and gouged at the turf.

"Well, Emperor," Nolan said genially, "you're here early this year. That's fine; I have a lush crop of pest-weed for you. I guess the herd's not far behind you . . .?"

He plucked a stalk of wild-growing leatherplant, stripped off the tough husk, offered the succulent pith to the beast. The native omnivore ambled forward, accepted the offering, regarding the man with the same tolerance it did any other nonnutritive substance.

At their first encounter, three years before, Nolan had had a few bad moments when the tusker herd had arrived like a sudden plague, charging down from the hills. The big beasts had sniffed at his heels where he roosted in the only perch available: a stunted tree from which the monster could have plucked him easily had it been so minded. Then they had passed on. Now, better educated, Nolan was deeply appreciative of the thoroughness with which the big animals rooted out the native plant and rodent life from his fields and the scrupulous care with which they avoided any contact with the alien Terrestrial crops. As self-maintaining cultivators, weeding machines, and fertilizer spreaders, the tuskers left little to be desired.

The communicator at Nolan's wrist buzzed softly.

"Reed—there's a surface boat in the lagoon," a woman's voice said, rather excitedly. "Quite a big boat. Who do you suppose it could be?"

"In our lagoon, Annette? Beats me. I'm in the high pasture, over beyond North Ridge. I'll buzz over and have a look. By the way, Emperor's here; the herds ought to be along in another week."

Nolan remounted his soft-wheeled range cart and trundled upslope to a point from which he had a wide view of the planted fields and seedling orchards sweeping down toward the mile-distant beach and the island-dotted sea beyond. The boat was a few hundred yards offshore, obviously making for the landing wharf Nolan had completed the previous month. It was a big, wide, gray-painted vessel, clumsy but powerful looking, riding low in the water. Annette heard his grunt of surprise.

"Maybe we're on the tourist routes now. Take it easy, girl. Don't start rushing around making sandwiches. It's probably some kind of official survey party. I can't think of anyone else who'd have an interest in our homestead."

"What are they doing out here, twelve hundred miles from Toehold? The Bureau's never paid us any attention before . . ."

"For which we're duly grateful. Never mind; I'm on my way down. Maybe it will be nice to talk to strangers, after three years."

It was a fifteen minute trip down from the heights to the hedge line delineating the limits of the tilled acreage. The perfume of the force-grown gardenias was sweet on the air. For all their beauty, the imported plants were no luxury; Nolan had discovered early that their fragrance was an effective deterrent to the tuskers. The hedge system had been laid out with care to channel the big animals' seasonal migration— stampede might be a better word, Nolan reflected—as they swept down from the winter heights to graze their traditional meadows along the shore—meadows now under intensive cultivation. The herds, Nolan admitted to himself, had probably made the difference between bare survival and the success of the plantation.

Timmy, Nolan's twelve-year-old son, met him on the path above the house. Nolan paused to let him hop aboard.

"They're tying up at the pier, Dad," the boy said excitedly. "Who do you s'pose they are?"

"Probably some junketing bureaucrats, Timmy. Taking a census or something of the sort."

There were men down on the pier now, making cables fast. The sound of a turbine started up. A tracked vehicle, bright yellow in color, was trundling down the gangplank.

Annette, a petite brunette, emerged from the house to meet her husband and son.

"They look awfully busy," she said, glancing toward the shore. "Reed, did you order any equipment that I don't know about . . .?"

"Nothing. Someone's made a navigational error, I suspect."

"Dad, look!" Timmy pointed.

A deck boom, probing in an open hatch, had lifted a laden pallet, swung it over the side to deposit it on the dock. A forklift picked up the pallet, advanced along the length of the pier; it rolled off onto the grassy shore, gouging deep parallel ruts through the planted turf as it went.

"Dad, we spent all spring getting that grass to grow—"

"Never mind, Timmy, we can replace it. You two stay here," Nolan said to Annette. "I'll go down and see what this is all about."

"Aren't you going to wash up, Reed? They'll think you're the hired man . . ."

"Don't I wish I had one," he said as he headed for the dock.

The path down from the crest where he had built the house led close under a dense stand of blue-needled spruce-like trees. Native wild flowers in many shades of yellow grew in profusion here; a stream splashed down across goldmossed rocks. The Terrestrial birds that Nolan had released—and fed daily—had thrived: mocking birds, robins, and parakeets chirped and twittered comfortingly in the alien shade of the forest. Next year, he might be able to bring in a few dozen seedlings of pine and cedar to supplement the native woods, since this year's crop would, for the first time, show a handsome profit . . .

As Nolan emerged from the shelter of the trees the vehicle he had seen earlier was churning briskly across the grass in his direction. It halted and a bulky bundle tumbled from it to the ground. The machine drove on, dropped a second package fifty feet from the first.

It continued on its way, depositing the loads at regular intervals across the wide lawn. Nolan angled across to intercept the vehicle as it stopped again. Two men, one youngish, with a thinning crew cut, the other middle-aged and bald, both dressed in badly cut but new-looking coveralls, looked down at him without visible interest.

"Better hold it, fellows," Nolan called. "There's been some mistake. That cargo doesn't belong here."

The men exchanged glances. The elder of the two turned and spat carelessly past Nolan.

"Ha," he said. The vehicle moved on.

Nolan walked over to the nearest bundle. It was a tailored plastic casing, roughly cubical, two feet on a side. Markings stenciled on the side read:

SHELTER, PERSONNEL (MALE) cat 567/09/a10 CAP 20. APSC. CLII.

Nolan continued down to the pier. Vehicles were rolling off it in a steady stream, some loaded with men, others with equipment. The growl of turbines filled the air, along with an acrid stink of burned hydrocarbons. A small, slender man in sub-executive coveralls stood amid the confusion, clipboard in hand. He looked around sharply as Nolan came up.

"Here," he snapped, "what are you doing here, fellow? What's your crew and unit number?" He riffled the papers on the clipboard as if the answer to his question was to be found there.

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Nolan said mildly. "What you're doing here, I mean. I'm afraid you're in the wrong place. This is—"