The Night of the Long Knives
CHAPTER 4
_Any man who deals in murder, must have very incorrect ways of thinking, and truly inaccurate principles._
--_Thomas de Quincey in_ Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts
For that matter we took off _fast_ with the plane swinging to beat hell.Alice and me was in the two kneeling seats and we hugged them tight, butPop was loose and sort of rattled around the cabin for a while--andserve him right!
On one of the swings I caught a glimpse of the seven dented gas tanks,looking like dull crescents from this angle through the orange haze andgetting rapidly smaller as they hazed out.
After a while the plane levelled off and quit swinging, and a whileafter that my image of the cabin quit swinging too. Once again I justmanaged to stave off the vomits, this time the vomits from naturalcauses. Alice looked very pale around the gills and kept her face buriedin the chinrest of her chair.
Pop ended up right in our faces, sort of spread-eagled against theinstrument panel. In getting himself off it he must have braced hishands against half the buttons at one time or another and I noticed thatnone of them went down a fraction. They were _locked_. It had probablyhappened automatically when the Atla-Hi button got pushed.
I'd have stopped him messing around in that apish way, but with theultra-queasy state of my stomach I lacked all ambition and was happyjust not to be smelling him so close.
I still wasn't taking too great an interest in things as I idly watchedthe old geezer rummaging around the cabin for something that gotmisplaced in the shake-up. Eventually he found it--a small almond-shapedcan. He opened it. Sure enough it turned out to have almonds in it. Hefitted himself in the back seat and munched them one at a time. Ish!
"Nothing like a few nuts to top off with," he said cheerfully.
I could have cut his throat even more cheerfully, but the damage hadbeen done and you think twice before you kill a person in close quarterswhen you aren't absolutely sure you'll be able to dispose of the body.How did I know I'd be able to open the door? I remember philosophizingthat Pop ought at least to have broke an arm so he'd be as badly off asAlice and me (though for that matter my right arm was fully recoverednow) but he was all in one piece. There's no justice in events, that'sfor sure.
The plane ploughed along silently through the orange soup, though therewas really no way to tell it was moving now--until a skewy spindle shapeloomed up ahead and shot back over the viewport. I think it was avulture. I don't know how vultures manage to operate in the haze, whichought to cancel their keen eyesight, but they do. It shot past _fast_.
Alice lifted her face out of the sponge stuff and began to study thebuttons again. I heaved myself up and around a little and said, "Pop,Alice and me are going to try to work out how this plane navigates. Thistime we don't want no interference." I didn't say a word more about whathe'd done. It never does to hash over stupidities.
"That's perfectly fine, go right ahead," he told me. "I feel calm as akitten now we're going somewheres. That's all that ever matters withme." He chuckled a bit and added, "You got to admit I gave you and Alicesomething to work with," but then he had the sense to shut up tight.
* * * * *
We weren't so chary of pushing buttons this time, but ten minutes or soconvinced us that you couldn't push any of the buttons any more, they_were_ all locked down--all locked except for maybe one, which we didn'ttry at first for a special reason.
We looked for other controls--sticks, levers, pedals, finger-holes andthe like. There weren't any. Alice went back and tried the buttons onPop's minor console. They were locked too. Pop looked interested butdidn't say a word.
We realized in a general way what had happened, of course. Pushing theAtla-Hi button had set us on some kind of irreversible automatic. Icouldn't imagine the why of gimmicking a plane's controls like that,unless maybe to keep loose children or prisoners from being able to messthings up while the pilot took a snooze, but there were a lot of whys tothis plane that didn't seem to have any standard answers.
The business of taking off on irreversible automatic had happened soneatly that I naturally wondered whether Pop might not know more aboutnavigating this plane than he let on, a whole lot more in fact, and theseemingly idiotic petulance of his pushing all the buttons have been ashrewd cover for pushing the Atla-Hi button. But if Pop had been actinghe'd been acting beautifully, with a serene disregard for the chances ofbreaking his own neck. I decided this was a possibility I could thinkabout later and maybe act on then, after Alice and me had worked throughthe more obvious stuff.
The reason we hadn't tried the one button yet was that it showed a greennimbus, just like the Atla-Hi button had had a violet nimbus. Now therewas no green on either of the screens except for the tiny green starthat I had figured stood for the plane and it didn't make sense to gowhere we already were. And if it meant some other place, some place notshown on the screens, you bet we weren't going to be too quick aboutdeciding to go there. It might not be on Earth.
Alice expressed it by saying, "My namesake was always a little too quickat responding to those DRINK ME cues."
I suppose she thought she was being cryptic, but I fooled her. "_Alicein Wonderland_?" I asked. She nodded, and gave me a little smile, not atall like one of the EAT ME smiles she'd given me last evening.
It is funny how crazily happy a little touch of the intellectual pastlike that can make you feel--and how horribly uncomfortable a momentlater.
We both started to study the North America screen again and almost atonce we realized that it had changed in one small particular. The greenstar had twinned. Where there had been one point of green light therewere now two, very close together like the double star in the handle ofthe Dipper. We watched it for a while. The distance between the twostars grew perceptibly greater. We watched it for a while longer,considerably longer. It became clear that the position of the morewesterly star on the screen was fixed, while the more easterly star wasmoving east toward Atla-Hi with about the speed of the tip of the minutehand on a wrist watch (two inches an hour, say). The pattern began tomake sense.
* * * * *
I figured it this way: the moving star must stand for the plane, theother green dot must stand for where the plane had just been. For somereason the spot on the freeway by the old cracking plant was recognizedas a marked locality by the screen. Why I don't know. It reminded me ofthe old "X Marks the Spot" of newspaper murders, but that would begetting very fancy. Anyway the spot we'd just taken off from was somarked and in that case the button with the green nimbus ...
"Hold tight, everybody," I said to Alice, grudgingly including Pop in mywarning. "I got to try it."
I gripped my seat with my knees and one arm and pushed the greenbutton. It pushed.
The plane swung around in a level loop, not too tight to disturb thestomach much, and steadied out again.
I couldn't judge how far we'd swung but Alice and me watched the greenstars and after about a minute she said, "They're getting closer," and alittle while later I said, "Yeah, for sure."
I scanned the board. The green button--the cracking-plant button, tocall it that--was locked down of course. The Atla-Hi button was up,glowing violet. All the other buttons were still up and _locked_ up--Itried them all again.
* * * * *
It was clear as day used to be. We could either go to Atla-Hi or wecould go back where we'd started from. There was no third possibility.
It was a little hard to take. You think of a plane as freedom, assomething that will carry you anywhere in the world you choose to go,especially any paradise, and then you find yourself worse limited thanif you'd stayed on the ground--at least that was the way it washappening to us.
But Alice and me were realists. We knew it wouldn't help to wail. Wewere up against another of
those "two" problems, the problem of twodestinations, and we had to choose ours.
_If we go back_, I thought, _we can trek on somewhere--anywhere--richerby the loot from the plane, especially that Survival Kit. Trek on withsome loot we'll mostly never understand and with the knowledge that weare leaving a plane that can fly, that we are shrinking back from anunknown adventure_.
_Also if we go back there's something else we'll have to face, somethingwe'll have to live with for a little while at least that won't be niceto live with after this cozily personal cabin, something that shouldn'tbother me at all but, dammit, it does._
Alice made the decision for us and at the same time showed she wasthinking about the same thing as me.
"I don't want to have to smell him, Ray," she said. "I am not going backto keep company with that filthy corpse. I'd rather anything than that."And she pushed the Atla-Hi button again and as the plane started toswing she looked at me defiantly as if to say I'd reverse the courseagain over her dead body.
"Don't tense up," I told her. "I want a new shake of the dice myself."
"You know, Alice," Pop said reflectively, "it was the smell of myAlamoser got to me too. I just couldn't bear it. I couldn't get awayfrom it because my fever had me pinned down, so there was nothing leftfor me to do but go crazy. No Atla-Hi for me, just Bug-land. My minddied, though not my memory. By the time I'd got my strength back I'dstarted to be a new bugger. I didn't know no more about living than anewborn babe, except I knew I couldn't go back--go back to murderingand all that. My new mind knew that much though otherwise it was just ablank. It was all very funny."
"And then I suppose," Alice cut in, her voice corrosive with sarcasm,"you hunted up a wandering preacher, or perhaps a kindly old hermit wholived on hot manna, and he showed you the blue sky!"
"Why no, Alice," Pop said. "I told you I don't go for religion. As ithappens, I hunted me up a couple of murderers, guys who were worse casesthen myself but who'd wanted to quit because it wasn't getting themnowhere and who'd found, I'd heard, a way of quitting, and the three ofus had a long talk together."
"And they told you the great secret of how to live in the Deathlandswithout killing," Alice continued acidly. "Drop the nonsense, Pop. Itcan't be done."
"It's hard, I'll grant you," Pop said. "You have to go crazy orsomething almost as bad--in fact, maybe going crazy is the easiest way.But it can be done and, in the long run, murder is even harder."
* * * * *
I decided to interrupt this idle chatter. Since we were now definitelyheaded for Atla-Hi and there was nothing to do until we got there,unless one of us got a brainstorm about the controls, it was time tostart on the less obvious stuff I'd tabled in my mind.
"Why are you on this plane, Pop?" I asked sharply. "What do you figureon getting out of Alice and me?--and I don't mean the free meals."
He grinned. His teeth were white and even--plates, of course. "Why,Ray," he said, "I was just giving Alice the reason. I like to talk tomurderers, practicing murderers preferred. I need to--_have_ to talk to'em, to keep myself straight. Otherwise I might start killing again andI'm not up to that any more."
"Oh, so you get your kicks at second hand, you old peeper," Alice put inbut, "Quit lying, Pop," I said. "About having quit killing, for onething. In my books, which happen to be the old books in this case, theaccomplice is every bit as guilty as the man with the slicer. You helpedus kill the Pilot by giving that funny scream and you know it."
"Who says I did?" Pop countered, rearing up a little. "I never said so.I just said, 'Forget it.'" He hesitated a moment, studying me. Then hesaid, "I wasn't the one gave that scream. In fact, I'd have stopped itif I'd been able."
"Who did then?"
Again he studied me as he hesitated. "I'm not telling," he said,settling back.
"Pop!" I said, sharp again. "Buggers who pad together tell everything."
"Oh yeah," he agreed, smiling. "I remember saying that to quite a fewguys in my day. It's a very restful comradely sentiment. I killed everylast one of 'em, too."
"You may have, Pop," I granted, "but we're two to one."
"So you are," he agreed softly, looking the both of us over. I knew whathe was thinking--that Alice still had just her pliers on and that inthese close quarters his knives were as good as my gun.
"Give me your right hand, Alice," I said. Without taking my eyes off PopI reached the knife without a handle out of her belt and then I startedto unscrew the pliers out of her stump.
"Pop," I said as I did so, "you may have quit killing for all I know. Imean you may have quit killing clean decent Deathland style. But I don'tbelieve one bit of that guff about having to talk to murderers to keepyour mind sweet. Furthermore--"
"It's true though," he interrupted. "I got to keep myself reminded ofhow lousy it feels to be a murderer."
"So?" I said. "Well, here's one person who believes you've got a morepractical reason for being on this plane. Pop, what's the bounty Atla-Higives you for every Deathlander you bring in? What would it be for twolive Deathlanders? And what sort of reward would they pay for a lostplane brought in? Seems to me they might very well make you a citizenfor that."
"Yes, even give you your own church," Alice added with a sort of wickedgaiety. I squeezed her stump gently to tell her let me handle it.
"Why, I guess you can believe that if you want to," Pop said and let outa soft breath. "Seems to me you need a lot of coincidences andhappenstances to make that theory hold water, but you sure can believeit if you want to. I got no way, Ray, to prove to you I'm telling thetruth except to say I am."
"Right," I said and then I threw the next one at him real fast. "What'smore, Pop, weren't you traveling in this plane to begin with? That cutsa happenstance. Didn't you hop out while we were too busy with the Pilotto notice and just _pretend_ to be coming from the cracking plant?Weren't the buttons locked because you were the Pilot's prisoner?"
* * * * *
Pop creased his brow thoughtfully. "It could have been that way," hesaid at last. "Could have been--according to the evidence as you saw it.It's quite a bright idea, Ray. I can almost see myself skulking in thiscabin, while you and Alice--"
"You were skulking somewhere," I said. I finished screwing in the knifeand gave Alice back her hand. "I'll repeat it, Pop," I said. "We're twoto one. You'd better talk."
"Yes," Alice added, disregarding my previous hint. "You may have givenup fighting, Pop, but I haven't. Not fighting, nor killing, nor anythingin between those two. Any least thing." My girl was being her mostpantherish.
"Now who says I've given up _fighting_?" Pop demanded, rearing a littleagain. "You people assume too much, it's a dangerous habit. Before wehave any trouble and somebody squawks about me cheating, let's get onething straight. If anybody jumps me I'll try to disable them, I'll tryto hurt them in any way short of killing, and that means hamstringingand rabbit-punching and everything else. Every least thing, Alice. Andif they happen to die while I'm honestly just trying to hurt them in away short of killing, then I won't grieve too much. My conscience willbe reasonably clear. Is that understood?"
I had to admit that it was. Pop might be lying about a lot of things,but I just didn't believe he was lying about this. And I already knewPop was quick for his age and strong enough. If Alice and me jumped himnow there'd be blood let six different ways. You can't jump a man whohas a dozen knives easy to hand and not expect that to happen, two toone or not. We'd get him in the end but it would be gory.
* * * * *
"And now," Pop said quietly, "I _will_ talk a little if you don't mind.Look here, Ray ... Alice ... the two of you are confirmed murderers, Iknow you wouldn't tell me nothing different, and being such you bothknow that there's nothing in murder in the long run. It satisfies ahunger and maybe gets you a little loot and it lets you get on to thenext killing. But that's all, absolutely all. Yet you got to do itbecause it's the way you're built. The urg
e is there, it's anoverpowering urge, and you got nothing to oppose it with. You feel theBig Grief and the Big Resentment, the dust is eating at your bones, youcan't stand the city squares--the Porterites and Mantenors andsuch--because you know they're whistling in the dark and it's a dirtytune, so you go on killing. But if there were a decent practical way toquit, you'd take it. At least I think you would. When you still thoughtthis plane could take you to Rio or Europe you felt that way, didn'tyou? You weren't planning to go there as murderers, were you? You weregoing to leave your trade behind."
It was pretty quiet in the cabin for a couple of seconds. Then Alice'sthin laugh sliced the silence. "We were dreaming then," she said. "Wewere out of our heads. But now you're talking about practical things, asyou say. What do you expect us to do if we quit our trade, as you callit--go into Walla Walla or Ouachita and give ourselves up? I might losemore than my right hand at Ouachita this time--that was just onsuspicion."
"Or Atla-Hi," I added meaningfully. "Are you expecting us to admit we'remurderers when we get to Atla-Hi, Pop?"
The old geezer smiled and thinned his eyes. "Now that wouldn'taccomplish much, would it? Most places they'd just string you up, maybeafter tickling your pain nerves a bit, or if it was Manteno they mightput you in a cage and feed you slops and pray over you, and would thathelp you or anybody else? If a man or woman quits killing there's a lotof things he's got to straighten out--first his own mind and feelings,next he's got to do what he can to make up for the murders he'sdone--help the next of kin if any and so on--then he's got to carry thenews to other killers who haven't heard it yet. He's got no time towaste being hanged. Believe me, he's got work lined up for him, workthat's got to be done mostly in the Deathlands, and it's the sort ofwork the city squares can't help him with one bit, because they justdon't understand us murderers and what makes us tick. We have to do itourselves."
* * * * *
"Hey, Pop," I cut in, getting a little interested in the argument (therewasn't anything else to get interested in until we got to Atla-Hi or Poplet down his guard), "I dig you on the city squares (I call 'em culturalqueers) and what sort of screwed-up fatheads they are, but just the samefor a man to quit killing he's got to quit lone-wolfing it. He's got tobelong to a community, he's got to have a culture of some sort, nomatter how disgusting or nutsy."
"Well," Pop said, "don't us Deathlanders have a culture? With customsand folkways and all the rest? A very tight little culture, in fact.Nutsy as all get out, of course, but that's one of the beauties of it."
"Oh sure," I granted him, "but it's a culture based on murder anddevoted wholly to murder. Murder is our way of life. That gets yourargument nowhere, Pop."
"Correction," he said. "Or rather, re-interpretation." And now for alittle while his voice got less old-man harsh and yet bigger somehow, asif it were more than just Pop talking. "Every culture," he said, "is away of growth as well as a way of life, because the first law of life isgrowth. Our Deathland culture is devoted to growing _through_ murder_away from_ murder. That's my thought. It's about the toughest way ofgrowth anybody was ever asked to face up to, but it's a way of growthjust the same. A lot bigger and fancier cultures never could figure outthe answer to the problem of war and killing--_we_ know that, all right,we inhabit their grandest failure. Maybe us Deathlanders, working withmurder every day, unable to pretend that it isn't part of every one ofus, unable to put it out of our minds like the city squares do--maybe usDeathlanders are the ones to do that little job."
"But hell, Pop," I objected, getting excited in spite of myself, "evenif we got a culture here in the Deathlands, a culture that can grow, itain't a culture that can deal with repentant murderers. In a _real_culture a murderer feels guilty and confesses and then he gets hangedor imprisoned a long time and that squares things for him and everybody.You need religion and courts and hangmen and screws and all the rest ofit. I don't think it's enough for a man just to say he's sorry and goaround glad-handing other killers--_that_ isn't going to be enough towipe out his sense of guilt."
Pop squared his eyes at mine. "Are you so fancy that you have to have asense of guilt, Ray?" he demanded. "Can't you just see when something'slousy? A sense of guilt's a luxury. Of course it's not enough to sayyou're sorry--you're going to have to spend a good part of the rest ofyour life making up for what you've done ... and what you will do, too!But about hanging and prisons--was it ever proved those were the rightthing for murderers? As for religion now--some of us who've quit killingare religious and a lot of us (me included) aren't; and some of the onesthat are religious figure (maybe because there's no way for them to gethanged) that they're damned eternally--but that doesn't stop them doinggood work. I ask you now, is any little thing like being damnedeternally a satisfactory excuse for behaving like a complete rat?"
That did it, somehow. That last statement of Pop's appealed so much tome and was completely crazy at the same time, that I couldn't helpwarming up to him. Don't get me wrong, I didn't really fall for his lineof chatter at all, but I found it fun to go along with it--so long asthe plane was in this shuttle situation and we had nothing better to do.
Alice seemed to feel the same way. I guess any bugger that could kidreligion the way Pop could got a little silver star in her books.Bronze, anyway.
* * * * *
Right away the atmosphere got easier. To start with we asked Pop to tellus about this "us" he kept mentioning and he said it was some dozens (orhundreds--nobody had accurate figures) of killers who'd quit and wentnomading around the Deathlands trying to recruit others and help thosewho wanted to be helped. They had semi-permanent meeting places wherethey tried to get together at pre-arranged dates, but mostly they kepton the go, by twos and threes or--more rarely--alone. They were all menso far, at least Pop hadn't heard of any women members, but--he assuredAlice earnestly--he would personally guarantee that there would be noobjections to a girl joining up. They had recently taken to callingthemselves Murderers Anonymous, after some pre-war organization Popdidn't know the original purpose of. Quite a few of them had slipped andgone back to murdering again, but some of these had come back after awhile, more determined than ever to make a go of it.
"We welcomed 'em, of course," Pop said. "We welcome everybody.Everybody that's a genuine murderer, that is, and says he wants to quit.Guys that aren't blooded yet we draw the line at, no matter how finethey are."
Also, "We have a lot of fun at our meetings," Pop assured us. "You neversaw such high times. Nobody's got a right to go glooming around or pulla long face just because he's done a killing or two. Religion or noreligion, pride's a sin."
Alice and me ate it all up like we was a couple of kids and Pop wastelling us fairy tales. That's what it all was, of course, a fairytale--a crazy mixed-up fairy tale. Alice and me knew there could be nofellowship of Deathlanders like Pop was describing--it was impossible asblue sky--but it gave us a kick to pretend to ourselves for a while tobelieve in it.
* * * * *
Pop could talk forever, apparently, about murder and murderers and hehad a bottomless bag of funny stories on the same topic and charactervignettes--the murderers who were forever wanting their victims tounderstand and forgive them, the ones who thought of themselves aslittle kings with divine rights of dispensing death, the ones whoinsisted on laying down (chastely) beside their finished victims andplaying dead for a couple of hours, the ones who weren't so chaste, theones who could only do their killings when they were dressed a certainway (and the troubles they had with their murder costumes), the ones whocould only kill people with certain traits or of a certain appearance(red-heads, say, or people who read books, or who couldn't carry tunes,or who used bad language), the ones who always mixed sex and murder andthe ones who believed that murder was contaminated by the least breath ofsex, the sticklers and the Sloppy Joes, the artists and the butchers, theax- and stiletto-types, the _com_pulsives and the _re_pulsives--honestly,Pop's portrait
s from life added up to a Dance of Death as good asanything the Middle Ages ever produced and they ought to have beenillustrated like those by some great artist. Pop told us a lot about hisown killings too. Alice and me was interested, but neither of us wasn'ttempted into making parallel revelations about ourselves. Your privatelife's your own business, I felt, as close as your guts, and no joke'sgood enough to justify revealing a knot of it.
Not that we talked about nothing but murder while we were bulletingalong toward Atla-Hi. The conversation was free-wheeling and we got ontoall sorts of topics. For instance, we got to talking about the plane andhow it flew itself--or levitated itself, rather. I said it must generatean antigravity field that was keyed to the body of the plane but nothingelse, so that _we_ didn't feel lighter, nor any of the objects in thecabin--it just worked on the dull silvery metal--and I proved my pointby using Mother to shave a little wisp of metal off the edge of thecontrol board. The curlicue stayed in the air wherever you put it andwhen you moved it you could feel the faintest sort of gyroscopicresistance. It was very strange.
Pop pointed out it was a little like magnetism. A germ riding on an ironfiling that was traveling toward the pole of a big magnet wouldn't feelthe magnetic pull--it wouldn't be operating on him, only on theiron--but just the same the germ'd be carried along with the filing andfeel its acceleration and all, provided he could hold on--but for thatpurpose you could imagine a tiny cabin in the filing. "That's what weare," Pop added. "Three germs, jumbo size."
Alice wanted to know why an antigravity plane should have even thestubbiest wings or a jet for that matter, for we remembered now we'dnoticed the tubes, and I said it was maybe just a reserve system in casethe antigravity failed and Pop guessed it might be for extra-fast battlemaneuvering or even for operating outside the atmosphere (which hardlymade sense, as I proved to him).
"If we're a battle plane, where's our guns?" Alice asked. None of us hadan answer.
We remembered the noise the plane had made before we saw it. It musthave been using its jets then. "And do you suppose," Pop asked, "that itwas something from the antigravity that made electricity flare out ofthe top of the cracking plant? Like to have scared the pants off me!" Noanswer to that either.
Now was a logical time, of course, to ask Pop what he knew about thecracking plant and just who had done the scream if not him, but Ifigured he still wouldn't talk; as long as we were acting friendly therewas no point in spoiling it.
* * * * *
We guessed around a little, though, about where the plane came from. Popsaid Alamos, I said Atla-Hi, Alice said why not from both, why couldn'tAlamos and Atla-Hi have some sort of treaty and the plane be travelingfrom the one to the other. We agreed it might be. At least it fittedwith the Atla-Hi violet and the Alamos blue being brighter than theother colors.
"I just hope we got some sort of anti-collision radar," I said. Iguessed we had, because twice we'd jogged in our course a little, maybeto clear the Alleghenies. The easterly green star was by now gettingpretty close to the violet blot of Atla-Hi. I looked out at the orangesoup, which was _one_ thing that hadn't changed a bit so far, and I gotto wishing like a baby that it wasn't there and to thinking how itblanketed the whole Earth (stars over the Riviera?--don't make melaugh!) and I heard myself asking, "Pop, did you rub out that guy thatpushed the buttons for all this?"
"Nope," Pop answered without hesitation, just as if it hadn't been fourhours or so since he'd mentioned the point. "Nope, Ray. Fact is Iwelcomed him into our little fellowship about six months back. This is_his_ knife here, this horn-handle in my boot, though he never killedwith it. He claimed he'd been tortured for years by the thought of themillions and millions he'd killed with blast and radiation, but now hewas finding peace at last because he was where he belonged, with themurderers, and could start to do something about it. Several of the boysdidn't want to let him in. They claimed he wasn't a real murderer, doingit by remote control, no matter how many he bumped off."
"I'd have been on their side," Alice said, thinning her lips.
"Yep," Pop continued, "they got real hot about it. _He_ got hot too andall excited and offered to go out and kill somebody with his bare handsright off, or try to (he's a skinny little runt), if that's what he hadto do to join. We argued it over, I pointed out that we let ex-soldierscount the killings they'd done in service, and that we countedpoisonings and booby traps and such too--which are remote-controlkillings in a way--so eventually we let him in. He's doing good work.We're fortunate to have him."
"Do you think he's really the guy who pushed the buttons?" I asked Pop.
"How should I know?" Pop replied. "He claims to be."
I was going to say something about people who faked confessions to get alittle easy glory, as compared to the guys who were really guilty andwould sooner be chopped up than talk about it, but at that moment afourth voice started talking in the plane. It seemed to be coming out ofthe violet patch on the North America screen. That is, it came from thegeneral direction of the screen at any rate and my mind instantly tiedit to the violet patch at Atla-Hi. It gave us a fright, I can tell you.Alice grabbed my knee with her pliers (she changed again), harder thanshe'd intended, I suppose, though I didn't let out a yip--I was toodefensively frozen.
* * * * *
The voice was talking a language I didn't understand at all that went upand down the scale like atonal music.
"Sounds like Chinese," Pop whispered, giving me a nudge.
"It _is_ Chinese. Mandarin," the screen responded instantly in thepurest English--at least that was how I'd describe it. PracticallyBoston. "Who are you? And where is Grayl? Come in, Grayl."
I knew well enough who Grayl must be--or rather, have been. I looked atPop and Alice. Pop grinned, maybe a mite feebly this time, I thought,and gave me a look as if to say, "_You_ want to handle it?"
I cleared my throat. Then, "We've taken over for Grayl," I said to thescreen.
"Oh." The screen hesitated, just barely. Then, "Do any of 'you' speakMandarin?"
I hardly bothered to look at Pop and Alice. "No," I said.
"Oh." Again a tiny pause. "Is Grayl aboard the plane?"
"No." I said.
"Oh. Incapacitated in some way, I suppose?"
"Yes," I said, grateful for the screen's tactfulness, unintentional ornot.
"But you have taken over for him?" the screen pressed.
"Yes," I said, swallowing. I didn't know what I was getting us into,things were moving too fast, but it seemed the merest sense to actcooperative.
"I'm very glad of that," the screen said with something in its tone thatmade me feel funny--I guess it was sincerity. Then it said, "Is the--"and hesitated, and started again with "Are the blocks aboard?"
I thought. Alice pointed at the stuff she dumped out of the other seat.I said. "There's a box with a thousand or so one-inch underweight steelcubes in it. Like a child's blocks, but with buttons in them. Alongsidea box with a parachute."
"That's what I mean," the screen said and somehow, maybe because whoeverwas talking was trying to hide it, I caught a note of great relief.
"Look," the screen said, more rapidly now, "I don't know how much youknow, but we may have to work very fast. You aren't going to be able todeliver the steel cubes to us directly. In fact you aren't going to beable to land in Atlantic Highlands at all. We're sieged in by planes andground forces of Savannah Fortress. All our aircraft, such as haven'tbeen destroyed, are pinned down. You're going to have to parachute theblocks to a point as near as possible to one of our ground partiesthat's made a sortie. We'll give you a signal. I hope it will belater--nearer here, that is--but it may be sooner. Do you know how tofight the plane you're in? Operate its armament?"
"No," I said, wetting my lip.
"Then that's the first thing I'd best teach you. Anything you see in thehaze from now on will be from Savannah. You must shoot it down."