Paycheck. Part 14

He stopped.

Around him gray clouds blew. Gray ash, billowing as far as he could see. Dim shapes were visible. Broken shapes, silent and unmoving in the grayness.

Ruins.

Ruined buildings. Heaps of rubble. Debris everywhere. He walked slowly down the back steps. The concrete walk ended abruptly. Beyond it, slag and heaps of rubble were strewn. Nothing else. Nothing as far as the eye could see.

Nothing stirred. Nothing moved. In the gray silence there was no life. No motion. Only the clouds of drifting ash. The slag and the endless heaps.

The city was gone. The buildings were destroyed. Nothing remained. No people. No life. Jagged walls, empty and gaping. A few dark weeds growing among the debris. Tim bent down, touching a weed. Rough, thick stalk. And the slag. It was a metal slag. Melted metal. He straightened up- 'Come back inside,' a crisp voice said.

He turned numbly. A man stood on the porch, behind him, hands on his hips. A small man, hollow-cheeked. Eyes small and bright, like two black coals. He wore a uniform different from the soldiers'. His mask was pushed back, away from his face. His skin was yellow, faintly luminous, clinging to his cheekbones. A sick face, ravaged by fever and fatigue.

'Who are you?' Tim said.

'Douglas. Political Commissioner Douglas.'

'You're - you're the police,' Tim said.

'That's right. Now come inside. I expect to hear some answers from you. I have quite a few questions.

'The first thing I want to know,' Commissioner Douglas said, 'is how this house escaped destruction.'

Tim and Mary and the children sat together on the couch, silent and unmoving, faces blank with shock.

'Well?' Douglas demanded.

Tim found his voice. 'Look,' he said. 'I don't know. I don't know anything. We woke up this morning like every other morning. We dressed and ate breakfast-'

'It was foggy out,' Virginia said. 'We looked out and saw the fog.'

'And the radio wouldn't work,' Earl said.

'The radio?' Douglas's thin face twisted. 'There haven't been any audio signals in months. Except for government purposes. This house. All of you. I don't understand. If you were geeps-'

'Geeps. What does that mean?' Mary murmured.

'Soviet general-purpose troops.'

'Then the war has begun.'

'North America was attacked two years ago,' Douglas said. 'In 1978.'

Tim sagged. '1978. Then this is 1980.' He reached suddenly into his pocket. He pulled out his wallet and tossed it to Douglas. 'Look in there.'

Douglas opened the wallet suspiciously. 'Why?'

'The library card. The parcel receipts. Look at the dates.' Tim turned to Mary. 'I'm beginning to understand now. I had an idea when I saw the ruins.'

'Are we winning?' Earl piped.

Douglas studied Tim's wallet intently. 'Very interesting. These are all old. Seven and eight years.' His eyes flickered. 'What are you trying to say? That you came from the past? That you're time travelers?'

The captain came back inside. 'The snake is all loaded, sir.'

Douglas nodded curtly. 'All right. You can take off with your patrol.'

The captain glanced at Tim. 'Will you be-'

'I'll handle them.'

The captain saluted. 'Fine, sir.' He quickly disappeared through the door. Outside, he and his men climbed aboard a long thin truck, like a pipe mounted on treads. With a faint hum the truck leaped forward.

In a moment only gray clouds and the dim outline of ruined buildings remained.

Douglas paced back and forth, examining the living room, the wallpaper, the light fixture and chairs. He picked up some magazines and thumbed through them. 'From the past. But not far in the past.'

'Seven years?'

'Could it be? I suppose. A lot of things have happened in the last few months. Time travel.' Douglas grinned ironically. 'You picked a bad spot, McLean. You should have gone farther on.'

'I didn't pick it. It just happened.'

'You must have done something something.'

Tim shook his head. 'No. Nothing. We got up. And we were - here.'

Douglas was deep in thought. 'Here. Seven years in the future. Moved forward through time. We know nothing about time travel. No work has been done with it. There seem to be evident military possibilities.'

'How did the war begin?' Mary asked faintly.

'Begin? It didn't begin. You remember. There was war seven years ago.'

'The real war. This.'

'There wasn't any point when it became - this. We fought in Korea. We fought in China. In Germany and Yugoslavia and Iran. It spread, farther and farther. Finally the bombs were falling here. It came like the plague. The war grew grew. It didn't begin.' Abruptly he put his notebook away. 'A report on you would be suspect. They might think that I had the ash sickness.'

'What's that?' Virginia asked.

'Radioactive particles in the air. Carried to the brain. Causes insanity. Everybody has a touch of it, even with the masks.'

'I'd sure like to know who's winning,' Earl repeated. 'What was that outside? That truck. Was it rocket propelled?'

'The snake? No. Turbines. Boring snout. Cuts through the debris.'

'Seven years,' Mary said. 'So much has changed. It doesn't seem possible.'

'So much?' Douglas shrugged. 'I suppose so. I remember what I was doing seven years ago. I was still in school. Learning. I had an apartment and a car. I went out dancing. I bought a TV set. But these things were there. The twilight. This. Only I didn't know. None of us knew. But they were there.'

'You're a Political Commissioner?' Tim asked.

'I supervise the troops. Watch for political deviation. In a total war we have to keep people under constant surveillance. One Commie down in the Webs could wreck the whole business. We can't take chances.'

Tim nodded. 'Yes. It was there. The twilight. Only we didn't understand it.'

Douglas examined the books in the bookcase. 'I'll take a couple of these along. I haven't seen fiction in months. Most of it disappeared. Burned back in '77.'

'Burned?'

Douglas helped himself. 'Shakespeare. Milton. Dryden. I'll take the old stuff. It's safer. None of the Steinbeck and Dos Pa.s.sos. Even a polic can get in trouble. If you stay here, you better get rid of that that.' He tapped a volume of Dostoevski, The Brothers Karamazov The Brothers Karamazov.

'If we stay! What else can we do?'

'You want to stay?'

'No,' Mary said quietly.

Douglas shot her a quick glance. 'No, I suppose not. If you stay you'll be separated, of course. Children to the Canadian Relocation Centers. Women are situated down in the undersurface factory-labor camps. Men are automatically a part of Military.'

'Like those there who left,' Tim said.

'Unless you can qualify for the id block.'

'What's that?'

'Industrial Designing and Technology. What training have you had? Anything along scientific lines?'

'No. Accounting.'

Douglas shrugged. 'Well, you'll be given a standard test. If your IQ is high enough you could go in the Political Service. We use a lot of men.' He paused thoughtfully, his arms loaded with books. 'You better go back, McLean. You'll have trouble getting accustomed to this. I'd go back, if I could. But I can't.'

'Back?' Mary echoed. 'How?'

'The way you came.'

'We just came.'

Douglas halted at the front door. 'Last night was the worst rom attack so far. They hit this whole area.'

'Rom?'

'Robot operated missiles. The Soviets are systemically destroying continental America, mile by mile. Roms are cheap. They make them by the million and fire them off. The whole process is automatic. Robot factories turn them out and fire them at us. Last night they came over here - waves of them. This morning the patrol came in and found nothing. Except you, of course.'

Tim nodded slowly. 'I'm beginning to see.'

'The concentrated energy must have tipped some unstable time fault. Like a rock fault. We're always starting earthquakes. But a time quake time quake ... Interesting. That's what happened, I think. The release of energy, the destruction of matter, sucked your house into the future. Carried the house seven years ahead. This street, everything here, this very spot, was pulverized. Your house, seven years back, was caught in the undertow. The blast must have lashed back through time.' ... Interesting. That's what happened, I think. The release of energy, the destruction of matter, sucked your house into the future. Carried the house seven years ahead. This street, everything here, this very spot, was pulverized. Your house, seven years back, was caught in the undertow. The blast must have lashed back through time.'

'Sucked into the future,' Tim said. 'During the night. While we were asleep.'

Douglas watched him carefully. 'Tonight,' he said, 'there will be another rom attack. It should finish off what is left.' He looked at his watch. 'It is now four in the afternoon. The attack will begin in a few hours. You should be undersurface. Nothing will survive up here. I can take you down with me, if you want. But if you want to take a chance, if you want to stay here-'

'You think it might tip us back?'

'Maybe. I don't know. It's a gamble. It might tip you back to your own time, or it might not. If not-'

'If not we wouldn't have a chance of survival.'

Douglas flicked out a pocket map and spread it open on the couch. 'A patrol will remain in this area another halfhour. If you decide to come undersurface with us, go down the street this way.' He traced a line on the map. 'To this open field here. The patrol is a Political unit. They'll take you the rest of the way down. You think you can find the field?'

'I think so,' Tim said, looking at the map. His lips twisted. 'That open field used to be the grammar school my kids went to. That's where they were going when the troops stopped them. Just a little while ago.'

'Seven years ago,' Douglas corrected. He snapped the map shut and restored it to his pocket. He pulled his mask down and moved out the front door onto the porch. 'Maybe I'll see you again. Maybe not. It's your decision. You'll have to decide one way or the other. In any case - good luck.'

He turned and walked briskly from the house.

'Dad,' Earl shouted, 'are you going in the Army? Are you going to wear a mask and shoot one of those guns?' His eyes sparkled with excitement. 'Are you going to drive a snake snake?'

Tim McLean squatted down and pulled his son to him. 'You want that? You want to stay here? You want to stay here? If I'm going to wear a mask and shoot one of those guns we can't go back.' If I'm going to wear a mask and shoot one of those guns we can't go back.'

Earl looked doubtful. 'Couldn't we go back later?'

Tim shook his head. 'Afraid not. We've got to decide now, whether we're going back or not.'

'You heard Mr Douglas,' Virginia said disgustedly. 'The attack's going to start in a couple hours.'

Tim got to his feet and paced back and forth. 'If we stay in the house we'll get blown to bits. Let's face it. There's only a faint chance we'll be tipped back to our own time. A slim possibility - a long shot. Do we want to stay here with roms falling all around us, knowing any second it may be the end - hearing them come closer, hitting nearer - lying on the floor, waiting, listening-'

'Do you really want to go back?' Mary demanded.

'Of course, but the risk-'

'I'm not asking you about the risk. I'm asking you if you really want to go back. Maybe you want to stay here. Maybe Earl's right. You in a uniform and a mask, with one of those needle guns. Driving a snake.'

'With you in a factory-labor camp! And the kids in a Government Relocation Center! How do you think that would be? What do you think they'd teach them? What do you think they'd grow up like? And believe ...'

'They'd probably teach them to be very useful.'

'Useful! To what? To themselves? To mankind? Or to the war effort ...?'

'They'd be alive,' Mary said. 'They'd be safe. This way, if we stay in the house, wait for the attack to come-'

'Sure,' Tim grated. 'They would be alive. Probably quite healthy. Well fed. Well clothed and cared for.' He looked down at his children, his face hard. 'They'd stay alive, all right. They'd live to grow up and become adults. But what kind of adults? You heard what he said! Book burnings in '77. What'll they be taught from? What kind of ideas are left, since '77? What kind of beliefs can they get from a Government Relocation Center? What kind of values will they have?'

'There's the id block,' Mary suggested.

'Industrial Designing and Technology. For the bright ones. The clever ones with imagination. Busy slide rules and pencils. Drawing and planning and making discoveries. The girls could go into that. They could design the guns. Earl could go into the Political Service. He could make sure the guns were used. If any of the troops deviated, didn't want to shoot, Earl could report them and have them hauled off for reeducation. To have their political faith strengthened - in a world where those with with brains design weapons and those brains design weapons and those without without brains fire them.' brains fire them.'

'But they'd be alive,' Mary repeated.