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diff --git a/59602-0.txt b/59602-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..be079ad --- /dev/null +++ b/59602-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,340 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59602 *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + THE chasm + + BY BRYCE WALTON + + _It was a war of survival. Children + against old men. And not a chance + in the world to bridge_---- + + [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from + Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1956. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that + the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +The old man's face was turning gray with fatigue under the wrinkled +brown. He was beginning to get that deadly catching pain in his left +chest. But he forced himself to move again, his ragged dusty uniform +of the old Home Guard blending into the rubble the way a lizard merges +with sand. + +He hobbled behind a pile of masonry and peered through the crack. +He angled his bald head, listening. His hands never really stopped +quivering these days and the automatic rifle barrel made a fluttering +crackle on the concrete. He lowered the barrel, then wiped his face +with a bandanna. + +He'd thought he heard a creeping rustle over there. But he didn't see +any sign of the Children. + +He'd been picked to reconnoiter because his eyes were only +comparatively good. The truth was he couldn't see too well, especially +when the sun reflecting on the flat naked angles of the ruined town +made his eyes smart and water and now his head was beginning to throb. + +A dust devil danced away whirling a funnel of dust. Sal Lemmon looked +at it, and then he slid from behind the rubble and moved along down +the shattered block, keeping to the wall of jagged holes and broken +walls that had once been the Main Street of a town. + +He remembered with a wry expression on his face that he had passed his +ninety-fourth birthday eight days back. He had never thought he could +be concerned with whether he lived to see his ninety-fifth, because +there had always been the feeling that by the time he was ninety-four +he would have made his peace with himself and with whatever was outside. + +He moved warily, like a dusty rabbit, in and out of the ruins, +shrinking through the sun's dead noon glare. + +He stopped, and crouched in the shade behind a pile of slag that had +once been the iron statue of some important historical figure. He +contacted Captain Murphy on the walkie-talkie. + +"Don't see any signs of Children." + +"Max said he saw some around there," Murphy yelled. + +"Max's getting too old. Guess he's seeing things." + +"He saw them right around there somewhere." + +"Haven't seen him either." + +"We haven't heard another word from Max here, Sal." + +The old man shrugged. "How could the Children have gotten through our +post defenses?" He looked away down the white glare of the street. + +"You're supposed to be finding out," Murphy yelled. He had a good voice +for a man two months short of being a hundred. He liked to show it off. + +Then Sal thought he saw an odd fluttery movement down the block. + +"I'll report in a few minutes," he said, and then he edged along next +to the angled wall. A disturbed stream of plaster whispered down and +ran off his shoulder. + +Near the corner, he stopped. "Max," he said. He whispered it several +times. "Max ... that you, Max?" + +He moved nearer to the blob on the concrete. Heat waves radiated +up around it and it seemed to quiver and dance. He dropped the +walkie-talkie. There wasn't even enough left of Max to take back in or +put under the ground. + +He heard the metallic clank and the manhole cover moved and then he +saw them coming up over the edge. He ran and behind him he could hear +their screams and cries and their feet striking hard over the blisters, +cracks, and dried out holes in the dead town's skin. + +He dodged into rubble and fell and got up and kept on running. The +pain was like something squeezing in his belly, and he kept on running +because he wanted to live and because he had to tell the others that +the Children were indeed inside the post defenses. + +He knew now how they had come in. Through the sewers, under the +defenses. He began to feel and hear them crawling, digging, moving +all over beneath the ruins, waiting to come out in a filthy screaming +stream. + + * * * * * + +Sal was still resting in the corner of the old warehouse by the river. +A lantern hung on a beam and the dank floor was covered with deep +moving shadows. + +Captain Murphy was pacing in a circle, looking like something sewn +quickly together by a nervous seamstress. Doctor Cartley sat on a +canvas chair, elbows on knees, chin in his hands. He kept looking at +the floor. He was in his early eighties and sometimes seemed like a +young man to Sal. His ideas maybe. He thought differently about the +Children and where things were going. + +"We're going to get out tonight," Captain Murphy said again. "We'll get +that barge loaded and we'll get out." + +Sal sat up. The pills had made his heart settle down a bit, and his +hands were comparatively calm. + +"Is the barge almost loaded now? It better be," Sal said. "They'll +attack any minute now. I know that much." + +"Another hour's all we need. If they attack before then we can hold +them off long enough to get that barge into the river. Once we get into +the river with it, we'll be safe. We can float her down and into the +sea. Somewhere along the coast we'll land and wherever it is will be +fine for us. We'll have licked the Children. They know we've found the +only eatable food stores in God knows how many thousands of miles in +this goddamned wasteland. They can't live another month without this +stuff, and we're taking it all down the river. That's right isn't it, +Doc?" + +Cartley looked up. "But as I said before, squeezing a little more life +out of ourselves doesn't mean anything to me. What do we want to get +away and live a little longer for? It doesn't make sense, except in a +ridiculous selfish way. So we live another month, maybe six months, or +a year longer? What for?" + +Sal glanced at Murphy who finally sat down. + +"We want to live," Murphy said thickly, and he gripped his hands +together. "Survival. It's a natural law." + +"What about the survival of the species?" Cartley asked. "By running +out and taking the food, we're killing ourselves anyway. So I don't +think I'll be with you, Murphy." + +"What are you going to do? Stay here? They'll torture you to death. +They'll do to you what they did to Donaldson, and all the others +they've caught. You want to stay for that kind of treatment?" + +"We ought to try. Running off, taking all this food, that means they're +sure to die inside a few weeks. They might catch a few rats or birds, +but there aren't even enough of those around to sustain life beyond +a few days. So we kill the future just so we can go on living for a +little longer. We've got no reason to live when we know the race will +die. My wife refused to fight them. They killed her, that's true, +but I still think she was right. We've got to make one more attempt +to establish some kind of truce with the Children. If we had that, +then we might be able to start building up some kind of relationship. +The only way they can survive, even if they had food, is to absorb +our knowledge. You know that. Without our knowledge and experience, +they'll die anyway, even if they had a thousand years of food supplies." + +"It can't be done," Murphy said. + +Cartley looked at the shadows for a long time. Finally he shook his +head. "I don't have any idea how to do it. But we should try. We can't +use discipline and power because we're too weak. And too outnumbered. +We'd have to do that first in order to teach them, and we can't. So +there has to be some other way." + +"Faith?" Sal said. He shook his head. "They don't believe in anything. +You can't make any appeal to them through faith, or ethics, any kind of +code of honor, nothing like that. They're worse than animals." + +Cartley stood up wearily and started to walk away. "They hate us," he +said. "That's the one thing we're sure of. We're the means and they're +the ends. We made them what they are. They're brutalized and motivated +almost completely by hatred. And what's underneath hatred?" He fumed +back toward Murphy. "Fear." + +Sal stood up. "I never thought of them as being afraid," he said. + +"That doesn't matter," Murphy said. "It's the hate and vicious +brutality we have to deal with. You do whatever you want to do, +Cartley. We've voted, and we've voted to move the stuff out tonight on +the barge. The world we helped make is dead, Cartley. The Children grew +up in a world we killed. We've all got bad consciences, but we can't do +anything about it. The chasm between them and us is too wide. It was +wide even before the bombs fell. And the bombs made it a hell of a lot +wider. Too wide to put any kind of bridge across now." + +"Just the same, we ought to die trying," Cartley said. When he went +outside, Sal followed him. + +The barge was about loaded. All outer defense units had been pulled in +and were concentrated on the head of the pier behind walls of sandbags. +Burp guns and machine guns were ready, and the barge lay along the side +of the pier in the moonlight like a dead whale. There were several +sewer openings near the head of the pier. Men were stationed around +these sewers with automatic rifles, hand grenades and flame throwers. + +Sal walked to where Cartley stood leaning against the partly closed +door of the rotting warehouse. Jagged splinters of steel and wood +angled out against the sky. + +After a while, Sal said softly, "Well, what could we try to do, Doc?" + +Cartley turned quickly. Some of the anguish in his eyes had gone away, +and he gripped Sal's shoulders in hands surprisingly strong for so old +a man. "You want to help me try?" + +"Guess I do. Like you said, we only have a little time left anyway. And +if we can't help the Children, what's the good of it?" + +They stood there in the shadows a while, not saying anything. + +"This way," Cartley said. He led Sal down away from the pier and along +the water's edge. Dry reed rustled, and mud squished under their shoes. + +"Here," Cartley said. There was a small flat-bottomed rowboat, and in +it were several cartons of food supplies, all in cans. There were also +several large tins of water. + +"We'll need a little time," Cartley said. "We'll have to wait. I figure +we'll row upstream maybe a few hundred yards, and hole up in one of +those caves. We can watch, Sal. We can watch and wait and try to figure +it out." + +"Sure," Sal said. "That seems the only way to start." + +Cartley sat down on the bank near the boat, and Sal sat down too. + +"The Children," Cartley said, "never had a chance to be any other way. +But we're the oldsters, and we've got this obligation, Sal. Man's a +cultural animal. He isn't born with any inherent concepts of right, +or wrong, or good or bad, or even an ability to survive on an animal +level. We have to be taught to survive by the elders, Sal. And we're +the elders." He hesitated, "We're the only ones left." + +A flare of horrid light exploded over the warehouse down river and it +lit up Cartley's face and turned it a shimmering crimson. His hands +widened to perfect roundness and he raised his hands in a voiceless +scream to stop the sudden explosions of burp guns, grenades, machine +guns, and rifles. + +Looking down river then, Sal could see the flames eating up through the +warehouse. The pier, the barge, everything for a hundred square yards +was lit up as bright as day, and the flare spread out over the river +and made a black ominous shadow of the opposite bank. + +"They're getting away," Cartley said. + +Sal watched the barge move out. The Children came screaming out of the +blazing warehouse, overran the pier, streamed into the water. But a +steady blast of fire from the barge drove them back, and in a few more +minutes the barge dissolved downriver into darkness. + +Cartley's hands were shaking as he gripped Sal's arm. "Let's go now. We +need time. Time may help us a lot, Sal. We can wait and watch. We can +figure something out." + +Sal heard the screams and mocking savage cries coming up over the +water, and then the jagged cries of some oldsters who hadn't managed to +get away. + +Still looking downstream toward the blazing pier, Sal pushed Cartley +into the rowboat, and they shoved off. Sal started rowing, but he kept +looking back. + +"They should have put them in the same shelters with us," Sal said, +"that would have made a difference. But they put us in separate +shelters." + +Only the oldest and the youngest had been saved. The old out of +pity and because they were helpless, had been granted the safety of +shelters. The young because they were the symbols of hope had been +granted shelters, too. + +"No," Cartley said. "It started long before that. The chasm was +building up long before the war. This alienation between the young and +the old. Between the sun and the seed. That's what we've got to bring +back, Sal. Between us, we have stored up a hundred and seventy-nine +years of human culture. There isn't a kid back there, Sal, more than +twelve years old." + +"We'll find a way," Sal said. + +The rowboat was about fifteen feet away from the thick reeds growing in +the marshy ooze of the bank. + +Cartley heard the sound first and turned, his face white. When Sal +looked toward the bank, he saw the girl. She came on out from the +curtain of reeds and looked at them. She was perfectly clear in the +moonlight standing there. She wore a short ragged print dress and she +had long hair that seemed silken and soft and golden in the moonlight +even though it, her dress, her little legs and her face were streaked +with mud. + +Sal hesitated, then pulled heavily on his left oar and the boat nosed +toward her. Up close, Sal could see her face, the clear blue eyes wet, +and the tears running down her cheeks. + +The girl reached out and asked in a sobbing breath, + +"Granpa? Is that you, Granpa?" + +"Oh God, Oh God," Cartley said. He was crying as he picked her up and +got her into the boat. He was rocking her in his arms and half crying +and half laughing as Sal rowed the boat upstream. + +"Yes, yes, honey," Sal heard Cartley say over and over. "I'm your +granpa, honey. Don't cry. Go to sleep now. I'm your granpa and I've +been looking for you, honey, and now everything's going to be all +right." + +It's funny, Sal thought, as he kept on rowing upstream. It's a funny +thing how one little girl remembered her granpa, and how maybe that was +the beginning of the bridge across the chasm. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Chasm, by Bryce Walton + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59602 *** |