The Return Page 3

  III

  The stockaded village became larger, details grew plainer, as thehelicopter came slanting down and began spiraling around it.

  It was a fairly big place, some forty or fifty acres in a roughparallelogram, surrounded by a wall of varicolored stone andbrick and concrete rubble from old ruins, topped with a palisadeof pointed poles. There was a small jetty projecting into theriver, to which six or eight boats of different sorts were tied;a gate opened onto this from the wall.

  Inside the stockade, there were close to a hundred buildings,ranging from small cabins to a structure with a belfry. It seemedto have been a church, partly ruined in the war of two centuriesago and later rebuilt.

  A stream came down from the woods, across the cultivated landaround the fortified village. There was a rough flume whichcarried the water from a dam close to the edge of the forest andprovided a fall to turn a mill wheel.

  "Look, strip farming," Loudons pointed. "See the alternate stripsof grass and plowed ground. These people understand soilconservation.

  "They have horses, too."

  As he spoke, three riders left the village at a gallop. Theyseparated, and the people in the fields, who had all started forthe village, turned and began hurrying toward the woods. Two ofthe riders headed for a pasture in which cattle had been grazingand started herding them also into the woods.

  For a while, there was a scurrying of little figures in thevillage below. Then, not a moving thing was in sight.

  "There's good organization," Loudons said. "Everybody seems toknow what to do, and how to get it done promptly. And look howneat the whole place is. Policed up. I'll bet anything we'll findthat they have a military organization, or a military traditionat least.

  "We'll have a lot to find out: you can't understand a people untilyou understand their background and their social organization."

  "Humph. Let me have a look at their artifacts: that will tellwhat kind of people they are," Altamont said, swinging theglasses back and forth over the enclosure. "Water-power mill,water-power sawmill--building on the left side of the waterwheel, see the pile of fresh lumber beside it. Blacksmith shop,and from that chimney, I'd say a small foundry, too.

  "Wonder what that little building out on the tip of the islandis, it has a water wheel too. Undershot wheel, and it looks likeit could be raised or lowered. Now, I wonder...."

  "Monty, I think we ought to land right in the middle of theenclosure, on that open plaza thing, in front of the buildingthat looks like a reconditioned church. That's probably the RoyalPalace, or the Pentagon, or the Kremlin, or whatever."

  Altamont started to object, paused, and then nodded. "I thinkyou're right, Jim. From the way they scattered, and got theirlivestock into the woods, they probably expect us to bomb them.We have to get inside and that's the quickest way to do it." Hethought for a moment. "We'd better be armed, when we go out.Pistols, auto-carbines, and a few of those concussion-grenades incase we have to break up a concerted attack. I'll get them."

  The plaza, the houses and the cabins around it, thetwo-hundred-year-old church, all were silent and apparentlylifeless as they set the helicopter down. Once Loudons caught amovement inside the door of a house, and saw a metallic glint.

  "There's a gun up there," he said. "Looks like a four-pounder.Brass. I knew that smith-shop was also a foundry. See that littlecurl of smoke? That's the gunner's slow-match.

  "I'd thought maybe that thing on the island was a powder mill.That would be where they'd put it. Probably extract their niterfrom the dung of their horses and cows. Sulfur probably fromcoal-mine drainage.

  "Jim, this is really something!"

  "I hope they don't cut loose with that thing," Loudons said,looking apprehensively at the brass-rimmed black muzzle that wascovering them from the belfry. "I wonder if we ought to--Oh-oh,here they come!"

  Three or four young men stepped out of the wide door of the oldchurch. They wore fringed buckskin trousers and buckskin shirtsand odd caps of deerskin with visors to shade the eyes andsimilar beaks behind to protect the neck. They had powder hornsand bullet pouches slung over their shoulders, and long rifles intheir hands. They stepped aside as soon as they were out.Carefully avoiding any gesture of menace, they simply stood,watching the helicopter which had landed in their village.

  Three other men followed them out. They, too, wore buckskins andthe odd double-visored caps. One had a close-cropped white beard,and on the shoulders of his buckskin shirt, he wore the singlesilver bars of a first lieutenant of the vanished United StatesArmy. He had a pistol on his belt. The pistol had the saw-handlegrip of an automatic, but it was a flintlock, as were the riflesof the young men who stood so watchfully on either side of thedoor.

  Two middle-aged men accompanied the bearded man and the trioadvanced toward the helicopter.

  "All right, come on, Monty."

  Loudons opened the door and let down the steps. Picking up anauto-carbine, he slung it and stepped out of the helicopter,Altamont behind him. They advanced to meet the party from thechurch, halting when they were about twenty feet apart.

  "I must apologize, lieutenant, for dropping in on you sounceremoniously."

  Loudons stopped, wondering if the man with the white beardunderstood a word of what he was saying.

  "The natural way to come in, when you travel in the air," the oldman replied. "At least, you came in openly. I can promise you abetter reception than that you got at the city to the west of usa couple of days ago."

  "Now how did you know that we had trouble theday-before-yesterday?" Loudons demanded.

  The old man's eyes sparkled with child-like pleasure. "Thatsurprises you, my dear sir? In a moment, I daresay you'll besurprised at the simplicity of it.

  "You have a nasty rip in the left leg of your trousers, and thecloth around it is stained with blood. Through the rip, Iperceive a bandage. Obviously, you have suffered a recent wound.I further observe that the side of your flying machine bearsrecent scratches, as though from the spears or throwing hatchetsof the Scowrers. Evidently, they attacked you as you werelanding. It is fortunate that these cannibal devils are toostupid and too anxious for human flesh to exercise patience."

  "Well, that explains how you knew that we'd recently beenattacked," Loudons told him. "But how did you guess that it hadbeen to the west of here, in a ruined city?"

  "I never guess," the oldster with the silver bar and thekeystone-shaped red patch on his left shoulder replied. "It is ashocking habit--destructive to the logical faculties. What seemsstrange to you is only so because you do not follow my train ofthought.

  "For example, the wheels and their framework under your flyingmachine are splashed with mud which seems to be predominantlybrick-dust, mixed with plaster. Obviously, you landed recently ina dead city, either during or after a rain. There was a rain hereyesterday evening, the wind being from the west. Obviously, youfollowed behind the rain as it came up the river. And now that Ilook at your boots, I see traces of the same sort of mud, aroundthe soles and in front of the heels.

  "But this is heartless of us, keeping you standing here on awounded leg, sir. Come in, and let our medic take a look at it."

  "Well, thank you, lieutenant," Loudons replied. "But don't botheryour medic. I've attended to the wound myself, and it wasn'tserious to begin with."

  "You are a doctor?" the white-haired man asked.

  "Of sorts. A sort of general scientist. My name is Loudons. Myfriend, Mr. Altamont, here, is a scientist, too."

  There was an immediate reaction: all three of the elders of thevillage, and the young riflemen who had accompanied them,exchanged glances of surprise.

  Loudons dropped his hand to the grip of his slung auto-carbineand Altamont sidled away from his partner, his hand moving as ifby accident toward the butt of his pistol. The same thought wasin both men's minds, that these people might feel, as theheritage of the war of two centuries ago, a hostility to scienceand scientists.

  There was no hostility, however, in their manner as the old m
ancame forward with outstretched hand.

  "I am Tenant Mycroft Jones, the Toon Leader here," he said. "Thisis Stamford Rawson, our Reader, and Verner Hughes, our ToonSarge. This is his son, Murray Hughes, the Toon Sarge of theIrregulars.

  "But come into the Aitch-Cue House, gentlemen. We have much totalk about."

  * * * * *

  By this time, the villagers had begun to emerge from the logcabins and rubble-walled houses around the plaza and the oldchurch. Some of them, mostly the young men, were carrying rifles,but the majority were unarmed. About half of them were women, inshort deerskin skirts or homespun dresses. There were a number ofchildren, the younger ones almost completely naked.

  "Sarge," the old man told one of the youths, "post a guard overthis flying machine. Don't let anybody meddle with it. And haveall the noncoms and techs report here, on the double." He turnedand shouted up at the truncated steeple: "Atherton, sound 'AllClear!'"

  A horn up in the belfry began blowing, apparently to advise thepeople who had run from the fields into the forest that there wasno danger.

  They went through the open doorway of the old stone church andentered the big room inside. The building had evidently once beengutted by fire, two centuries ago, but portions of the wall hadbeen restored. The floor had been replaced by one of roughplanks, and there was a plank ceiling at about ten feet.

  The room was apparently used as a community center. There were anumber of benches and chairs, all very neatly made; and along onewall, out of the way, ten or fifteen long tables had beenstacked, the tops in a pile and the trestles on the tops.

  The walls were decorated with trophies of weapons--a number ofM-12 rifles and M-16 submachine-guns, all in good, cleancondition; a light machine rifle; two bazookas. Among them werecruder weapons, stone-and metal-tipped spears and clubs, the workof the wild men of the woods.

  A stairway led to the second floor, and it was up this stairwaythat the man who bore the title of Toon Leader conducted them, toa small room furnished with a long table, a number of chairs, andseveral big wooden chests bound with iron.

  "Sit down, gentlemen," the Toon Leader invited, going to acupboard and producing a large bottle stoppered with a corncoband a number of small cups.

  "It's a little early in the day," he went on, "but this is a veryspecial occasion.

  "You smoke a pipe, I take it?" he asked Altamont. "Then try someof this, of our own growth and curing."

  He extended a doeskin moccasin, which seemed to be the tobaccocontainer.

  Altamont looked at the thing dubiously, then filled his pipe fromit.

  The oldster drew his pistol, pushed a little wooden plug into thevent, added some tow to the priming, and, aiming at the wall,snapped it. Evidently, at time the formality of plugging the venthad been overlooked: there were a number of holes in the wallthere.

  This time, however, the pistol didn't go off. The old man shookout the smoldering tow, blew it into flame, and lit a candle fromit, offering the light to Altamont.

  Loudons got out a cigar and lit it from the candle; the othersfilled and lighted pipes. The Toon Leader reprimed his pistol,then holstered it, took off his belt and laid it aside, anexample the others followed.

  They drank ceremoniously, and then seated themselves at thetable. As they did, two more men entered the room. They wereintroduced as Alexander Barrett, the gunsmith and StanleyMarkovitch, the distiller.

  The Toon Leader began by asking, "You come, then, from the west?"

  "Are you from Utah?" the gunsmith interrupted, suspiciously.

  "Why, no, we're from Arizona. A place called Fort Ridgeway,"Loudons said.

  The others nodded, in the manner of people who wish to concealignorance. It was obvious that none of them had ever heard ofFort Ridgeway, or Arizona either.

  "You say you come from a fort? Then the wars aren't over yet?"Sarge Hughes asked.

  "The wars have been over for a long time. You know how terriblethey were. You know how few in all the countries were leftalive," Loudons said.

  "None that we know of, beside ourselves and the Scowrers, untilyou came," the Toon Leader said.

  "We have found only a few small groups, in the whole country, whohave managed to save anything of the Old Times. Most of themlived in little villages and cultivated land. A few had horses orcows. None, that we have ever found before, made guns and powderfor themselves. But they remembered that they were men, and didnot eat one another.

  "Whenever we find a group of people like this, we try to persuadethem to let us help them."

  "Why?" the Toon Leader asked. "Why do you do this for people thatyou have never met before? What do you want from them--fromus--in return for your help?"

  He was speaking to Altamont, rather than to Loudons. It seemedobvious that he believed Altamont to be the leader and Loudonsthe subordinate.

  "Because we are trying to bring back the best of the Old Times,"Altamont told him. "Look, you have had troubles, here. So havewe, many times. Years when the crops didn't ... didn't...." Helooked at Loudons, aware that his partner should be talking now,and also suddenly aware that Loudons had recognized the situationand left the leadership up to him....

  "... years that the crops failed. Years of storms, or floods.Troubles with those beast-men in the woods.

  "And you were alone, as we were, with no one to help.

  "We want to put all men who are still men in touch with oneanother, so that they can help each other in trouble, and worktogether.

  "If this isn't done, everything that makes men different frombeasts will soon be no more."

  "He's right. One of us, alone, is helpless," the Reader said. "Itis only in the Toon that there is strength. He wants to organizea Toon of all Toons."

  "That's about it. We are beginning to make helicopters, like theone Loudons and I came in. We'll furnish your community with oneor more of them. We can give you a radio, so that you cancommunicate with other communities. We can give you rifles andmachine guns and ammunition, to fight the--the Scowrers, did youcall them? And we can give you atomic engines, so that you canbuild machines for yourselves."

  "Some of our people,--Alex Barrett here, the gunsmith, and StanMarkovitch, the distiller, and Harrison Grant, the iron-worker--gettheir living by making things. How'd they make out, after your machinescame in here?" Verner Hughes asked.

  "We've thought of that. We had that problem with other groupswe've helped," Loudons said. "In some communities, everybody ownseverything in common and so we don't have much of a problem. Isthat the way you do it, here?"

  "Well, no. If a man makes a thing, or digs it out of the ruins,or catches it in the woods, it's his."

  "Then we'll work out some way. Give the machines to the peoplewho are already in a trade, or something like that. We'll have totalk it over with you and with the people concerned."

  "How is it you took so long finding us?" Alex Barrett asked."It's been two hundred or so years since the Wars."

  "Alex! You see but you do not observe!" The Toon Leader rebuked."These people have their flying machines, which are highlycomplicated mechanisms. They would have to make tools andmachines to make them, and tools and machines to make those toolsand machines. They would have to find materials, often going insearch of them. The marvel is not that they took so long, butthat they did it so quickly."

  "That's right," Altamont said. "Originally, Fort Ridgeway was amilitary research and development center. As the country becamedisorganized, the Government set this project up to develop waysof improvising power and transportation and communication methodsand extracting raw materials. If they'd had a little more time,they might have saved the country.

  "As it was, they were able to keep themselves alive, and keepsomething like civilization going at the Fort, while the wholecountry was breaking apart around them.

  "Then, when the rockets stopped falling, they started to rebuild.Fortunately, more than half the technicians at the Fort werewomen, so there was no question of them dying o
ut.

  "But it's only been in the last twenty years that we've been ableto make nuclear-electric engines, and this is the first time anyof us have gotten east of the Mississippi."

  "How did your group manage to survive?" Loudons asked. "You callit the Toon. I suppose that's what the word platoon has become,with time. You were, originally, a military platoon?"

  "Pla-toon!" the white-bearded man said. "Of all the unpardonablestupidities! Of course that's what it was. And the title, Tenant,was originally lieu-tenant. I know that, though we have droppedall use of the first part of the word. But that should have ledme, if I had used my wits, to deduce platoon from toon."

  The Tenant shook his head in dismay at his stupidity and Loudonsfound himself forced to say, "One syllable like that could havecome from many words."