Special Deliverance

28

He was within a few hours of the tower when he met the other two — Jorgenson and Melissa — coming down the trail. There had been no sign of the Waller.

“My God,” said Jorgenson, “I’m glad we found you. There was no one at the tower.”

“No one but Sandra, and she was dead,” Melissa said.

“Where are the other two?” asked Jorgenson.

“Jurgens was lost at Chaos,” Lansing told him, “and I am hunting Mary. You are sure you saw no sign of her?”

“None at all,” said Jorgenson. “Where do you think she could be?”

“She had been at the inn. I thought she might have come back to the tower. Since she hasn’t, I would imagine she is heading for the city.”

“She would have left word for you at the inn,” Melissa said. “You two were very close.”

“She did leave a note. The landlady couldn’t find it. Claimed that she had lost it. I helped her search for it before I left.”

“That’s strange,” said Jorgenson.

“Yes, very strange. Everything here seems to work against us.”

“What happened to Jurgens?” Melissa asked. “I liked him. He was a sweet old soul.”

Swiftly Lansing told them, then asked, “What is in the west? Did you find anything?”

“We found nothing,” Jorgenson told him. “We stayed out a couple of days longer than we had intended, hoping we’d find something. The land is arid, not quite desert. Almost desert. We had water trouble, but we got along.”

“Just empty land,” Melissa said. “You could look for miles — and nothing.”

“Finally we came to the edge of the escarpment we had been traveling across,” said Jorgenson. “Not knowing, of course, we were traveling an escarpment. The land broke down, a long line of cliffs, and there, far as we could see, was desert. Real desert; sand and that was all. It stretched away as far as we could see and it was emptier, if that was possible, than the land we’d crossed. So we came back.”

“Chaos north and nothing west,” said Lansing. “That leaves the south, but I’m not going south. I’m going to the city; I think that Mary’s there.”

“It’s almost sunset,” said Jorgenson. “Why don’t we camp? Start out in the morning. Decide what we should do and start out in the morning.”

“I’m willing,” Lansing said. “There’s no sense in going to the tower since you just left. Tell me about Sandra. Did you bury her?”

Melissa shook her head. “We talked about it, but we couldn’t. To bury her seemed not quite right. We decided we should leave her where she was. She is little better than a mummy. I think she died as she would have wanted to. We thought it best to leave her.”

Lansing nodded. “My thoughts were much the same. I even wondered if she’d died. It seemed to me, looking at her, that she had only gone away. The life of her, the spirit of her, going somewhere else, leaving a withered, worthless husk behind.”

“I think that you are right,” Melissa said. “I can’t put it into words, but I think that you are right. She stood apart from all of us; she was never one of us. What would be right for us would not be right for her.”

They built a fire, cooked food, boiled coffee and ate, crouched around the fire. The moon came up, the stars came out and the night was lonely.

Holding the coffee mug in both his hands, sipping occasionally at the brew, Lansing thought back to Chaos and to Jurgens, principally to Jurgens. Had there been, he asked himself, anything that he could have done to save the robot? Had there been some way, if he only had been able to think well and fast enough, that he could have walked down the sloping sand to catch his sliding friend and haul him back to safety? His mind was blank as to any suggestion of how he might have done it. Yet he could not escape the sense of guilt that rose up to choke him; he had been there. Certainly there had been some action that he could have taken. He had tried, of course; he had ventured out on the sliding sand slope, he had had a try at it, but that had not been good enough. He had tried and failed, and failure itself spelled out to guilt.

And what of Jurgens now? Where had he gone, where was he now? He, Lansing, had not even paid his friend the courtesy of watching where he’d gone. He had been busy at the time, trying to save himself, but be that as it may, he somehow should have managed to note what had happened to the robot. It seemed, he told himself sourly, that there was no end to guilt. Whatever a man might do, there was always guilt.

The assumption must be that Jurgens had kept on sliding, unable to stop the slide, until he came to that point where the black curtain of roaring Chaos (whatever Chaos might be) came down to meet the sand. And what happened then? What was it Jurgens had said just before the fall? The end of everything. There goes the universe. Eaten by the blackness. Had Jurgens known? Or had he been only talking? There was no way to know.

It was strange, Lansing thought, the ways they had been lost. The Parson walking through a door. The Brigadier being taken up (taken up?) by the two banks of machines crooning to themselves. Sandra sucked dry of life by a singing tower. Jurgens sliding into Chaos. And Mary — Mary walking off. But as yet Mary was not gone — at least so far as he knew, she was not gone as the others now were gone. There still was hope for Mary.

Jorgenson asked, “Lansing, what is going on? You seem deep in thought.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Lansing said, “of what we should do come morning.”

He had not been thinking that, but it was something he could say to answer Jorgenson.

“I suppose back to the city,” said Jorgenson. “That’s what you indicated.”

“You will come with me?” Lansing asked.

“I won’t go to the city,” Melissa said. “I was in the city once and—”

“You won’t go to the city and you won’t go north,” said Jorgenson. “There are too many places you refuse to go. Much more of this, by Jesus, and I’m walking off and leaving you. You’re bitching all the time.”

“I think we could save some time,” said Lansing, “by going cross-country.”

“What do you mean, cross-country?”

“Well, look,” said Lansing. He put down the cup and with the palm of one hand smoothed out a place in the sand. With an extended forefinger he began to draw a map. “When we left the city we traveled the badlands trail. We were going slightly west, but mostly north. Then when we left the inn, we traveled straight west to the tower. It seems to me there should be a shorter way.”

He had drawn one line to represent the badlands trail, another, at right angles to it, between the inn and tower. Now he made another mark, connecting the tower and city. “If we went that way, there’d be less ground to cover. A triangle, you see. Instead of traveling two legs of it, we’d travel only one. Head southeast.”

“We’d be in unknown country,” Jorgenson protested. “No trail to follow. We’d get tangled in the badlands. We would lose our way.”

“We could maintain our bearing with compass readings. It might be we would miss the badlands. They may not extend this far west. It would be a shorter way to go.”

“I don’t know,” said Jorgenson.

“I do. That’s the way I’m going. Will you come along?”

Jorgenson hesitated for a long moment, then he said, “Yes, we’ll come along.”

They set out at early dawn. An hour or so later they crossed the eastward-running river that some miles later would flow past the bin. They crossed at a shallow ford, barely getting wet.

The character of the land began to change. It went in a gentle slope upward from the river, marked by long ridges, each ridge rising higher than the last. It became less arid. There was less sand, more grass. Trees began to appear and as they climbed each successive ridge, the trees increased in number and in size. In some of the small valleys that separated the ridges, tiny creeks made their way, clear, sparkling water chattering over rocky courses.

Toward the end of the day they topped one ridge that stood considerably higher than those they had been crossing and saw, spread out before them, a valley somewhat wider and more lush than the others they had seen — a green valley with many trees and, far below, a river of respectable size. A short distance up the valley, toward the west, thin curls of smoke spiraled up into the air.

“People,” said Jorgenson. “There must be people there.”

He started moving forward, but Lansing put out a hand to halt him.

“What’s the matter?” asked Jorgenson.

“We don’t go rushing in.”

“But I tell you, there are people.”

“I suppose there are. But we don’t go rushing in. Neither do we sneak up. We let them know we’re here and give them a chance to look us over.”

“You know about everything,” said Jorgenson, sneering.

“Not everything,” Lansing told him. “Only common sense. Either we give them a chance to look us over or we sneak around them, pass them by.”

“I think we should go in,” Melissa said. “Mary may be there. Or someone might know something of her.”

“That’s unlikely,” Lansing said. “I’m convinced she headed for the city. She’d have no occasion to come this way.”

“We’re going in,” said Jorgenson, a belligerent tone in his voice. “Someone may know what is going on. If so, it’ll be the first time we’ve known since we came here.”

“Okay,” said Lansing. “We’ll go in.”

They went down the hill until they reached the valley, went slowly up it, toward the smoke. Up ahead someone saw them and shouted warning. The three halted and stood waiting. In a short time a small group of people, ten or so, appeared, making their way down the valley toward them. The crowd stopped and three men walked forward.

Lansing, standing in front of Jorgenson and Melissa, studied the three as they approached. One of them was old. His hair and beard were white. The other two were younger — one a blond youth with yellow beard and hair that hung down to his shoulders, the other a grim, dark-visaged, dark-haired man. He wore no beard, but the stubble on his face was heavy; he had not shaved for several days. Their clothing was in tatters, elbows out, holes in the knees of their trousers, rips and tears inexpertly sewed together. The old man wore what appeared to be a vest of rabbit fur.

The three halted only a few paces away. The yellow-haired man spoke in a strange tongue.

“Heathen talk,” said Jorgenson. “Why can’t he speak English?”

“Foreign, not heathen,” Lansing said. “German, at a guess. Do any of you speak English?”

“I speak it,” the old man said. “I and a couple of others in the camp. Your guess is correct. My young friend does speak German. Pierre, here, speaks French. I can understand both fairly well. My name is Allen Correy. I would suppose you might have come from the tower. You must have lost your way.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Lansing, “we are heading for the city.”

“For what reason?” Correy asked. “There is nothing there. All of us know that.”

“He’s hunting for a lost girl friend,” said Jorgenson. “He has the idea she may be going there.”

“In that case,” Correy said to Lansing, “I sincerely hope you find her. You know how to get there?”

“Southeast,” said Lansing. “That should get us there.”

“Yes, I think it will,” said Correy.

“Do you know anything about the country up ahead?”

“Only for a few miles. We stay fairly close to camp. We do not wander far.”

“You are people, I suppose, the same as us. I don’t know what to call us. I’ve never thought about that. But people who were brought here.”

“We are part of them,” said Correy. “There may be other bands like us, but if so, we don’t know where they are. You know, of course, that few of us survive. We are a small group of survivors. There are thirty-two of us here. Twelve men, the rest are women. Some of us have been here for years.”

The dark-visaged Frenchman spoke to him, and Correy said to Lansing, “You will pardon me. I forgot my manners. Will you not come into camp and join us? It will be dark before too long and supper now is cooking. We have a huge pot of rabbit stew and plenty of fish to fry. I wouldn’t be surprised if there should be a salad, although we are long since out of dressing and must do with hot cooking fat. I must warn you also we are short of salt. Long since we have become accustomed to the lack, and it no longer bothers us.”

“Nor will it bother us,” Melissa told him. “We accept your invitation gladly.”

A short distance up the valley, as they rounded a grove of trees that had hidden it, they came upon a cornfield with a few shocks of harvested stalks still standing in it. Beyond the field, in a sheltered cove formed by a sharp bend in the river’s course, stood a collection of rude huts and a few tattered, weatherbeaten tents. Fires were burning and small groups of waiting people stood about.

Correy gestured at the cornfield. “It’s a poor thing at the best, but we take good care of it and each season harvest enough to take us through the winter. We also have a rather extensive garden plot. Mrs. Mason secured for us the seed corn and the seeds we needed to plant the garden.”

“Mrs. Mason?” Melissa asked.

“She is the landlady at the inn,” said Correy. “A grasping soul, but she has cooperated with us. At times she sends recruits, people of our sort who have nowhere else to go and gravitate back to the inn. She doesn’t want them there unless they have money they can spend. Few of them do, so she gets rid of them by sending them to us. However, our population does not grow by any appreciable number. There are deaths, especially in the bitter winter months. We have, among other things, a growing cemetery.”

“There’s no way back?” asked Jorgenson. “No way back to the worlds you came from?”

“None that we have found,” said Correy. “Not that we have sought extensively. A few of us have. Most just hunker down.”

The evening meal was ready to be dished up by the time they arrived at the camp. They sat down, the three of them, in a circle with all the others about the central campfire and were given bowls of stewed rabbit and others of boiled, mixed vegetables and platters of crisp-fried fish. There was no coffee or tea, only water to drink. There was not a salad, as Correy had said there might be.

Many of the people in the camp, perhaps all of them (Lansing tried to keep count, but lost the count) came to shake their hands and welcome them. Most of them spoke in foreign tongues, a few in broken English. There were two other than Correy for whom English was a native language. Both of them were women, and immediately they squatted down with Melissa and the three of them jabbered away at an alarming rate.

The food, despite the lack of salt, was good.

“You said you lack salt,” Lansing said to Correy, “and probably a number of other things. Yet you say that Mrs. Mason secured seed for your garden and your patch of corn. Won’t she get you salt and other necessities you need?”

“Oh, most willingly,” said Correy, “but we have no money. The treasury has run out. Perhaps earlier we spent it more freely than was wise.”

“I have some left,” said Lansing. “Would a donation be in order?”

“I would not wish to solicit funds,” said Correy, “but if, of your own free will…”

“I’ll leave a small sum with you.”

“You’re not staying with us? You are welcome, as you must know.”

“I told you I was going to the city.”

“Yes, I do recall.”

“I’ll be glad to spend the night,” Lansing told him. “In the morning I will leave.”

“Perhaps you will come back.”

“You mean if I don’t find Mary.”

“Even if you find her. Any time you wish. She’ll be welcome if she returns with you.”

Lansing looked about the camp. It was not the sort of place where he would care to settle down. Life here would be hard. There would be unremitting labor — chopping and bringing in wood, taking care of the garden and the cornfield, the never-ending scrounging for food. There would be bitter little rivalries, the flaring of tempers, incessant squabbling.

“We have worked out a primitive way of life,” said Correy, “and we manage rather well. There are fish to be taken from the river, the valleys and the hills have game. Some of us have become experts at trapping — there are a number of rabbits. More some years than others. A couple of years ago, when a drought hit us, all of us worked hard and long, carrying water from the river for the garden and the corn. But we managed; we had a splendid harvest.”

“It’s amazing,” Lansing said, “such a varied mix of people. Or I suppose it’s varied.”

“Very much so,” Correy said. “In my former life I was a member of a diplomatic corps. We have, among others, a geologist, a farmer who once owned and worked thousands of acres, a certified public accountant, a noted and once-pampered actress, a woman noted as an eminent historian, a social worker, a banker. I could go on and on.”

“Have you, in the time that you and the others have had to think about it, arrived at any conclusions as to why we all may have been brought here?”

“No, not actually. There are many speculations, as you may guess, but nothing solid. There are those who think they know, but I’m quite certain that they don’t. There are people, you understand, who find a certain stability in convincing themselves they are right about even the most fantastic notions. It gives them something they can cling to, a certainty that they know what is going on, that they know while all the rest of us are groping in the dark.”

“And you? Yourself?”

“I am one of those people who is cursed by being able to see both sides, or the many sides, of a question. As a diplomat, it was imperative that I should. I find it necessary to be strictly honest with myself; I will not allow myself to fool myself.”

“So you have no hard conviction?”

“Not a single one. All of it is as much a mystery to me as the day that I arrived.”

“What do you know of the country we’ll be traveling to reach the city? How about the badlands?”

“It’s rough and hilly,” said Correy, “so far as we have ventured. Forest mostly. But not hard going. The badlands I do not know about. We have not come upon them. They must lie east of here.”

“You are quite content to stay here? You have not ventured farther? You have not looked?”

“Not content,” said Correy, “but what is there to do? Some of us have gone north to Chaos. Did you go that far?”

“I did. I lost a good friend there.”

“The north is closed by Chaos,” Correy said. “There is no getting past it. What it is, I do not know, but it blocks the way. For a hundred miles or more beyond the tower is nothing but man-killing desert. To the south, so far as we have gone, there seems no promise. So now you go back to the city, hoping you will find something that you missed.”

“No,” said Lansing. “I am going to find Mary. I must find her. She and I are the only ones of our band who are left. The other four were lost.”

“The two who are with you?”

“They were not with us to start with. They are from another group. We found them at the inn.”

“They seem to be nice people,” said Correy. “Here they come, to join us.”

Lansing looked up and saw Jorgenson and Melissa walking around the circle. Jorgenson, coming up, squatted down in front of him. Melissa remained standing. “Melissa and I want to tell you something,” Jorgenson said. “We’re sorry, but we’re not going with you. We’ve decided to stay here.”