Part 3

Arch spent the following day in a nearly suicidal depression. Elizabeth tried to pull him out of it, failed, and went downtown after a fifth of whiskey. That helped. The hangover helped too. It's hard to concentrate on remorse when ten thousand red-hot devils are building an annex to Hell in your skull. Toward evening, he was almost cheerful again. A certain case-hardening was setting in.

After dark, there was a knock on the door. When he opened it, Horrisford and a stranger stood there.

"Oh--come in," he said "Excuse the mess. I--haven't been feeling so well."

"Anyone here?" asked the agent.

"Just my wife."

"She'll be all right," said the stranger impatiently. He was a big, stiff, gray-haired man. "Bring her in, please. This is important."

They were settled in the living room before Horrisford performed the introductions. "Major General Brackney of Strategic Services." Arch's hand was wet as he acknowledged the handclasp.

"This is most irregular," said the general. "However, we've put through a special check on you. A fast but very thorough check. In spite of your errors of judgment, the FBI is convinced of your essential loyalty. Your discretion is another matter."

"I can keep my mouth shut, if that's what you mean," said Arch.

"Yes. You kept one secret for ten years," said Horrisford. "The business of Mrs. Ramirez."

Arch started. "How the deuce--? That was a personal affair. I've never told a soul, not even my wife!"

"We have our little ways." Horrisford grinned, humanly enough. "The point is that you could have gained somewhat by blabbing, but didn't. It speaks well for you."

General Brackney cleared his throat. "We want your help on a certain top-secret project," he said. "You still know more about capacitite than anybody else. But if one word of this leaks out prematurely, it means war. Atomic war. It also means that all of us, and you particularly, will be crucified."

"I--"

"You're an independent so-and-so, I realize. What we have in mind is a scheme to prevent such a war. We want you in on it both for your own value and because we can't protect you forever from Soviet agents." Brackney's smile had no humor. "Didn't know that, did you? It's one reason you're being co-opted, in spite of all you've done.

"I can't say more till you take the oath, and once you've done that you're under all the usual restrictions. Care to help out?"

Arch hesitated. He had little faith in government ... any government. Still--

Horrisford of the FBI had saved his life.

"I'm game," he said.

Elizabeth nodded. The oath was administered.

Brackney leaned back and lit a cigar. "All right," he said. "I'll come to the point.

"Offhand, it looks as if you've done a grave disservice to your country. It's been pointed out in the press that transporting fuel is the major problem of logistics. In fact, for the Russians it's _the_ problem, since they can live off the countries they invade to a degree we can't match. You've solved that for them, and once they convert their vehicles we can expect them to start rolling. They and their allies--especially the Chinese. This discovery is going to make them a first-class power."

"I've heard that," said Arch thinly.

"However, we also know that the communist regimes are not popular. Look at the millions of refugees, look at all the prisoners who refused repatriation, look at the Ukrainian insurrection--I needn't elaborate. The trouble has been that the people aren't armed. To say anything at home means the concentration camp.

"Now, then. Basically, the idea is this. We've got plants set up to turn out capacitite in trainload lots. We can, I think, make weapons capable of stopping a tank for a couple of dollars apiece. Do you agree?"

"Why--yes," said Arch. "I've been considering it lately. A rifle discharging its current through magnetic coils to drive a steel-jacketed bullet--the bullet could be loaded with electricity too. Or a Buck Rogers energy gun: a hand weapon with a blower run off the capacitor, sucking in air at the rear and spewing it out between two electrodes like a gigantic arc-welding flame. Or--yes, there are all kinds of possibilities."

Brackney nodded with an air of satisfaction. "Good. I see you do have the kind of imagination we need.

"Now, we'll be giving nothing away, because they already know how to make the stuff and can think up anything we can. But, we have a long jump as far as production facilities are concerned.

"The idea is this. We want to make really enormous quantities of such weapons. By various means--through underground channels, by air if necessary--we want to distribute them to all the Iron Curtain countries. The people will be armed, and hell is going to break loose!

"We want you in on it as design and production consultants. Leave tomorrow, be gone for several months probably. It's going to have to be highly organized, so it can be sprung as a surprise; otherwise the Soviet bosses, who are no fools, will hit. But your part will be in production. Are you game?"

"It's--astonishing," said Elizabeth. "Frankly, I didn't think the government had that much imagination."

"We're probably exceeding our authority," admitted Brackney. "By rights, of course, Congress should be consulted, but this is like the Louisiana Purchase: there's no time to do so."

It was the historical note which decided Arch. Grade-school history, yes--but it didn't fit in with his preconceptions of the red-necked militarist. Suddenly, almost hysterically, he was laughing.

"What's so funny?" asked Horrisford sharply.

"The idea--what old Clausewitz would say--winning wars by arming the enemy! Sure--sure, I'm in. Gladly!"

* * * * *

Six months on a secret reservation in Colorado which nobody but the top brass left, six months of the hardest, most concentrated work a man could endure, got Arch out of touch with the world. He saw an occasional newspaper, was vaguely aware of trouble on the outside, but there was too much immediately at hand for him to consider the reality. Everything outside the barbed-wire borders of his universe grew vague.

Designing and testing capacitite weapons was harder than he had expected, and took longer: though experienced engineers assured him the project was moving with unprecedented speed and ease. Production details were out of his department, but the process of tooling up and getting mass output going was not one for overnight solution.

The magnetic rifle; the arc gun; the electric bomb and grenade; the capacitite land mine, set to fry the crew of any tank which passed over--he knew their hideous uses, but there was a cool ecstasy in working with them which made him forget, most of the time. And after all, the idea was to arm men who would be free.

In March, General Brackney entered the Quonset hut which Arch and Elizabeth had been inhabiting and sat down with a weary smile. "I guess you're all through now," he said.

"About time," grumbled the girl. "We've been sitting on our hands here for a month, just puttering."

"The stuff had to be shipped out," said the general mildly. "We didn't dare risk having the secret revealed. But we're rolling overseas, it's too late to stop anything." He shrugged. "Naturally, the government isn't admitting its part in this. Officially, the weapons were manufactured by independent operators in Europe and Asia, and you'll have to keep quiet about the truth for a long time--not that the comrades won't be pretty sure, but it just can't be openly admitted. However, there are no security restrictions on the gadgets themselves, as of today."

"That surprises me," said Arch.

"It's simple enough. Everything is so obvious, really--any handyman can make the same things for himself. A lot have been doing it, too. No secrets exist to be given away, that's all." Brackney hesitated. "We'll fly you back home anytime you wish. But if you want to stay on a more permanent basis, we'll be glad to have you."

"No, thanks!" Elizabeth's eyes went distastefully around the sleazy interior of the shack.

"This has all been temporary," said the general. "We were in such a hell of a hurry. Better housing will be built now."

"Nevertheless, no," said Arch.

Brackney frowned. "I can't stop you, of course. But I don't think you realize how tough it's getting outside, and how much worse it's going to get. A revolution is starting, in more senses than one, and you'll be safer here."

"I heard something about that," agreed Arch. "Discontented elements making their own weapons, similar to ours--what of it?"

"Plenty," said the officer with a note of grimness. "It's an ugly situation. A lot of people are out of work, and even those who still have jobs don't feel secure in them. There are a dozen crank solutions floating around, everything from new political theories to new religious sects, and each one is finding wider acceptance than I'd have believed possible."

"It doesn't surprise me," said Arch. "There's a queer strain of the True Believer in American culture. You know how many utopian colonies we've had throughout our history? And the single tax party, and prohibition, and communism in the thirties. People in this country want something concrete to believe in, and all but a few of the churches have long ago degenerated into social clubs."

"Whatever the cause," said Brackney, "there are all these new groups, clashing with the old authorities and with each other. And the underworld is gleefully pitching in, and getting a lot of recruits from the ranks of hungry, frightened, embittered people.

"The regular armed forces have to be mobilized to stop anything the Soviets may try. The police and the National Guard have their hands full in the big cities. The result is, that authority is breaking down everywhere else. There's real trouble ahead, I tell you."

"All right," said Arch. "That's as may be. But our town is a collection of pretty solid folk--and we want to go home."

"On your heads be it. There'll be a plane at six tomorrow."

--The fact did not strike home till they were stopping over at Idlewild and saw uniformed men and machine-gun emplacements. In the coffee shop, Arch asked the counterman just how bad things really were.

"Rough," he answered. "See this?" He flipped back his jacket, showing a homemade capacitite pistol in a holster.

"Oh, look now--"

"Mister, I live in Brooklyn. I don't get home till after dark, and the police cordons don't go closer than six blocks to my place. I've had to shoot twice already in the past couple months."

"Bandits?"

"In gangs, mister. If I could work somewhere closer to home, I'd be off like a shot."

Arch set down his cup. Suddenly he didn't want any more coffee. _My God_, he thought, _am I responsible for that?_

A smaller plane carried them to Boston, where they caught a bus for Westfield. The driver had an automatic rifle by his seat. Arch huddled into himself, waiting for he knew not what; but the trip was uneventful.

The town didn't seem to have changed much. Most of the cars were converted, but it didn't show externally. The drug store still flashed neon at a drowsy sidewalk, the Carnegie library waited rather wistfully for someone to come in, the dress shop had the same old dummies in the window. Elizabeth pointed at them. "Look," she said. "See those clothes?"

"They're dresses," said Arch moodily. "What about them?"

"No style change in six months, that's all," said Elizabeth. "It gives me the creeps."

They walked along streets banked with dirty, half-melted snow, under a leaden sky and a small whimpering wind. Their house had not changed when they entered, someone had been in to dust and it looked like the home they remembered. Arch sank tiredly into his old armchair and accepted a drink. He studied the newspaper he'd bought at the depot. Screaming headlines announced revolt in Russia--mass uprisings in the Siberian prison camps--announcements from the Copenhagen office of the Ukrainian nationalist movement--It all seemed very far away. The fact that there were no new dress styles was somehow closer and more eerie.

A thunderous knock at the door informed him that Culquhoun had noticed their lights. "Mon, it's guid to see ye again!" The great paw engulfed his hand. "Where've ye been a' the while?"

"Can't tell you that," said Arch.

"Aweel, you'll permit me to make my own guesses, then." Culquhoun cocked an eye at the paper. "Who do they think they're fooling, anyhow? We can look for the Russian bombers any day now."

Arch considered his reply. That aspect had been thoroughly discussed at the project, but he wasn't sure how much he could tell. "Quite possibly," he said at last. "But with their internal troubles, they won't be able to make many raids, or any big ones--and the little they will be able to throw at us should be stopped while they're still over northern Canada."

"Let's hope so," nodded Culquhoun. "But the people in the large cities won't want to take the chance. There's going to be an exodus of considerable dimensions in the next few days, with all that that implies." He paused, frowning. "I've spent the last couple of months organizing a kind of local militia. Bob has been making capacitite guns, and there are about a hundred of us trying to train ourselves. Want in on it?"

"They'd probably shoot me first," whispered Arch.

The red head shook, bear-like. "No. There's less feeling against you locally than you seem to think. After all, few if any of the people in this area have been hurt--they're farmers, small shopkeepers trading in the essentials, students, college employees. Many of them have actually benefited. You have your enemies here, but you have more friends."

"I think," said Arch thinly, "that I'm becoming one of my own enemies."

"Ah, foosh, mon! If you hadn't brought the stuff out, somebody else would have. It's not your fault that we don't have the kind of economy to absorb it smoothly."

"All right," said Arch without tone. "I'll join your minute men. There doesn't seem to be anything else to do."

* * * * *

The wave of automobiles began coming around noon of the next day. Westfield lay off the main highway, so it didn't get the full impact of the jam which tied up traffic from Philadelphia to Boston; but there were some thousands of cars which passed through.

Arch stood in the ranks of men who lined Main Street. The gun felt awkward in his hands. Breath smoked from his nostrils, and the air was raw and damp. On one side of him was Mr. Hinkel, bundled up so that only the glasses and a long red nose seemed visible; on the other was a burly farmer whom he didn't know.

Outside the city limits a sign had been planted, directing traffic to keep moving and to stay on the highway. There were barriers on all the side streets. Arch heard an occasional argument when someone tried to stop, to be urged on by a guard and by the angry horns behind him.

"But what'll they do?" he asked blindly. "Where will they stay? My God, there are women and children in those cars!"

"Women and children here in town too," said Hinkel. "We've got to look after our own. It won't kill these characters to go a few days without eating. Every house here is filled already--there've been refugees trickling in for weeks."

"We could bunk down a family in our place," ventured Arch.

"Save that space," answered Hinkel. "It'll be needed later."

Briefly, a certain pride rose through the darkness of guilt which lay in Arch. These were the old Americans, the same folk who had stood at Concord and gone west into Indian country. They were a survivor type.

But most of their countrymen weren't, he realized sickly. Urban civilization had become too big, too specialized. There were people in the millions who had never pitched a tent, butchered a pig, fixed a machine. What was going to become of them?

Toward evening, he was relieved and slogged home, too numb with cold and weariness to think much. He gulped down the dinner his wife had ready and tumbled into bed.

It seemed as if he had not slept at all when the phone was ringing. He groped toward it, cursing as he tried to unglue his eyes. Culquhoun's voice rattled at him:

"You and Betty come up to the college, Somerset Hall, right away. There's hell to pay."

"How--?"

"Our lookout on the water tower has seen fires starting to the south. Something's approaching, and it doesn't look friendly."

Sleep drained from Arch and he stood in a grayness where Satan jeered at him: "_Si monumentum requiris, circumspice!_" Slowly, he nodded. "We'll be right along."

The campus was jammed with townspeople. In the vague pre-dawn light, Arch saw them as a moving river of white, frightened faces. Farmer, merchant, laborer, student, teacher, housewife, they had all receded into a muttering anonymity through which he pushed toward the steps of the hall. The irregular militia was forming ranks there, with Culquhoun's shaggy form dominating the scene.

"There you are," he snapped. "Betty, can you help take charge of the women and children and old people? Get them inside--this one building ought to hold them all, with some crowding. Kind of circulate around, keep them calm. We'll pass out coffee and doughnuts as soon as the Salvation Army bunch can set up a canteen."

"What's the plan?" asked a guardsman. To Arch, his voice had a dim dreamlike quality, none of this was real, it couldn't be.

"I don't know what those arsonists intend or where they're bound," said Culquhoun, "but we'd better be ready to meet them. The traffic through town stopped completely a few hours ago--I think there's a gang of highwaymen operating."

"Colin, it can't be! Plain people like us--"

"Hungry, frightened, angry, desperate, confused people. A mob has nothing to do with the individuals in it, my friend. And one small push is enough to knock down a row of dominoes. Once lawlessness really gets started, a lot of others are driven into it in self-defense."

They waited. The sun came up, throwing a pale bleak light over the late snow and the naked trees. The canteen handed out a sort of breakfast. Little was said.

At nine-thirty, a boy on a clumsy plowhorse came galloping up toward them. "About a hundred, marching down the highway," he panted. "They threw a couple shots at me."

"Stay here," said Culquhoun. "I'm going down to see if we can't parley. I'll want about ten men with me. Volunteers?"

Arch found himself among the first. It didn't matter much what happened to him, now when the work of his hands was setting aflame homes all across the land. They trudged down the hillside and out toward the viaduct leading south. Culquhoun broke into a deserted house and stationed them in its entrance hall.

Peering out, Arch saw the ragged column moving in. They were all men, unshaven and dirty. A few trucks accompanied them, loaded with a strange mass of plunder, but most were on foot and all were armed.

Culquhoun bound a towel to his rifle barrel and waved it through the front door. After what seemed like a long time, a voice outside said: "Okay, if yuh wanna talk, go ahead."

"Cover me," murmured Culquhoun, stepping onto the porch. Looking around his shoulder, Arch made out three of the invaders, with their troop standing in tired, slumped attitudes some yards behind. They didn't look fiendish, merely worn and hungry.

"Okay, pal," said the leader. "This is O'Farrell's bunch, and we're after food and shelter. What can yuh do for us?"

"Food and shelter?" Culquhoun glanced at the trucks. "You seem to've been helping yourselves pretty generously already."

O'Farrell's face darkened. "What'd yuh have us do? Starve?"

"You're from the Boston area, I suppose. You could have stayed there."

"And been blown off the map!"

"It hasn't happened yet," said Culquhoun mildly. "It's not likely to happen, either. They have organized relief back there, you didn't have to starve. But no, you panicked and then you turned mean."

"It's easy enough for yuh to say so. _Yuh're_ safe. We're here after our proper share, that's all."

"Your proper share is waiting in Boston," said Culquhoun with a sudden chill. "Now, if you want to proceed through our town, we'll let you; but we don't want you to stay. Not after what you've been doing lately."

O'Farrell snarled and brought up his gun. Arch fired from behind Culquhoun. The leader spun on his heel, crumpled, and sagged with a shriek. Arch felt sick.

His nausea didn't last. It couldn't, with the sudden storm of lead which sleeted against the house. Culquhoun sprang back, closing the door. "Out the rear!" he snapped. "We'll have to fight!"

They retreated up the hill, crouching, zigzagging, shooting at the disorderly mass which milled in slow pursuit. Culquhoun grinned savagely. "Keep drawing 'em on, boys," he said as he knelt in the slush and snapped a shot. "If they spread through town, we'll have hell's own time routing 'em all out--but this way--"

Arch didn't know if he was hitting anything. He didn't hear the bullets which must be whining around him--another cliché that just wasn't true, he thought somewhere in the back of his head. A fight wasn't something you could oversee and understand. It was cold feet, clinging mud, whirling roaring confusion, it was a nightmare that you couldn't wake up from.

Then the rest of the Westfield troop were there, circling around to flank the enemy and pumping death. It was a rout--in minutes, the gang had stampeded.

Arch leaned on his rifle and felt vomit rising in his throat. Culquhoun clapped his shoulder. "Ye did richt well, laddie," he rumbled. "No bad at all."

"What's happening?" groaned Arch. "What's become of the world?"

Culquhoun took out his pipe and began tamping it. "Why, a simple shift of the military balance of power," he answered. "Once again we have cheap, easily operated weapons which everyone can own and which are the equal of anything it's practical for a government to use. Last time it was the flintlock musket, right? And we got the American and French Revolutions. This time it's capacitite.

"So the Soviet dictatorship is doomed. But we've got a rough time ahead of us, because there are enough unstable elements in our own society to make trouble. Our traditional organizations just aren't prepared to handle them when they're suddenly armed.

"We'll learn how fast enough, I imagine. There's going to be order again, if only because the majority of people are decent, hard-working fellows who won't put up with much more of this sort of thing. But there has to be a transition period, and what counts is surviving that."

"If I hadn't--Colin, it's enough to make a man believe in demoniac possession."

"Nonsense!" snorted the other. "I told you before, if you hadn't invented this stuff, somebody else would have. It wasn't you that made it by the ton, all over the country. It wasn't you that thought up this notion of finishing the Iron Curtain governments--a brilliant scheme, I might add, well worth whatever price we have to pay at home.

"But it _is_ you, my boy, who's going to have to get us tooled up to last the transition. Can you do it?"

* * * * *

Fundamental changes are seldom made consciously. Doubtless the man in the fifth-century Roman street grumbled about all these barbarian immigrants, but he did not visualize the end of an empire. The Lancashire industrialist who fired his craftsmen and installed mechanical looms was simply making a profitable investment. And Westfield, Massachusetts, was only adopting temporary survival measures.