Alas, Babylon

“It wasn’t lack of money,” Mark had replied. “It was state of mind. Chevrolet mentalities shying away from a space-ship world. Nations are like people. When they grow old and rich and fat they get conservative. They exhaust their energy trying to keep things the way they are-and that’s against nature. Oh, the services were to blame too. Maybe even SAC. We designed the most beautiful bombers in the world, and built them by the thousands. We improved and modified them each year, like new model cars. We couldn’t bear the thought that jet bombers themselves might be out of style. Right now we’re in the position of the Federal Navy, with its wooden steam frigates, up against the Confederate iron-clad. It is a state of mind that money alone won’t cure.” “What will?” Randy asked.

“Men. Men like John Ericsson to invent a Monitor to face the Merrimac. Bold men, audacious men, tenacious men. Impatient, odd-ball men like Rickover pounding desks for his atomic sub. Ruthless men who will fire the deadheads and ass-kissers. Rude men who will tell the unimaginative, business-as-usual, seven carbon sons of bitches to go take a jump at a galloping goose. Young men because we’ve got to be a young country again. If we get that kind of men we may hack it if the other side gives us time.”

“Will they?”

Mark had spun the globe and shrugged. “I don’t know. If I think the balloon is about to go up I’m going to send Helen and the kids down here. When a man dies, and his children die with him, then he is dead entirely, leaving nothing to show.”

“Do you think they’d be safer here than in Omaha? After all, we’ve got the Jax Naval Air complex to the north of us, and Homestead and Miami to the south, and Eglin to the northwest, and MacDill and Tampa to the southwest, and the Missile Test Center on Canaveral to the east, and McCoy and Orlando right at the front door, only forty miles off. What about fallout?”

“There isn’t any place that’ll be absolutely safe. With fallout and radiation, it’ll be luck-the size of configuration of the weapons, altitude of the fireball, direction of the wind. But I do know Helen and the children won’t have much chance in Omaha. SAC Headquarters has got to be the enemy’s number one target. I’ll bet they’ve programmed three five-megaton IC’s for Offutt, and since our house is eight miles from the base any kind of near-miss does it “—Mark snapped his fingers-”like that. Not that I think it’ll do the enemy any good-command automatically shifts to other combat control centers and anyway all our crews know their targets. But they’ll hit SAC Headquarters, hoping for temporary paralysis. A little delay is all they’d need. I’ll have to be there, at Offutt, in the Hole, but the least a man can do is give his children a chance to grow up, and I think they’d have a better chance in Fort Repose than Omaha. So if I see it’s coming, and there is time, I’ll send Helen and the kids down here. And I’ll try to give you a warning, so you can get set for it.”

“How?”

Mark smiled. “I won’t call you up and say, `Hey, Randy, the Russians are about to attack us.’ Phones aren’t secure, and I don’t think my C-in-C, or the Air Staff, would approve. But if you hear `Alas, Babylon,’ you’ll know that’s it.”

Randy had forgotten none of this talk. A week or so later, thinking about Mark’s words, Randy had decided to go into politics. He would start in the state legislature, and in a few years be ready to run for Congress. He’d be the kind of leader Mark wanted.

It hadn’t worked out that way. He couldn’t even beat Porky Logan, a gross man whose vote could be bought for fifty bucks, who bragged that he had not got beyond the seventh grade but that he could get more new roads and state money for Timucuan County than any half-baked radical, undoubtedly backed by the burrheads and the N.A.A.C.P., who didn’t even know that the

Supreme Court was controlled by Moscow. So Randy’s fiasco had been inspired by that night, and now the night bore something worse.

He wondered what Mark was doing in Puerto Rico, and why his warning had come from there. It should have come from Washington or London or Omaha or Colorado Springs rather than San Juan. It was true that SAC had a big base, Ramey, in Puerto Rico, but– It was no use guessing. He’d know at noon. Of one thing he was certain, if Mark expected it to come, it would probably come. His brother was no alarmist. Randy sometimes allowed emotions to distort logic, Mark never did. Mark was capable of calculating odds, in war or poker, to the final decimal, which was why he was a Deputy Chief of Intelligence at SAC, and soon would have his star.

Randy knew there were a thousand things he should be doing, but he couldn’t think of any of them. He became aware of a rhumba rhythm in the living room, and presently Missouri skated into view, feet bundled with waxing cloths, shoulders moving and hips bouncing with elephantine elegance, intent on her polishing. He yelled, “Missouri!”