Alas, Babylon

“That’s what you call it in a deer hunt. When I was your age my father used to take me hunting and put me on a stand. There are a couple of things I want you to remember, Ben. Everything depends on you-and you, Caleb-keeping absolutely still. Whatever it is out there, is better equipped than you are. It can see better and hear better and smell better. All you’ve got on it is brains. Your only chance of getting it is to hear it before it hears or sees you.” Randy looked at the sky. There were only stars. Later, there would be a quarter moon. “Chances are you’ll hear it before you see it. But if you talk, or make any sound, you’ll never see it at all because it’ll hear you first and leave. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Ben said.

“You’ll get cramped and you’ll get tired. So when you sit on the stand you move around all you want at first and find out just how far you can move without making any noise. You got shells in the chambers?”

“Yes, sir, and four extra in my pocket.”

“You’ll only need what’s in the gun. If you don’t get him with two you’ll never get him at all. And Ben-”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hold steady on it and don’t miss. We want to get rid of this thing or somebody will have to sit up all night every night.” Ben said, “Randy, suppose it’s a man?”

This possibility had been restless in Randy’s mind from the first and he had not wanted to mention it, but since it was mentioned he gave the unavoidable answer. “Whatever it is, Ben, shoot it. And Caleb, if he misses I depend on you to stick it.” He turned to Malachai. “Thanks for lighting us out. We’re going on to Admiral Hazzard’s house now. Good night, Malachai.”

“Good night,” Malachai said. “I sleep light, Mister Randy.” Lib took his hand and they walked to the river bank and down the path that led toward the single square of light announcing that Sam Hazzard was in his den. Randy chuckled, thinking of Caleb’s spear. “We have just witnessed an historic event,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“North American civilization’s return to the Neolithic Age.” “I don’t think it’s funny,” Lib said. “I didn’t like the way you spoke to Ben Franklin. It was brutal.”

“In the Neolithic,” Randy said, “a boy either grows up fast or he doesn’t grow up at all.”

Sam Hazzard’s den was compact and crowded, like a shipmaster’s cabin stocked for a long and lonely voyage. It was filled with mementos of his service, ceremonial and Samurai swords, nautical instruments, charts, maps, books on shelves and stacked in corners, bound files of the Proceedings, The foreign Affairs Quarterly, and the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. The admiral’s L-shaped desk spread along two walls. One side was preempted by the professional-looking shortwave receiver and his radio log. The radio was turned on, but when Randy and Lib entered the room all they heard was a low hum.

Sam Hazzard was not as tall as Lib and his weathered skin was drawn tautly over fine bones. In slippers and dragon blazoned shantung robe-his implacable gray eyes shadowed and softened by the indistinct lighting and horn-rimmed glasses, cottony hair like a halo-he appeared fragile; a deception. He was tough as an antique ivory figurine which has withstood the vicissitudes of centuries, and can accept more. He said, “A place for the lady to sit.” He sailed a plastic model of the carrier Wasp—the old Wasp cited by Churchill for stinging twice in the Mediterranean and then herself stung to death by torpedoes-to the far corner of the desk. “Up there,” he ordered Lib, “where you can be properly admired. And you, Randy, lift those books out of that chair. Gently, if you please. Welcome aboard to both of you.”

Randy said, “You haven’t seen Dan Gunn, have you?” “No. Not today. Why?”

“He hasn’t come home.”

“Missing, eh? That sounds ungood, Randy.”

“If he comes home while we’re out Helen or Bill will ring the bell. Can we hear it in here?”

“Yes indeed, so long as the window’s open. It always startles me.”

Randy saw that the Admiral had been working. The Admiral was writing something he called, without elaboration, “A Footnote to History.” A portable typewriter squatted in the center of a ring of books. Research, Randy supposed. He recognized Durant’s Caesar and Christ, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, and Von Kriege by Clausewitz, indicating a footnote to ancient history. Randy said, “Any poop this evening?”

“I suppose you heard the Civil Defense broadcast.”

“I caught part of it. Then my batteries quietly expired.” The Admiral gave his attention to the radio. He turned the knob changing frequencies. “I’ve been listening for a station in the thirty-one meter band. Claims to be in Peru. I heard it for the first time last night. It put out some pretty outlandish stuff It doesn’t seem to be on yet, so we’ll try for it again later. I’ve just switched to five point seven megacycles. That’s an Air Force frequency I can tap sometimes. You’ve never heard it, Randy. Interesting, but cryptic.”