The Long Twilight (30 page)

Back outside, Nolan posted his wife and son near the path leading to the hills and set off toward the power house. Inside, he made certain adjustments; he locked the door behind him as he left. Moving on to the pump house, he closed two large valves, opened others. Last, he engaged the massive power lock on the equipment shed.

"That's about it," he said as he rejoined the others. "Let's go."

"If they hadn't showed up," Tim said as they set off up the steep path, "I guess we never would have taken that camping trip we're always talking about."

IV

The cave was a large and airy one, with a narrow entrance well-concealed from below by a rocky ridge and a freshwater spring that trickled at the rate of one gallon per hour into a stone basin. It was a cave the Nolan family knew well; they had once lived in it for two months, until the first rooms of the house had been completed.

It was the work of an hour to sweep out the accumulated windblown rubbish, set up the inflatable cots, arrange the collapsible cooking equipment around the stone fireplace. By then the sun was coming up.

Nolan looked down across the stunted mountain growth toward the house far below. The binoculars showed a cluster of men around the pump house.

"They must have emptied the reserve tank already," he said.

"They'll just blow the door off the pump house, Reed," Annette said. "Won't they?"

"Maybe—if they have the right explosives. But they'll still have to know which valves to open."

"I feel pretty mean—cutting off their water supply."

"There's always the pond and buckets. They won't suffer—except for a few blisters."

Nolan and Tim spent most of the morning busy on the slopes. The Tusker herds were gathering in the high meadows now; using binoculars, Nolan estimated their numbers at over ten thousand. They returned to the cave with a specimen bag filled with fossils, low grade gemstones, and some new varieties of fungus to add to Tim's slide collection. Annette greeted them with hot soup and sandwiches.

Late in the afternoon they watched a party of men spread out and scour the underbrush near the house. After an hour or two the search petered out.

"I'll bet old Fatty's plenty mad now," Tim said cheerfully. "I'll bet he still hasn't figured out the tricordeo."

The Nolans set out a board and played three-handed chidge until dinner time. Annette served recon chicken-and-chips. She and Reed had cold dehi-beer, Tim hot cocoa. Just after dusk, all the lights went off in the house and on the grounds below.

"I suppose we'll hear from Director Fraswell pretty early in the morning," Nolan said as they composed themselves for sleep.

V

Half an hour before dawn there was a soft
beep!
from the small black box beside Nolan's bed.

"Visitors," he said, checking the indicator lights that told him which of the sensors he and Tim had planted the previous day had been activated. "On the east trail. They didn't waste any time." He rose and donned the clean clothes Annette had run through the precipitator, picked up the power rifle.

"Dad, can I come?"

"Negative. You stay here with your mother."

"Reed—are you sure—"

"I'm not that bad a shot," he said, and grinned at her. "I'll be back for coffee."

In took Nolan ten minutes to reach the vantage point he had selected the previous day. He settled himself in a comfortable prone position, adjusted the sling, and sighted through the scope-sight. Three men toiled upward on the trail. Nolan took aim at the rock wall ten feet above them and squeezed off a burst. Dust spurted. When he lowered his sights, the men were gone. He picked them up a quarter of a mile back downtrail, running for home.

Twice more that day the spotters Nolan had planted on the slopes signaled intruders; twice more a single warning shot sufficed to discourage them.

Late in the afternoon, a bucket brigade formed across the lawn far below, hauling water to the house. The men working on the power house door gave up at twilight. A crew of men set about chopping wood to heap on the lawn for a bonfire.

"Reed—the baby peach trees, and the pecans, and the limes—" Annette mourned.

"I know," Nolan said tersely. They watched the fire for an hour before turning in.

VI

It was mid-morning when the signaler beeped again. This time it was a party of three men—one of them the man called Winston whom Nolan had last seen with Fraswell—carrying a white towel attached to a section of sapling—pecan, Nolan thought. They waited for a quarter of an hour at the spot marked by a small crater in the rock wall from Nolan's shot of the previous day. Then they advanced cautiously.

On a rocky ledge a hundred yards below Nolan's position, they halted. A shout rang faintly.

"Nolan! We wish to talk to you!"

He remained silent.

"Director Fraswell has authorized me to offer you leniency if you give yourself up now," Winston shouted.

Nolan waited.

"You're to come down at once," Winston resumed. "No criminal charges will be pressed, provided you cooperate fully henceforth."

Another minute passed in silence.

"Nolan, give yourself up at once!" the angry voice shouted. "Otherwise . . ."

A single shot rang out above Nolan. Instantly the men below turned and ran. Nolan looked up toward the cave. Annette, her back to him, stepped from behind the rocky barrier that concealed the entrance, a pistol in her hand. She turned and waved. Nolan climbed back up to her side.

"On the west trail," she said indignantly. "The idea—while they were parleying with you!"

"Never mind," Nolan said mildly. "They're just exploring their environment."

"I'm worried, Reed. How long can this go on?"

"We have food for a month or so. After that, maybe Tim and I will have to raid the larder again."

Annette looked worried but said nothing further on the subject.

VII

For five days, while Nolan watched the unirrigated fields slowly fade and wilt, there were no further overtures from below. Then, in mid-morning of the sixth day a party of four set out from the house, advanced slowly up the east trail. One of the men was Fraswell, Nolan saw. A man in the rear carried what appeared to be a placard. When they paused for their first rest, the man turned the sign to face the heights, but Nolan was unable to make out the lettering at the distance.

"Watch the beepers," he told Annette and Tim. "I don't think that's the game this time, but they may have planted someone on another trail last night after dark." He descended to his lookout station below. Director Fraswell's red face was clearly visible at half a mile, even on low mag. Nolan was able to read the placard now:

NOLAN—WE MUST TALK

"Fraswell," Nolan called. "What is it you want?"

The plump man scanned the cliff above for a glimpse of Nolan.

"Show yourself!" he called. "I can't carry on a discussion with a disembodied voice!"

"Don't let me keep you."

"Nolan, in my capacity as a Field Director of the HPU I call on you to descend at once and cease this harassment!"

"My family and I are just taking a long deferred vacation, Mr. Fraswell."

"You shot at my people!"

"If I had, I'd have hit them. I hold a Double Distinguished Marksman's rating. You can check that if you like."

"Look here, Nolan—you're deliberately withholding information essential to the success of this mission!"

"I think you're a little confused, Mr. Fraswell. I'm in no way connected with your mission. I paid my own way here—"

"I'm not concerned with that! It's your duty to serve the people—"

"Mr. Fraswell, I suggest you pack up your people and your equipment and move on to another piece of real estate, and I'll give you all the technical assistance I can in getting started."

"Would you attempt to bargain with the welfare of a thousand men, women and children?"

"Not quite. I estimate you have about fifty men in your advance party."

"The relocatees will arrive in less than a fortnight! Unless you give up this dog-in-the-manger attitude at the expense of these poor, helpless souls, I won't be responsible for the outcome!"

"Wrong again, Mr. Fraswell. It's your entire responsibility. I'm just curious as to what you plan to do after you've eaten all the seed corn and cleaned out my emergency reserves. Move on and loot somebody else? What happens when you run out of people to loot, Fraswell?"

"I'm not in the business of making predictions, Nolan! I'm concerned for the success of the present operation!"

"I suppose by the time you run out of goodies you'll be retired, eh? Meanwhile, if you get tired of hauling water and eating issue rations you can always leave, Mr. Fraswell. Tell your headquarters it didn't work; perhaps next time they'll supply you with some equipment of your own."

"The power is off! There's no water! My men can't start the vehicles! The crops are dying! I call on you to come down here and undo your sabotage!"

"The only sabotage I've seen is what your men have done to my lawns and orchards. We won't count the fishpond."

There was a two minute silence during which the men below conferred.

"Look here, Nolan," Fraswell called, sounding reluctantly conciliatory. "I'll concede that, from a purely materialistic standpoint, it might be said you have some right to compensation. Very well. Though it means taking bread from the mouths of the innocent, I'll undertake to guarantee payment of the usual credit per acre—for the arable portions of the tract, of course. After survey."

"I paid a credit and a half an acre for the unimproved land, over five years ago—and I paid for all of it—mountains, desert—the whole island. I'm afraid your offer doesn't tempt me."

"You—you exploiter! You think you can victimize the ordinary man, but you'll see! They'll rise in their righteous wrath and destroy you, Nolan!"

"If they'd rise in their wrath and tackle that next island, they could have a quarter section cleared and ready for summer planting."

"You'd condemn these good people to inhuman hardship—for the sake of mere personal avarice! You'd deny them bread! You'd—"

"I know these good people, Mr. Fraswell. I tried to hire some of them when I was breaking ground here. They laughed. They're the untrainables, the unemployables. They've had a free ride all their lives. Now they're overflowing the trough. So you're trying to dump them on me to maintain. Well, I decline the honor, Mr. Fraswell. It looks as if they're going to have to go to work if they want to eat. By the way, what's
your
salary per annum?"

Fraswell made choking noises.

"One last thing, Fraswell," Nolan called. "My gardenia hedges; tell your men to leave them alone; you don't need firewood that badly, and the few steps it would save in coming and going up into the foothills isn't worth destroying them."

"Gardenias, eh? Mean a lot to you, do they? I'm afraid I'll have to use my own judgment regarding fuel sources, Nolan!" The Director spun on his heel and walked away. One of his attendants turned to shake a fist upward before disappearing down the trail.

That afternoon, Nolan saw a crew hard at work, leveling the hedges.

The following day, Tim hurried into the cave calling excitedly that the Tusker herds had started to move down from the heights.

VIII

"I don't like it," Annette said as Nolan prepared to leave the cave. "You don't know what that terrible man is likely to do if he gets his hands on you."

"I have to give them fair warning," Nolan said. "I'll be all right. Fraswell's not going to let anything happen that might look awkward on his record."

"How come, Dad?" Tim said. "Why not let the Tuskers surprise 'em? Maybe they'll scare 'em right off the island!"

"Someone could get hurt; they might panic and get trampled. And those horns are sharp."

"Sure, but—you could get hurt, too, Dad, if you try to get in their way! They're pretty hard to stop once they're running!"

"I'll be careful. Don't worry about me."

Nolan set off by the most direct route available: a near-vertical ravine, water-cut, too narrow and precipitate for a Tusker, but just possible for an active man. In twenty minutes he arrived at the valley floor, winded and dusty, with scratched and bleeding hands. As he emerged from the tangle of underbrush at the cliff base, three men jumped him.

IX

The house stank. Director Fraswell, somewhat leaner than when Nolan had last seen him, badly shaved, wearing rumpled, sweat-marked clothing, glared triumphantly across the former dining room table, now occupying the center of the living room and covered with papers and empty ration boxes.

"So you finally came to your senses, eh?" He paused to scratch under his left arm. "I suppose you'll expect to hold me to the bargain I proposed. Well, think again! You rejected my offer when I made it. Now suffer the consequences!" He shook his finger in Nolan's face.

Nolan's lip was split. His jaw was swollen painfully. His head ached.

"I didn't come here to bargain," he said. "I came to warn you—"

"You—warn
me
?" Fraswell jumped to his feet. "Listen to me, you arrogant little popinjay! I'll do the warning! I want the power plant in full operation in fifteen minutes from now! I want water flowing ten minutes after that! I want all facilities unlocked and the keys turned over to me before you leave this room!" He scratched furiously at his ribs.

"That would be quite a trick," Nolan said. "Even if I had the keys."

Fraswell's mouth opened and shut. "Search him!"

"We did; he's got nothing on him."

"Nothing on him,
sir!
" Fraswell barked, and whirled on Nolan. "Where have you hidden them? Speak up, man! I'm at the end of my patience!"

"Never mind the keys," Nolan said. "That's not what I came here to talk about—"

"You'll talk about it nonetheless!" Fraswell was almost screaming.

"Here, what's the trouble?" a female voice shrilled. Miltrude, looking the worse for ten days without a bath, stood in the doorway, hands on broad hips. "Well—looky who's here!" she said as she saw Nolan. Behind her, Leston peered over her shoulder. "Finally caught him, did you, Alvin?"