Читать книгу Not This August (Sci-Fi Christmas Tale) - Cyril M. Kornbluth - Страница 9

Residents are advised that on and after April 23, 1965, the following temporary measures will be observed:

1. A curfew is established from Nine O'Clock P.M. to Five O'Clock A.M. All residents must be in their homes between these hours.

2. Fissionable material must be turned in to this command at once since uranium, thorium, and plutonium have been declared nationalized and unlawful for any private person to hold.

3. All privately held pistols, rifles, shotguns, and bayonets must be turned in to this command or representative. For the township of ________ this command's representative is __________. The weapons should be tagged with the owner's name and address and will later be returned.

4. Violators of these measures will be subject to military trial and if found guilty liable to sixty days in jail.

S. P. Platov Colonel, Commanding

Justin shook his head slowly. Sixty days! Was this the Red barbarian they had all been dreading? He seemed to hear Lew Braden saying again: "Smart cooky . . . exactly right."

Croley had gone behind his counter for something, a price-marking crayon. He was filling in the blanks in Number 3. "For the township of NORTON this command's representative is FLOYD C. CROLEY. The weapons should——"

Croley stepped back, looked for a moment at the black, neat printing, stuck the crayon behind his ear, and turned to Justin, waiting and blank-faced.

Justin asked: "Since when have you represented the Red Army?"

Croley said: "He wanted a central place. Somebody steady." And that was supposed to dispose of that. O.K., you skunk, Justin thought. Wait until my two traitorous friends blow the whistle on you. When the Bradens finish telling the Reds all about Floyd C. Croley, Floyd C. Croley will be very small potatoes around these parts, or possibly Siberia. And aloud: "You sold me a dog, Mr. Croley. Look at this crumby thing."

He slapped down the two broken halves of the cheap cast pump rod. Croley picked them up, turned them over in his hands, and put them down again. "Never guaranteed it," he said.

"For twelve-fifty it shouldn't break on the first stroke, Mr. Croley. I need a pump rod and I insist on a replacement."

Croley picked the pieces up again and examined them minutely. He said at last: "Allow you ten dollars on a fifteen-dollar rod. Steel. No coupons."

And that, Justin realized, was as good a deal as he'd ever get from the old snake. Too disgusted to talk, he slapped down a ten-dollar bill. Croley took it, produced another rod, and a queer-looking five-dollar bill in change. The portrait was of a hot-eyed young man identified by the little ribbon as John Reed. Instead of "The United States of America," it said: "The North American People's Democratic Republic."

Justin's voice broke as he yelled: "What are you trying to put over, Croley? Give me a real bill, damn you!"

Croley shrugged patiently. A take-it-or-leave-it shrug. He condescended to explain: "He bought gas. It's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. Or you." And turned away to fiddle with the rack in which he kept the credit books of his customers.

Speechless, Justin rammed the phony bill into his pocket, picked up the rod, and walked away. As he opened the door, the old man's voice came sharply: "Justin."

He turned. Croley said: "Watch your mouth, Justin." He jerked his thumb at the announcement. (". . . representative is FLOYD C. CROLEY. The weapons . . .") He went back to his credit books as Justin stared incredulously, torn between laughter and disgust.

He walked out and across the Lehigh tracks. Nobody seemed to be in town; he was in for a four-mile walk, mostly uphill, to his place. The cows would be milked late—he quickened his pace.

At the highway a couple of Russian soldiers beside a parked jeep were just finishing erecting a roadside sign—blue letters on white, steel backing, steel post, fired enamel front. They hadn't rushed that out in six days. That sign had been waiting in a Red Army warehouse for this day, waiting perhaps twenty years. It said: "CHECK POINT 200 YARDS AHEAD. ALL CIVILIAN VEHICLES STOP FOR INSPECTION." That would be the old truck-weighing station, reactivated as a road block.

The Russians were a corporal and a private, both of the tall, blond, Baltic type. They had a slung tommy gun apiece. He said: "Hi, boys."

The private grinned, the corporal scowled and said: "Nye ponimayoo. Not per-mitten."

He wanted to say something witty and cutting, something about sourpusses, or the decadent plutocrat contaminating the pure proletarian, or how the corporal might make sergeant if his English were better. He looked at the tommy guns instead, shrugged, and walked on. Yes, he was scared. With the vivid imagination of an artist he could see the slugs tearing him. So the rage against Croley festered still, and the taste of defeat was still sour in his mouth. And he still had four uphill miles to walk to milk those loathesome cows of his.

* * * * *

By nine that night he was thinking of starting to work on Mr. Konreid's brandy. The current was on and, according to his electric clock, steady. He had lost the radio habit during the silent years. There was now apparently only one station on the air and it offered gems from Mademoiselle Modiste. He didn't want them. He leafed over a few of his art books and found them dull. Somewhere in the attic a six-by-eight printing press and a font of type were stashed, but he didn't feel like digging them out to play with. That had been one of the plans for his retirement. Old Mr. Justin would amuse himself by pottering with the press, turning out minuscule private editions of the shorter classics on Braden's beautiful hand-laid paper. Maybe old Mr. Justin would clear expenses, maybe not——

But now he was too sick at heart to think of the shorter classics and Braden was much too busy securing his appointment as Commissar of Norton Township or something to contribute the beautiful paper.

The phone rang two longs, his call. It was a girl's voice that he didn't recognize at first.

"It's Betsy," she said with whispered urgency. "No names. Your two friends—remember this morning?"

Yes; yes. The Bradens. Well? "Yes. I remember."

"In the basement of the school. The janitor saw the bodies before they took them away. They were shot. You knew them. I—I thought I ought to tell you. They must have been very brave. I never suspected——"

"Thanks," he said. "Good-by," and hung up.

Betsy thought the Bradens were some kind of heroic anti-Communists.

Then he began to laugh, hysterically. He could reconstruct it perfectly. The Marshal said to the General: "The first thing we've got to do is get rid of the damn Red troublemakers." And so it trickled down to "Pliss to expedite delivery of these, Mr. Postmahster," and so the Bradens got their summons and, unsuspecting, were taken down-cellar and shot because, as Braden knew, those Reds were very smart cookies indeed. They knew, from long experience, that you don't want trained revolutionaries kicking around in a country you've just whipped, revolutionaries who know how to hide and subvert and betray, because all of a sudden you are stability and order, and trained revolutionaries are a menace.

No, what you wanted instead of revolutionaries were people like Croley.

Croley!

He couldn't stop laughing. When he thought of thousands of underground American Communists lying tonight in their own blood on thousands of cellar floors, when he thought of Floyd C. Croley, Hero of Soviet Labor, Servant of the North American People's Democratic Republic, he couldn't stop laughing.