The Mission

Sixth Day

Intelligence was right. DeWitt is to be congratulated. They have a woman here, there's no doubt of it. For almost a week now, I've been afraid that we were making the long march for nothing, but now that we are here, late this afternoon, during a break in the preliminary negotiations with the little brutes, I was permitted to look at her through the cracks in the clapboard walls of the hut where she is kept, the only normal-sized structure of any kind in the whole settlement; just a glimpse as she was being bathed, but reassuring just the same. As I watched, two of their females washed her in a rusty tub of galvanized metal probably scavenged from the ruins of the fair-sized town we passed the day before yesterday, about 30 miles due south of here--leveled by an airburst, from the looks of it, but definitely "cold" according to my counter, and now marked accordingly on my map ... But the woman; how can I put it? Magnificent is the only word to describe her. What luck for Wilson, damn him! Without so much as a word, a faint smile on her lips, hardly deigning to even glance at the little horrors, she permitted them to dry her off and comb out her long blonde hair which almost reaches the small of her back. She's young, too, about 16 would be my guess, certainly nubile, with ample breasts and rounded hips, perfectly, absolutely perfectly formed, as far as I could see, and good-looking to boot, with beautiful white teeth and very fair skin, flushed cheeks from the steaming water which they heat up with hot stones. Of course, I must make a much more detailed examination before I can definitely commit myself, but on the evidence so far, I've begun to bargain with the "mayor" here, as he calls himself, who is adamant in his demands for at least eight of our M-ls, plus a hundred rounds of ammunition apiece.

"Impossible," I tell him.

"Ah then, Captain, I am sorry, too, more than I can say," he shrugs, clapping his hands for one of his females who brings us an earthenware plate heaped with fresh fruit--his daughter, I think, or maybe one of his wives; who can tell for sure? In any case, certainly as hideous as he, and about the same height, not more than 30 inches at the most, with the same kind of head of reddish hair, and almost identical wizened, hairless face, and enormous head and torso in proportion to her stunted limbs. "Yes, it's too bad," he repeats in his surprisingly deep voice, biting into a crab apple. Perched on his head and looking so absurd that I have to control myself from laughing in his face, is an ancient battered, black-silk top hat, found who knows where. It is apparently the badge of his "office" which is hereditary, he has confided in me, and passed on through matrilineal descent for three generations now. "Yes, yes, a real shame ..." He scratches his neck, then his hairless chest covered by a ragged flap of the stinking hide of a wild dog which is slung over one shoulder and tied about the waist with a rawhide strip. The stench is unbelievable. Sergeant Thurmond tells me it's because the only way they have discovered to tan hides is with a solution of their own feces--huge pots of which he has come across in one of their mud and wattle huts, or rather mounds, I suppose, would be the best way to describe them. There must be over a hundred in the walled compound where we squat, none higher than a human's chest, and all overgrown with grass and peculiar pale blue flowers with huge fleshy petals and jointed stalks--mutations, too, of some kind or another, unless I miss my guess. They have no odor, but grow everywhere, springing up in the heaps of rubbish that litter the ground, the piles of broken pottery, rags and gnawed bones--I hold one in my hand, the bleached femur of a large dog--all sorts of decaying filth covered with buzzing clouds of flies that rise in the air and settle again as he raises his arm to take another bite of the apple with his yellow teeth.

"Yes, a terrible shame. What a waste to think that you've come all this way for nothing. Still ... that is to say, at least you ought to have a closer look at her. She's a virgin, of course, as you can see for yourself any time you want ..."

"When?"

"Soon. I know how impatient you must be. Very soon, I promise."

"All right, then, first let me get it all straight. You say her parents are dead, is that right?"

"Yes. Years ago."

"How did it happen?"

"Sad. Very sad indeed. They had no luck. The mother got sick right after the child was born, some kind of a fever, and died within a few days, a week at the very most."

"And the father?"

"Killed."

"How?"

"On a hunt right after that. The wild dogs."

"But they were both human."

"Yes, of course."

"Both perfectly formed."

"Perfectly. You have my word on it."

"Where are they buried, do you know?"

"Ah, now that's sad, too. Their bodies were burned and the ashes scattered."

"Why?"

"We had no choice, Captain. It's the same with all of our dead, if you'll forgive the comparison. No matter how deep we dig the graves, the dogs always dig them up."

"In other words, there are no skeletons I can examine."

"Not so much as a bone, no, I'm sorry to say."

"I see."

"But you have my word on it, Captain. Both were absolutely perfectly formed. I swear to it."

He kisses the tips of his fingers and rolls his eyes to the sky--which in the past few minutes has become much darker, a deep, purplish blue, streaked with green, red and yellow in the west, over the hills, where the sun has begun to set. Standing guard a few paces away, his gun in his hand, Thurmond nervously sniffs the air, drawing his cloak closer over his shoulders, his face strangely luminous in the fading light, confounded, in spite of himself, I know, by the prospect of another night on the surface, under the open sky.

"Where did you find them?" I continue.

"Who?"

"Her parents, of course."

"We didn't. They found us. It was during a very bad winter, the worst in years, if you remember it, the time of the really big snow from the mountains that came just after the leaves fell and lasted until they were back on the trees. A terrible time. One morning they were here, just like that, outside the wall, a man holding the woman in his arms, and begging to be let in to at least warm themselves by the fire. We hardly had enough food for ourselves, you understand, but what could we do? My mother was alive then. 'We can't just let them die,' she tells me. 'Hermann, let them in.' The dogs were after them. We could hear them howling in the woods."

"So you saved them out of the kindness of your hearts."

"It's nice of the captain to put it that way."

"The man wasn't armed?"

"No."

"That's a lie. He had a rifle or a revolver and you know it."

"No, I swear it."

"I want to know the truth."

"... Yes," he says, after a pause.

"Which was it?"

"He had a rifle."

"That's better. Where is it now?"

"Ah, broken, I'm sad to say. Broken a long time ago."

"Go on ..."

"There's nothing more to tell. The woman gave birth and died, and then the man was killed, as I've already told you, torn to pieces by the wild dogs."

"You just said he had a rifle."

"So he did, but there were too many of them."

"I see." Thurmond coughs impatiently, and is right; we ought to be getting back to camp. "One thing more ..."

"Anything, Captain."

"What made you decide to keep the child?"

"Captain, I know my duty. She's human, after all, perfectly formed, as you've seen for yourself, only fitting for an officer's wife."

"Then you also know your duty is to surrender her to me immediately."

"And so I will. You can count on it."

"For eight of our M-ls."

"And a hundred rounds of ammunition apiece," he nods, grinning from ear to ear, as I stand up at last and stretch my stiff legs. A cold autumn wind has sprung up, and with the sun gone, the sky is much darker than before, but completely clouded over, without a star. The odor of burning fat hangs in the air. Here and there in the compound about us, a fire has been lit for the evening meal, tended by the females, some of whom hold a naked brat to their bare dugs, even more hideous than the adult of the species, all huge head and wizened face--the likes of with which she, too, must have been suckled, if any of the "mayor's" story is true. How horrible ... The man, of course, was murdered for his gun, that's perfectly obvious, but the chances are that the rest of the tale may be more or less accurate. In the last ten or twelve years, I've known something like it to have happened at least two or three times; a human family, driven by despair to take refuge among mutants who murder them but save the child to be traded to the garrison of the silo. Major James' second wife is a case (continued on page 242)The Mission(continued from page 208) in point, and Miller's, if I remember correctly, both of whom were discovered in circumstances very much like these. No, come to think of it, I'm wrong. It was Major James' and Major Preston's wives. Miller's was also found among mutants, but hanged, for race pollution. As a matter of fact, she was discovered to be pregnant just in time, a week or so before the wedding, and confessed that she had consorted carnally with at least two of the males from the tribe that had brought her up, the clam-diggers, as I remember, who are congenitally blind from cataracts, and who live along the coast about 80 miles north of here. Yes, it all comes back to me now, even her name, Amelia, "Emmy," also about 16 or so, maybe even younger, with dark hair and long, curling eyelashes, not bad-looking at all. My God, what a mess--a reminder that I must be doubly careful when I do get around to examining this one, which will probably not be before the day after tomorrow, if today's session is any indication of how long this whole business is going to take.

"Yes, well, good enough," I finally tell him with a yawn, which Thurmond takes as a signal for our departure for camp, undisguised relief on his face. "We'll talk about it again tomorrow."

"Of course, Captain. You've come a long way, and you must be very tired. Forgive me." He claps his hands again--for a male, this time, with an enormous tumor at the nape of his neck, who accompanies us out of the compound, carrying a spear twice his height, tipped with what looks to me like the blade of a butcher knife, which flashes in the light of the blazing torch he holds in his other hand.

Later

... As usual, Thurmond has done a good job. We are encamped on a hill that commands the settlement from the southeast, steep and easily defensible, just in case they have any ideas about rushing us in the dark, and with a stream close by, in a copse of pine trees, a hundred yards or so away.

"Tennison and Witcomb are on first watch with the BAR," he reports, throwing a blanket over my shoulders.

"Good. Tell them to keep the fire going, and their eyes peeled. Any sign of funny business, anything at all, and they're to shoot to kill, and ask questions afterward, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." He salutes. "Good night, sir."

"Good night, Sergeant," I tell him, wrapping myself up in the bedroll he has laid out for me near the fire, around which the eight other men of the squad have bedded down for the night. The ground is damp. Witcomb throws an armful of brush and a log or two on the flames which leap up and crackle, exploding in a shower of sparks. Above me now, in the depths of a rift in the clouds, a few stars shine, first one, then another, and still a third, so disquieting in their intimation of infinitude that I actually shudder, my heart beating like a hammer against my ribs, and my throat constricted and dry. Despite myself, I must look away, and fix my eyes on the branches of a pine tree growing nearby. They say nothing, but the other men feel it, too, I know it, like Thurmond, when it is growing dark, the same nameless anxiety. I can hear them restlessly turning this way and that on the pine needles, speaking together in hushed tones, born and bred underground like myself and suffering accordingly, under the reaches of the open sky. What's the word again? Acrophobia? I forget. DeWitt says that in another generation or two, this fear of open space, particularly the sky at night, will render us unfit for anything but life in the silo, concrete ceilings over our heads, unless we begin at once to condition our young to the rigors of a surface existence. He has a point, I'm afraid, if you can go by any of us here, right now. What an irony it would be if we succeed in our mission to preserve the purity of the race, only to fail in its corollary of regaining our rightful domination of the earth because we can't bear the sight of a few stars at night. An awful thought. DeWitt is right; something must be done about it, and soon, and it's up to the officers to take the initiative. Literally gritting my teeth, grinding them together, I force myself to tear my eyes away from the branch of the pine tree and look up again, for a full minute, counting slowly to 60, while my heart goes at it again like a hammer, and the roof of my mouth dries up, a peculiar, cloying taste on my tongue ...

Still later

... Cloudy again. The stars have all gone. Perhaps it will rain. Unable to sleep, I scribble a few more words in the log ... Whispering to my left. Silhouetted against the fire, I recognize Pfc. Roscower's unmistakable profile--his hooked nose, gold ring glinting in his ear, as he bends over to whisper something more in the ear of the man to his right, Pfc. Feeney.

Seventh day

... More palaver with the little beast over lunch--a dog stew, served with crab apples dipped in wild honey, and delicious, I have to admit, after a week now of C rations; but no progress whatsoever with the bargaining.

"Eight, plus ammunition."

"No."

And so it goes, on and on, while we eat and sip a raw liquor they distill from the apples, a pale gold color, with quite a kick. The "mayor" is slightly tipsy, a little thick-tongued and bleary-eyed, looking more ridiculous than ever with the top hat cocked over one eye. He's crawling with lice, and quite unconcernedly picks them out of his head, crushing them between a thumb and forefinger with a grin--an inescapable, calculated insult, no matter how you cut it, and about which I can do nothing until the woman has been secured.

"Eight plus a hundred rounds apiece," he repeats for the umpteenth time, wiping his greasy lips on the back of his hand.

"Four."

"Ah, now, Captain ..." He wags a finger under my nose.

What's most infuriating of all is the thought that, say, 40 years ago, or even less, when I was a boy, it would have been unthinkable for any perfectly formed human to have entered into any social relationship with the animals, much less even consider putting firearms into their hands. Has our general situation deteriorated to such an extent? Fortunately, most of the mutant species we encounter in this area, anyway, are so deformed as to pose no real threat to the human population; the blind clam-diggers, for example; but still, at the rate at which these reproduce--they are sexually mature at eight or nine, by the way, and live till 40 or so--it will be a real struggle to extirpate them when the time comes, a fight to the death, no two ways about it, and for which we must be fully prepared. Yes, there must be two or three hundred of them in this settlement alone, all breeding true to type, as far as I can see, but suffering, I notice, from a proliferation of tumors, particularly the males, who must be the ones who scavenge for workable metal in ruins which are probably considerably more radioactive than the one we passed. (A smart move, incidentally, and for which I must thank Thurmond again, who suggested at the outset that we conceal our Geiger-Müller counters from them. On their own, they apparently have no way of detecting radiation.)

Later

... Good news, if it's true. The "mayor" informs me that in all probability the woman will have her period in another day or so, assurance that she hasn't been polluted recently, anyhow. Accordingly, I've had a conference with Thurmond who agrees that if worst comes to worst, we could spare five of our M-ls, and perhaps 60 rounds of ammunition apiece, which would still leave us amply armed for the march home, with the BAR, the Thompson, in addition to my sidearm, the 45, and the five remaining M-ls. What worries me, though, is that whatever we give them is irreplaceable. Through this kind of trading and normal wear and tear, and general deterioration, particularly of the cartridges, the stockpile at the silo is getting dangerously low. What will happen in the next generation? DeWitt again, the who is supervising the preparation of a new manual of arms, seriously suggests that we ought to begin the manufacture of bows and arrows, and instruct the enlisted men in their use; also spears. The thought makes me ill, actually sick to my stomach; all I can think of is the brute who accompanied us back to camp last night. Spears! ... A ruckus just before sundown. "Kill 'em. Stamp 'em out," shouts Roscower at the top of his lungs. He's gotten his hands on some of the booze and staggers about the compound waving his arms, trailed by a horde of the females who, hardly reaching up to his waist, jump up and down, clutch at him and make obscene gestures with their hands. "Kill 'em all, I tell you," he screams, as Thurmond and Feeney drag him back to camp. Abruptly sobered up by all the racket, the "mayor" puts aside his cup and scrutinizes me with narrowed, glittering eyes, all black pupils, an incomprehensible expression on his face that's as wrinkled and hairless as a dried plum ... Oh, Roscower, how right you are; how I only wish we could ...

Eighth day

... Another restless night, filled with half-remembered dreams, nightmares as I haven't had them since I was a boy and, in the waking interludes, countless stars, shining in a perfectly cloudless sky ... It's a mournful lack of self-discipline, I know, but the thought of Wilson's impending good fortune torments me more than I dare admit. Seniority demands that the next woman brought back to the silo is for him--heaven knows, he has waited long enough--what is it now? Eight years? But then, so have I, and I'm younger than he, 36 to his 47, in the prime of my life. I keep daydreaming that we will return with her to find that he has since died of a heart attack, and she'll be mine ... How strange; now I can remember one of the dreams. I must have been thinking about the death of Miller's wife, hanging, or whatnot, because it concerned the execution of an officer by the name of Grenfield, a captain, too, as I remember, who was convicted of consorting with a mutant more than a dozen years ago, a female with four nipples, and hanged for race pollution. I could see it as vividly as if it had happened yesterday: the gallows erected on the grassy knoll near the silo's egress number three, his pale face shining with sweat as the wire noose was slipped around his neck, and the chair kicked from under his bare feet. He takes God only knows how long to strangle, forever, or so it seems, with his still-pink tongue protruding between his lips, and his pale blue eyes not yet glazed, but fully cognizant. As is required by the order of the day, the entire garrison files by, officers and men. A stiff wind is blowing, billowing out his unbuttoned tunic stripped of all insignia, which turns his body slowly on its axis, from right to left. Face to face with him for a moment, just an instant, he gazes at me, and with a smile, baring his teeth, winks his left eye ...

Night

... "Yes, yes, Captain, tomorrow morning, for sure," my "mayor" has promised me, at last. "Tomorrow morning, first thing, you can examine her to your heart's content." He is worried about something, preoccupied, and along about an hour before sundown, I can hear why--the savage baying of a pack of wild dogs in the scrub forest less than a quarter of a mile away to the east, which has apparently run down a hunting party sent out from here early this morning to secure some fresh meat. Too terrified to do anything to help, the little brutes crowd the catwalk that runs along the top of their nine-foot wall of sharpened stakes, brandishing their knives and spears, while the females lacerate their bare chests and forearms with their long fingernails, and wail. By an hour after dark, it's all over; silence, not a sound in the night, but the occasional hoot of an owl, or the squeak of a bat. It's an omen, I can't help feeling, a good sign; the man--whoever he was, the father who will not be forgotten, has been paid back, and in the same coin ... The men feel it, too; Thurmond, who is busy shining my boots for the morning, whistles under his breath as he works.

Ninth day; dawn

... With everything else I have to worry about this morning, Feeney and Roscower have had a lovers' spat, the latter accusing the former of being unfaithful to him with Sergeant Thurmond, of all people, who says nothing, but chews on a blade of grass, one of the strange blue wild flowers stuck behind one ear, evidently enjoying himself hugely, a wicked gleam in his eye. If it's true, then he's broken the unwritten rule that prohibits an N. C. O. from forming a relationship with an enlisted man, but under the circumstances, Thurmond being as fine a soldier as he is, I have decided not to interfere. He's a handsome man, I must admit, with a curly blond beard and dark eyes, a perfect build, powerful shoulders and chest, no hips. Roscower sulks around, his lower lip stuck out a mile, glowering petulantly, while an unattached Pfc. by the name of Harris makes calf's eyes at him, and sighs ... all very complicated ... Who was it, again? The ancient Germans? What I need is a refresher course in my military history. No, the Spartans. Yes, I remember, the 300 at the bridge, or wherever it was, and damn fine soldiers, too, who based their army on the same principle that has spontaneously risen among our garrison in the silo because of the lack of enough perfectly formed women to go around. In combat, or in general, for that matter, the system works admirably, lovers willing to make any sacrifice for each other; but I sometimes wonder what the final result will be of providing wives for the hereditary officer class first. The population of our enlisted personnel has already begun to decline almost three percent a year, if I recall the latest figures, and is falling all the time. What I simply can't understand is why the top brass didn't station women in the silo in the first place, before the war. DeWitt maintains that it's because the silo's primary function was not the preservation of racial purity, but simply an invulnerable launching pad for the ICBMs, the rockets with which the four-hour war was apparently fought, and which none of us has ever seen. No, I can't believe he's right. It's just too much to swallow that the top brass, with all of its intelligence and resources, was unable to anticipate the extent of racial pollution that the war was to bring. I refuse to accept it as doctrine, and yet, the historical fact remains that from the very beginning, right after the war more than 80 years ago, the garrison had to provide women for itself from the surface, and at very great risk to the personnel. What child doesn't remember the story of Lieutenant Devlin's self-sacrifice, or Pfc. Gold, who brought back the Gary sisters? To be perfectly honest, the whole business is beyond me, a complete mystery ... But enough for now. The sun is up--another good omen? It's a warm, particularly beautiful day, with a sparkling blue sky, not a cloud to be seen, the warmest it's been for almost a week now, as if the summer has returned ... I must get a move on with Thurmond and Feeney, the two others who must witness the formal examination as required by the law ...

Later

... Crowned by a wreath of the blue flowers, a rope around her neck, she is stripped naked and led through a curiously silent, jostling crowd of the females by the "mayor" in his top hat, who brings her into the hut where we have been compelled to wait for almost an hour until the ceremony--whatever it was, and which we were forbidden to attend--is through. A yank on the rope, and she stands perfectly still, her hands by her sides ... She has not--I repeat, not--begun menstruating, as was anticipated; but as far as Thurmond and I can determine, the membrane is intact. Lovely she is, there's no doubt of it, with even more beautiful hair than I remembered, honey-colored, dazzling in the sunlight, thick with dust, that streams through the cracks in the wall; her body, all of her perfectly formed, absolutely without a blemish, except for a large mole on her left breast, near the armpit, and another on the back of her right hand. Thurmond reads off the check list and Feeney and I turn her this way and that, while she giggles and squirms under our hands, her nostrils dilated, greenish-gray eyes opened wide.

"Ten fingers ..."

"Ten, yes, check ..."

"Ten toes."

"Right. Check."

And so on, everything perfect, as she giggles uncontrollably, a strand of that beautiful hair in her eyes.

"Well?" the "mayor" wants to know.

"One thing at a time ... What's your name, girl?"

"My name?"

"Yes. What do they call you?"

She makes an abrupt movement to brush the hair out of her eyes, and the blanket falls to the ground.

"Take your time. Take your finger out of your mouth and answer me. You needn't be afraid."

"Her name is Lila," says the "mayor" in his deep voice.

"Is that what they call you?"

"Lila," she repeats, after a pause, blinking her eyes.

"Take your time. Do you know what I am, Lila?" I ask.

"Lila."

"Yes, yes. You told me. But what about me? Do you know why I'm here? I've come to take you away. You're to be the bride of an officer, Lila, do you know what that means?"

"Lila ..."

"Yes, that's right. Your name is Lila. Very good. But do you know what an officer is? He's a man, a perfectly formed human being, just like yourself. You will be his wife, and bear his children, as befits you, as is your duty. Can you understand that?"

She turns away. "Well, Captain?" asks the "mayor" again, when we are outside.

"We'll see ..." He waddles by my side in silence, with the peculiar rolling gait characteristic of the species. A peal of high-pitched laughter comes from the interior of the hut, reverberating in the stifling, dusty air that shimmers from the heat of the sun. We squat in the shadow of the wall. Once again, even louder than before, she laughs ...

Later

... We leave tomorrow, first thing. The men are preparing a litter in which to carry her, a hammock made out of a blanket to be slung between two poles cut from the pines. They curse from the effort of packing up all the gear, irritable from the unseasonable heat and, although they say nothing, of course, the prospect of making the long march back home inadequately armed--responsibility for which I take entirely upon myself. Thurmond and Feeney are witnesses. Under the circumstances, after arguing for more than four hours in the broiling sun, there was nothing I could do but yield to his insistence and make the trade on his terms, or not at all, for eight of the M-ls and a hundred rounds of ammunition apiece. "Take it or leave it, Captain, that's it ..."

"I wouldn't worry too much about it, sir," Thurmond assures me. "With the BAR and the Thompsons we'll be all right. The only thing we have to watch out for is the wild dogs, and what's a few dogs ..."

This in a voice loud enough for all the men to hear. He may be right, at that; still, what haunts us all is the possibility of betrayal, that somewhere between here and the mountains, they'll ambush us with our own weapons to get the lot--which Thurmond admits in confidence is a possibility, particularly at night, although he seriously doubts it--they as well as we having to contend with the roving packs of dogs in more or less unfamiliar terrain.

"No, I don't think they'd dare," he chews on the ragged ends of his beard, poring over the maps I have spread out on the ground. So far, anyway, the lookouts I have posted report that there's no unusual activity in the compound, although Thurmond and I agree that if they did intend to send out an ambush party to steal a march on us, they'd do it after dark.

"A chance we'll just have to take," says Thurmond with a smile that crinkles up his eyelids, glancing at the girl who has curled up on the pine needles, covered by a blanket, with one hand under her cheek and the thumb of the other in her mouth. Is she sleeping? Her eyes are closed. The lids quiver. Thurmond holds on to the rope which is still looped about her neck. Now, apparently bothered by the buzzing flies, she opens her eyes and sits up, her long, tangled hair flowing over her naked shoulders, covering one breast. Her nipples are an orange brown.

"Lila Lila Lila Lila," she laughs, drawing up her legs.

Wilson Wilson Wilson Wilson is all I can think of. I can picture DeWitt at the wedding in the officers' mess in section five, peering at her over the tops of his rimless glasses, as he makes the usual speech in his soft voice that is just barely audible over the whir of the ventilator fans.

"... Perfectly formed ... pure and undefiled ... a fitting vessel for the perpetuation of the race which will one day soon regain its rightful domination ..." etc. etc. while Wilson fidgets impatiently in front of him, pulling at the collar of his dress uniform which is too tight for his fat neck, licking his dry lips as he reaches for her hand, the son of a bitch.

How lucky can you get?