The Mantooth Part 45

But then Armageddon had come, oblivious to his, and everyone's, agonies and ecstasies, bitter triumphs and long defeats. The War, that had been building for centuries from Man's ignorance, and inability to overcome his instinct for violence, finally broke out. The satellite lasers had protected the City for a time, keeping the first wave of missiles off them, for perhaps an hour. But it didn't take a genius to know that New York's famous minutes were numbered.

So through the crash of panic-stricken people, trying to evacuate or merely crying, 'Oh, my G.o.d!' while still others who had not seen or heard the broadcasts stood about in a daze and tried to understand what was happening, William took Kathy and sought out his friend, Dr. Wilhelm Krause---the black pessimist, partly insane. Looting, too, had broken out, but it was halfhearted, so that even the police, grim soldiers of the street, showed little inclination toward retaliatory violence. The City, for all its noise and seeming activity, was in a strangling state of shock.

William found Dr. Krause---whom he had met while hospitalized with hepat.i.tis (from a rusted syringe)---in his bas.e.m.e.nt laboratory, sunk ninety feet below the ground, side-cut into solid bedrock at the base of gigantic Mercy Hospital. For among the towering sky-sc.r.a.pers, some reaching over two hundred stories, it was not uncommon for their foundations to sink another tenth that distance. And along with the subways, bored farther and farther beneath the level of the streets, they formed the literal New York underground, a silent world unto itself, a still, protected inlet in the heart of the maelstrom.

When William burst in upon the aged Krause, the latter did not at first seem to recognize him. For though he had been preparing for this day for many years, now that it had come, his mind and heart were simply overwhelmed. He found himself unable to act, or even think. It was really happening, not in theory, not in the lecture hall, but in d.a.m.nable and undeniable reality. The unspeakable, of which he had spoken for thirty years, had happened at last. There was something he was supposed to do.....

Slowly his weary eyes and mind focused, his German courage rallied, and he saw before him the young man he had once caught trying to steal morphine from the hospital storeroom. In a moment almost of nostalgia, he recalled the incident. He had not called security or the police, had not tried to confront the sick and desperate youth, but said simply, 'Go back to your room, son. No, I'm not going to turn you in.

We'll talk about it later.' And to the young man's astonishment they HAD talked, on several occasions and for hours at a time. William found in the aging and alienated recluse a friend, and the closest thing to a father that he would ever know. When he had spoken of his life, Krause listened attentively, as if finding in the bitter tale of poverty and poor health, pursuit and persecution, a note in harmony with his own struggle amidst the viper-filled pit of unenlightened human nature.

Upon William's release he had shown him his laboratory, and explained what it was for. And he had told him to come, if this moment ever arrived.

'h.e.l.lo, William,' he said quietly.

'Doctor!' said the other breathlessly. 'I don't care about myself, but you HAVE to save Kathy. She can't die, she just can't!'

'Now, now,' said Krause, 'There's no need to be heroic. You sound like one of those detestable Wagnerian operas---all full of blood oaths, and absurd quests to dubious ends. d.a.m.ned prelude to the n.a.z.is is what they were, along with Nietzsche and all that, ?Great men create their own morality' horse-s.h.i.t. Did you know Hitler was impotent? That's why he never married Eva Braun. They say that Goring used to wear eye make-up when they were alone, and---'

'Doctor, please!'

'Yes, yes, I know. You're sure that at any moment the lights will go out, we'll hear the rumble from above, and the chance will be lost. You underestimate me, young man. This laboratory will be intact, and protected from radiation, ten thousand years from now. You forget the lengths that a ?mad German' will go to.' But seeing William's anguish, he said. 'Yes, we'll save Kathy. And just for the h.e.l.l of it, why don't we save you, too? Since I don't seem to have any other volunteers.'

William looked around him, then at the two elaborate suspension casks, the best and most advanced in the world---made by Krause's own hands, and prepared against every contingency.

'But what about you?'

'Me?' The old scientist laughed morosely. 'I'm an old man.

Do you think I want to crawl out of one of these things a hundred centuries from now, and try to rebuild what's left of the world? No, William, I don't mind dying. I'm just glad the two of you came, or it would have been much harder.' And at that moment they had in fact heard a rumble, and felt the disbelieving earth tremble at the nuclear concussion. But the lights stayed on, and the caskets of life still waited.

'Well,' said Krause grimly. 'Shall we get on with it?'

And the young lovers were put into suspension, with precision and good hope.

William had woken the prescribed ten-thousand years later, intact, roughly one year from the present. He had lain very still for a time, not understanding, not remembering where he was. But as the truth slowly returned to him he felt no weight of sorrow or loss, but an unexpected joy at just being alive. And he thought of Kathy, so close beside him. He had saved her! She was ALIVE, and they would start again. He forced himself to remain in the soft warmth of the casket a while longer, as Krause had instructed him. Then he turned the inner handle, broke the seal, and emerged into the brave new world.

But even prepared against every contingency things can go wrong, and the Devil fingers of Chaos reach into the strongest fortress. And nothing made by man can endure unchanging the ravages of Time.

Something had gone wrong with Kathy's support apparatus. What it was hardly matters, and no one ever learned. But she had died at least a thousand years before, and all that the sealed cask had done was to act as a mummy's wrap, slowing, but not eliminating her body's natural decomposition. He rose to find his only love, a half-rotted corpse.

McIntyre and Jennings had heard the anguished cries, as they searched through the underground vaults and pa.s.sageways for the faint life-signs they had detected, and entered the laboratory to find him lying face down on the floor. Screaming. He offered no resistance as the doctor injected a sedative, and the two brought him out into the cruel light of day.

His true love was buried, along with all his hopes, and he never spoke of her again.

Sylviana knew nothing of this tragedy, or of the menace to himself and others that he had since become. She saw only the obvious way that he looked at her, and the effect it had on Kalus. The man-child rose instinctively, as if she were in danger, and would have strode down the hill sword in hand to confront him. But Smith, who had seen the sudden brush-fire of his eyes, seized hold of his arm protectively.

'Easy, Kalus. That's William. We'll go down together.'

There in the depression, stiff introductions were made. Kalus, with the help of Smith beside him, managed to restrain his emotions, though making no attempt to conceal them. For his own part, William sneered at him indifferently, and continued to bathe Sylviana with mock interest and open l.u.s.t. His only reply to her question, 'Why haven't I seen you before?' was a rude:

'Him Tarzan, you Jane. Me come back tomorrow.' And he had taken some food, without asking or thanks, and made off the way he had come.

'How can you let him treat you that way?' demanded Kalus.

Since the question was directed at no one in particular, Ruth Welles replied, neither apologizing nor defending their actions. She was a tall, serious woman in her mid thirties, with pincers of brown hair surrounding a pleasant face and striking eyes, which revealed to those who knew how to look, a nature both stubborn and compa.s.sionate.

'That's just his way,' she said, 'And there are reasons for it. We've all been hurt and bereft by the War, but his pain.....

Let's just say it's much harder for him to forgive and go one, and that we're all worried about him, because we do care.'

'But he won't let anyone come close enough to help him,' added Smith. 'He storms in and out for food, occasionally takes wine or medicine along with it, and that's all we ever see of him. We helped him set up a laboratory, before we knew what it was for. We considered smashing it afterward, but what can you do for someone who makes his own poison, and flaunts his own destruction?'

'Why?' asked Sylviana. 'What does he use the lab for?'

'To make LSD,' said Welles sadly. 'If there were poppies on the island, no doubt he'd make heroin as well.'

Kalus found himself breathing heavily, unable to control it. He began to pace a short distance from them, then suddenly turned and came back, his manner tense and worried.

'Maybe I am wrong to say this. Maybe I have no right. But I don't trust that one, and I don't want him near me or mine.' He looked squarely at Sylviana. 'If you have any sense left you will stay away from him, whatever you think of me. He means to hurt you, or I know nothing at all.'

But her gaze was equally unyielding. 'I will see, or befriend, whoever I d.a.m.n well please, and you have nothing to say about it.'

And she returned to her work, as if he wasn't there.

Smith released a breath, Welles shook her head, and Kataya said nothing, reproachfully. Kalus lifted the cub, forlornly lowered his forehead against it, then turned and walked away.

Chapter 45

And so a period of days ensued in which little of note seemed to happen, as is often the case when the most potent of life's forces are at work, though beneath the surface and not yet brought to fruition.

William became a more frequent visitor, and often took long walks with Sylviana. Kalus, feeling a genuine desire to work and do his share, as well as needing something to distract him, began to work the fields with Jim Smith, the botanist, his only real friend among the colonists. He still spoke to Kataya, but had told her that for a time it was best they keep some distance between them, and she had not objected. She understood, and kept a warm secret of the fact that her menstrual cycle was now a week overdue.

Under other circ.u.mstances, Kalus might have fallen in love with the rigors and lessons of farming, which taught patience and perseverance, and returned the most beautiful and honest of rewards: Life itself.

When Smith told him that by the year 2000 the smaller, family farms of America were largely a thing of the past, he thought it a greater tragedy than almost any he had heard of. And unknowingly, as Smith continued to tell him of his own childhood on the Indiana farm, of his family's hardships and eventual ruin, Kalus weaved the themes of the story in and out of his own.