"They - they won't let me."
"Who?"
"The soldiers." It came tumbling out with a rush. "They're all over. Soldiers and guns. And they're coming here."
"Coming? Coming here?" Tim echoed, dazed.
"They're coming here and they're going to -" Earl broke off, terrified. From the front porch came the sound of heavy boots. A crash. Splintering wood. Voices.
"Good Lord," Mary gasped. "What is it, Tim?"
Tim entered the living-room, his heart laboring painfully. Three men stood inside the door. Men in gray-green uniforms, weighted with guns and complex tangles of equipment. Tubes and hoses. Meters on thick cords. Boxes and leather straps and antennae. Elaborate masks locked over their heads. Behind the masks Tim saw tired, whisker-stubbled faces, red-rimmed eyes that gazed at him in brutal displeasure.
One of the soldiers jerked up his gun, aiming at McLean's middle. Tim peered at it dumbly. The gun. Long and thin. Like a needle. Attached to a coil of tubes.
"What in the name of -" he began, but the soldier cut him off savagely.
"Who are you?" His voice was harsh, guttural. "What are you doing here?" He pushed his mask aside. His skin was dirty. Cuts and pocks lined his sallow flesh. His teeth were broken and missing.
"Answer!" a second soldier demanded. "What are you doing here?"
"Show your blue card," the third said. "Let's see your Sector number." His eyes strayed to the children and Mary standing mutely at the dining-room door. His mouth fell open.
"A woman?"
The three soldiers gazed in disbelief.
"What the hell is this?" the first demanded. "How long has this woman been here?"
Tim found his voice. "She's my wife. What is this? What -"
"Your wife?" They were incredulous.
"My wife and children. For God's sake -"
"Your wife? And you'd bring her here? You must be out of your head!"
"He's got ash sickness," one said. He lowered his gun and strode across the living-room to Mary. "Come on, sister. You're coming with us."
Tim lunged.
A wall of force hit him. He sprawled, clouds of darkness rolling around him. His ears sang. His head throbbed. Everything receded. Dimly, he was aware of shapes moving. Voices. The room. He concentrated.
The soldiers were herding the children back. One of them grabbed Mary by the arm. He tore her dress away, ripping it from her shoulders. "Gee," he snarled. "He'd bring her here, and she's not even strung!"
"Take her along."
"Okay, Captain." The soldier dragged Mary toward the front door. "We'll do what we can with her."
"The kids." The captain waved the other soldier over with the children. "Take them along. I don't get it. No masks. No cards. How'd this house miss getting hit? Last night was the worst in months!"
Tim struggled painfully to his feet. His mouth was bleeding. His vision blurred. He hung on tight to the wall. "Look," he muttered. "For God's sake -"
The captain was staring into the kitchen. "Is that - is that food?" He advanced slowly through the dining-room. "Look!"
The other soldiers came after him, Mary and the children forgotten. They stood around the table, amazed.
"Look at it!"
"Coffee." One grabbed up the pot and drank it greedily down. He choked, black coffee dripping down his tunic. "Hot. Jeez. Hot coffee."
"Cream!" Another soldier tore open the refrigerator. "Look. Milk. Eggs. Butter. Meat." His voice broke. "It's full of food."
The captain disappeared into the pantry. He came out, lugging a case of canned peas. "Get the rest. Get it all. We'll load it in the snake."
He dropped the case on the table with a crash. Watching Tim intently, he fumbled in his dirty tunic until he found a cigarette.
He lit it slowly, not taking his eyes from Tim. "All right," he said. "Let's hear what you have to say."
Tim's mouth opened and closed. No words came. His mind was blank. Dead. He couldn't think.
"This food. Where'd you get it? And these things." The captain waved around the kitchen. "Dishes. Furniture. How come this house hasn't been hit? How did you survive last night's attack?"
"I -" Tim gasped.
The captain came toward him ominously. "The woman. And the kids. All of you. What are you doing here?" His voice was hard. "You better be able to explain, mister. You better be able to explain what you're doing here - or we'll have to burn the whole damn lot of you."
Tim sat down at the table. He took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to focus his mind. His body ached. He rubbed blood from his mouth, conscious of a broken molar and bits of loose tooth. He got out a handkerchief and spat the bits into it. His hands were shaking.
"Come on," the captain said.
Mary and the children slipped into the room. Judy was crying. Virginia's face was blank with shock. Earl stared wide-eyed at the soldiers, his face white.
"Tim," Mary said, putting her hand on his arm. "Are you all right?"
Tim nodded. "I'm all right."
Mary pulled her dress around her. "Tim, they can't get away with it. Somebody'll come. The mailman. The neighbors. They can't just -"
"Shut up," the captain snapped. His eyes flickered oddly. "The mailman? What are you talking about?" He held out his hand. "Let's see your yellow slip, sister."
"Yellow slip?" Mary faltered.
The captain rubbed his jaw. "No yellow slip. No masks. No cards."
"They're geeps," a soldier said.
"Maybe. And maybe not."
"They're geeps, Captain. We better burn 'em. We can't take any chances."
"There's something funny going on here," the captain said. He plucked at his neck, lifting up a small box on a cord. "I'm getting a polic here."
"A polic?" A shiver moved through the soldiers. "Wait, Captain. We can handle this. Don't get a polic. He'll put us on 4 and then we'll never -"
The captain spoke into the box. "Give me Web B."
Tim looked up at Mary. "Listen, honey. I -"
"Shut up." A soldier prodded him. Tim lapsed into silence.
The box squawked. "Web B."
"Can you spare a polic? We've run into something strange. Group of five. Man, woman, three kids. No masks, no cards, the woman not strung, dwelling completely intact. Furniture, fixtures, about two hundred pounds of food."
The box hesitated. "All right. Polic on the way. Stay there. Don't let them escape."
"I won't." The captain dropped the box back in his shirt. "A polic will be here any minute. Meanwhile, let's get the food loaded."
From outside came a deep thundering roar. It shook the house, rattling the dishes in the cupboard.
"Jeez," a soldier said. That was close."
"I hope the screens hold until nightfall." The captain grabbed up the case of canned peas. "Get the rest. We want it loaded before the polic comes."
The two soldiers filled their arms and followed him through the house, out the front door. Their voices diminished as they strode down the path.
Tim got to his feet. "Stay here," he said thickly.
"What are you doing?" Mary asked nervously.
"Maybe I can get out." He ran to the back door and unlatched it, hands shaking. He pulled the door wide and stepped out on the back porch. "I don't see any of them. If we can only..."
He stopped.
Around him gray clouds blew. Gray ash, billowing as far as he could see. Dim shapes were visible. Broken shapes, silent and unmoving in the grayness.
Ruins.
Ruined buildings. Heaps of rubble. Debris everywhere. He walked slowly down the back steps. The concrete walk ended abruptly. Beyond it, slag and heaps of rubble were strewn. Nothing else. Nothing as far as the eye could see.
Nothing stirred. Nothing moved. In the gray silence there was no life. No motion. Only the clouds of drifting ash. The slag and the endless heaps.
The city was gone. The buildings were destroyed. Nothing remained. No people. No life. Jagged walls, empty and gapin
g. A few dark weeds growing among the debris. Tim bent down, touching a weed. Rough, thick stalk. And the slag. It was a metal slag. Melted metal. He straightened up -
"Come back inside," a crisp voice said.
He turned numbly. A man stood on the porch, behind him, hands on his hips. A small man, hollow-cheeked. Eyes small and bright, like two black coals. He wore a uniform different from the soldiers'. His mask was pushed back, away from his face. His skin was yellow, faintly luminous, clinging to his cheekbones. A sick face, ravaged by fever and fatigue.
"Who are you?" Tim said.
"Douglas. Political Commissioner Douglas."
"You're - you're the police," Tim said.
"That's right. Now come inside. I expect to hear some answers from you. I have quite a few questions."
"The first thing I want to know," Commissioner Douglas said, "is how this house escaped destruction."
Tim and Mary and the children sat together on the couch, silent and unmoving, faces blank with shock.
"Well?" Douglas demanded.
Tim found his voice. "Look," he said. "I don't know. I don't know anything. We woke up this morning like every other morning. We dressed and ate breakfast -"
"It was foggy out," Virginia said. "We looked out and saw the fog."
"And the radio wouldn't work," Earl said.
"The radio?" Douglas's thin face twisted. "There haven't been any audio signals in months. Except for government purposes. This house. All of you. I don't understand. If you were geeps -"
"Geeps. What does that mean?" Mary murmured.
"Soviet general-purpose troops."
"Then the war has begun."
"North America was attacked two years ago," Douglas said. "In 1978."
Tim sagged. "1978. Then this is 1980." He reached suddenly into his pocket. He pulled out his wallet and tossed it to Douglas. "Look in there."
Douglas opened the wallet suspiciously. "Why?"
"The library card. The parcel receipts. Look at the dates." Tim turned to Mary. "I'm beginning to understand now. I had an idea when I saw the ruins."
"Are we winning?" Earl piped.
Douglas studied Tim's wallet intently. "Very interesting. These are all old. Seven and eight years." His eyes flickered. "What are you trying to say? That you came from the past? That you're time travelers?"
The captain came back inside. "The snake is all loaded, sir."
Douglas nodded curtly. "All right. You can take off with your patrol."
The captain glanced at Tim. "Will you be -"
"I'll handle them."
The captain saluted. "Fine, sir." He quickly disappeared through the door. Outside, he and his men climbed aboard a long thin truck, like a pipe mounted on treads. With a faint hum the truck leaped forward.
In a moment only gray clouds and the dim outline of ruined buildings remained.
Douglas paced back and forth, examining the living-room, the wallpaper, the light fixture and chairs. He picked up some magazines and thumbed through them. "From the past. But not far in the past."
"Seven years?"
"Could it be? I suppose. A lot of things have happened in the last few months. Time travel." Douglas grinned ironically. "You picked a bad spot, McLean. You should have gone farther on."
"I didn't pick it. It just happened."
"You must have done something."
Tim shook his head. "No. Nothing. We got up. And we were - here."
Douglas was deep in thought. "Here. Seven years in the future. Moved forward through time. We know nothing about time travel. No work has been done with it. There seem to be evident military possibilities."
"How did the war begin?" Mary asked faintly.
"Begin? It didn't begin. You remember. There was war seven years ago."
"The real war. This."
"There wasn't any point when it became - this. We fought in Korea. We fought in China. In Germany and Yugoslavia and Iran. It spread, farther and farther. Finally the bombs were falling here. It came like the plague. The war grew. It didn't begin." Abruptly he put his notebook away. "A report on you would be suspect. They might think that I had the ash sickness."
"What's that?" Virginia asked.
"Radioactive particles in the air. Carried to the brain. Causes insanity. Everybody has a touch of it, even with the masks."
"I'd sure like to know who's winning," Earl repeated. "What was that outside? That truck. Was it rocket propelled?"
"The snake? No. Turbines. Boring snout. Cuts through the debris."
"Seven years," Mary said. "So much has changed. It doesn't seem possible."
"So much?" Douglas shrugged. "I suppose so. I remember what I was doing seven years ago. I was still in school. Learning. I had an apartment and a car. I went out dancing. I bought a TV set. But these things were there. The twilight. This. Only I didn't know. None of us knew. But they were there."
"You're a Political Commissioner?" Tim asked.
"I supervise the troops. Watch for political deviation. In a total war we have to keep people under constant surveillance. One Commie down in the Webs could wreck the whole business. We can't take chances."
Tim nodded. "Yes. It was there. The twilight. Only we didn't understand it."
Douglas examined the books in the bookcase. "I'll take a couple of these along. I haven't seen fiction in months. Most of it disappeared. Burned back in '77."
"Burned?"
Douglas helped himself. "Shakespeare. Milton. Dryden. I'll take the old stuff. It's safer. None of the Steinbeck and Dos Passos. Even a polic can get in trouble. If you stay here, you better get rid of that." He tapped a volume of Dostoevski, The Brothers Karamazov.
"If we stay! What else can we do?"
"You want to stay?"
"No," Mary said quietly.
Douglas shot her a quick glance. "No, I suppose not. If you stay you'll be separated, of course. Children to the Canadian Relocation Centers. Women are situated down in the under-surface factory-labor camps. Men are automatically a part of Military."
"Like those there who left," Tim said.
"Unless you can qualify for the id block."
"What's that?"
"Industrial Designing and Technology. What training have you had? Anything along scientific lines?"
"No. Accounting."
Douglas shrugged. "Well, you'll be given a standard test. If your IQ is high enough you could go in the Political Service. We use a lot of men." He paused thoughtfully, his arms loaded with books. "You better go back, McLean. You'll have trouble getting accustomed to this. I'd go back, if I could. But I can't."
"Back?" Mary echoed. "How?"
"The way you came."
"We just came."
Douglas halted at the front door. "Last night was the worst rom attack so far. They hit this whole area."
"Rom?"
"Robot operated missiles. The Soviets are systematically destroying continental America, mile by mile. Roms are cheap. They make them by the million and fire them off. The whole process is automatic. Robot factories turn them out and fire them at us. Last night they came over here - waves of them. This morning the patrol came in and found nothing. Except you, of course."
Tim nodded slowly. "I'm beginning to see."
"The concentrated energy must have tipped some unstable time fault. Like a rock fault. We're always starting earthquakes. But a time quake... Interesting. That's what happened, I think. The release of energy, the destruction of matter, sucked your house into the future. Carried the house seven years ahead. This street, everything here, this very spot, was pulverized. Your house, seven years back, was caught in the undertow. The blast must have lashed back through time."
"Sucked into the future," Tim said. "During the night. While we were asleep."
Douglas watched him carefully. "Tonight," he said, "there will be another rom attack. It should finish off what is left." He looked at his watch. "It is now four in the afternoon. The attack will begin in a few hours. You shou
ld be undersurface. Nothing will survive up here. I can take you down with me, if you want. But if you want to take a chance, if you want to stay here -"
"You think it might tip us back?"
"Maybe. I don't know. It's a gamble. It might tip you back to your own time, or it might not. If not -"
"If not we wouldn't have a chance of survival."
Douglas flicked out a pocket map and spread it open on the couch. "A patrol will remain in this area another half-hour. If you decide to come undersurface with us, go down the street this way." He traced a line on the map. "To this open field here. The patrol is a Political unit. They'll take you the rest of the way down. You think you can find the field?"
"I think so," Tim said, looking at the map. His lips twisted. "That open field used to be the grammar school my kids went to. That's where they were going when the troops stopped them. Just a little while ago."
"Seven years ago," Douglas corrected. He snapped the map shut and restored it to his pocket. He pulled his mask down and moved out the front door onto the porch. "Maybe I'll see you again. Maybe not. It's your decision. You'll have to decide one way or the other. In any case - good luck."
He turned and walked briskly from the house.
"Dad," Earl shouted, "are you going in the Army? Are you going to wear a mask and shoot one of those guns?" His eyes sparkled with excitement. "Are you going to drive a snake?"
Tim McLean squatted down and pulled his son to him. "You want that? You want to stay here? If I'm going to wear a mask and shoot one of those guns we can't go back."
Earl looked doubtful. "Couldn't we go back later?"
Tim shook his head. "Afraid not. We've got to decide now, whether we're going back or not."
"You heard Mr Douglas," Virginia said disgustedly. "The attack's going to start in a couple hours."
Tim got to his feet and paced back and forth. "If we stay in the house we'll get blown to bits. Let's face it. There's only a faint chance we'll be tipped back to our own time. A slim possibility - a long shot. Do we want to stay here with roms falling all around us, knowing any second it may be the end - hearing them come closer, hitting nearer - lying on the floor, waiting, listening -"
"Do you really want to go back?" Mary demanded.
"Of course, but the risk -"
"I'm not asking you about the risk. I'm asking you if you really want to go back. Maybe you want to stay here. Maybe Earl's right. You in a uniform and a mask, with one of those needle guns. Driving a snake."