Robert Adams - The Memories of Milo Morai

“Sit back down, Major Moray. That’s an order!” Barstow’s voice crackled with authority, and instinctively, Milo obeyed.

Then, in a warmer, more conversational tone, Barstow said, “Milo, if you have to blame someone for the woman’s demise, you are more than welcome to blame me. I think my shoulders are tough enough to bear that cross, too. So far as this ‘new war’ is concerned, however, you will continue to be a soldier in this war even as a civilian, because this war is one that will probably last far longer than did the last, more open war.

“Milo, Russian Communism is a devil’s brew of politics and something very akin to religion to its adherents. It bears many of the aspects of a proselytizing Christian religion—Padre recognized that fact early on, and that’s where his twisted little mind began to build his fables about the Pope being in a secret compact with Stalin—and now that the Nazis and Fascists are out of the road, it is going to start steam-rollering its way around the world . ., unless we are able to throw up a few roadblocks here and there, that is. And our job is not going to be made any easier by the fact that our current president and his predecessor both are admirers of Josef Stalin and have come to harbor a large number of men who more than just admire that red-handed butcher in some high places in our government.

“It will be up to us to try in every conceivable way to hold back the international Red tide until we can sufficiently inform the American people of the dangers—both foreign and domestic—that confront our nation and persuade them to vote out the elected officials who are soft on Communism, then pressure the new administration into rooting out the Red vipers now nesting in Washington.

“If we succeed in our purpose quickly enough, there will be at least hope for a world at peace and the war just concluded with Japan, Germany and all the rest will have been fought to some purpose, our dead will not have given their lives in vain. But if we are slowed, thwarted for even a few years, there will be one small, bloody war after another, in one small country after another, all fomented by the Communists as they attempt to take over the entire world. If that scenario plays for very long, the only end will be us versus them—the United States of America against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—and I cannot be at all certain that we would win such a war, even with our new bomb as a weapon.

“So go to your buddy’s widow, Milo. Marry her, settle down and sire children and breed horses and enjoy your life. Judging by your service record, you’ve earned such a life if anyone ever has. But, Milo, you might also pray every night that we succeed in all our aims, and quickly, else the world in which your children live may not be a very nice place.

“Don’t waste time writing me letters. I’ll see to the beginnings of your processing out, never fear.”

When all of the senior menfolk of the Guardian People were in their places along each side of the long, ancient table in the conference room of the Southern Shrine, old Mosix, the eldest of the priests, arose and spoke, saying, “Looters have come. The Shrine of the Arcade has been violated, stripped of many of its Holy Things.”

There was a concerted groan compounded of outrage and pure horror from the men to whom he spoke. But before any could speak, the old man raised one withered hand.

“Wait. That was the worst, but there is more. The tracks indicate that those who defiled the Shrine of the Arcade were only three men who rode in on horses. But several of the smaller Shrines have also been violated and stripped of many, many of the Holy Things we all were born to protect inviolate. Those who did these other infamies were more numerous and equipped with horse-drawn carts to bear away the Holy Things that they had looted from the Shrines.”

“Which Shrines, High Priest?” demanded the man at the other end of the table, Wahrn Mehrdok, the recently reelected captain of the Guardians of the Shrines of Nohshan, his big, horny farmer’s hands clenched at his sides.

“The Shrine of the Deer, the Shrine of the Bull and the Shrine of the Two Snakes. They surely are most truly the demons called looters, for they heavily loaded two carts with Holy Things and they bore other Holy Things away on their horses’ backs,” replied old Mosix, going on to say, “True, there are not too many Guardians of the prescribed ages—seventeen winters to forty-five winters—to go against these looter demons, but then do they number no more than the tracks did indicate, the score and two Guardians should be quite enough to take them and regain the Holy Things they stole and slay them for their crimes, their blasphemous activities. Verily do the Sacred Scriptures say that the Shrines and the Holy Things that they contain are not to be disturbed by anyone, that any who do so or make to do so are criminals, sinners. These demons have assuredly sinned and the Scriptures also attest that the wages of Sin is Death.”

“Just how many are there, High Priest?” asked the captain.

“The tracks showed six or seven, captain, one of them appearing to be either a woman or a young boy. They headed to the northwest after their desecrations. Two and twenty Guardians should be—”

“Twelve or even ten should be enough, High Priest. Are we all to eat next winter, work must still be done in the fields, lest the irrigation ditches silt up on us, and then consider where we’d be.”

“But our Sacred Duty—” began the priest.

“Our Sacred Duty first of all requires that we be around to do it, Mosix,” the reelected first sergeant of the Guardians, Kahl Rehnee, interrupted him. “And the captain is right about the ditches, you know that good as I do. This just ain’t good farmingcountry, never was and never will be, neither. It’s either too much water or not enough . . . mostly, not enough. It’s plenty now, but when the lake out there comes to go down like it will soon now, the creek will go down too and we’ll be back to raising the water out of it a bucket at the time to keep the ditches all running and the crops all growing right.

“Mosix, it all boils down to just what I said and my daddy used to said afore me: thishere country is damn good for growing grass, but it’s pisspoor for growing anything else nowadays, no matter what it was like way back when, before the Great Dyings and all; the onliest way to be sure of living year to year without doing the kind of backbreaking, man-kiliing work we and our daddies and grandfolks have had to do is to stop trying to farm a place that is next thing to impossible to farm and start breeding stock, hunting game and foraging for wild plants that folks can eat and that can grow without being watered and nursed by folks. I knows you don’t like to hear it from me just like you didn’t like to hear it all from my daddy, but that still don’t stop it all from being true.”

The captain nodded, and there was a mutter of general agreement around the table, only the older priest and the two younger ones who stood behind his chair not joining in the consensus.

Mosix shook his head. “And have any of you thought just what would soon happen if you did such a folly? Why all too soon, you would have hunted out, foraged out, and the enlarged herds would have grazed out this entire area. Then what would you do?”

This time it was the captain who spoke. “Move on, Mosix, move on to a place where there still was grass and food plants and game, that is what.”

“Blasphemy!” hissed Mosix from betwixt worn, yellowed teeth. “To think to hear such wicked blasphemy from the lips of the very captain of all the Guardians! I would never have believed such a thing could have come to pass had I not heard it with my own two ears! Have you no shame, then? Must you flaunt the dishonor your mind spawns, Wahrn Mehrdok, even while the very looters we are here to keep from the Shrines are at work desecrating and bearing off cartloads of the Holy Objects that your honorable forebears did the duty of protecting?”