Algis Budrys: Some Will Not Die

“That’s for each man to decide for himself,” Cot answered. “Do you turn your back, then?”

An ugly red flush flamed at Kittredge’s cheek. bones. “Damned if I will.” His mouth clamped into an etched white line. “All right, then, Cot, what goes through that door first, you or me?”

“Nobody will go anywhere. You’ll stand or turn where you are.”

“Right here in the club? You are crazy!”

“You chose the place, not I. Load and fire.”

Kittredge put his hand on his rifle sling. “On the count, then,” he said hopelessly.

Cot re-slung his carbine. “One,” he said.

“Two.” He and Kittredge picked up the count together.

“Three,” in unison.

“Four.”

“Fi—” Cot had not bothered to count five aloud. The carbine fell into his hooked and waiting hands, and jumped once. Kittredge, interrupted in the middle of his last word, collapsed to the club floor.

Cot looked down at him, and then back to Michael, who was standing where he had been looking at Cot’s face.

“Do you stand with him?” Cot repeated the formula once more.

Michael shook his head dumbly.

“Then turn.”

Michael nodded. “I’ll turn. Sure, I’ll be a coward.” There was a peculiar quality to his voice. Cot had seen men turn before, but never as though by free choice. Except for Holland, of course, the thought came.

Cot looked at the width of Michael’s back, and reslung his carbine. “All right, Michael. Take your dead home to your household.” He stood where he was while Michael hoisted his bother’s body over his shoulder. According to the formula, he should have publicly called the boy a coward. But he did not, and his next words betrayed his reason. “He was a good friend of mine, Michael. I’m sorry he forced me to do it.”

As he walked home, past Mr. Holland’s house, Cot did not turn his head to see if there were lights in any of the windows. He had kept his family’s Integrity unbreached. He had forced another man to turn. But he did not himself know whether he hoped Barbara would understand that, in a sense, he had done it to redeem himself for her.

Two days later, at dinnertime Geoffrey and Alister came in five minutes late. Geoffrey’s face was wide and numb with shock, and Alister’s was glowing with a rampant inner joy. It was only when Geoffrey turned that Cot saw his left sleeve soaked in blood.

“Geoffrey!” Cot’s mother pushed her chair back and ran to him. She pulled a medkit off its wall bracket and began cutting the sleeve away.

“What happened?” Cot asked.

“I got my man today,” Geoffrey said, his voice as numb as his features. “He rightfully belongs to Al, here, though” A grin broke through the numbness, and a babble of words came out as the shock of the wound passed into hysteria.

“That crazy Michael Kittredge climbed a tree up at the edge of the practice terrain. Had a ’scopemounted T-4 and six extra clips. Must have figured on an all-out war. First thing I knew, it felt like somebody hit my shoulder with a baseball bat, and I was down, with the slugs plowing the ground in circles around me. I tried to do something with my rifle, but no go. Kittredge must have had crosseyes or something—couldn’t hit the side of a cliff with a howitzer, after the first shot damn fool stunt, ’scope-mounting an automatic somebody should have taught him better—and there I was, passing out from the recoil every time I squeezed off. You never saw such a blind man’s shooting match in your life!

“Then out of this gully he’d been imitating an elephant wallowing through, up pops Al! Slaps the old blunderbuss to his shoulder like the man on a skeet- shoot trophy, and starts blasting away at Kittredge’s tree like there was nothing up there but pigeons! Tell you, the sight of that came nearer killing me than Kittredge’s best out of twenty-five.

“Well, the jerk might have been crazy, but he wasn’t up to ignoring a clipload of soft-nose. He swings that lunatic T-4 of his for A1, and this gives me a chance to steady up and put a lucky shot through a leaf he happened to be in back of at the time. He’s still out there.”

Cot felt his teeth go into his lower lip. Michael Kittredge!

“He shot you from ambush?”

“He wasn’t carrying any banners!”

“But that’s disgraceful! Cot’s mother exclaimed. She finished wrapping the gauze over the patch bandage on Geoffrey’s bicep.

Cot looked at Alister, who was standing beside Geoffrey, his face still shining. “Is that what happened, Alister?” he asked.

Alister nodded.

“Sure, that’s what happened!” Geoffrey said indignantly. “Think this’s a mosquito bite?”

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Cot asked gravely.

Geoffrey began a shrug and winced. “Fool kid with a bug.”

Cot shook his head. “The Kittredges may be lax in their training, but Michael knew better. In a sense, that was a declaration of war. If Michael was out there, the rest of his household may not have known about it, but when they find out they’ll be forced to support his action.”

“So it’s a declaration of war,” Alister suddenly said, his tones a conscious imitation of Geoffrey’s. “What have we been drilling for?”

Geoffrey’s eyes opened wide, and the secretive laughter returned to his expression as he looked at his younger brother.

“Not to start a war—or get involved in one,” Cot said. “Their gunnery will be sloppier than ours, but their armor plate’s just as thick.”

“What do you want to do, Cottrell?” his mother asked. Her delicate face was anxious, and her hands seemed to have poised for the express purpose of underscoring the question.

“We’ve got to stop this thing before it snowballs,” Geoffrey said. “I didn’t get it before, but Cot’s right.”

Cot nodded. “We’ll have to call everybody in to a meeting. I don’t know what can be done about the Kittredges. Maybe we’ll all be able to think of something.” He beat the side of his fist lightly against his thigh. “I don’t know. It’s never been done before. But the Kittredges aren’t the AU. We can’t handle the problem by simply dropping our shutters and fighting as independent units. The whole community would finish in firing on each other. We’ve got to have concerted action. Perhaps, if the community lines up as a solid block against them, we’ll be able to forestall the Kittredges.”

“Unite the community!” His mother’s eyes were wide. “Do you think you can do it?”

Cot sighed. “I don’t know, mother. I couldn’t guess.” He turned back to Alister. “We’re going up to the club. It’s the only natural meeting place we’ve got. I think you’d better break out the car. The Kittredges might have more snipers among them.”

He picked his carbine up from the arms rack, and started to follow the busily efficient Alister down to the garage.

“I’ll go with you,” Geoffrey said. “Only takes one arm to work the turret guns.”

Cot looked at him indecisively. Finally, he said, “All right. There’s no telling what the Kittredges might be up to along the road.” He turned back to his mother. “I think it might be advisable to put the household on action stations.” She nodded, and he went down into the garage.

The road was open, and glaring white in the sunlight of early afternoon. The armored car’s tires jounced over the latitudinal ruts that freight trucks had worn into the road, and one part of him was worried about the effect on Geoffrey, battened down in the turret. He looked up through the overhead slits and saw the twin muzzles of the 35mm cannon tracking steadily counterclockwise.

Where did it begin, what started it? he thought with most of his mind. The chain of recent events was clear. From the moment that Mr. Holland had discovered him, that night four days ago, event had followed event as plainly and as inevitably as though it had been planned in advance.