Гарри Гаррисон - To The Stars

“I’m coming with you,” Jan said. “They know all about me, about my connection with the resistance. I’ve been warned. Can you get me out?”

“I’m sorry I ever got you involved in this, Jan.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“Two people will be no harder than one. We are trying for Ireland. But you realize, if you do this thing, you’ll be a man without a country. You won’t ever be able to come home again.”

“I’m that already. If they catch me I’m a dead man.

Perhaps this way I can be with you. I’d like that. Because I love you.”

“Jan, please…”

“‘What’s wrong? I didn’t realize it myself until I blurted it out just now. Sorry I can’t be more romantic. That’s my engineer’s love song, I guess. And how about you?”

“We can’t discuss this now, it’s not the time

Jan took Sara by the shoulders, stopping her, moving them against a shop window. He looked at her, and lightly held her chin when she tried to turn away.

“There’s no better time,” he said. “I’ve just declared my undying love for you. And what do you respond?”

Sara smiled. Ever so slightly, but still she smiled, and kissed his fingers.

“You know that I am very, very fond of you. And that is all I’m going to tell you now. We must go on.”

As they walked he realized that he would have to settle for that. For the time being. He wondered what perverse streak had forced him to discover his love now, in this place, and declare it out loud like that. Well it was true, even if he had just admitted it to himself. True — and he was glad of it.

They were tired long before they reached their destination, yet they dared not stop. Jan had his arm around her waist, supporting her as well as he could.

“Not much… farther,” she said.

Oakley Road was a street of once elegant rowhouses, now derelict and boarded up. Sara led the way down the crumbling steps to the basement entrance of one of them and unlocked the door, closing and sealing it carefully behind them. The hallway was pitch black, but uncluttered, and they felt their way along the wall to the furnace room in the rear. Only when this door was closed did Sara turn on the lights. There were lockers along the walls, the welcome warmth of an electric fire, and the disused furnace in the rear. She found blankets and handed him one.

“All of your clothes, shoes, everything, into the furnace. They must be burned at once. Then I’ll find you some clothes.”

“You better take this first,” Jan said, handing her the lighter. “Get it to your electronics people, Thurgood-Smythe is in the memory inside.”

“This is very important. Thank you, Jan.”

They had little time for rest. There was a knock on the door a few minutes later and she went into the hall to talk with the newcomer. After that they had to hurry.

“We have to get to Hammersmith before the buses stop running. Old clothes for both of us. I have some ID, won’t stand up to anything more than casual interest, but we must have something. Is everything burned?”

“Yes, all gone.” Jan stirred the red ashes with the poker, turning up the smoldering mass of his wallet. ID, papers, identification, his identity. Himself. The unthinkable had happened. The life he knew was over, the world he knew gone. The future an indecipherable mystery.

“We must go now,” Sara said.

“Of course. I’m coming.” He buttoned the ragged but heavy coat, fighting down the feeling of despair. He took her hand as they felt their way down the dark hallway, and did not release it again until they were out in the street.

It was the first time in his life that Jan had been aboard a London omnibus. He had driven past them often enough without giving them a thought. Tall, double-decked, and silent, driven by the energy captured in the large flywheel beneath the floor. During the night thick cables would hook the bus to the electrical mains, using the powerful motor to run up the revolutions of the flywheel. During the day the motor became a flywheel-driven generator to power the electric drive motors. Reliable power, nonpolluting, cheap, practical. He knew that, the theory, hut he hadn’t known how cold the unheated vehicle could be, how littered with rubbish, thick with the smell of unwashed bodies. He held his bit of ticket and looked out at the cars that passed and vanished down the road ahead. The bus stopped for a traffic light and two Security police got on.

Jan stared straight ahead, just as the other people on the bus did, staring at the rigid face of Sara sitting across from him. One of the men stayed by the rear entrance while the other stamped the length of the bus, looking at everyone there. No one glanced his way or appeared aware of him.

The next time the bus stopped the two of them left. Jan felt relief for a few moments, then the fear returned. Would it ever go away again?

They got down at the last stop, Hammersmith Terminal. Sara went ahead and he followed well behind as be had been instructed. The few other passengers dispersed and they were alone. Above them a car thrummed by on the elevated highway of the M4. Sara headed for the darkness of the arches that supported it. A small man with bent shoulders stepped out to meet her. She waved Jan to join them.

“Hello, hello, you nice people come with me. Old Jemmy will show you the way.” The man’s scrawny neck seemed too thin to support the globe of his head. His eyes were round and staring, his fixed smile empty of any teeth. He was a fool — or a very good actor. Sara took Jan’s arm as they followed Old Jemmy into the totally dark and empty streets, among the rows of ruined houses.

“Where are we going?” Jan asked.

“For a little walk,” Sara said. “just a few miles they say. We have to get past the London Security barrier before we can get transportation.”

“Those friendly police who used to salute me when I drove by?”

“The very same ones.

“What happened to all the houses here? They’re in ruins?”

“London used to be much bigger, centuries ago, many more people. I don’t know the exact figures. But population, over the entire country, was cut back to a smaller replacement level. Partly by disease and starvation, partly government policy.”

“Don’t tell me how they did it. Not tonight.”

They were too tired to talk much after that. Plodding slowly after Old Jemmy who found his way unerringly in the darkness. He went even slower when lights appeared ahead.

“No talking now,” he whispered. “Microphones about. Stay in the shadows right behind me. No noise neither or we’re dead’uns.”

Between two of the ruined buildings they had a brief glimpse of a cleared area ahead, well lit, with a tall wire fence down the center of it. They were very close when their guide led them into one of the buildings, an old warehouse of some kind. Out of sight of the road he produced a small flashlight and turned it on; they stumbled after the gleaming circle of light, deep into the ruins, down into the arched cellars below. He pulled some rubble and rusted sheet metal aside to uncover a door.

“In we goes,” he said. “I’m coming last to close up.

It was a tunnel, damp and smelling of raw earth. Jan could not stand up fully and had to walk in a tiring hunched manner. It was long and straight and undoubtedly went under the Security barrier. There was muddy ice underfoot and they skidded across sizeable frozen puddles. Jemmy caught them up and passed them, leading the way again with his light. Jan’s bent back was burning like fire before they reached the far end.

“Gotta keep quiet for a bit, like the other end,” their guide warned as they emerged again into the frigid night. “A bit more walking and we’re there.”