Гарри Гаррисон - There Won't Be War

It was the last group, Plunkett remembered, who had made him stop buttonholing his fellows, at last. You got tired of standing around in a hair shirt and pointing ominously at the heavens. You got to the point where you wished the human race well, but you wanted to pull you and yours out of the way of its tantrums. Survival for the individual and his family, you thought—

Clang-ng-ng-ng-ng!

Plunkett pressed the stud on his stopwatch. Funny. There was no practice alarm scheduled for today. All the kids were out of the house, except for Saul—and he wouldn’t dare to leave his room, let alone tamper with the alarm. Unless, perhaps, Ann-He walked inside the kitchen. Ann was running toward the door, carrying Dinah. Her face was oddly unfamiliar. “Saulie!” she screamed. “Saulie! Hurry up, Saulie!”

“I’m coming, momma,” the boy yelled as he clattered down the stairs. “I’m coming as fast as I can! I’ll make it!”

Plunkett understood. He put a heavy hand on the wall, under the dinner-plate clock.

He watched his wife struggle down the steps into the cellar. Saul ran past him and out of the door, arms flailing. “I’ll make it, poppa! I’ll make it!”

Plunkett felt his stomach move. He swallowed with great care. “Don’t hurry, son,” he whispered. “It’s only judgment day.”

He straightened out and looked at his watch, noticing that his hand on the wall had left its moist outline behind. One minute, twelve seconds. Not bad. Not bad at all. He’d figured on three.

Clang-ng-ng-ng-ng!

He started to shake himself and began a shudder that he couldn’t control. What was the matter? He knew what he had to do. He had to unpack the portable lathe that was still in the barn ....

“Elliot!” his wife called.

He found himself sliding down the steps on feet that somehow wouldn’t lift when he wanted them to. He stumbled through the open cellar door. Frightened faces dotted the room in an unrecognizable jumble.

“We all here?” he croaked.

“All here, poppa,” Saul said from his position near the aeration machinery. “Lester and Herbie are in the far room, by the other switch. Why is Josephine crying? Lester isn’t crying. I’m not crying, either.”

Plunkett nodded vaguely at the slim, sobbing girl and put his hand on the lever protruding from the concrete wall. He glanced at his watch again. Two minutes, ten seconds. Not bad.

“Mr. Plunkett!” Lester Dawkins sped in from the corridor. “Mr. Plunkett! Herbie ran out of the other door to get Rusty. I told him—”

Two minutes, twenty seconds, Plunkett realized as he leaped to the top of the steps. Herbie was running across the vegetable garden, snapping his fingers behind him to lure Rusty on. When he saw his father, his mouth stiffened with shock. He broke stride for a moment, and the dog charged joyously between his legs. Herbie fell.

Plunkett stepped forward. Two minutes, forty seconds. Herbie jerked himself to his feet, put his head down—and ran.

Was that dim thump a distant explosion? There — another one! Like a giant belching. Who had started it? And did it matter—now?

Three minutes. Rusty scampered down the cellar steps, his head back, his tail flickering from side to side. Herbie panted up. Plunkett grabbed him by the collar and jumped.

And as he jumped he saw—far to the south—the umbrellas opening their agony upon the land. Rows upon swirling rows of them ....

He tossed the boy ahead when he landed. Three minutes, five seconds. He threw the switch, and, without waiting for the door to close and seal, darted into the corridor. That took care of two doors; the other switch controlled the remaining entrances. He reached it. He pulled it. He looked at his watch. Three minutes, twenty seconds. “The bombs,” blubbered Josephine. “The bombs!”

Ann was scrabbling Herbie to her in the main room, feeling his arms, caressing his hair, pulling him in for a wild hug and crying out yet again. “Herbie! Herbie! Herbie!”

“I know you’re gonna lick me, pop. I—I just want you to know that I think you ought to.”

“I’m not going to lick you, son.”

“You’re not? But gee, I deserve a licking. I deserve the worst—”

“You may,” Plunkett said, gasping at the wall of clicking geigers. “ You may deserve a beating, ” he yelled, so loudly that they all whirled to face him, “but I won’t punish you, not only for now, but forever! And as I with you,” he screamed, “so you with yours! Understand?”

“Yes,” they replied in a weeping, ragged chorus. “We understand!”

“Swear! Swear that you and your children and your children’s children will never punish another human being—no matter what the provocation.”

“We swear!” they bawled at him. “We swear!”

Then they all sat down.

To wait.

On the screen of the television set the blank gray brightens to robin ‘s-egg blue. We see the spires of a fairytale castle, with fluffy little clouds behind them. They are growing as we zoom in. The scene looks very much like the opening of a Disneyland special, and to make it even more so a zitzy stream of glittering comet dust darts in from the RIGHT. It turns into a Peter Pan figure who looks a lot like Jane Fonda. She hovers like a hummingbird, waving a wand at us. We zoom in for a closeup,

JANE:

Hello. I’m not Peter Pan. I grew up. It was the world that didn’t.

Now that we get a better look at Jane, she isn‘t nearly as much like Peter Pan as she is like Barbarella. She’s wearing a Buck Rogers kind of spacesuit which leaves her head and face free.

JANE:

I’m what you’d call a forensic anthropologist now.

She zips away rapidly REAR and comes back escorting the skyline, which, as it approaches, changes from fairy tale to Everytown. The castles are actually church spires—Methodist, Baptist, Congregationalist, R. C. Jane reaches down with her wand and touches one of the spires, and the zitzy fairy dust becomes snow. We are looking at a New England town in winter. It could well be Thornton Wilder's Our Town.

JANE:

What I’m trying to do is show whose fault it was. I mean, I already know whose. It was yours, all of yours. You fuckers. But I want to nail it down so there’s no argument.

Sound of caroling comes up: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. The camera comes down and looks through open church doors on the congregation. Jane comes to rest on the steps of the church, looking inside for a moment before she turns back to us.

JANE:

Take Christmas. I mean, take Christmas— please. Listen to this guy.

The caroling has stopped and the minister, who looks like Robert Morley, is offering a prayer.

MINISTER:

And at this time of rejoicing, Lord, we ask of Thee a special care for our sons and brothers who now battle in Thy service in far-off lands. Save them from harm.

Let their valiant sacrifice be rewarded with the destruction of those who set themselves against Thee and our sacred cause, we beseech Thee in Thy holy name.

Jane shakes her head.

JANE:

How do you like that guy? Oh, you know, some ways Christmas must have been a lot of fun in the old days, right? Giving presents and all? Celebrating the passing of the winter solstice and the lengthening of the days? Remembering the birthday of this Prince of Peace fellow, and everybody saying they were going to love everybody? I mean, love everybody except those other guys.

The congregation rises and begins to come out into the winter day. Two boys start a snowball fight. Their mothers, flustered but laughing, call to them to stop it, but the boys go on.