Ben Bova - Test of Fire

And waiting for them there, in front of the only warehouse that had not yet been torched, were a quartet of laser trucks, their firing mirrors pointed at street level.

Alec stood on the back of one of the trucks with an electrically-powered megaphone in his hand.

“Listen to me,” he commanded, his voice magnified to the dimensions of godhood. “Listen to me, because the men who don’t will be dead before the Sun rises.”

They stood in a befuddled, drunken, sullen mass draped with blankets and sacks of flour and wine bottles and new boots and less identifiable plunder. The fires groaned at their backs. A wall collapsed, showering sparks into the night sky.

“Who started this?” Alec demanded. “I want the ringleaders, and I want them now.”

The men muttered and shifted on their suddenly-tired feet. They stared at the ground or glanced at each other. Alec saw that many of them had left their rifles and automatic weapons behind, once they started looting. But there were still plenty of pistols and carbines among them.

“If you think that your discipline has ended just because you won a battle today, then think again,”

Alec boomed at them. “Now, who started this looting? Bring them up front, where I can deal with them the way they deserve.” He pulled the pistol from its holster.

No one moved, except for the nervous shuffling of little boys caught being naughty.

“All right,” Alec said, his voice as cold as sharpened steel, “then we’ll do it the way the Roman legions did it. Jameson—pick out ten men at random. Now.”

With a dozen fully armed troops beside him, Jameson began grabbing men by their arms and shoving them toward the truck where Alec stood.

He did not go deeply into the sullen crowd; he picked the men from the front few rows.

Suddenly there was a movement from deep in the crowd. A single figure was worming its way toward the front.

“Alec, Alec… me. Me. Me!”

The looters backed away from him, and Alec recognized Ferret making his way up to the front, to join the men that were going to be executed.

“Me, Alec!” Ferret said, his pinched face smiling innocently in the glow of the smoldering fires.

“Pick me!”

The pistol suddenly felt unbearably heavy in Alec’s hand. The weight of the world had somehow been absorbed by the square-snouted shining black gun.

He looked down at the faces of the men standing at his feet. The looters whom Jamesom had shoved to the front looked up at him, sullen, afraid, drunk. Ferret was smiling, a child’s hopeful, expectant smile. The crowd had melted back, away from the men who were doomed.

Alec let his arm drop to his side. The gun was too heavy to hold up. Jameson stood frozen at the edge of the crowd, his strong hand locked onto the shoulder of one of the looters.

“I was bad, Alec,” Ferret said. “I’m sorry.”

It was the longest sentence Alec had ever heard out of him.

He raised the bullhorn to his lips once more and said slowly, “You’ve been saved. All of you—you’ve been saved by this one man.”

An audible sigh went through the crowd.

Holstering the gun, Alec said, “You’ve had all the fun you’re going to. From here on, there will be no more looting. You are part of an army — a victorious army. You have a right to be proud of your victory. But you are going to follow orders and maintain discipline. Anyone who can’t follow orders, from this moment on, will be shot. You’ve been reprieved tonight, but from now on there will be no second chances for any of you.”

They muttered sullenly, but did no more than that.

Alec realized that they needed more than the threat of discipline. The stick by itself was useless, unless there was a carrot attached to it.

“You are going to become the richest men on Earth,” he said, and waited for a moment for their response. They stirred, they murmured. “Not from looting. That’s over and done with. You’re going to become rich from your fair share of the riches that this land can provide.

“You’ve spent your lives as raiders, as rat packs, and your lives have been short and painful. But now you are going to live safer, more comfortable lives. You will never have to worry about a meal or a bed again. You will live longer and better than you ever dreamed would be possible. And we—all of us, together—will rule this entire land.”

There were more than a thousand men standing there. The crowd surged, edged closer toward Alec.

“Your days of looting and stealing are finished,” he told them, “because you will no longer have to loot and steal. You’ll get everything you’ve ever wanted, and more of it than you ever saw in your lives.”

“What about women?” a voice from the rear shouted.

“When you’re a raider, a looter, the women run away and hide,” Alec answered into the bullhorn.

“When you’re a member of the army that rules the Earth, the women will chase after you!”

They laughed. Alec could feel the tension, the sullenness, easing out of them.

“All right, then,” Alec said firmly. “From this moment on you are members of the army that will rule the world. You will follow orders. And when tomorrow dawns, this world will see something it hasn’t seen since the sky burned: a new force that will conquer everything that stands in its way!”

They cheered. They actually cheered. Alec watched them, wondering, Will I always be able to control them? It was like riding atop a wild animal. Grimly, he realized, It will always be a battle to stay in control.

He spent the rest of the night touring the base, riding atop the battle-dented truck and checking every street and building in the area. Quiet prevailed.

The men were exhausted from the battle, drunk with the wine they had found and the exhilaration of being alive when so many others had died. Now the wine and the exhaustion and the emotional fatigue had caught up with them. A taste of discipline was the only excuse most of them needed to fold up into the oblivion of sleep.

With the sunrise came Angela.

She arrived in a horse-drawn wagon, protected by six village youths armed with ancient rifles and shotguns. The posted guards stopped her at the edge of the base. She asked to see Douglas. The guards radioed for Jameson, who in turn informed Alec.

He had her driven to his quarters, the house they had shared to many months earlier. Alec was waiting for her in the still-unfurnished living room when her wagon creaked to a stop. She jumped down and walked straight to the front door.

Without hesitating, she entered. She looked tense, worried, thinner, tauter, just as beautiful as ever.

“Where’s Douglas? Why can’t I see him?”

Alec had to struggle to control his voice. “He’s perfectly all right. You’ll see…”

“No, he’s not all right. You don’t understand.”

She seemed genuinely frightened, her eyes wide with fear.

“It’s all right,” Alec insisted, crossing the tiny room to reach her. “No one’s going to hurt him. Don’t be afraid.”

He took her in his arms, in front of the dead ashes of the dark fireplace. Angela was trembling.

“Alec, please, you’ve got to let me see him. I don’t know how much he’s told you…” Abruptly she pushed away from him. “Alec, I don’t even know if I can believe what you’re telling me! You want him dead, don’t you?”

“No,” he said. “That’s over now.”

“But it would help if he conveniently died, wouldn’t it?”

“That’s what he said last night.”

“You still don’t understand what he’s doing, all the plans he’s made.”

“Yes I do…” But suddenly Alec realized that there was still more for him to learn.

“Alec, pleased take me to him,” Angela urged.