Doomsday Eve 3

Doomsday Eve 3

Somewhere outside a man screamed, in terror.

 

The thing in the sky coughed again, closer now.

BRRROOOMMM----BrrroooMMM----BrOOOm!

 

The blooper struck.

 

The sound was that of the simultaneous firing of many cannon. The

walls of the prospect tunnel seemed to twist and wave. Loose stones

dropped from the roof and a fine dust seemed to extrude from the walls.

A boulder half as big as a small house hurtled past the entrance,

snapping pines like matchsticks. A slide of loose rocks followed it.

In the distance another slide could be heard growling back at the sky

as it grew to avalanche proportions.

 

The nurse's fingers tightened on Zen's arm, then relaxed. Every nerve

in his body was as taut as a steel wire as he waited for her reaction.

Other than the tightening and relaxing of her fingers, there was none.

Her hands remained on his arm and she remained in the tunnel with him.

To Kurt Zen, this was disappointing.

 

"What kind of nerves do you have? Most women would have been in my arms

and would have had their noses buried in my chest."

 

"I'm sorry, colonel, if my education in how to be afraid has been

neglected." She coughed at the dust.

 

"Aren't you really afraid, Nedra?" he asked.

 

"No."

 

"Then you aren't an ordinary human!" The instant he had blurted out the

words, he was sorry he had spoken. It was possible to give away too

much too soon.

 

"Then what am I?" Her voice was calm.

 

He dodged her question. "Aren't you even afraid to die?"

 

"When so many have died already, why should I hesitate to join them?"

the nurse answered. She released his arm and brushed dust from the

shoulders of her uniform. She glanced up at him and it seemed that some

kind of a radiation flowed from her eyes, a wave of it that sent a

tingle over his entire skin surface. Outside, another smaller boulder

went bouncing past the entrance to the tunnel. Fumbling in his pockets

for cigarettes, Zen found a crumpled package. He offered one to the

nurse but she thanked him and refused it. He did not insist. Cigarettes

were too precious to waste on people who didn't really want them.

Outside, another man began to scream. The nurse moved automatically in

that direction. He caught her arm and held her back.

 

"Wait until the rocks stop rolling, Nedra."

 

She did not protest. Looking up at him, she said, "You think I'm one of

the new people, don't you?"

 

Zen coughed and swore at the cigarette, insisting that the tobacco

was moist. This was a lie and both knew it. But--what to say? Her

question was a complete stunner. "What makes you think that?" he asked,

desperate for words.

 

"I just think it. It's true, isn't it?"

 

As an intelligence officer, Zen was accustomed to asking the questions,

but this nurse had completely turned the tables on him. He took a deep

drag on the cigarette. "I don't know. Are you?" He made his voice as

casual as was possible.

 

Her eyes studied him. The trace of a smile came over her face and

tugged at the comers of her lips. "Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

 

"Go right ahead." The man had stopped screaming outside but another

boulder was going past. In the distance, the avalanche was trying to

grind to a halt but it sounded as if millions of tons of rock were on

the move to a safer location.

 

"Are _you_ one of the new people?" the nurse asked.

 

The cough was real this time. Zen could not suppress his surprise.

"What on earth makes you ask a question like that?"

 

"I just felt like asking it," the nurse replied. "Am I wrong?"

 

"Who are the new people?"

 

"Why, everybody has heard of them. They're the new race that is going

to provide the nucleus for new growth after all ordinary men and women

have been destroyed in this war." Surprise showed in her violet eyes.

"Do you mean you have never heard of them?"

 

"I've heard the usual rumors that are afloat," Zen said, shrugging.

"But all the stories have impressed me as a pack of lies. Really, I

think the enemy has started most of them, to get us to relax our war

effort."

 

"Do you honestly think that?" Her voice had a puzzled note in it. "I

mean, honestly and truly."

 

"I think what the evidence tells me to think, nothing less. In this

case, I have seen none of the so-called evidence."

 

Shrugging, Zen moved toward the opening of the tunnel, then drew back

as a mass of rock crashed outside. "It's raining boulders out there,"

he said. "What do you know about the so-called new people?"

 

"Not much," she answered.

 

"You're a very lovely liar, but the fact that you are lovely doesn't

make you any less a liar," Zen said. She was very beautiful with her

violet eyes and bronze hair, but an overworked intelligence officer

could not be concerned with these things.

 

"Thank you, colonel," she said. "But I do not relish being called a

liar." Her face showed hurt, just the right amount of it, but at the

same time her eyes laughed at him. "However, I guess there is nothing I

can do about it, is there?" Somehow she contrived to look like a small

girl who has been unjustly accused of some deed she has not committed.

 

In the distance the avalanche had ground to a halt. Now, no more

boulders were bounding down the hill. A vast, puzzled silence held the

mountains. In that silence, Zen fancied he could hear the thoughts of

the frightened men who had remained alive thus far, and were wondering

how to prolong their precarious existence. They were also wondering if

staying alive was worth the effort involved. Why not give up now and be

done with all tragedy, with all tears, with all trying to find the road

to the future?

 

Up the trail a man began to scream.

 

Like a homing pigeon that has finally found the right direction,

the nurse moved toward the sound. Zen caught her arm again. Looking

puzzled, she stopped. "Please, colonel. I am needed up there." She

nodded up the slope in the direction of the screaming man.

 

"You are probably needed by many others," he commented.

 

She did not seem to understand. "But I am a nurse. It is my duty to

help those who are wounded."

 

"I know." He was a little startled to find himself in sympathy with

this impulse. "But, not yet."

 

"Why not?"

 

"Because that slope is still too hot to be safe." He held up his left

wrist. Instead of a watch, he wore a miniature radiation counter there.

The needle was creeping up toward the red line.

 

"The radiation count is about forty right here at the mouth of this

prospect hole," he pointed out.

 

"That is interesting," the nurse said. The tone of her voice said it

was not important.

 

"Halfway up the slope, it will hit a hundred. At the top of the ridge,

where the explosion took place, the count may reach a thousand." In his

opinion, he had said enough.

 

In her opinion, he had not said anything at all. "That makes no

difference. Wounded men are up there. I am a nurse. My duty is clear to

me."

 

"If you try to help them under these circumstances, you will become a

casualty yourself."

 

"But what of the men who need help?"

 

"They will simply have to get out of the radiation zone themselves, or

wait until the area is clear and help can reach them."

 

"You are heartless!"