Doomsday Eve 5

Doomsday Eve 5

"To hell with the count!" he thought. "I'm going up there and drag her

down here. She's not going to throw her life away while I skulk like

a coward down below. I don't give a damn whether she's one of the new

people or not. She's human!"

 

He climbed the slope with giant strides. Then he saw that Nedra was

running toward him and waving him back.

 

"Colonel! You can't come up here."

 

"I _am_ coming up there!" he shouted in reply.

 

"No!"

 

When he did not stop, she ran faster toward him. The craggy man kept

pace with her. Reaching Zen, she caught his sleeve, turned him around,

and started him down the slope. "You can't be here." Her voice was

breathless with protest.

 

"Are you giving me orders?" Zen growled. Secretly he was pleased

because she was concerned about him.

 

"If you will permit me, colonel, I think Nedra's intention is to save

your life," the craggy man spoke. He had a voice like a bell tolling

in the distance, sweet-toned and musical, but with overtones of great

strength.

 

"What about _her_ life?" Zen demanded.

 

"I'm going down now, colonel," the nurse said hastily. "They've set up

a first aid station. They will need me there."

 

"You will need their attention is what you mean," Zen said.

 

"Colonel, the counter!" she answered.

 

The needle was well over the hundred mark and was still rising.

 

"Come, colonel." Hooking her arm in his, Nedra began moving down the

rough, boulder-strewn trail. Zen did not move. She tugged harder.

 

"Your life is in danger here, sir," the craggy man said, politely.

 

"That is of interest to me only," Zen answered. "And what about your

life?"

 

"Colonel, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine," the nurse said

quickly. "Colonel Zen, Sam West. We'll talk while we walk down to the

first aid station."

 

"A pleasure to meet you, sir," West said, extending his hand. His

handclasp was firm but there was a suggestion of additional power in

his fingers.

 

"Nice to meet you, Mr. West. Do you live around here?"

 

"Over that way," the craggy man said, nodding vaguely over his

shoulder.

 

Again the nurse tugged at Zen's arm. He set his feet solidly on the

mountain trail. "We'll talk right here."

 

"But you are taking an unfair advantage of Nedra," the craggy man

protested. "This area is heavy with radiation and this is neither the

time nor the place to be swapping horses."

 

"Then why are you two here?"

 

"I was getting out of the area as fast as I could when I met Nedra,"

West said. "I would still be getting out of it, but fast, if you were

not stopping me."

 

"I'm not stopping you," Zen said. "There's the trail. Hit it. Nor you

either," he said to Nedra.

 

"Don't be silly, Kurt," the nurse said. She was pleading with him now.

 

"All right. But on one condition. Why did you come up here in the first

place? You knew the area was hot."

 

"I--I lost my head," the nurse said promptly. "My emotions ran away

with me. I'm a nurse and wounded men needed my attention. I went to

them. You will come down the trail with us, won't you?" The violet eyes

begged him to believe in her.

 

"What made you lose your head?"

 

"Why--shock, I suppose. This is the first time I was bombed. Also, the

screaming of the wounded. Really, sir, I am a nurse." The way she said

the word, being a nurse meant something. The violet eyes had grown

tired of begging and were on the verge of spitting anger at him.

 

"I don't believe a damned word you have said," Zen said. "You didn't

lose your head back there in the prospect hole."

 

"Please, Kurt." Again she rugged at his arm. "I'll talk to you all you

want down below. But don't try to force me to stay here."

 

Reluctantly, Zen yielded to the pressure on his arm. Relief appeared in

the violet eyes and the face of the craggy man showed a sudden release

from some inner strain. Dimly, he thought he had seen that craggy face

somewhere before but the picture that flicked through his mind was

gone before he could fit a time and place tag on it. Going down the

trail, he steered the nurse toward a truck where the medics had set up

equipment to test the amount of exposure to radiation. In doing this,

he discovered that she was steering him in the same direction.

 

"I don't need the medics," he protested. "I'm all right. I wasn't

exposed long enough to do any damage."

 

"Of course you're all right," she answered. Her tone was similar to

that of an indulgent mother reassuring a hurt child.

 

"You're the one who needs help," he said. He was certain she had

remained too long.

 

"I'm going to get it if I need it," she said, soothingly.

 

Zen could hear the occasional crunch of boots behind them. West was

keeping silent. He did not seem to be in a hurry.

 

Zen started to speak to Nedra. The thought of what he wanted to say was

dim in his mind and he could not quite find words for it but he knew

that it had something to do with a wish that the world were different

and that the human race were not trying to destroy itself. Why should

he be wishing this? The reason for his thinking became a little

clearer. He was wishing the world were different so that he might make

love to this nurse under conditions that would permit this love to bear

other fruit than frustration, despair, and death.

 

He found himself wishing that a vine-covered cottage existed somewhere,

a place where a man and a woman might live in peace and reasonable

security, raising some kids who could play on a mountain slope that was

not saturated with atomic radiation.

 

"Here is the first aid station," the nurse said. "And--"

 

"And what?" he asked her when she did not continue.

 

She gave his arm a squeeze. "And thank you for the dream," she

whispered.

 

As Kurt Zen turned startled eyes toward her, wondering how she had

known what he had been dreaming, her face seemed to dissolve in a gray

mist.

 

He plunged, unconscious, to the ground at her feet.

 

 

 

 

IV

 

 

The jar of striking the ground seemed to bring the intelligence agent

back to consciousness instantly. As Nedra started to kneel beside him,

he was already getting to his feet. She tried to help him rise. He

shrugged her hand away.

 

"What happened?" she asked.

 

"Nothing," he said. This didn't seem quite right. "I--I--" He tried to

think what had happened. "I fainted. That's all. I just fainted." To

him, this seemed a reasonable explanation for everything that needed

explaining.

 

Nedra seemed to think otherwise. "But men like you don't just faint,"

she protested.

 

"I did."

 

"They don't faint unless something is wrong with them," Nedra

continued. "Are you sure you're not suffering from delayed shock

following the bomb explosion? Or--" Her voice slid away into silence as

if she were afraid to voice the thought that was in her mind. Behind

her, West said nothing.

 

"I just did it," Zen said, becoming more indignant. "I fainted. Who

says it can't be done?" Confusion existed somewhere. He was sure it was

the nurse who was confused. He shook his head in an effort to clear up

her difficulty.

 

"I saw you do it. All I am trying to say is that perhaps there may be a

reason for it."

 

"Nope," Zen said. "I'm not going to the aid station. No reason for it.

I'm all right. It's the world out there that is wrong." This made sense

to him.

 

"I know you are all right," Nedra answered. Her face showed strain.

"But it might be a good idea to have the doctors check, just to make

sure."

 

Zen, busy shaking his head again, hardly heard her. He had the

impression that her confusion would clear up in a minute. Somehow it

reminded him of the confusion that he had suffered after inhaling a

whiff of nerve gas, once. When had this happened? He was not sure, now.

Perhaps it had taken place in the remote past, perhaps on some other

planet ... he realized his mind was wandering. Again he shook his head.

 

"But I really think, colonel--"

 

"I wasn't shaking my head at you," Zen corrected.