David S. Garnett
Uniformed guards, whether of banks, office blocks or old people’s homes, are most often regarded as faceless beings. Science had contrived hyperspace and other-dimensional logic to care for the old folk; but when the project was interrupted Lee discovered he had to face up to the emergency, for moral decay operates behind the façade of the face.
* * * *
No one knew the exact time when they were cut off. The last people to leave were the half dozen administrative staff members who had to go for a conference. That was a few minutes past ten. A food delivery was due at eleven, but it was usually late.
Several people tried to complain about the lack of electricity, but were unable to because the phones had also become inoperative. The duty portal guards did not notice the failure until past halfway through their shift. ‘Half past eleven already,’ said Lee, flicking over a page of his magazine.
Looking towards the ten-foot diameter gate, Chris said: ‘Late again. Nothing worth eating when we get off.’
‘Yesterday’s leftovers,’ agreed Lee. ‘We’d better give Steve and Eugene a call. Make sure they’re awake.’
‘I’ll do it.’ Chris pressed a switch beneath the speaker mounted on the wall. He flipped it back into place, then tried another. ‘That’s odd.’
‘What’s odd?’ said Lee, not even looking up from his magazine.
‘There’s no hum. It seems broken.’
‘That wouldn’t surprise me. It’s the only thing that hasn’t broken yet.’
Chris continued playing with the switches. ‘I’ll use the one in stores,’ he said after a minute.
He was not gone long. ‘That’s bust, too. The whole works must’ve gone kaput.’
Lee put down what he was reading and stood up. ‘Better report this,’ he said. He tried the outside line. It was on a different circuit from the internal network, but it did not work. ‘No go,’ he told Chris. He turned the knob on the radio and tried the light switch. Neither of them came on.
‘Must be a power failure.’
Like everything else the electricity was provided from outside.
‘I hope so,’ said Lee.
‘What else could it be?’
Lee did not answer. He went to the sink, inserted the plug, and turned the single tap full on. It ran for a couple of minutes before suddenly turning into a trickle, a few drops, then nothing at all.
‘Chris, I think we’re in trouble. Go find the captain.’
Chris looked uneasy. ‘Shouldn’t we wait till the others get here?’
There were supposed to be two of them at the portal all the time, but Lee judged it no longer mattered. ‘No one’s going to try and get in,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ said Chris. ‘Yeah.’ And he went.
Lee walked up the ramp towards the gate. He stopped two or three yards away. The portal was a huge metal tube jutting a few feet out of the wall. Inside there was nothing but darkness so intense that the eye could not penetrate. It looked the same as it always did. To check if it was working, all he had to do was enter it and walk through to the other side. That was all.
He turned back.
Nine and a half thousand people had no other source of food or heat, light or water. He knew that communication would be restored as soon as possible. But would that be soon enough ?
* * * *
Steve and Eugene arrived before Chris was back. Both had already discovered the telephone and electricity failure.
‘I think we’ve been cut off,’ said Lee. ‘Chris went to find the captain.’
Steve asked when it had happened, and Lee told them about the administrative staff leaving. They waited in silence, all considering the implications of being alone. Each one knew how tenuous was the link with the other side, but up until now none of them had tried to think about it. They had pushed it to the back of their minds, pretending it was somehow different.
‘I can’t find him,’ Chris said when he got back.
‘Maybe he hasn’t returned,’ said Steve.
‘You mean he left?’
‘Rob mentioned he went out last night.’
‘Then we’re on our own,’ said Lee, voicing what they all thought and knew. There was still the possibility that although no one could get in—as evidenced by the lack of deliveries—they could get out. Lee suggested it.
‘You’re volunteering?’ asked Steve.
‘I’d go through,’ said Eugene, ‘but it isn’t worth it. Say I make it to the other side, what then ? They already know something’s wrong and you wouldn’t know if I’d succeeded.’
He was right, realised Lee. The only reason he had not thought it through was because he wanted to believe they could get out. Because if he did not believe that, he had no hope. Whatever happens, he said to himself, I’m going to survive.
‘But at least you’d be safe,’ said Chris to Eugene. He seemed to shiver, and it could not be because he was cold. ‘It makes you realise how vulnerable we are. Once they get it fixed, I’m quitting.’
Eugene smiled. ‘If they fix it,’ he said. ‘It is an experiment, remember that. There might be a limit to the duration a portal can operate.’
‘No,’ Chris said, ‘they’ll fix it.’
‘I agree,’ said Lee, although he was not at all sure, ‘but the question is: How long will it take ? Minutes or days ? Or even weeks?’
‘We wouldn’t last longer than a week,’ said Eugene. ‘What should we do? Tell everyone?’
‘We’ve got to assume the worst,’ said Steve.
‘We’d better get the others and hold a war council,’ said Eugene. ‘We’ll have to tell the people something.’
Lee did not say so, and it might have been coincidence that the administrators and the security captain were missing when the portal closed, but he thought they would have to prepare themselves for a long stay here—wherever ‘here’ was.
* * * *
Almost the entire population of what was referred to as the ‘village’ consisted of old people. They no longer worked. They had no reason to leave, and except in rare circumstances were not allowed to. Everything came from outside. They ordered what they wanted, it was delivered and they paid for it. The ten apartment blocks were completely self-catering. They had to look after themselves. The guards were posted at each end of the portal to prevent entrance by unauthorised persons—and there were many who saw the village as an escape route, even though publicity for the experiment and others like it was discouraged.
Lee knew the villagers were nothing but guinea pigs. If this village proved successful, yet others would be established for such people. It was no good housing those who had to keep moving back and forth. The portals were not large enough to move so many. The idea was to get them out of the way and leave more room for everyone else.
After the eight guards had come to an undecision to wait and see, Lee went to the doctor’s surgery. There were dozens of ‘villagers’ waiting in the outer room, and they grew silent and watched him as he entered. He expected to be bombarded with questions; but he was not. They had been given no choice as to where they had been rehoused, and Lee knew they regarded the security men as prison warders. In that, he reflected as he opened the inner door, they were not far from the truth.
‘Don’t you usually knock?’ said the nurse. Her name was Alice and she was the only female younger than sixty in the whole village. She was about half that age. Anywhere else, the man would not have spared her a first glance. She had never spoken to him before and he did not like her tone. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’ There was a man sitting on a chair in front of her.
‘I wanted the doctor,’ said Lee.
‘He isn’t here.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know.’
Lee knew. He had gone. That was what he had come to check. Two of the other guards would have been there when he left, but Lee had not asked because he did not want to share his suspicions.
‘Why,’ she went on, ‘has the electricity and water failed?’
‘A temporary fault,’ Lee told her, his eyes gesturing towards the old man.
She took the hint. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you. That will be all.’ The man stood up and went out. She waited for the guard to speak.
‘I think we’re cut off. The portal isn’t working.’
‘You only think?’
‘We’re not getting anything through. Draw your own conclusion.’
‘I’m no expert.’
‘Nor am I. I don’t think anyone is.’ He backed to the door. ‘I thought you might like to know.’
‘Doctor Whitehead went to visit someone late last night. He said he’d be back around noon.’
‘Our captain’s gone, too. And the administrative staff.’
‘Which leaves ...?’
‘Us, you and around ten thousand others without food or water or ...’ He broke off, shrugging. ‘You get the picture?’
‘What can be done?’
‘By us, nothing. They’ve got to fix it at the other side.’
‘How long will it take?’
Lee shrugged again.
‘Thanks for the good news,’ she said.
‘If you come up with any bright ideas, let us know.’
He left. He supposed something should be done about rationing, but what was there to ration ? The water in the pipes would be all gone by now. There were no reserve stocks of food, only what there was in every apartment larder. Lee had not eaten yet and he thought that maybe he should start getting used to eating less. Perhaps there would not be time to starve. How long before the air became un-breathable and they died of asphyxiation ?
* * * *
At the other end of the tube the sun would be at its zenith. But here, where there were only twenty hours, eight minutes and thirty-six point three nine seconds in every day, a sun which was not Earth’s fast approached the horizon. Among themselves, they always talked of the strange star as being the sun, and they had no proof that it was not, no matter what they thought. The ones who had measured and analysed it must have known, but their discoveries were not passed down to mere gatekeepers.
We’re the ones who live here, thought Lee, but we don’t know a thing about it. Did the portal transport them into the past, into the future? The moon was gone and he did not recognise the pattern of the stars, though he had only ever been able to pick out Orion and the Plough. And Jay said the constellations did not belong to the southern hemisphere, either. They could be on a parallel Earth, but the stars did not fit. Perhaps it was a mixture of everything—a different time, another dimension, an alien world swinging about a primary in an unimaginably distant galaxy. Whatever the case, it made no difference to the fact that they were trapped there.
Lee was due for some sleep and at the moment he did not care as much about their predicament as he should. They had been on their own for eight hours. The villagers had been told nothing yet, but it would not be hard for them to realise what was going on. None of them had come to find out. It was as if this only confirmed what they had expected to happen.
‘I think,’ said Lee to the other seven—he thought Alice might have come but he was wrong—’we should elect a leader.’
‘You nominating yourself, Lee?’ said Steve.
‘Not me. I’ll vote for Eugene.’
‘Anyone else want to stand ?’ asked Daren.
Chris looked as though he was about to speak; but he did not.
‘Anyone object?’ asked Daren.
‘Yeah,’ said Eugene. ‘Me.’
‘Too late, Mr. President,’ said Steve, ‘you’re in.’
Daren gave him a mock salute. ‘Your orders, sir?’
‘Yeah,’ said Chris, ‘what are we going to do?’
‘Talk,’ said Eugene.
‘Someone should try and get through,’ said Rob. ‘I know we said it wouldn’t do any good; but if someone went through holding a line, perhaps a message could be tied to it and pulled back.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s better than doing nothing.’
Eugene nodded. ‘Do you want to play Theseus ?’
‘Tomorrow. If we haven’t been rescued. We’re not desperate enough yet.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Allan, and a few of them forced a laugh. Anything to relieve the tension. Rob had used the right word: rescued. They could do nothing to help themselves. Going through the gate was the only action they could take, futile though it might be.
‘We’re in no immediate danger,’ said Eugene.
‘Face facts, Eugene,’ said Jay. ‘We’re in trouble. Bad trouble.’
‘I know that. But it’s only a power failure.’
‘Long kind of power failure,’ said Chris.
‘I don’t think we’ll ever get back,’ said Jay. ‘This didn’t just happen. It was planned. Why isn’t the captain here? Why did the doctor and the others leave ? So they wouldn’t be trapped, that’s why.’
‘You mean,’ said Steve, ‘they knew the portal was going to fail and ordered the others out. But why not us?’
‘Because we’re expendable,’ said Jay.
‘Why not the nurse?’ asked Steve.
‘Who’d want to save her?’ said Allan, which produced a better laugh than his previous remark.
‘Okay,’ Eugene said to Jay, ‘you think they knew something was going to go wrong and so-’
‘No! I’m saying they deliberately cut us off.’
‘After all the money and time they’ve spent on this place?’ said Lee. ‘All the trouble to build the dome and construct the village simply to sever all links with it? There are cheaper ways of killing off a few thousand pensioners—not to mention a handful of misfits like us.’ The fact that the others had left could not easily be dismissed as coincidence, although they all had plausible reasons for going, but it made no sense for them to be deliberately castaway.
‘Cheap?’ said Chris. ‘We’ll be dead in a week. Then they can start all over again. They won’t have lost the village.’
‘It could be part of the experiment,’ said Steve.
‘To see how we’d react, you mean?’ said Eugene.
‘Or to see how long we’d live?’ said Allan, and nobody laughed this time. ‘That’s more their sort of experiment.’
‘Shut up,’ Eugene said, ‘all of you. We can’t do anything in the dark. We’ll carry on tomorrow. Allan, Jay, you’re on duty?’
‘It’s not worth it, is it ?’ said Allan, but he got no answer.
* * * *
Lee turned his back on the ten housing blocks. We’re not even pretending to care about them, he thought. But should we ? Aren’t we here to guard them, to protect them ?
‘Maybe,’ he said to Daren, ‘we’re meant to break through the dome and colonise this world.’
‘Could be,’ agreed the other, treating the idea as seriously as it had been suggested. ‘The eight of us share the nurse— to ensure a mixed gene pool—and eat the rest of them.’
‘What we really need is a couple of loaves and five fishes, then we’d be okay.’
‘Twice that much,’ said Daren. ‘And Eugene our miracle worker.’
They were watching as Rob tied a line around his waist and prepared to enter the portal. Two or three of them might have thought he stood a chance, but so far as the others were concerned he was killing himself.
‘I feel like a mountaineer,’ he said.
‘You don’t have to go,’ Eugene told him.
‘I’ve got nothing better to do. See you later.’
He walked up the ramp and stepped into the shadows and was gone. They only had the length of thin rope to tell them Rob was still moving. The portal was cylindrical with a corridor built through it. The walls of this did not touch the sides of the portal but instead rested on concrete blocks built at either end. A man had to feel his way along to get out; even the brightest light was absorbed in a matter of inches.
He ought to be there by now, thought Lee, and the line became still. Then it dropped. Eugene hauled it back and examined the end of the rope.
‘It doesn’t prove anything,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell if it’s where Rob tied it or if it’s been severed.’
‘You should have measured it,’ said Allan.
‘I will if you want to try it.’
Then there were seven, thought Lee.
‘Why don’t the rest of us go through ?’ asked Chris.
‘No one’s stopping you,’ said Jay.
‘He could have got through.’
No one bothered to comment.
‘Now what,’ said Jay to Eugene, ‘sir?’
‘How about leaving the dome?’ said Steve, which brought a mixed series of comments in reply to which Steve said: ‘There might be something to eat out there. Water. Air. Or it might be a quicker way to die, yes. But we’ve nothing to lose.’
‘Only our lives,’ said Allan.
‘Listen,’ said Jay. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the apartment buildings. ‘Why don’t we send some of them out and see if they survive? There’s no point in risking ourselves.’
‘And what do we tell them?’ asked Eugene.
Jay patted his holstered revolver.
‘We could get them out through the waste chutes,’ said Chris.
Waste chutes, repeated Lee silently. A brand new world, and what do we do with it? Pump out our sewage and rubbish. Probably there were other portals used exclusively to get rid of such inconvenient by-products of civilisation. He had not considered that before. He knew that a few other experimental gates were in operation or being opened. Ones to exploit the resources found, ones to become complete self-contained productive units, and likely ones to be used as prisons. But where were they? On this world? If so, perhaps they could be reached. They would have a route back to Earth. If, of course, their portals had not also failed.
Allan said something about waste chutes being the best place for the villagers, but the most he got was an uneasy smile or two.
‘No,’ said Eugene, ‘We all go out or none.’
‘If,’ said Lee, ‘we found that this world didn’t kill us, we could explore it and see if there are any more domes. It would take a while, seeing we’d have to go on foot, but it would pass the time.’
‘Pass our lifetimes, you mean,’ said Daren.
Nothing else was decided. They simply continued to wait.
* * * *
They had been waiting a total of twenty-five hours when Eugene visited Lee in his room and said: ‘I want to know if I can count on you.’
Lee nodded. ‘What for?’
‘You, me and Steve to disarm the others before they do something crazy.’
‘Daren too?’
‘I’m not sure about him.’
‘If we exclude him, he’ll turn against us.’
‘We’ll have to risk that.’
‘When?’
‘Now. Steve’s outside.’
‘Okay,’ said Lee, thinking that if he had refused, he would have lost his gun by this time.
‘Thanks, Lee. You can have Alice Tuesdays and Fridays.’
He’s only kidding, thought Lee, but how close to the truth was he ? He had not seen the woman since yesterday, but he was not the only one who had been thinking of her. One woman and seven men. One day a week each, except that on this world which no one had bothered to name they did not have weeks. But it would not be like that. He, Eugene and Steve would be running the village—until one of them decided to take sole charge. Maybe one of the guards would murder the other six in order to get Alice.
Perhaps, said Lee to himself, I’d better do it before anyone else thinks of it. Winning the nurse was not a very pleasant prospect, but she was better than nothing. Better, anyway, than one of the five thousand grandmothers.
It was a bloodless coup.
After it was over, Eugene said to Steve and Lee: ‘I didn’t like doing it, but it had to be done.’
Lee wondered if he was right. They had lived and worked together for three (Earth) months. Ever since the dome had been occupied. They were a team, reasonably friendly with each other. But now that was ended forever.
‘Do you want our guns as well ?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Eugene. He smiled, trying to make it into a joke, and added: ‘Not yet.’
‘What are you going to do with the guns ?’ said Steve.
‘I’ll handle them.’ With that he left.
‘Deputy Lee, I think we’d better watch our step.’
‘Deputy Steve, I agree with you. Guess I’ll mosey along down the saloon.’
Lee found himself walking towards the block which housed the doctor’s office, where Alice was. But he saw a uniformed figure crossing over towards the building and go inside. At that distance he could not make out who it was. He turned around and went back. He wondered what happened next.
* * * *
The long column of people shuffled obediently along the path, up the ramp and into the portal. Some had walking sticks. Others were in wheel-chairs. They talked a little among themselves. Despite their nervousness, on the whole they were pleased to be leaving the village.
The guards stood in two groups and watched them go. One of the group of four occasionally glanced towards the other three, as if wondering if they were going to be made to go through the portal also. The same question was in Lee’s mind.
Two of this world’s days had elapsed since they had lost contact. Alice reported several people had died for one reason or another and demanded that something be done. Lee had been there when she came to speak to Eugene.
‘You’ve got to do something,’ she said.
‘All right,’ said Eugene. ‘We’ll send them back through the gate.’
‘But it’s not working.’
‘We can’t get anything in, but we can get people out.’
True, thought Lee. The question was: Where did they finish up when they went out? What had happened to Rob? He could have got back safely, they had no way of knowing.
‘The sooner the better,’ said Alice.
And so it was arranged.
The villagers were told they had to be temporarily evacuated until electricity and everything else was restored. They could take with them only what they could carry. Block by block, they started to leave.
We’re murdering them, thought Lee, and they’re queuing up to die. Next to him Steve said:
‘They might be getting back.’
‘Trying to convince yourself?’
‘It’s better than them dying here,’ said Eugene.
‘Are you going through?’ Lee asked him.
Eugene was saved from having to reply by the arrival of Alice.
‘Can I go back now?’ she asked.
Eugene hesitated.
Lee said: ‘Don’t you think you should wait until the others have all gone? In case someone needs treatment.’ It’s we who need treating, he thought; they’re as good as dead already. He tried not to think of them as individuals, as people. Because only when he did so would he comprehend the slaughter in which he was taking part... and he hoped he never would.
‘I think you should wait,’ said Eugene.
‘Very well.’
‘It’ll be about midday tomorrow. We can’t get them all through before it grows dark.’
‘More are going to die during the night. They’ll trip and break their necks, or their hearts will fail, or-’
‘I’m sorry,’ Eugene said, interrupting. ‘I’m doing what I can.’
Lee wondered how she would react when she realised what the security men had done. Perhaps she would not find out, she would walk into the gate not knowing. Would she enter the portal ? Would he let her ? Lee was determined he would not go through. Inside the apartments he would find enough tinned foods to live on for years. He would rather venture into the unknown beyond the dome than into the other unknown—the portal.
* * * *
The next day Chris and Jay were missing. The other two claimed no knowledge of their whereabouts. They could have gone through the portal, no one had been guarding it, but it seemed unlikely. It was equally improbable that they had left the dome and gone outside.
‘They must be hiding because they think we’ll make them go through the gate,’ said Eugene. ‘We’ll deal with them later. Let’s finish off the last two buildings.’
‘How will you deal with them?’ asked Lee. ‘Are you going to make them go through?’
‘No.’
‘Then what?’
‘We will all stay here and guard the dome. That’s our job.’
‘If we don’t want to stay ?’ said Steve.
‘No one has to.’
‘And Alice?’
‘That’s up to her.’
‘There she is,’ said Lee. ‘Chris is with her.’
‘Chris,’ she said when she reached them, ‘has told me what’s going on. I demand that you stop sending people through the portal. You’ve no idea what happens to them. They might die.’
‘Where’s Jay?’ Eugene asked Chris.
‘Haven’t seen him.’
‘Steve, Lee, lock these two up. Unless either of you want to take your chance in there.’ Eugene pointed towards the gate.
‘You mean you’re not going to stop?’ said Alice.
‘I can’t stop. If they stay here, they’ll die. Through there they might not/
‘But it’ll be fixed soon.’
‘Three days should have been long enough. Take them away.’
People started going through the portal again.
* * * *
Alice reappeared as the first group from the final dwelling block began to go through. From nowhere, she was suddenly at the head of the queue of villagers and shouting at them, warning them not to go forward, that if they did so they would die. Lee caught sight of Chris. Jay must have broken the lock to free them.
The people stopped moving forward and the line broke up.
Lee unholstered his revolver. He saw Eugene at the entrance to the portal raise his gun and fire a single shot into the air. He was trying to restore some sort of order, but his action had the opposite effect. He was shouting, attempting to reassure them. Instead, the old people backed away and started to hurry off, returning to their apartments. A man stepped towards Steve, shaking his fist. The guard shot him. Someone screamed and Steve fired again. Lee decided to take his leave. He saw somebody tackle Steve from the rear and take his revolver. It was Jay. He had shed his uniform, putting on ordinary clothing. Jay saw Lee and shot at him. He missed, then dodged behind a storeroom wall. A mass of people had enveloped Steve’s fallen body, and Lee realised there was nothing he could do for him.
He saw Eugene firing into the rioting crowd. He could not see Alice anywhere. Pushing away wrinkled hands which clawed at him, Lee forced his way through the fleeing mob and ran towards the nearest housing block. If he could make it, he would be safe there. It had been the first one evacuated. He reached it safely and waited at the door for a minute, catching his breath and watching the fleeing crowd. A man in uniform was running towards him. It was Allan. Lee kept the revolver in his hand as he slowed and stopped in front of him.
‘They might be old,’ said Allan, ‘but they can move when they have to.’
Lee nodded in agreement. ‘I saw Jay jump Steve and take his gun. They got him. You okay?’
‘Fine. But they’re tearing Daren to pieces.’
‘Eugene?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Alice?’
‘I saw Chris pulling her away. What are you going to do ?’
‘Who knows?’ Lee shrugged. ‘What about you?’
‘I haven’t got a gun. And it ain’t safe around here. I’ll try and bust in Eugene’s room tonight and get mine back.’
‘And till then?’
‘Are you staying in this place?’
‘Why?’
‘I’ll stay with you if it’s okay.’
‘It isn’t.’
‘I see.’ Allan walked away.
Lee reasoned that he ought to kill him before he became a threat; but he let him go. Then he went to the top floor and chose a room.
* * * *
There was no reason why the five remaining guards, if there were still five, could not live in harmony. If they united, they could force the remaining villagers through the portal and share what remained—the buildings, the food. They could have two blocks each. Yet Lee knew it was too late for that now; perhaps it had always been too late.
On the top floor alone he had found plenty of food, but his problem was that he had very little to drink. He was trying the floor below when he found Jay waiting for him behind a door. He dropped his gun.
‘How did you find me?’
‘Allan said you were in this block.’
He should have moved to another. It was stupid to use this one after the other guard had seen him.
‘Is Allan with you now?’
‘He took a short walk. Through the portal. And that’s where you’re going. Come on.’ He picked up the other gun and they went out of the door and down the stairs.
‘I’d rather go outside,’ said Lee.
‘I’m sure you would. That’s where most of the oldsters are.’
‘They went out? They survived?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why not me?’
‘I want you out of the way.’
‘Because of Alice?’
Jay did not answer.
‘Chris and Eugene still around?’
‘They won’t help you.’
‘No.’
They made their way to the exit. Jay kept well back, a gun in each hand, looking around all the time. They reached the ramp. Lee stopped.
‘Don’t dawdle,’ Jay told him. ‘I can still shoot you. This way you’ve got a chance.’ He laughed. ‘Maybe the ones who’ve gone through are the lucky ones. The portal might be working in that direction.’
‘Thanks for those few kind words.’
‘In ten seconds I’m going to empty this in there.’ Jay held up the gun in his right hand. ‘So get running.’
Lee did as he was told. Perhaps it would be best if he did go straight through. Even if he stopped just inside the blackness and Jay’s bullets missed him, the man would probably wait around to see if he came out. He would not be given a second chance.
The blackness engulfed him. He could almost feel it, it was so tangible. The same moment, almost lost in the all-absorbing dark, he heard a shot. Without thinking, he sent himself diving to the floor. Ten seconds already? He heard two more shots. Jay said he would empty his revolver and had given the impression that the chambers were full. They might not have been, or maybe he had changed his mind, but a few seconds later Lee crawled back towards the entrance and looked out.
Jay was sprawled across the ramp and Eugene was picking up the two guns. Swiftly, Lee backed into the tunnel a couple of feet and stood up. He waited a long time before coming out. His only chance now was to find a gun. Eugene had all three, as well as the four he had taken when the others were disarmed. Lee knew he could wait until nighttime and then slip out of the dome, but he would not be safe until the last two were dead.
He should have followed Eugene, but there were all sorts of things in his life he should have done. The other security man had seen Jay make him enter the portal. He did not know he was back in the village, and that was where Lee’s advantage lay.
* * * *
Jay had the right idea in getting rid of his uniform. Lee outfitted himself in a set of clothes he found in one apartment, and took a walking stick from another. He debated whether to make use of a wig he found somewhere else, but decided he need not go that far. A sharpened carving knife provided him with his armament; he fashioned a makeshift sheath and hid the weapon down his left sleeve.
So far as Eugene was concerned, Chris was the only one left. But what of Chris? He would not know how many there were. Did he still have Alice with him? It seemed likely. If Lee was in his position, he would try to get as far away as possible. Jay had said that almost all the villagers had fled the dome, presumably so they would not be forced through the portal. And that was where Chris would have gone. Eugene would have used the same reasoning. All Lee really needed to do was to wait until one of them killed the other—as Eugene had waited to shoot Jay until he had forced Lee into the entrance of the portal.
The village seemed totally deserted as, leaning on his stick, Lee slowly made his way to the dome wall. He had expected that everyone had got out via the waste disposal hatches, but instead he found that a hole had been smashed through the double transparent walls. He could not imagine how that had been done, but he had better things to think about. He stepped out on to the surface of the alien world.
There was no sign of life. Any sort of life. The land was rugged and desolate with very little vegetation, though towards the horizon the slopes seemed far less barren. It did not seem very probable, but that must have been where most of the villagers were hiding. Jay could, however, have been wrong or lying. Most of them could still be within the dome, hidden in their apartments. They were long past the age for clambering over rocks.
Could something have killed them all? Not the atmosphere, because Lee had unknowingly been breathing it since the wall had been breached. Wild animals? Contaminated water? There had to be a reason for the dome’s existence. Or was it meant not to keep something out, but to keep the people in ?
There were only three people in whom Lee had any interest.
* * * *
He found Eugene first. It was the noise of a shot which attracted him, the day after he had left the dome. He had soon exhausted all his supplies and had even been forced to drink from a pool of water he came across. As yet, he had felt no ill effects.
When he heard the shot, Lee immediately ducked behind the nearest outcropping of rock. Eugene—it had to be him —was not far away, and for a short while Lee thought he was the target. But there was no more shooting, and after a few minutes he began to crawl in the direction he guessed the sound had come from.
Eugene was above him, still wearing his uniform, and there was a body a few feet away. It was not Chris’s. The guard held a can to his lips and was pouring its contents into his mouth. Lee gathered that he had murdered the man for his food. Yet why had he wasted a bullet? The man would not have been able to get away from him.
Lee became still, waiting. He drew out his knife, transferring the walking stick to his left hand.
Finally Eugene started to move across the rise, and Lee saw why he had been forced to shoot. He moved very slowly and with extreme difficulty, dragging his right leg and putting no weight on it. He kept against a wall of rock, leaning against it and holding himself up with his hands. He was so concerned with not falling that it was easy for Lee to come up behind him and break the walking stick across the back of his head. Eugene fell.
‘Are you going to shoot me?’ he asked a few minutes later. ‘You can hardly make me walk through the portal.’
Lee stood well away from him, checking the three revolvers.
‘I could have shot you with Jay, but I didn’t.’
Still Lee said nothing.
‘I can hardly move. Let me have a gun with one bullet. Put it down there. By the time I reach it you’ll be out of the way.’
‘Where’s Chris?’
‘I haven’t see him.’
‘Alice?’
‘No. They must be together.’
‘I’d help you to the gate if I had time. I might as well let you have this.’ Lee put one of the guns on the ground. ‘I’ll be listening.’ Then he turned and began to climb down.
When he reached the bottom he looked up. Eugene was leaning over the edge, the gun held in both hands. Lee heard the click as he pulled the trigger.
He began to climb back up. Eugene frantically kept trying to fire the empty gun.
‘You shouldn’t have tried that,’ Lee told him. Then he killed him.
* * * *
It took much longer to find Chris and Alice, so many days that it seemed he had spent his whole life searching for them. He stayed away from the dome until there were no more old people he could steal food from, whom he could question. Then he returned. He did not even consider the possibility that the portal would ever be reopened. He went into every apartment, ignoring the survivors as though they did not exist. They were simply part of the landscape and there were fewer of them all the time.
If they were outside, they could not remain there forever. He had found nothing to eat, and it would be the same for them. There was very little left even within the village, and Lee took all he could find. He promised to reward anyone who told him where Chris and Alice were hiding, and that was how he found them.
An old woman told him the block, the floor, the apartment. It was one he had checked; he had checked them all. They must have moved in after he had been there. He could not understand why Chris had not tried to kill him. He had purposefully made himself conspicuous in the hope that he would show himself. And when he showed himself he could be killed.
He broke into the apartment at first light. They were both in bed asleep. He had no hesitation this time. He could not risk giving Chris a chance. Lee yanked him out of bed and on to the floor, emptying his revolver into the man’s chest.
Only then did Alice awake. She saw Lee. She saw Chris. And she began to cry, sobbing uncontrollably.
Lee sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulder. ‘It’s okay,’ he told her. ‘You’re safe. You’re with me now.’
* * * *
The world outside was safe and inhabitable, and it was up to him and Alice to inhabit it. The few hundred villagers left could be discounted, they would produce no offspring. In ten—Earth—years most would have been dead; here they would last even less.
They were reasonably happy together. Alice never mentioned either Chris or Earth. They discovered hidden stocks of food in many apartments. Some of the villagers, before they died, began to cultivate native crops for food, and these they inherited. Lee even occasionally managed to trap an unwary specimen of a local species of rabbit, and later they had some success in breeding these in captivity. The summers were warm, the winters mild. Lee often thought of how they were like Adam and Eve, though he was careful never to mention this flight of fancy to Alice. The woman once said they had found themselves a private world at the end of the rainbow. The rainbow was the portal.
After two years, when for all their efforts they still had no children, Alice admitted that she had accepted the bounty and been sterilised at puberty. In a way Lee was glad. It felt good to be the only man on the whole planet, on his planet. The only man and the last man. He and Alice would die here, of that he was certain. It was a much more pleasing prospect than the way he would have ended up if he had remained and grown old on Earth. The first, the last, the only. Lee and Alice all alone, at the end of the rainbow.
They were all alone when, forty-nine of their world’s years after it had ceased to work, the portal began to operate again.
They were questioned for a long time about what had happened. Lee gave his interrogators an edited version of the truth. He could not understand why he was not believed until one of them told him that so far as they were concerned the portal had been closed for a total time of an hour and a half. And in that hour and a half nobody had either gone in or come out.
So far as the world knew, Lee and Alice were just two more old people. They were moved out and treated the same as any other unmarried seventy year olds. They never saw each other again, or even the world on which they had spent most of their lives. And the domed villages they were sent to were separated by more than mere distance, even though they were half a galaxy apart.