Algis Budrys - Some Will Not Die

This happened many years after the plague, at about the same time there was already talk of reviving the American Kennel Club in the east and south. But this happened farther to the northwest:

Night was coming down on the immense plain that stretched from the Appalachians to the foothills of the Rockies. The long grass whispered in the evening wind.

Clanking and whining, a half-tracked battlewagon snuffled toward the sunset. Behind it lay the featureless grass horizon, almost completely flat and with no life visible in it. The empty grass fell away to either side. Ahead, the first mountains lay black and blended by distance, a brush-stroke lying in a thick line just under the sun.

The car moved forward at remorseless speed, a squat, dark, scurrying shape at the head of a constantly lengthening trail of pulped grass. Its armor was red with rust and scarred by welds. The paint was a peeling flat dark green. On the side of the broad double turret, someone had painted the Seventh North American Republics escutcheon with a clumsy brush. The paint was bad here, too, though it was much recent. Another badge showed through from underneath, and, under that, someone elses.

Joe Custis, with the assimilated rank of captain in the Seventh Republican Army, sat in the car commanders saddle. His head and shoulders thrust up through the open hatch; his heavy hands were braced on the coaming. His broadbilled cap was pulled down low over his scuffed American Optical Company goggles, and crushed against his skull by an interphone harness. His thick jaw was burned brown, and the tight, deep lines around his mouth were black with dust and sweat that had cemented themselves together. His head turned constantly from side to side, and at intervals he twisted around to look behind him.

A speck of white, off to his left, became a freshly painted, well-maintained signboard nailed to a post planted at the top of a low, rounded rise. He dropped his goggles around his neck, and looked at it through his binoculars. It was a hand-lettered sign in the shape of a skullnot a new sign, but one kept renewedreading:

Custis picked up his command microphone. Lew, he said to his driver, you see that thing? Okay, well ease toward it. Get set for me telling you to stop altogether.

He jacked down the command saddle until his face was level with the turret periscope eyepieces. He raised the scope until its slim, stiffly flexible length was fully extended above the turret, looking, with its many joints, like the raised and quivering antenna of something that bred and went to outrageous combat on the red plains of Mars.

Slow, now, Lewslowhold it.

The car stopped, its motors idling, and the periscope searched over the rise. Joe Custis reached up and pulled the turret hatch shut, close over his head as he sat awkwardly bent down, peering into the scope.

On the other side of the rise was a valleywhat had been a valley, geologic ages past, and was now a broad, shallow bowl into which ten thousand centuries of rain had washed the richest topsoiland in the valley were fields, and here and there low, humped, grass-grown mounds. There were no lights showing. The fields were empty of movement, but one was half-harrowedthe ground freshly turned, the surface still rich and greasy, until suddenly the marks of the spike harrow turned out of their course and swayed away toward one of the mounds, which was in fact a sod hutment. A farmer had interrupted his work and driven his horseand the precious, hand-built harrowinto shelter.

The drivers voice cut into Joe Custiss headphones. Want me to move in for a better look?

No. No, circle around this and lets get back on the old heading. Dont want to go no closer. Might be traps or mines.

As Custis lowered the periscope, the car backed away. When it had back-tracked to where it had first turned off course, it swung around and began rolling forward again. The whine of the bogey motors built back up its original pitch. Joe Custis threw the hatch back again, and raised the seat to its old position. The signboard began to dwindle as the car left it behind. Back on the cars turtledeck, the AA machinegunners hatch crashed open. Custis turned and looked down. Major Henley, the political officer, pulled himself up, shouting above the dentists-drill whine of the motors: Custis! What did we stop for?

Joe cupped one hand to his ear, and after a moment Henley kicked himself higher in the hatch, squirmed over the coaming, and scrambled forward up the turtledeck. He braced a foot on the portside track cover and took hold of the grab iron welded to the side of the turret. He looked up at Custis, swaying and jouncing. Custis wondered how soon he was going to slip and smash out his teeth on the turret.

What did you stop for?

Fortified town. Independent. Wanted to look it over. Gettin to be a few of those places up this way. Interestin.

What do you mean, independent?

Dont give a damn for nobody. Only way to get in is to be born there. Or have somethin it would take a cannon to stop. I dont think they got cannon. Would of hit us, otherwise, instead of buttonin up the way they did.

I thought you said this was outlaw-controlled territory.

Custis nodded. Except for these towns, it is. Dont see any more open towns, do you?

I dont see any outlaws, either.

Custis pointed toward the mountains. Watching us come at em.

Henleys eyes twitched west. How do you know?

Its where Id be. Custis explained patiently: Out here on the grass, I can run rings around em, and they know it. Up there, Im a sitting duck. So thats where they are.

Thats pretty smart of them. I suppose a little bird told them we were coming?

Look, Henley, we been pointin in this direction for a solid week.

And they have a communications net that warns them in time. I suppose someone runs the news along on foot?

Thats right.

Rubbish!

You go to your church and Ill go to mine. Custis spat over the side, to starboard. I been out on these plains all my life, workin hired out to one outfit or another. If you say you know this country better, I guess thats right on account of youre a major.

All right, Custis.

I guess all these people out here must be stupid or somethin. Cant figure out how come theyre still alive.

I said all right.

Custis grinned without any particular malice, giving the needle another jab under Henleys city-thin skin. Hell, man, if I thought Berendtsen was still alive and around here someplace, Id figure things were being run so smart out here that we ought to of never left Chicago at all.

Henley flushed. Custis, you furnish the vehicle and Ill handle the thinking. If the government thinks its good enough a chance to be worth investigating, then thats itwell investigate it.