Chapter I: Front Matter

Peace in the Wilderness

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

_To explore the future with a myth-maker’s divining rod may be a
highly dangerous undertaking. You may venture far from familiar
landmarks and find yourself turning a sickly shade of green. But so
sturdily built and tremendous is the “Trojan Horse” which Marion Z.
Bradley has envisioned here that the iron clang of his hoofbeats may
even now be deceiving the world of tomorrow. The strangest of strange
events becomes terrifyingly real and suspense mounts high indeed in
this unusual novelette by the author of_ JACKIE SEES A STAR.

=Like the great wooden horse of Homeric legend were the Pharigs--an
enemy at the gates of a new Ilium’s space-defended towers.=

The counterman was getting nervous.

Kerry Donalson was the last customer in the little cafe. The clatter of dishes had completely subsided and to either side of him the cracked white-tile counter and worn stools were bare and clean and empty. Although Kerry was a well-dressed man far into his forties, the counterman hovered disrespectfully around him, giving a perfunctory toweling to surfaces already spotless. Finally, his starchy apron a-crackle with audible irritation, he demanded, “You got far to go, Mister? It’s getting close to curfew!”

As if to emphasize the man’s words, a blinding dazzle of white light flared in the street outside, arching through the glass front of the cafe.

“Not far,” Kerry said and paid no attention to the lights. For thirteen years no street on Earth had been dark at night. And during all of those years without darkness Earth had been in a state of total war.

A young man had come into the cafe with the lights, and was making his way toward the far end of the counter. As the counterman turned toward the new customer, Kerry pointedly buried himself in the front page of the _Times-Telegram_. Behind his paper he turned his wrist to look at the dial of his watch. _Half an hour before curfew_, the message had said. _I’ll come up and speak to you. But don’t speak to me._

Kerry knew the headlines by heart, for he had scribbled his personal blue-pencil okay on every story. For five years now he had been editor, and part owner, of the _Times-Telegram_. Yet he continued to study the columns, as if something might be hidden there that would give him a clue to the mystery which had led him to seek a possibly dangerous meeting with a total stranger.

The main story read: EX-GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST AFFIRMS MOON BASE POSSIBLE. Earlier in the day Kerry had skimmed it professionally for typographical errors, and now he shrugged off the story itself with cynical amusement. It was nothing but a rehash of the usual hopeful platitudes. The moon base project had been definitely abandoned.

United Earth had been trying for twelve years to set a rocket on Luna, and before that, the Free Americas and the Asian Alliance had ruthlessly trampled one another in a futile race for a satellite station. But no drive, no known fuel could successfully propel a rocket beyond the outer limits of Earth’s gravity.

That afternoon, Kerry had received a phone call from a dead man. Ben Thrusher had been a rocket research-expert for the Government of the Free Americas, but a tragic accident had made him one of the earliest casualties in Earth’s war against the Pharigs. Or had it been an accident?

Farther up the counter, he heard the waiter grumble, “Counter’s closed, lad. Too near curfew. You want to get picked up by the Night Police?”

“I only came to meet a friend here,” the newcomer said.

Kerry, lifting his eyes from a routine headline, _Pharig Atrocities Spark Curfew Crackdown in Dallas_, looked up quickly and found himself staring at the face of a tanned youngster, maybe nineteen, maybe even younger. He was wearing blue jeans and a leather jacket.

“You must be Mr. Donalson?” the youngster said.

Kerry stood up. “And you’re Lewis Fallon?” he asked.

The youngster nodded and touched Kerry’s extended hand briefly.

“I thought you wouldn’t show up,” Kerry said. “Coffee?”

“No time,” Fallon said. “Like the man said, it’s near curfew, and we don’t want to get picked up by the Night Police, do we, now?” The youth spoke with a faint inflection of sarcasm, looking past Kerry at the recruiting poster which hung over the cash register.

AN EARTH DIVIDED
IS AN EARTH CONQUERED
_Join the Night Police_
_Serve in Your Own Community!_

Kerry shrugged into his overcoat, and flung a greenie on the counter. The counterman, making change, sounded apologetic. “I didn’t mean to hurry you up, Mister. Only I live way out in the suburbs and I don’t want to go home under police escort again. My wife gets nervous.”

“That’s all right,” Kerry said. “Sorry I kept you from closing on time.”

He left the change and went out into the glare of the streetlights, the Fallon youngster walking easily and warily at his side. He noticed that Fallon glanced nervously to right and left as they came out, as if he expected to see someone waiting. But the street was empty--a bare illuminated cavern that stretched away for endless miles, white with the billions of vapor-lamps that brightened every street and alley.

Earth was largely a continuous network of cities by now--and every inch of the crammed countryside, every solitary lane or alley.

“I hope, if you have a wife,” Fallon said, “that she’s not the nervous type.”

“I called Ruth before I left the _Times-Telegram_ building,” Kerry said.

Fallon jerked his head in sudden anger. “I should think you’d have had sense enough to call her from a public telephone, Mr. Donalson! Damn it, why do you think I went to the trouble to meet you way out here?”

That did it. Kerry stopped walking and faced the youth. “Look here,” he said, “I’m not going another step with you until you tell me what this is all about. Precisely where are we going, and why are you acting like a criminal conspirator?”

Lew Fallon frowned. “I should have warned you. Your office phone--can you swear it’s not tapped?”

“Of course it’s tapped,” Kerry said, startled. He did not need to be reminded that newspapers--and other organs of information--were heavily censored for purposes of public wartime morale.

Fallon jammed his hands down in his pockets and sighed. “Well, I’ve brought you this far, so we may as well go on. But I don’t like it. If that’s the kind of person you are--” he checked his rising anger with a visible effort, and named a hotel halfway across town.

“But we can’t get _there_ before curfew, can we?” Kerry said. “Hadn’t we better give our route and destination to the Night Police?”

Fallon turned abruptly, his young face tense in the bluish light. “Get this, Mr. Donalson. I’m taking you to Ben Thrusher. If the Night Police get wind of this you’ll lose the biggest news story of the year--to say nothing of what would happen to Ben. It was Ben who wanted it this way. Now, are you coming or aren’t you, and to hell with the curfew! I can remember when it wasn’t a crime to be on the streets whenever you had business to transact.”

Lawbreaking comes hard to a respectable man. “If you’d printed as many stories of Pharig atrocities as I have,” Kerry told him, “you’d know the curfew laws were for your own protection.”

Fallon muttered something under his breath, and went on. Kerry followed, but he was not at all reassured. For many years only the Night Police, equipped with neuron-guns, had dared to walk the streets after curfew.

The Pharigs were immobile in daylight, but at night, despite the inhibiting curfew lights, they marauded the world. If they escaped the unknown menace of Pharig attack, there was still the dangerous risk of a crippling neuron-blast.

Neuron-guns were fatal to the non-human Pharigs, and the Night Police had orders to shoot first and ask questions afterward. The assumption was that if you were human, a neuron-blast wouldn’t do you any lasting damage.

It was assumed that anyone on the streets after curfew without police escort--except in the protected areas reserved for necessary night workers--was either a criminal or a Pharig. No honest or sane Earthman had any business on the streets at that hour.

Kerry quickened his steps to match the hasty walk of the younger man. And all at once a random, surprising memory darted through his brain and he said aloud, “Lew Fallon!”

The youngster turned impatiently, and Kerry repeated, less sure of himself, “Lew Fallon. But no, it can’t be! You’re much too young to be the Lew Fallon who was killed by Pharigs eight years ago!”

“The rocket man? That was my father.” Lew Fallon’s mouth was tight. “He wasn’t dead either--until a week ago.”

“I don’t understand,” Kerry said. “Ben Thrusher and I were roommates in college, and we worked at a civilian center during the Three Days’ war. He was about the best friend I had until the Pharig invasion came, and the Army took Ben for rocket research. He and your father were killed when the Pharigs sabotaged an experimental rocket.”

“Rubbish!” Fallon blurted out, then added quickly, “Look I can’t explain. Ben Thrusher will have to do it.”

Kerry had thought, at first, that the whole thing was a cruel or sinister hoax. But now the youngster’s attitude convinced him otherwise. He hurried along, trying to match Fallon’s stride. It was four minutes to curfew, and the streets were totally empty. But every shadow where the arch of light fell away became the possible lurking configuration of a concealed Pharig, or a uniformed Night Policeman. And there were many shadows.

He slackened his pace, a hand to the stitch in his side, angry at himself for the upsurge of excitement aroused by his own guilt. He hadn’t broken any laws yet!

“This is the hotel,” Fallon said abruptly. He stopped, and added with a shrug, “With just one minute to spare before curfew. Don’t inquire at the desk. Go right up to Room four-o-seven.”

He swung about on his heels, and walked swiftly toward the rear of the building.

Kerry started to follow, feeling a sudden desperate need to insist on a further explanation. But the sudden wail of the curfew siren drowned thought for a few seconds. When the noise died away he was standing inside the lobby, and a bellboy was bolting the doors behind him.