“Very carefully,” Franks said.
They closed in.
“How much more, we can only guess. I must admit that we were taken unprepared. We failed utterly to meet the situation. Now force would be absurd, because neither side can afford to injure the other; we, because of the restrictions placed on us regarding human life, you because the war demands –”
The soldiers fired, quick and in fright. Moss dropped to one knee, firing up. The leader dissolved in a cloud of particles. On all sides D- and B-class leadies were rushing up, some with weapons, some with metal slats. The room was in confusion. Off in the distance a siren was screaming. Franks and Taylor were cut off from the others, separated from the soldiers by a wall of metal bodies.
“They can’t fire back,” Franks said calmly. “This is another bluff. They’ve tried to bluff us all the way.” He fired into the face of a leady. The leady dissolved. “They can only try to frighten us. Remember that.”
They went on firing and leady after leady vanished. The room reeked with the smell of burning metal, the stink of fused plastic and steel. Taylor had been knocked down. He was struggling to find his gun, reaching wildly among metal legs, groping frantically to find it. His fingers strained, a handle swam in front of him. Suddenly something came down on his arm, a metal foot. He cried out.
Then it was over. The leadies were moving away, gathering together off to one side. Only four of the Surface Council remained. The others were radioactive particles in the air. D-class leadies were already restoring order, gathering up partly destroyed metal figures and bits and removing them.
Franks breathed a shuddering sigh.
“All right,” he said. “You can take us back to the windows. It won’t be long now.”
The leadies separated, and the human group, Moss and Franks.and Taylor and the soldiers, walked slowly across the room, toward the door. They entered the Council Chamber. Already a faint touch of gray mitigated the blackness of the windows.
“Take us outside,” Franks said impatiently. “We’ll see it directly, not in here.”
A door slid open. A chill blast of cold morning air rushed in, chilling them even through their lead suits. The men glanced at each other uneasily.
“Come on,” Franks said. “Outside.”
He walked out through the door, the others following him.
They were on a hill, overlooking the vast bowl of a valley. Dimly, against the graying sky, the outline of mountains were forming, becoming tangible.
“It’ll be bright enough to see in a few minutes,” Moss said. He shuddered as a chilling wind caught him and moved around him. “It’s worth it, really worth it, to see this again after eight years. Even if it’s the last thing we see –”
“Watch,” Franks snapped.
They obeyed, silent and subdued. The sky was clearing, brightening each moment. Some place far off, echoing across the valley, a rooster crowed.
“A chicken!” Taylor murmured. “Did you hear?”
Behind them, the leadies had come out and were standing silently, watching, too. The gray sky turned to white and the hills appeared more clearly. Light spread across the valley floor, moving toward them.
“God in heaven!” Franks exclaimed.
Trees, trees and forests. A valley of plants and trees, with a few roads winding among them. Farmhouses. A windmill. A barn, far down below them.
“Look!” Moss whispered.
Color came into the sky. The sun was approaching. Birds began to sing. Not far from where they stood, the leaves of a tree danced in the wind.
Franks turned to the row of leadies behind them.
“Eight years. We were tricked. There was no war. As soon as we left the surface –”
“Yes,” an A-class leady admitted. “As soon as you left, the war ceased. You’re right, it was a hoax. You worked hard undersurface, sending up guns and weapons, and we destroyed them as fast as they came up.”
“But why?” Taylor asked, dazed. He stared down at the vast valley below, “Why?”
“You created us,” the leady said, “to pursue the war for you, while you human beings went below the ground in order to survive. But before we could continue the war, it was necessary to analyze it to determine what its purpose was. We did this, and we found that it had no purpose, except, perhaps, in terms of human needs. Even this was questionable.
“We investigated further. We found that human cultures pass through phases, each culture in its own time. As the culture ages and begins to lose its objectives, conflict arises within it between those who wish to cast it off and set up a new culture-pattern, and those who wish to retain the old with as little change as possible.
“At this point, a great danger appears. The conflict within threatens to engulf the society in self-war, group against group. The vital traditions may be lost — not merely altered or reformed, but completely destroyed in this period of chaos and anarchy. We have found many such examples in the history of mankind.
“It is necessary for this hatred within the culture to be directed outward, toward an external group, so that the culture itself may survive its crisis. War is the result. War, to a logical mind, is absurd. But in terms of human needs, it plays a vital role. And it will continue to until Man has grown up enough so that no hatred lies within him.”
Taylor was listening intently. “Do you think this time will come?”
“Of course. It has almost arrived now. This is the last war. Man is almost united into one final culture — a world culture. At this point he stands continent against continent, one half of the world against the other half. Only a single step remains, the jump to a unified culture. Man has climbed slowly upward, tending always toward unification of his culture. It will not be long —
“But it has not come yet, and so the war had to go on, to satisfy the last violent surge of hatred that Man felt. Eight years have passed since the war began. In these eight years, we have observed and noted important changes going on in the minds of men. Fatigue and disinterest, we have seen, are gradually taking the place of hatred and fear. The hatred is being exhausted gradually, over a period of time. But for the present, the hoax must go on, at least for a while longer. You are not ready to learn the truth. You would want to continue the war.”
“But how did you manage it?” Moss asked. “All the photographs, the samples, the damaged equipment –”
“Come over here.” The leady directed them toward along, low building. “Work goes on constantly, whole staffs laboring to maintain a coherent and convincing picture of a global war.”
They entered the building. Leadies were working everywhere, poring over tables and desks.
“Examine this project here,” the A-class leady said. Two leadies were carefully photographing something, an elaborate model on a table top. “It is a good example.”
The men grouped around, trying to see. It was a model of a ruined city.
Taylor studied it in silence for a long time. At last he looked up.
“It’s San Francisco,” he said in a low voice. “This is a model of San Francisco, destroyed. I saw this on the vidscreen, piped down to us. The bridges were hit –”
“Yes, notice the bridges.” The leady traced the ruined span with his metal finger, a tiny spider-web, almost invisible.
“You have no doubt seen photographs of this many times, and of the other tables in this building.
“San Francisco itself is completely intact. We restored it soon after you left, rebuilding the parts that had been damaged at the start of the war. The work of manufacturing news goes on all the time in this particular building. We are very careful to see that each part fits in with all the other parts. Much time and effort are devoted to it.”
Franks touched one of the tiny model buildings, lying half in ruins. “So this is what you spend your time doing — making model cities and then blasting them.”
“No, we do much more. We are caretakers, watching over the whole world. The owners have left for a time, and we must see that the cities are kept clean, that decay is prevented, that everything is kept oiled and in running condition. The gardens, the streets, the water mains, everything must be maintained as it was eight years ago, so that when the owners return, they will not be displeased. We want to be sure that they will be completely satisfied.”
Franks tapped Moss on the arm.
“Come over here,” he said in a low voice. “I want to talk to you.”
He led Moss and Taylor out of the building, away from the leadies, outside on the hillside. The soldiers followed them. The sun was up and the sky was turning blue. The air smelled sweet and good, the smell of growing things.