for.”
The old one who had done all of the speaking except for the word “heresy” laughed.
“Five-hundred-year-old shoes on a five-hundred-year-old man who looks to be perhaps thirty years old—
“I turn thirty next month—but what I say is true. Who are you?” Michael asked.
“I am the man who will decide your fate, along with my six associates.”
Michael Rourke licked his lips. “What is the Place?”
“It is our home.” The old one smiled, almost laughing.
“Who are Them?”
“Outcasts, young man—they are outcasts.”
“From where?”
“From the Place, outcasts sent from the Place over the course of the last several decades.”
“Where is Madison?”
“She who was Madison fifteen, until it was decided she would be one who goes?”
“Yes—the one you call Madison fifteen.”
“She was called that, but she is called nothing now.” Michael started for the old one, but the man raised his hands, palms outward and he smiled. “For the moment, this girl is quite safe and quite well. You will see her again, I assure you.”
“I came here in peace. I saved Madison from the ones you call Them. I forced her to bring me here. I search for people of my own kind. Do you have aircraft?” “Machines which fly? Of course not.”
“Someone does—there was a crash. I couldn’t find the wreckage. But the pilot—I found his parachute. And he was being killed by Them. That’s how I came to rescue Madison. I only came for knowledge—not for violence. Believe that.” “You came with the guns. This one is called a handgun,I think?”
“Yes—a handgun.”
“And the other one—it is called?”
“An automatic rifle.” He said nothing of his knowledge of the arsenal which he had gained from Madison.
“We have many such implements, but they are never used. They are dusted, they are given oil—“ “Where do you get oil from?”
“Peanuts which we grow. We distill an oil to a specific formula given to us over the ages.”
“Why do you keep guns if you don’t have a use for them?” “They were used by our progenitors and have religious value to us and this is why we preserve them. But we do not need to make shoot with them.” “To make shoot,” Michael repeated. “Right.” He wished he smoked like his father had. “Listen —I came in peace. Give me my guns, give me the girl—I’ll leave with her.”
“Your guns have been added to ours. There they shall remain.”
“Fine—gimme the girl, then. You keep the guns.” “We will not give you the girl and allow you to leave, as you say, because then you might tell others of this place.”
“There are no others,” Michael told him. “Except the cannibals. No others. Whoever came in that plane, I don’t know where he came from, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell him about you—if you let us go in peace.” “Have you no curiosity, young man—about us? We have about you. Tell us your story and we shall tell you ours.”
“I’d love to, but maybe some other time. I’ll bring Madison back to visit or something.”
The old one laughed. “A sense of humor—my goodness. How refreshing.”
“Thanks. Now—“
“No. We shall recount our story. We have never before had the chance,” and the old man started from the doors and crossed near Michael. Michael felt the temptation to reach out and throttle the man, use him as a wedge to get past the others and find Madison and escape. The old man just looked at him. “If you attack me, it will gain you nothing. It is nearly time that I become one who goes. Harming me, or the threat of harming me will not gain your freedom from here. But you must be curious.”
“All right, I’m curious—tell me.”
The old man smiled and Michael noticed that a cataract partially covered his left eye. “Do you have doctors?” Michael asked as the old man shuffled toward the head of the table, “We have healers but an attempt to prolong the time before one goes is forbidden.”
“Super—just let people die.”
“One does not do this thing you say, young man—one goes.” The old man was easing into the largest chair, before the two candies. “You go outside and get torn apart by those can-nibals like you sent Madison.
You die—pure and simple.”
The old man laughed.
The other six men moved about the room, one lighting the two candles at the head of the conference table, another opening a wall safe behind an inset wood carving in the back wall, the carving out of place amid the mural of the end of the world. From the safe, another of the six assisting him, he withdrew two books. One was leather- bound and the size of a Bible or un-abridged dictionary, the other smaller, leather-bound as well, but the size of a diary. “What are those?” Michael asked.
The old man looked up, “Why, the holy books, of course.”
“The large book—it’s a Bible, right? But the other one—it looks like a diary.” “It is the last book, written by our progenitors and it is locked and shall remain so for all time.”
“You revere a book as holy and yet you have no way of knowing what it contains?” The old man smiled indulgently again. With great effort, he stood, one of the others assisting him. He reached to his vest pocket, extracting from it on the end of what appeared to be a gold chain a small key. “As head of the counsel of the Ministers, I carry the key. It is my badge of office. The key will unlock the second holy book, but the key is given to us to test our faith and will never be used as it has never been used.”
“If it’s a diary, it probably tells something you should know—it’s not wrong to pry into the”
writings of someone who’s gone if it will help you to stay alive in a situation like this.”
“You are a most peculiar young man.” The old man smiled again as he sat. “The second holy book is five centuries old. And to stay alive as you put it is not a problem to us. And what situation? A situation requiring desperate measures? I think you misunderstand me. We thrive here. We have happiness here. There is no desire to alter this at all. So, then, why should sacrilege be committed and the second holy book be opened? But perhaps you will better understand after I recount our story.”
“Go ahead.” Michael nodded.
“Be seated—there, in the far chair from me.”
Michael looked at the second largest of the two large chairs. He moved the chair as he approached it—no wires, nothing out of the ordinary. He sat down, placing his hands on the polished table before him. “So, tell me your story, if that’s what you want.”
“Yes—it is what we want, young man.”
“My name is Michael—Michael Rourke.”
“The Place,” the old man began, seemingly oblivious to Michael having given his name, “was built more than five centuries ago, and at great expense and labor. It was the fashion, as the story has been passed down to us, for persons to plan to survive warfare among the nations of men, or disease, or economic trials. And so, the Place was built. And it was staffed. Because of the guns and because of the expense of the fixtures here in the Place, security persons were used to protect the Place from outsiders. The war between the great nation of the United Statesof and the evil nation of Commie took place—“ “It’s the United States of America, not United Statesof, and the nation of Commie—it was the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was run by a Communist government, and sometimes Com- munists were called Commies. You’re telling me an oral tradition, aren’t you?”
The old man resumed, as though, Michael realized, nothing had been said. “The war between the United Statesof and the Commie began, but our very wise progenitors foresaw this time of grief and took shelter in the Place and the Place sustained their every need. Time passed, and the great fires came from the heavens and consumed the earth as it was prophesied in the Holy Bible. But our progenitors in their wisdom had become the Chosen of God and it was His decree that the Place and our progenitors remain unscathed. And when the fires consumed all that was evil and had purged the land and the waters and the air, only the progenitors and their servants remained. Yet the servants were evil, consumed by jealousy of the wisdom of the progenitors and sought to hurl out the progenitors from the Place, but they were not successful, and as punishment for this blasphemy, the servants were put out. It was decreed that the number of one hundred persons should not be exceeded over seven
