Famine (16 page)

 

 

The ambassadors foregathered.

Outside, newspaper, radio and television reporters, recorders and cameras, were trained on the doorway of the great building in Whitehall. As the cars drew up, or the ambassadors arrived on foot, the silent crowd observed them with a resigned hopelessness. Policemen were mixing freely with the crowd, and dozens of Palfrey's men were present, listening to rumours and talk. There was a spirit of defeatism. Now and again,
Lozi
streaked past, and no one took any notice of them; only the killer
Lozi
would attack humans, and none of those appeared.

When the Prime Minister arrived, he mounted the steps and spoke into a B.B.C. microphone.

“I will have a statement for you when I come out. At this stage I can say no more.”

There was a faint stirring of interest, but no glimmer of excitement. Soon the ambassadors were behind locked doors. This time there was neither food nor drink for them.

Palfrey began to talk, bringing his audience through an atmosphere of stunned horror, growing restlessness, and gradual hope. He outlined the plan anew, as he had outlined it to the three men in his office, then he said clearly and precisely: “We have made tape-recordings of these plans, two for each of you. It wouldn't be wise to put them on paper. The stages are carefully graduated – if the instructions are carried out, there is little need to fear failure, because I have here—” he held a sheet of paper above his head—”a list of twenty-one proved instances of cannibalism among the
Lozi.
When they are starving, they will eat one another. We need time. We need preparation-and-food centres which are impregnable; and we need patience.”

He paused but soon went on: “Before I invite your questioning, there is one matter of vital importance. That of the effect on the people whom we are going to sacrifice. They will be told, all of them, that they are heading for other food centres, where there is more chance of survival than in the one they leave. They will be given military protection – among those whom we shall send out will be many of military age. It will be like the Exodus from Egypt, for they will leave in hope. I believe you will understand that we are not dooming them, for the world as it stands is already doomed. We are snatching at the one slender chance of a future for mankind.”

He stopped.

For a while, no one spoke.

Then one man began to pray, and others followed him.

So complete was their agreement that no one argued, nor protested, nor demurred.

Outside, in Whitehall, the Prime Minister put up the remarkable front which never seemed to desert him, and his voice was strong and sure as he lied.

“We have realised that the cities and towns cannot be properly protected unless there are fewer people in them. And we realise also that the
Lozi
will invade the cities and the towns, and the disease of radiation will spread much more quickly along the sewers and the gutters of built-up areas. Safety, therefore, depends on an organised exodus to places in the country which have already been prepared, and there food supplies are being accumulated.

“A selected few will stay behind in the cities and the towns, to protect the marching columns from attack from the rear.

“There need be no panic. It must be an orderly exodus, we must not regard ourselves as refugees. Remember, this is the policy which will be applied throughout the world – the east and the west, the new world and the old.

“And we begin tomorrow.”

 

In his last remark the Prime Minister was wrong. They began within moments of the last words of his speech. In the homes throughout the land where they had heard him, many began to prepare. They collected oddments of clothing and furniture, their personal as well as their household treasures, and they started the trek out of the city.

And others began throughout the world.

There was no need to send military forces with them, no need to bribe or persuade. Enough of the refugees were on the way to make certain that the selected survivors would have no need to fear. Soon the streets were thronged. Every kind of wheeled vehicle which could be pushed or pulled was used, push-carts and hand-trucks, bicycles, tricycles and prams. And as the hordes moved out, the leaders of the Emergency Committees worked with desperate intensity to keep those whom they wanted behind, until Andromovitch said: “Those who wish to go should be allowed to, Sap. They haven't the qualities which the survivors will need if we are to rebuild the world.”

There was profound truth in that, and Palfrey sent out the message, and the leaders heeded.

All day, all night, all day, all night, the people left the cities and the towns and spread over the countrysides of the world, while the
Lozi
watched, and the killer
Lozi
prowled, as puzzled by human behaviour as humans had been by theirs.

Night followed night, and day followed day, until the city streets were deserted, and there were only the people of the future waiting.

 

In West Pakistan, where the famine conditions had been among the most acute, there was nothing left for man or
Lozi.
In Lahore, in a corner of the Shalimar Gardens where the flowers were dead and the fountains idle, two packs of
Lozi
appeared, with killers at their heads. An old gardener, who had somehow survived, squatted cross-legged by a wall, his goat skin water carrier empty, his face that of a skeleton, his body skin and bones. He saw the killers of one side sidle up to the killers of another, heard the screeching and squawking and saw the furious fight to the death.

 

From all over the world, the reports came in.

As the great packs became hungry, they fought each other, and this happened time and time again outside the cities. The armies of human beings, without food, without water, were thinned out as first one and then another dropped in his tracks. The scarecrow millions, their sunken faces telling of the nearness of death, lost all hope, or desire for it. And as they came upon the places where the
Lozi
had fought, the sickness came upon them, and they died.

The soil died too.

In the cities and the towns, reports came in from sputniks and television, and from view reconnaissance rocket planes which were in continual flight, sending pictures back to earth.

In all the capital cities, the leaders of nations saw what was happening, and were appalled.

On the screen at the headquarters of Z5, Palfrey and Andromovitch, Joyce and Beth, saw how the hopeless masses dropped and starved and fell sick and died; saw how the
Lozi
fell upon one another, and when one pack emerged triumphant, how it ran over the earth in its never ending search for more food. And in some packs the young were born and so the population rate increased, but in other packs hunger reduced the number until it was clear at last that the
Lozi
population was declining all over the world.

The time came when the
Lozi
protecting a pack turned on those it was protecting.

That was the beginning of the end.

For a long time after that the
Lozi
survived and in places thrived, but never for very long. Soon, the earth was running with the thin, watery blood which seeped into the soil, and killed all the vegetation that was left. Whole forests fell as disease struck at their roots. The sparse vegetation of the deserts faded, the more luxuriant vegetation of the jungle withered, and to the observers it began to look as if all growth was stunted by the bloodbath of the
Lozi.
No one stirred from the cities, where the food stocks fell lower and lower. Here and there the food was used up, and the hopelessness of famine drove the people away to scavenge over the poisoned earth for anything which might keep them alive.

Few found it! Fewer survived.

“One thing is certain,” Andromovitch said to Palfrey. “No one would be alive now, but for the centres. It was the only possible way, Sap, if there is to be a new world.”

Palfrey felt Beth's hand upon his arm, but the ache of guilt was acute in him. He could not forget that at his behest, the millions had gone to die, and that there was no certainty of survival for those that remained. Day after day the news was the same, and day after day some city fell to rioting, to looting, and some of those who had stayed behind broke out to seek nourishment which did not exist, and died.

Each day, samples of the poisoned earth were brought into laboratories in all the big cities, and tests were run, in the desperate hope that the scope and malignancy of the disease were weakening; for the terror now was not whether they could grow food enough, but whether they could grow food at all.

“How long will we survive in London?” Joyce asked, in the eleventh week.

“Perhaps another four months.”

“We can't grow anything in four months.”

“We could grow the simpler crops,” said Palfrey. “Most of the root vegetables, all the salad vegetables, beans and peas. We could survive if—”

He broke off.

That was how the conversation ran these days; in fits and starts. No discussion ever seemed to get anywhere, few sentences were finished. Of the little group of survivors at Z5, Beth was the least affected, having, perhaps, more spiritual stability.

Each saw their physical strength dwindling.

They began to lose the will to live.

And then one day, there came a messenger from Lozania.

The son of Clemente Taza came without warning to Z5. He was admitted by the guard at the main lift, and was conducted along the silent passages to meet Palfrey. Palfrey was with Andromovitch in the big office. He remembered, as from another life, the first time he had seen this man's father at the early conference of ambassadors; and he remembered the shot with which President Montini had killed himself, unable to live with so deep a sense of guilt.

Young Taza, however, appeared untouched by culpability.

“Dr. Palfrey,” he said. “I have an eight millimetre film to show you, from the Isle of Lozan. Have you the facilities here?”

“Of course.”

Palfrey was not only too listless to think seriously, he was too listless to wonder what this was about. For days, now, it had been simply a matter of survival, of hanging on, without any sense of time or urgency.

At last the room was darkened, and a picture appeared on the screen of the barren rocky soil of the island after the explosion which had created the
Lozi.
The whirring of the camera had a soporific effect; and Palfrey found himself drifting into a state of semi-consciousness.

He was brought back to the scene by a change of picture. Over the dark barren sides of the island there appeared a faint green film. Gradually it darkened, and more vegetation appeared. As the projector whirred on, the son of Clemente Taza spoke: “These pictures were taken every twenty-four hours – one each day.”

There was a break in the film, and then suddenly the screen showed vivid green and much more luxuriant growth.

“That in one day?” demanded Andromovitch, incredulously.

“That is so,” asserted Taza, “but I ask you to wait, please.”

Now Palfrey was sitting upright, the blood running less feebly through his veins, and when the next picture flashed on, he exclaimed aloud, for now he could see the shape of trees as well as bushes, grass, and wheat, all mixed together. With increasing excitement still touched by disbelief, he saw crops grow as much in days as they had once grown in weeks. “You will see what has happened,” young Taza said, in a flat unemotional voice. The rate of reproduction was speeded up in animal life. The rate of germination and growth has speeded up in vegetable life. All of this land was fertilised by the blood of
Lozi,
Dr. Palfrey. The rest of the earth should begin to bear fruit. We know already that it is clean; no one has been attacked by the disease in more than a week.”

And it was so.

 

As the days passed, a miracle came upon the world. Seeds long buried in that soil which had been poisoned for so long germinated, and grew so quickly that the tired and starving humans could scarcely believe it. Within two weeks, the first root crops were being harvested, excitement and hope giving the people strength to labour; within two more, the first corn and wheat and rice followed. All over the world food began to grow, and as the people ate they grew in stature and happiness, filled with a forgotten zest for life. In India and in China, in the once barren lands, in deserts or in valleys the food crops flourished. And of the people, none was sick.

 

 

Palfrey and Beth stepped out of a car beneath an oak tree in a narrow lane which led from the gaunt Goose Inn a mile or so away. The hedges, like the oak, were bursting with new life, a fresh and beautiful green. They stood for a few moments by the side of the car, watching the rippling of the corn beneath the evening breeze.

The five-barred gate had been repaired and painted, and they reached it and leaned against it, Beth watching the rippling of the corn with the intensity which Palfrey had seen in her from the first. He could recall, as she could not, her expression when she had looked down at her dead husband, the second victim of the
Lozi.
He could remember how she had told him what she had seen, and her tone as she approached the full horror.

“Do you want to go into the field?” asked Palfrey.

“Yes, Sap, please.”

He opened the gate, and they walked along the verge where the grass grew and the corn stalks bent to the breeze. The combine-harvester had been taken away, and the city of the
Lozi
had been filled in. There was no more to mark it than a dip in the ground. It was a year since Palfrey had first walked, in near panic, across this field, and yet it was an age ago. At this moment he felt something of the horror he had known here, the sense of the unknown, brooding menace. Nothing would ever drive that memory, or the fear, away. As he watched the sunlight and shadow, he could imagine the millions who had walked out so hopefully and so bravely to their death.

“Sap,” Beth said.

“Yes, my dear.”

“Don't torture yourself.”

He smiled at her. “How do you do it?” he demanded wonderingly. “You sense every mood, almost every thought. I've never known anyone like you.”

Slowly, Beth asked: “Not even Drusilla?”

“Not even Drusilla.”

Just for an instant pain showed in the blue eyes, as memories of the young wife who had died so tragically came crowding back to him – but it was quickly veiled.

“You would have liked her.” He paused for a moment, then put a friendly hand on Beth's shoulder. “Do you ever think of David?”

“It's strange,” said Beth dreamily. “He was a simple man but there was a very great quality in him. An honesty, a forthrightness. He was a farmer, and he saw farmers' problems as you see mankind's. You are both so unbelievably different, yet you are both so alike. He used to worry about a neighbour's crop after a storm much more than he did about his own. I don't think I ever told you that he would have harvested this field three days earlier had he not helped a neighbour whose wife was sick. And you came here because the world was sick. Do you think it has healed itself, Sap?”

Palfrey stared at her, and began to twist a few hairs round his forefinger.

“Not yet,” he said. “But we might heal ourselves eventually. There's enough of everything to go round now, we won't have to fight to get a fair share. We've inherited the technical know-how, the medical and surgical know-how, the culture, even the philosophy and the common sense, of two thousand and more years. The question is, have we inherited the greed and the folly as well? If we go about it in the right way, it will be like being born without ever having to be young. We start with all the advantages of experience and knowledge. Oh, we've a chance.”

He stopped speaking.

He patted the strand of hair down onto his forehead into a flaxen curve.

“I think today's children will be born with a much greater chance than children in the past. I suppose we shouldn't ask more.”

“No,” Beth said. “It is enough.”

They turned, their hands linked, and walked back through the new growth to a new life, which only mankind could ever spoil.