The Return | Page 6

men's minds, that these people might feel, as a heritage of the war of two centuries ago, a hostility to science and scientists. There was no hostility, however, in their manner as the old man advanced and held out his hand.
"I am Tenant Mycroft Jones, the Toon Leader here," he said. "This is Stamford Rawson, our Reader, and Verner Hughes, our Toon Sarge. This is his son, Murray Hughes, the Toon Sarge of the Irregulars. But come into the Aitch-Cue House, gentlemen. We have much to talk about."
* * * * *
By this time, the villagers had begun to emerge from the log cabins and rubble-walled houses around the plaza and the old church. Some of them, mostly young men, were carrying rifles, but the majority of them were unarmed. About half of them were women, in short deerskin or homespun dresses; there were a number of children, the younger ones almost completely naked.
"Sarge," the old man told one of the youths, "post a guard over this flying machine; don't let anybody meddle with it. And have all the noncoms and techs report here, on the double." He turned and shouted up at the truncated steeple: "Atherton, sound 'All Clear!'"
A horn, up in the belfry, began blowing, to advise the people who had run from the fields into the woods that there was no danger.
They went through the open doorway of the old stone church, and entered the big room inside. The building had evidently been gutted by fire, two centuries before, and portions of the wall had been restored. Now there was a rough plank floor, and a plank ceiling at about twelve feet; the room was apparently used as a community center. There were a number of benches and chairs, all very neatly made, and along one wall, out of the way, ten or fifteen long tables had been stacked, the tops in a pile and the trestles on them. The walls were decorated with trophies of weapons--a number of old M-12 rifles and M-16 submachine guns, all in good clean condition, a light machine rifle, two bazookas. Among them were stone and metal-tipped spears and crude hatchets and knives and clubs, the work of the wild men of the woods. A stairway led to the second floor, and it was up this that the man who bore the title of Toon Leader conducted them, to a small room furnished with a long table, a number of chairs, and several big wooden chests bound with iron.
"Sit down, gentlemen," the Toon Leader invited, going to a cupboard and producing a large bottle stopped with a corncob and a number of small cups. "It's a little early in the day," he said, "but this is a very special occasion. You smoke a pipe, I take it?" he asked Altamont. "Then try some of this; of our own growth and curing." He extended a doeskin moccasin, which seemed to be the tobacco-container.
Altamont looked at the thing dubiously, then filled his pipe from it. The oldster drew his pistol, pushed a little wooden plug into the vent, added some tow to the priming, and, aiming at the wall, snapped it. Evidently, at times the formality of plugging the vent had been overlooked; there were a number of holes in the wall there. This time, however, the pistol didn't go off. He shook out the smoldering tow, blew it into flame, and lit a candle from it, offering the light to Altamont. Loudons got out a cigar and lit it from the candle; the others filled and lighted pipes. The Toon Leader reprimed his pistol, then holstered it, took off his belt and laid it aside, an example the others followed.
They drank ceremoniously, and then seated themselves at the table. As they did, two more men came into the room; they were introduced as Alexander Barrett, the gunsmith, and Stanley Markovitch, the distiller.
"You come, then, from the west?" the Toon Leader began by asking.
"Are you from Utah?" the gunsmith interrupted, suspiciously.
"Why, no; we're from Arizona. A place called Fort Ridgeway," Loudons said.
The others nodded, in the manner of people who wish to conceal ignorance; it was obvious that none of them had ever heard of Fort Ridgeway, or Arizona either.
"We've been in what used to be Utah," Altamont said. "There's nobody there but a few Indians, and a few whites who are even less civilized."
"You say you come from a fort? Then the wars aren't over, yet?" Sarge Hughes asked.
"The wars have been over for a long time. You know how terrible they were. You know how few in all the country were left alive," Loudons said.
"None that we know of, beside ourselves and the Scowrers until you came," the Toon Leader said.
"We have found only a few small groups, in the whole