The Return | Page 6

the wound myself, and it wasn't serious to begin with."
"You are a doctor?" the white-bearded man asked.
"Of sorts. A sort of general scientist. My name is Loudons. My friend, Mr. Altamont,
here, is a scientist, also."
There was an immediate reaction; all three of the elders of the village, and the young
riflemen who had accompanied them, exchanged glances of surprise. Loudons dropped
his hand to the grip of his slung auto-carbine, and Altamont sidled unobtrusively away
from him, his hand moving as by accident toward the butt of his pistol. The same thought
was in both 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