The Return | Page 8

we've been able to make
nuclear-electric engines, and this is the first time any of us have gotten east of the
Mississippi."
"How did your group manage to survive?" Loudons said. "You call it the Toon; I
suppose that's what the word platoon has become, with time. You were, originally, a
military platoon?"
"Pla-toon!" the white-bearded man said. "Of all the unpardonable stupidity! Of
course that was what it was. And the title, Tenant, was originally lieu-tenant; I know that,
though we have all dropped the first part of the word. That should have led me, if I'd used
my wits, to deduce platoon from toon.
"Yes, sir. We were originally a platoon of soldiers, two hundred years ago, at the time
when the Wars ended. The Old Toon, and the First Tenant, were guarding pows,
whatever they were. The pows were all killed by a big bomb, and the First Tenant,
Lieutenant Gilbert Dunbar, took his ... his platoon and started to march to Deecee, where
the Government was, but there was no Government, any more. They fought with the
people along the way. When they needed food, or ammunition, or animals to pull their
wagons, they took them, and killed those who tried to prevent them. Other people joined

the Toon, and when they found women whom they wanted, they took them. They did all
sorts of things that would have been crimes if there had been any law, but since there was
no law any longer, it was obvious that there could be no crime. The First
Ten--Lieutenant--kept his men together, because he had The Books. Each evening, at the
end of each day's march, he read to his men out of them.
[Illustration: ]
"Finally, they came here. There had been a town here, but it had been burned and
destroyed, and there were people camping in the ruins. Some of them fought and were
killed; others came in and joined the platoon. At first, they built shelters around this
building, and made this their fort. Then they cleared away the ruins, and built new houses.
When the cartridges for the rifles began to get scarce, they began to make gunpowder,
and new rifles, like these we are using now, to shoot without cartridges. Lieutenant
Dunbar did this out of his own knowledge, because there is nothing in The Books about
making gunpowder; the guns in The Books are rifles and shotguns and revolvers and
airguns; except for the airguns, which we haven't been able to make, these all shot
cartridges. As with your people, we did not die out, because we had women. Neither did
we increase greatly--too many died or were killed young. But several times we've had to
tear down the wall and rebuild it, to make room inside it for more houses, and we've been
clearing a little more land for fields each year. We still read and follow the teachings of
The Books; we have made laws for ourselves out of them."
"And we are waiting here, for the Slain and Risen One," Tenant Jones added, looking
at Altamont intently. "It is impossible that He will not, sooner or later, deduce the
existence of this community. If He has not done so already."
"Well, sir," the Toon Leader changed the subject abruptly, "enough of this talk about
the past. If I understand rightly, it is the future in which you gentlemen are interested."
He pushed back the cuff of his hunting shirt and looked at an old and worn wrist watch.
"Eleven-hundred; we'll have lunch shortly. This afternoon, you will meet the other people
of the Toon, and this evening, at eighteen-hundred, we'll have a mess together outdoors.
Then, when we have everybody together, we can talk over your offer to help us, and
decide what it is that you can give us that we can use."
"You spoke, a while ago, of what you could do for us, in return," Altamont said.
"There's one thing you can do, no further away than tomorrow, if you're willing."
"And that is--?"
"In Pittsburgh, somewhere, there is an underground crypt, full of books. Not bound
and printed books; spools of microfilm. You know what that is?"
The others shook their heads. Altamont continued:
"They are spools on which strips are wound, on which pictures have been taken of
books, page by page. We can make other, larger pictures from them, big enough to be
read--"
"Oh, photographs, which you enlarge. I understand that. You mean, you can make
many copies of them?"
"That's right. And you shall have copies, as soon as we can take the originals back to
Fort Ridgeway, where we have equipment for enlarging them. But while we have
information which will help us to find the crypt where the books