The Next Logical Step Read online

submarines fired missiles from the Gulf of Mexico. Four wereimmediately sunk, but too late. New Orleans, St. Louis and three AirForce bases were obliterated by hydrogen-fusion warheads.

  The CIA man was familiar with the opening stages of the war. The firstmissile fired at the United States was the signal for whole fleets ofmissiles and bombers to launch themselves at the Enemy. It was confusingto see the world at once; at times he could not tell if the fireball andmushroom cloud was over Chicago or Shanghai, New York or Novosibirsk,Baltimore or Budapest.

  It did not make much difference, really. They all got it in the firstfew hours of the war; as did London and Moscow, Washington and Peking,Detroit and Delhi, and many, many more.

  The defensive systems on all sides seemed to operate well, except thatthere were never enough anti-missiles. Defensive systems were expensivecompared to attack rockets. It was cheaper to build a deterrent than todefend against it.

  The missiles flashed up from submarines and railway cars, fromunderground silos and stratospheric jets; secret ones fired offautomatically when a certain airbase command post ceased beaming out arestraining radio signal. The defensive systems were simply overloaded.And when the bombs ran out, the missiles carried dust and germs and gas.On and on. For six days and six firelit nights. Launch, boost, coast,re-enter, death.

  * * * * *

  And now it was over, the CIA man thought. The missiles were all gone.The airplanes were exhausted. The nations that had built the weapons nolonger existed. By all the rules he knew of, the war should have beenended.

  Yet the fighting did not end. The machine knew better. There were stillmany ways to kill an enemy. Time-tested ways. There were armies fightingin four continents, armies that had marched overland, or splashed ashorefrom the sea, or dropped out of the skies.

  Incredibly, the war went on. When the tanks ran out of gas, and theflame throwers became useless, and even the prosaic artillery pieces hadno more rounds to fire, there were still simple guns and even simplerbayonets and swords.

  The proud armies, the descendents of the Alexanders and Caesars andTemujins and Wellingtons and Grants and Rommels, relived their evolutionin reverse.

  The war went on. Slowly, inevitably, the armies split apart into smallerand smaller units, until the tortured countryside that so recently hadfelt the impact of nuclear war once again knew the tread of bands ofarmed marauders. The tiny savage groups, stranded in alien lands, farfrom the homes and families that they knew to be destroyed, carried on amockery of war, lived off the land, fought their own countrymen if theoccasion suited, and revived the ancient terror of hand-wielded,personal, one-head-at-a-time killing.

  The CIA man watched the world disintegrate. Death was an individualbusiness now, and none the better for no longer being mass-produced. Inagonized fascination he saw the myriad ways in which a man might die.Murder was only one of them. Radiation, disease, toxic gases thatlingered and drifted on the once-innocent winds, and--finally--the mostefficient destroyer of them all: starvation.

  Three billion people (give or take a meaningless hundred million) livedon the planet Earth when the war began. Now, with the tenuous thread ofcivilization burned away, most of those who were not killed by thefighting itself succumbed inexorably to starvation.

  Not everyone died, of course. Life went on. Some were lucky.

  A long darkness settled on the world. Life went on for a few, a pitifulfew, a bitter, hateful, suspicious, savage few. Cities became pestholes.Books became fuel. Knowledge died. Civilization was completely gone fromthe planet Earth.

  * * * * *

  The helmet was lifted slowly off his head. The CIA man found that he wastoo weak to raise his arms and help. He was shivering and damp withperspiration.

  "Now you see," Ford said quietly, "why the military men cracked up whenthey used the computer."

  General LeRoy, even, was pale. "How can a man with any conscience at alldirect a military operation when he knows that _that_ will be theconsequence?"

  The CIA man struck up a cigarette and pulled hard on it. He exhaledsharply. "Are all the war games ... like that? Every plan?"

  "Some are worse," Ford said. "We picked an average one for you. Evensome of the 'brushfire' games get out of hand and end up like that."

  "So ... what do you intend to do? Why did you call me in? What can _I_do?"

  "You're with CIA," the general said. "Don't you handle espionage?"

  "Yes, but what's that got to do with it?"

  The general looked at him. "It seems to me that the next logical step isto make damned certain that _They_ get the plans to this computer ...and fast!"

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _Analog Science Fact & Fiction_ May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.

 
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