Righteous Plague
By Robert Abernathy
Complete Novelet of Uncontrolled Weapons
It was a virus, against which the enemycould make no defense—but a virus doesnot distinguish between friend and foe.And immunity to what became known as therighteous plague could exist anywhere,or nowhere at all....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Science Fiction Quarterly May 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The ugly, high-backed truck splashed heavily through the puddles of theweedy road. Just before it reached a curve, it swayed and slithered asthe brakes locked suddenly. A man had come stumbling from the rain-wetbushes; he paused now, stared dully at the halted, angrily grumblingmonster.
An officer heaved himself out of the seat beside the driver, cursedirritably, flung open the door and swung out onto the running board—amalevolently superhuman figure in his panoply of snouted mask andrubberized armor. His gloved hand lifted, sliding a long-barreledautomatic from its worn holster, aiming. At the shot's crash the manfrom the thicket stiffened and toppled into the mud, where he writhedpainfully. Two more bullets, carefully placed, put a stop to that.
The officer slid back into the seat and sighed with a sucking soundinside his mask. Without being told, the driver turned the truckcautiously off the road; tilting far over, left wheels deep in theslippery ditch, it ground in lowest gear past the motionless body,keeping several feet away.
In the back of the truck, five oddly-assorted civilian men and onewoman huddled together and exchanged vaguely curious glances overthe stop, the shooting, and the detour. Then, as the machine climbedback onto the roadbed and they could see the corpse sprawled in theway behind, the interest left their faces; they reflected only theemptiness of the gray sky, the hopelessness of the sodden fieldsand woods they passed. The prisoners might have found the weatherappropriate for death. They did not speak of that, because they knewthey were on their way to die.
But the masked and armored soldiers who sat nervously watching them,rifles clutched between their knees, did speak of death, and madesour jokes about it. They did not know they themselves were going todeath—that when the execution was done and reported by radio, a planewould be overhead inside two minutes to bomb them.
That would take place by order of the Diktatura, that is: by thesovereign will of the People, expressed by its Executive Council, whichwas responsible directly to the Dictator.
Naturally it was the People's will that no one come out of a plaguespot, for the People feared death.
Joseph Euge said as much to the pale, underfed-looking young man whocrouched beside him in the bed of the truck. "The gasproof clothing,"he added, "protects nothing but morale, and these men's morale needs tolast only until—their job is done."
The young man looked at him fixedly, seeing gray hair, a firm-linedface, and a suit that had been expensively respectable. They didnot know each other's names. All the trials had been separate; eachprisoner had been told that the others—whom, for the most part, he hadnever heard of—had confessed the whole plot.