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  Point Ultimate

  by

  Jerry Sohl

  A Bantam Book

  POINT ULTIMATE

  by

  JERRY SOHL

  In the year 1999, the Enemy had taken over, and were enforcing their deadly hold with a weapon so effective that any attempt at rebellion seemed doomed to failure. For the entire population had to report every month for booster shots against the plague; without them, death was supposed to come at once.

  But Emmet Keyes of Spring Creek, Illinois, knew he had a secret weapon that would give him thirty extra days of life to locate the organized resistance movement that was rumored to exist; he was determined to devote himself to this cause.

  Imprisonment and near-death are his initial rewards, but in the end, he wins a victory of a strange and surprising kind.

  TO MY SON, ALLAN

  CHAPTER - 1

  Emmett lay still, as he had lain for more than an hour, his muscles weak with tension, forcing himself to study the pattern of ceiling wallpaper.

  It wasn’t time to move—yet.

  He glanced at the clock on his dresser. If he heard no noise in the house in the next five minutes, then he would start.

  He turned back to the wallpaper, following the design here and there across the many cracks, imagining the curlicues continuing where the paper was faded or where it had fallen away long ago.

  This may be the last time I see you, ceiling, he said to himself. If what they say is true, I will never come back. Never. The thought chilled him. A tremor convulsed his right leg. He tried to quiet it.

  But even if I don’t come back, even if there is no way to fight, it will be better than this life, better than applying for a permit and marrying Mary Ann and living at her house or living at ours, and putting in for a residence permit and waiting until they say it’s all right to move into a house the government would allocate. What you really do is wait until somebody dies and then go and live in their house.

  The thought of Mary Ann brought her picture to his mind.

  Thin, Mary Ann. Pale of face and birdlike, her eyes already dulled with hopelessness, her back bent slightly at the shoulders. They ought not to work her so hard. But of course her family had to eat.

  It had been fun being children and sweethearts and defying the laws. But there had been no disobedience for years now. Kids were allowed a large margin for error. Adults were not. At twenty-six, Emmett Keyes had ignored his last command more than five years before. He had to conform, if he was going to remain in Spring Creek.

  But he wasn't going to stay.

  He was leaving. Tonight.

  He turned to the clock again. It was exactly three.

  The Time.

  Holding his breath and moving slowly and carefully so the bed-springs would not squeak, Emmett slid from beneath the covers. When he reached a sitting position, he sat there for a while listening. There was no sound except the swish of the faded curtain as it brushed the shredded shade at the moonlight-filled window.

  He had no need to dress, since he hadn’t undressed. Oh, it had all been planned. Years ago, it seemed. He moved his feet to the side of the bed. Blood flowed faster within him now, tingling in his arms and legs which he had held still so long.

  He rose, picked up his bag, tiptoed softly to the door, avoiding the familiar creaking boards, remembering how many times he had done this as a kid, filled then with the simple joy of violating the curfew, he and the other members of his gangs, to roam the countryside for devilment.

  But this was not for devilment, this violation of everything. This was for real. Maybe forever.

  Emmett walked quietly past his parents’ room, thankful their door was closed. He went down the steps slowly, skipping certain ones.

  He sighed with relief when he reached the bottom.

  Suddenly the door he had passed upstairs flew open and a white figure rushed to the head of the stairs.

  “Em!” His mother, a wraith in the dark, stood looking down at him. She was quickly joined by another white-clad figure, his father.

  “Em!” his mother repeated. She seemed to float down the stairs, and he thought, How graceful she is! And he was filled with love for her. In a moment mother and son stood silent, facing each other, at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Must you, Em?” she asked quietly. His father moved down to join them.

  Emmett nodded. “Eve been planning it for a long time.”

  “I know . . .” She looked away. He knew her eyes were filling with tears. He had hoped there would be no moment like this.

  “It’s not as if I were a punk kid or something,” he said.

  His father placed a hand on his shoulder. “I was born in 1945, the year the first bomb fell,” he said. “This was a free country then. It’s worth fighting for, Em, but you won’t get a chance to fight. They’ll get you first.”

  “There must be resistance somewhere,” Emmett said. “What about the Millenaries?”

  “They’re mostly religious.”

  “I’ve heard that’s just a front, that they’re going to rise up in two thousand.”

  “I don’t think so. The commies couldn’t let them keep organized the way they do if there was danger of that.”

  “I can’t stay here, Dad.”

  “If you go, it will be the last time we’ll ever see you,” his father said. “They’re thorough. You know that, the little you’ve seen of them. I’ve seen a great deal more.”

  “But we can’t keep on like this, virtual slaves, always having to run to them for permission for this and permission for that!”

  “Oh, Em!” His mother put her arms around his shoulders and he drew her to him. “It wasn’t always like that, Em. And maybe it won’t always be. But you can do so little. Won’t you stay? We need you.”

  “Your mother’s right, Em. We’re going to need you more and more as time goes on. We’re not getting any younger, you know.”

  “Somebody’s got to do something . . .”

  “Not you, Em. Not Emmett Keyes, son of a farmer in Spring Creek, Illinois. Not you alone against a world ruled by the Enemy.

  “I could try.”

  “Better men than you have tried.”

  Emmett could barely see his father’s face in the darkness, but he didn’t have to see it to know the strength in it, the wisdom of the eyes, the firm line of jaw, the strong back and the strong hands. He knew his father was right, too, but he had his own conscience to face and he knew he couldn’t stay, that he could not live out his life never raising a hand against oppression.

  “I can’t stay,” he said dismally. “I’ve tried for five years to stay.”

  “It won’t be easy for us when they find out,” his father said gently.

  No, it won’t, Emmett thought. And that was the worst part of it, that was the only thing that could make him change his mind, that and the realization they could never write to each other, never see each other again probably.

  “I’ll stay,” Emmett said evenly, “if you are afraid of what might happen to you if I leave.”

  For a moment they were silent. His mother moved away from him into the arms of his father as if for protection from this thought.

  Finally his father said, “Go, then. We’re not afraid.”

  “You’ll need a good breakfast,” his mother said, breaking away and moving through the darkened room to the kitchen.

  A half hour later they opened the back door for him and he stepped through it.

  “Good-bye, son,” his father said, extending his hand. They shook hands warmly. “Good luck.”

  “Good-bye,” his mother said. She put a palm on each side of his head and drew it down and kissed him.

  He turned and moved away from the house.

&
nbsp; “I’ll tell Mary Ann . . .”

  He could not look back.

  CHAPTER - 2

  The fields were wet with dew and his shoes were getting muddy, but Emmett didn’t care. It would soon be morning and things would dry out in the May sunshine. When the shoes dried, he’d give them another good waxing. That was the way to keep shoes.

  As he walked in the quiet, dark early morning of the countryside, he despised the necessity of keeping to the fields and wooded areas. Why couldn’t a man walk along a road wherever he wanted to go or, better yet, ride along a road the way a man should? There had been a time once when travel permits weren’t needed. Would that time ever come again?

  He shifted his bag from shoulder to shoulder. He had used what he thought was good judgment in filling it. Matches, candle, hunting knife, wax, scissors, an old map of Illinois, needle and thread, razor, soap, fishhooks and line, cord, salt, a flask of water, water purification tablets (his father had saved them for years and Emmett hoped they were still good), and the lunch his mother had prepared for him. Every item needed. The bag— really a blanket which served to carry these things—would be a little lighter when he ate his lunch.

  He wished he had a sleeper. Or a heater. That way he could last a lot longer. As it was, it was going to be tough. He didn’t try to fool himself about that.

  Where was he bound? Away. Anywhere. Just away. Away from Spring Creek and everyone he knew and the dull life of working for the commies and trying to meet quotas.

  What would happen if he was caught? Maybe one of the slave-labor camps in Utah or Nevada. Maybe they’d cut him off from his booster. But they’d have to catch him first.

  He grinned as he jumped a small stream after surveying the other side to make sure there were no electric eyes or alarm systems there. It was only another cornfield freshly planted. He was amused because of the thought of the booster. He had carefully selected the day to depart—the day after booster time. That would give him thirty days until the next time. With good luck they might not miss him for a whole month, if nobody noticed he was gone, and if Mary Ann didn’t tell. He was sure she wouldn’t, though she would be terribly put out to know he had left without bidding her good-bye.

  He laughed aloud at another thought and then quickly looked around to make sure he had aroused nothing. He must remember not to be carried away like that. But what made him laugh was the thought of the alarm that would go out for booster stations to be on the alert for him, knowing that he would be forced to report somewhere by thirty days or a few days thereafter or suffer the consequences. They knew no one could live without his booster.

  But Emmett had one weapon they didn’t know about.

  He didn’t need his booster shot.

  It was strange, but he was the only person he knew who was immune to the plague. Everyone else had to report at the time or suffer the sickness, insanity or death that was sure to result from not getting a booster. But not Emmett Keyes.

  He recalled with grim humor the one time he had missed his shot, remembering how he had expected to come to a terrible end within a few days when he realized what he had done. His parents had taken him to the station when he was eleven for the

  regular monthly inoculation. There had been a crisis at the station that hour, and the nurses had their hands full with a man who had deliberately missed his shot—tempting the consequences as many did, hoping they’d find themselves immune, which nobody ever did—and he was nearly mad with fear and sickness. They had made him pay a hundred dollars before they administered his shot, the penalty for failure to report on time. His wife paid it. The man recovered quickly, left quietly.

  In the excitement Emmett, no different from other children who did not like the shots, sneaked through the line and out the back door, feeling rather proud of himself and not thinking at all about what might happen to him.

  A few days later a flier with a red star on its side settled in the Keyes back yard and a commie—he looked enormous to Emmett then in his big coat and red-star armband—got out. Emmett’s mother, beside herself with fright and drying wet hands on her apron, came flying out of the kitchen. His father came up out of the fields.

  The commie demanded to know why their son had not reported for a booster. They told him he had, that there must be a mistake. The commie then demanded they produce the son, one Emmett Keyes, age eleven.

  His father had come in the house for him, found him at the second story window where he had been watching the proceedings with wide eyes. When he was taken out in the yard, his father, holding his hand tighter than he had ever held it before, said, “Look, here’s my son. Does he look like he’s going to die?”

  The commie looked him over and grunted something. Then he asked in a loud voice, “Did your mama and papa take you for your booster?”

  Emmett told no untruth when he said, “Yes, sir.”

  Then the commie reached out, grabbed Emmett’s left arm roughly, setting a small instrument over the identity strip beneath the skin of his forearm, set his eye to a small peephole and read what was there. Then he made a notation on a paper and, without another word, turned and climbed into his flier. In a moment he was gone.

  That was as close as he had ever been to a real Communist official. He had taken his boosters regularly after that.

  He surprised his parents by telling them he had not taken the shot after all. At first they refused to believe him, but when he threatened to do without the next shot to prove it, they looked at him strangely and shook their heads at the wonder of it. They discussed it many times, but they never breathed a word of it outside the house. And of course they never mentioned it without looking for microphones first. His father was sure there was one in the house somewhere after the commie officer had visited them, but he never found it. They did not discuss the immunity again for some months for fear someone would be monitoring their conversation.

  The fact of his immunity made him wonder if there could be others who might be immune. But through the years he became convinced this wasn’t possible. He had seen too many lawbreakers take their punishment—sent home to die lingering, agonizing deaths without their protective vaccine—to doubt the need of the shots. He recognized it as the surest hold the Enemy had over them all.

  And it was only his immunity that gave Emmett Keyes the chance to do what he was doing. If he had to report for a shot, he could last no longer than thirty days. Without having to report, he was freer than anyone he knew. He could last—a lifetime?

  For thirty years the need for the monthly injections had been the rule of life for everyone in the United States and the other occupied countries—for four years longer than he had been alive. It began in 1969 when the Enemy H-bombs wiped out Washington, D.C., and Chicago. The United States had tried to retaliate in kind, only to make the tragic discovery that the Enemy had discovered something that tipped the scales of war in their favor and made the outcome certain: they had somehow devised an impregnable barrier against aircraft and missiles.

  There was no alternative. The United States had surrendered quickly after the Enemy ultimatum to prevent any further loss of life. The annihilation of the United States as a world influence left other countries without protection, and they gave up in a few days in the face of the invulnerable Red giant.

  The Enemy became the undisputed ruler of the world and took over the old U.N., naming it instead the United Nations of Communist Peoples and pretending to use it for the settlement of national differences. But the Enemy were the sole arbiters and all important decisions were made abroad and not in the United Nations buildings in New York.

  No sooner had the United States capitulated than the Enemy made a surprise announcement. Just to make sure of their eventual conquest of the United States, they said, they had let loose all over the world a new strain of bacteria, a preventive measure in case the United States and any ally had somehow managed to get through to Enemy cities.

  Emmett knew the history of it all; he had been taugh
t the glowing story in school. How the Enemy magnanimously agreed to inoculate every man, woman and child in the world. There was hesitancy on the part of the public for the first thirty days. But when thousands suddenly began to succumb to the plague, there was a rush for the booster stations so generously provided by the conquerors. Some people died or went mad waiting in line to be inoculated. Enemy doctors and nurses worked around the clock for three days until everyone had been given a preventive shot. No American doctor or nurse then or since ever handled the vaccine.

  People thought the vaccine would make them immune for a long period, but they soon learned the shots were to be necessary each month for the rest of their lives. And so the pattern of conquest and control became evident and booster time began, that time of the month when everyone reported to his nearest booster station to get his shot and to be seen by the Enemy doctor and officer there who also checked on taxes, on how well quota requirements were being filled, keeping an eye on the women to make sure none of them was unlawfully pregnant, doling out birth control pills for five dollars each.

  A birth permit became something to work years for. The cost was five hundred dollars, including pre- and postnatal care and the use of a hospital station delivery room. Everyone used these facilities because if they did not and could, by some stretch of the imagination, have a child outside the hospital station, the infant could live no more than a month, since it would be denied its first booster.

  As he plodded across field after field, Emmett suddenly remembered there was one group immune to the plague: the gypsies. Or was this just so much hearsay? He had been hearing they were immune all his life, assumed they were. But now, considering the uniqueness of his own freedom from the disease, he wondered.

  What was there about gypsies? No identification written under the skin of their forearms. Was this true, too? If they were unregistered, then they were not eligible for hospitalization, rations, government work or other benefits. But what about their babies? Were they born immune?