Alea sat, numbed and amazed. “They’re making fun of it! They’re actually making fun of war! Or of army life, at least.” “It can’t be so bad a fight as all that,” Magnus said. “Either a very small war, or a very short one.”
“Perhaps,” Alea said, “but there must have been some kind of war, or there wouldn’t be soldiers arresting them!”
“And famine,” Magnus agreed, “or they wouldn’t be trying to steal a bowl of porridge—and punished for it. But if they could laugh at it so quickly, it must have been short.”
“Now, wait,” Alea protested. “This was twenty-five years after that last news program, wasn’t it?”
“No,” Herkimer said. “Only ten years. I thought you might find it interesting.”
“We certainly did,” Alea said, still feeling numb. “What else were these people watching?”
Herkimer showed them snippets of very crudely made dramas and comedies; the subject matter alternated between war and famine on the one hand, and magic and astrology on the other. Pagan gods frequently meddled with the people, confusing the issues tremendously—and sometimes resolving them. “What kind of civilization is this,” Magnus asked, “where war mixes with magic and mysticism?”
Alea smiled thinly. “It sounds like my own people.”
“Let us hope their war is past!” Magnus said fervently. “How many years have we skipped through, Herkimer?”
“A hundred seventy-eight, Magnus. The quality of the signal has been deteriorating steadily. I am having to process it more and more elaborately in order to present a coherent picture.”
“Thanks for your efforts,” Magnus said. “Let’s see the next program.”
The screen appeared again, showing a worn and haggard woman sitting at a desk in a harsh and glaring light with stark shadows. On the desk stood an easel holding pictures. As she finished one story she pulled the picture from the easel, revealing another. The camera moved closer to fill the screen with the easel picture, wobbling as it went, then moved back out to include the woman again.
“Remember, these pictures are several weeks old,” she told her audience. “They’ve been sent to us by post riders, since our ancestors’ gadgets won’t send pictures by wire anymore. To be blunt, they don’t work.”
Magnus darted a dismayed glance at Alea; she met it with consternation of her own.
The woman started talking again, drawing their gazes back to her. “Plague has broken out in Oldmarket City, Ebor City, Holborn City, and Exbury Big Town. Their people are fleeing into the countryside. They may carry plague germs with them. Avoid strangers. It will prove impossible to keep them out of your towns—there are just too many of them—so I recommend evacuation. Take your valuables and your treasured mementos and go live in the forest—city people like me are afraid of the woods and the wild animals. Let them have your towns; keep your lives.”
“I wouldn’t take her advice for a second!” Alea said. “I would think she was just trying to frighten me away so somebody could steal my house!”
“Then the villagers probably thought that, too,” Magnus said, troubled. “I wonder how badly they fought over a handful of cottages?”
“The other cities have no disease yet,” the woman told them, “but farmers are afraid to bring them grain and other foodstuffs, so prices have skyrocketed and bread riots have broken out here and there. Gurus and magicians have managed to quiet them. Still, if you are a farmer watching this broadcast, please take your extra harvest to the city nearest you; you’ll receive at least ten times the usual price.”
“Who does she think she’s fooling?” Alea demanded. “If the farmers know about germs, they know that people from one city visit other cities every day. They may get a high price, but they’ll bring home plague as well as money!”
“I’m afraid the farmers did realize that,” Magnus said sadly. “I wonder how long it took before the city people came out to the countryside as a mob, to take whatever food they could find?”
Alea shuddered. “Then the plague probably swept the whole continent!”
“Here in Lutabor, the power plant has stopped working,” the woman said. “We’re only able to stay on the air because we have our own generator, but we don’t know how much longer our fuel will last, and the methane plants have stopped operating. The weather’s getting colder, so people are moving out to the countryside where they can at least keep themselves warm by burning fallen trees.”
“And steal farmers’ houses,” Alea whispered, staring in dismay.
“The fighting must have been desperate,” Magnus agreed. “It’s the end of a world!” Alea breathed.
“And the beginning of a new one.” Magnus frowned. “Assuming they didn’t all die out. I wonder what we’ll find there.”
“We’ll have to end this broadcast now,” the woman said. “We’ll talk to you again tomorrow if we can. Remember, please, if you live in any of the small towns around Lutabor—our refugees have no disease, but they do have money for buying food, so there’s no need to be afraid of any of us. That’s all we can manage today. We wish you well, and I hope I’ll be able to talk to you again.”
“Was she?” Alea asked as static replaced the picture.
3
I’m afraid not,” Herkimer said. “That was the last television broadcast from the planet. There are still radio broadcasts coming in, but the signals are of very low quality and the announcing amateurish. Their news programs are clearly rumor and devoted to superstitious nonsense, such as communicating with the dead, magic, and hauntings.”
Alea looked skeptical at the word “superstitious,” but Magnus said, “They described a civilization falling apart.”
“It would seem so,” Herkimer agreed. “We will be close enough to commence orbit in twenty-six hours. Perhaps a photographic survey will clarify matters somewhat.”
It did, but not for the better. The pictures Herkimer presented them showed magnificent cities that, on closer inspection, featured broken windows, tumbled masonry, and streets choked with rubble, empty except for small bands of people, some deformed. Here and there, the pictures showed pitched battles.
“The cities certainly died,” Magnus said, his face tragic.
“There seem to be a few who couldn’t bear to leave.” Suddenly Alea stiffened. “Magnify, Herkimer!”
The band in the center of the screen jumped outward to fill it There were five people—two men and a woman wearing patched tunics and coarse leggins, and two others who wore hooded robes. One of the men walked hunched over by a bent spine, another limped with a twisted foot. The woman glanced up at the sky to gauge the weather, and they saw she had only one eye, the other covered by a patch.