And Gone Tomorrow Read online

  “And America turned him down. They were still playing ‘wait and see.’ They waited. They waited too long. The Commies got tired of waiting around and sent a couple of jet bombers with A-bombs.”

  “Now you’re telling me things,” Ilaria interrupted. “I’m pretty shady on that period myself.”

  Jay shrugged. “It was after my time. All I know is what the films show. Two planes, each with a seven-man crew, and each carrying one atomic bomb, were dispatched from an airbase somewhere near Juneau.” Jay stopped.

  “And?”

  The man from 1954 choked. It was hard to be objective about this. It wasn’t so easy for him to pass off as the film had done.

  “And—” he hesitated.

  “It’s over, Jay. It’s done with. It doesn’t even concern you anymore. It belongs to a past era.”

  “One was headed for New York. The other struck farther inland...for Washington. The first one was shot down by an F-117 border patrol plane. The other one got through. It—it levelled the capitol. Almost completely. The White House and the Pentagon were destroyed.”

  Ilaria sat quietly and waited. Jay didn’t go on.

  “Thus removing the United States of America, as such, from a prominent position in the world picture,” Ilaria said.

  “Yes. I can’t understand it. Everything just folded up. SAC didn’t even get off the ground. And Colonel Lollabrigida, by then Commander-in-Chief of the UN forces, sent fifty planes, each with one A-bomb, over the Kremlin. One was shot down over Vladivostok, but the bombardier pulled the firing pin as the ship crashed and most of Vladivostok was destroyed. Six other planes made it to their destinations and dropped their loads. I can’t remember the cities...one was a new super airbase near Moscow. Five of the planes returned. None had managed to reach Moscow. Half the world was in ruins. The Pope begged that the War be stopped.”

  Ilaria snorted. “He knew they’d hit Rome!”

  Jay looked at him. “Is that what you think?”

  Ilaria shrugged and flashed that quick, winning smile. “There are no other motives, are there?”

  Jay stared. What changes had taken place in religious philosophy in this hard-bitten world of 2054?

  Kevin Ilaria shrugged, smiling. “That’s unimportant. Let’s go on with the history lesson. Then what?”

  “Uh-oh, yes. As I remember Julius Lollabrigida, to be trite, launched an ‘all-out offensive’ against Communist forces everywhere. People were afraid of Russia, but they were afraid of Lollabrigida and Rome, too. So they joined him. Aid poured into the UN. Czechoslovakia was taken and Poland and Hungary and finally only the old Russia of pre-World War II days was left. And in they went.

  “Then Lollabrigida’s saboteurs exploded an atomic bomb in the heart of Moscow. After that it was pretty easy sledding.”

  “Astounding how a nation seems to fall apart when its capitol and its leaders are gone,” Ilaria remarked.

  “Everybody and everything folds,” Jay said. “Moral dies.

  “After the demolition of Moscow and other parts of the USSR, Italy stood at the top. General of the Armies Julius Lollabrigida marched back into Italy and into Rome and into the capitol and up on a pedestal. He stood as Italy’s utter ruler. His last name was lost and replaced by ‘Caesar II.’ He was named Dictator.

  “From mighty Rome, Caesar sent out linguists and anthropologists and ethnologists and psychologists and military men and others. In twenty years, twenty peaceful years, Italian had become the language of the world. A few minor uprisings in America and in Japan and were smashed. Julius Caesar II was World Dictator of the Republic of Earth. Someone in America denied him and was torn to pieces by the people. Someone in Italy spread literature of dissension and was hunted down and liquidated by Caesar’s personal police, the Pretoriani. And so it went.

  “Caesar adopted a prominent Air Force Colonel who became Caesar III on Lollabrigida’s death. Each year on his birthday men were silent. No business was transacted. No one left his home. Except blue-and-silver clad soldiers, wearing PR armbands. Caesar’s Pretorians. No one dared venture out.

  “During the reign of Caesar III, every person in the world changed his last name to an Italian one. The Ali bens and the Chicos and the Andres and the Fritzes and the Johns became Marianos and Roccos and Caldinis and Campisanos and diManos.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “The thing I can’t understand,” Jay mused, “is why in all these years there hasn’t been a ‘bad’ Caesar, or an uprising.”

  “What do you mean by ‘bad’ Caesar?”

  Jay shrugged. “In the first Pax Romana there was Caligula, who was insane. Nero, who preferred artistic diversions to politics. There was Galba, who didn’t know what was going on. And so on. And on and on. Your three dictators so far seem to have done excellent jobs. They seem to be damned conscientious leaders.”

  “When you re-create something,” Ilaria told him, “you try to eliminate its faults.”

  “Of course. But what if Caesar’s son or a Caesar’s adopted son goes bad?” Jay elucidated.

  “So far we haven’t had that problem to deal with. But we’re ready. Each time a new Dictator comes to power, one thousand top military men draw folded pieces of plastipaper from a ‘bowl.’ On twenty of these are X’s. The others contain O’s. The twenty X’s are a secret organization, sworn to kill the Dictator if it should become necessary. When Caesar, as you say, ‘goes bad’.”

  “Brilliant!” Jay breathed. “And he—Caesar—never knows who they are?”

  “No one ever knows,” Ilaria said. “Not even the members. They remain in contact, but none ever knows who the others are.”

  Jay remembered Ilaria’s previous mention of the system, and the unconscious swelling of the Tribune’s chest at the time. “You’re one,” he said.

  Ilaria was caught off guard. “I —yes,” he said. “I won’t ask how you knew.”

  “A guess. Then you’ve been a—whatever it’s called—for nine years, during Caesar V’s reign.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you don’t know any of the others?”

  “Only one. I found out accidentally. He—” Ilaria stopped.

  Jay shrugged. “I won’t ask any more questions along that line,” he promised. “But I still can’t believe there haven’t been any uprisings!”

  “None. Caesar II died of a heart attack. Caesar III had a brain tumor which we learned about too late. His son never had a chance to prove himself, other than that he was brave and foolish. He swam the Rubicon at its widest point, then walked to Rome in his shorts in the dead of winter. He died of pneumonia. Caesar V, our Dictator today, is strong and quiet. He holds the Empire firmly unified. But he does nothing extraordinary. And he is too lenient.”

  “I just can’t conceive of such perfection!”

  Kevin Ilaria smiled. He walked over to the window and peered out. “You couldn’t. But this is the perfect government. Everyone is satisfied. One ruler. One capitol. One army. One language. One nationality. One world. One religion.”

  “I realize—” Jay halted. “One religion?” he demanded.

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?” He found himself afraid of the answer. The indications were there, in plain sight. He guessed it before Kevin Ilaria turned from the window and said: “Caesarism.”

  THE MAN called Gaius Julius Caesar Imperator V turned from the window and rubbed his hand over his graying hair.

  “This is the first time I’ve ever run into anything of this sort.”

  The President of the Senate shrugged. He was an old man who had been placed in the Senate by his father in 1980. So long ago that people wondered when he would die. They were tired of these old men dictating to their ruler, as many people before them had been tired. The rise of the President of the Senate to leadership of that revered group had not been meteoric by any means. But his maintenance of the position had been tenacious. He was a careful man.

  The President of the Senate shrugged. “It is. It is the first time anything of this sort has ever come up, Julius. Therefore it is up to you to set an example.”

  Caesar glanced over at General Bonadella. The General nodded in agreement with Senator Chianti.

  “This sort of business can break up the Empire if it’s allowed to continue, Caesar,” he said, in his pompous military way. “I say death.”

  Major DeCosta nodded quietly.

  “Thumbs down all around, is it?” Caesar sat down behind his desk and picked up the speaker of his private cable to London. He looked at the three men.

  “Commander in charge of Garrison C,” he said.

  There was a silent moment.

  They looked up as Prefect Lamberti of the Pretorians, the Imperial personal bodyguard (it had progressed far beyond that. Its enrollment was tremendous; its power second only to the Dictator’s) came in. The Senator nodded. The two field soldiers turned quickly away. The men of the field did not get along with the Pretorian dandies.

  “Commander? This is the Dictator,” Caesar said unnecessarily. The garrison commander knew that only one person could call him on that line. The phone would react to no voice other than Caesar’s.

  “Have you the fellow who was preaching dissension? I say one year in prison. You heard me. Yes, one year. What? No! No torture!” He severed connections and looked up at his advisers.

  Prefect Lamberti shook his head. Senator Chianti turned and stalked out. After a moment General Bonadella followed. The Major turned away to stare out the window. He shook his head.

  “del Ponta? This is the Dictator,” that quiet, flat voice said behind him. Caesar was calling the underchief of the Pretoriani. “I will speak tomorrow from the balcony. Yes. 1400. Of course. World-wide. That’s right. Oh, I suppose about a quarter ’til.”

  The man who ruled the world stood up and stared at Major DeCosta’s back. At forty-one, Caesar was a gaunt man with stooped shoulders and sad lines running from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. His forehead was lined and re-lined, and the keen brown eyes were dulled with years of decisions and hard work.

  He was tired.

  They called him the Hound because his face bore the same sad, quiet look worn by those dogs. And they called him weak because he let offenders off too easily.

  DeCosta turned around. The young Major met his Chief’s gaze.

  “Well?” The voice of the Dictator was quiet and calm.

  DeCosta’s eyes flickered. He straightened militarily. He shrugged.

  “It is not for me to say, Sir.”

  A slow smile spread over those weary features. “And you, Farouk?”

  Lamberti stretched out his arm and balled his fist with the thumb extended and pointing down. “You know me, Caesar.”

  “I do. Even my best friend disagrees with my decisions now, after all these years of elbow-rubbing.

  “You are usually more outspoken, Major DeCosta. Have you nothing more to say?”

  DeCosta’s reply was slow in coming but rapid in delivery. “I am around Caesar much of late,” he rapped out. His back was stiff and military as he strode out of the Dictator’s office.

  Prefect Lamberti’s gloved hand dropped to the butt of his gun, but Caesar shook his head in gentle negation.

  Julius Caesar Imperator V gazed sadly at the closed door.

  JAY HAD given up trying to reason with Ilaria about God. The man was intelligent as well as brilliant—there’s a tremendous difference—about everything else, but he was stubbornly obstinate to Jay’s arguments. At least in Jay’s terminology he was stubbornly obstinate. All faith is stubborn obstinacy. Kevin Ilaria’s faith was appalling. His arguments were beautiful. Flawless. Jay thought of his old friend, Father O’mare. Even that great psychologist-priest would be hard-put, he decided.

  So he quit. He didn’t give up. He just quit.

  Can you tell a man the Earth’s flat after he’s been up in a jet?

  Can you talk a bullet out of pursuing its path?

  Can you reason with a Marxist?

  “If a man can conquer the greatest enemy the world has ever faced, is he not God? If he can turn from killing and soldiering to soothing and pacifying, is he not God? If he can make the world one, after twenty-two centuries of ‘world anarchism’ is he not God? If he can maintain the peace and keep the people happy and heal all sores is he not God? If he just looks at you when you call him ‘God’ or ‘Savior’ and smiles and say ‘I?’ is he not God? If he chooses the perfect man to continue in his place, is he not God?”

  “But that’s proof! Why die? Isn’t God immortal?”

  “Only God could realize that one man can’t continue to reign indefinitely. His ideas, yes. But he must create another to carry on his ideas. There must be variety and diversions.”

  Unshakeable. Unquestioning. Jay could never understand a person’s sticking to the claim ‘I’m a Christian’ or ‘I’m a Moslem’ when he would be killed for it. Jay had always figured he’d have said to Nero’s men ‘Me? Me? A filthy Christian? Not I. I love Jupiter and Juno. Step inside and see my altars...’

  Now he was seeing what sturdy, rock-firm martyr faith was like.

  So he quit.

  Instead he learned about the gyro-jet cars which hugged the roads like lovers on a honeymoon. He watched them sprout stubby wings and breathe flame and soar straight up. He learned about saying ‘Open’ to a lock and having the electronic device ‘recognize’ him and let him in. He learned about personalphones which ‘recognized’ your voice. He learned about the tiny pellet of potassium cyanide and sulphuric acid with which the guns were loaded. The pellets struck and broke and the victim was dead in seconds. Very humane. No maimed or wounded. Just the dead.

  He learned about self-shaping sandals—the most comfortable and most sensible shoes man had ever worn—and air baths and soft-voiced alarm clocks which politely told you it was time to get up and about unbreakable ring-finger chronos and about atomic heating and flawless plumbing and he saw plastic, plastic, plastic.

  He learned about all of them. But his real delight was the depilatory cream. This, above all others, was man’s greatest invention.

  “No shaving...no silly damned socks or tight, hot shoes or tie...no battery stalling or flat tires...I guess this is paradise, Kevin!”

  “And the perfect government and the perfect religion! All one race! One religion! One nation! One language! One nationality! One God!” Ilaria added exuberantly.

  “That reminds me. How come I never see any coloreds?”

  “Haven’t you? By the way, no murderous car insurance or alimony laws, either. And no need for them. All marriages are ideal.”

  Jay was readily detoured to this new novelty.

  “Now, don’t let’s go too far. Identical religion and race and customs and ideals and opinions may lower the divorce rate a lot, but there’s still ye olde sex angle. A couple can go together twenty years and break up on the wedding night. Some are hot and some are cold and some are slow and some are fast. The only thing you could have improved on, is sex education. It’s astounding how many people of my time know nothing about the sexual part of marriage. The most important part!

  “Of course it’s doing what comes naturally; but what if two people have been taught from different viewpoints? Or if one hasn’t been taught at all? Some people are actually ashamed or embarrassed. There are intelligent people who don’t even know the biological facts! Few—especially women, know about the pleasure and the habit-forming angle. That’s the one thing than can break up something beautiful in ten minutes.

  “Education, maybe. Human nature, no.”

  “Whew!”

  “Excuse me, Kevin, for launching into a Phillipic, but that’s long been my pet peeve. Atrocious, deplorable, and all that.”

  “We don’t usually tamper with human nature, Jay. As a rule, that is. This is going to come as a shock to you, with your silly, ‘atrocious and deplorable’ 1954 ideas and morals.

  “A trial period. A pre-marital period of living together for a couple of weeks. If the couple isn’t sexually suited, they either attempt to have it remedied by a physician or break off.”

  “A shock, yes,” Jay murmured, slowly shaking his head. “How did it ever start? Anyone who’d propound an idea like that in my time would be accused of being some sort of perverted sex-fiend!

  “A foolproof, flawless plan to ensure happy marriages!”

  HALF ACROSS the world a door swung open and a tall dark man with piercing black eyes and a twin-tufted beard came in. His dark-green garment, faintly resembling a trench-coat, was double-breasted and belted and military cut. His feet were encased in plastileather boots which clicked as he came to attention before the desk.

  The plate on the desk read “Praefectus Praetoriani.”

  “Major del Ponta, Sir.”

  The man behind the desk looked up. “At ease, Major.”

  Major Ali ben del Ponta relaxed and waited.

  The man behind the desk finished scanning the sheet of micropaper, marked something on it with a stylo, stuck it in the pneumatube on the corner of his desk, and pushed the button to close his desk drawer. He looked up at Major Ali bel del Ponta.

  “Well?” He put his hands together, fingers touching.

  “It has begun, Prefect Lamberti. All over the world our local men are leading their followers in attack. Captain Abram Mazzoli has sent in his report from Tel Aviv. The city is in his hands. Captain Mahomet DiSanto’s ‘Raiders’ have complete control of the Sahara. Captain Arnaldi’s forces are firmly entrenched in the old Washington area of America. He will move northward to meet Colonel Magnani’s forces from Canada and Commander Campisano. They—”

  “Campisano’s airborne ready to roll?”

  “Yes, Sir. Arrangements have been made. The drop will be just outside New York.”

  “Alright. Then everything has gone off as scheduled?”