Chapter Twenty-five: Looking for the Exit
“Man: An animal [whose]... chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.” – Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914)
The first flush of pure rage caught Aragorn as he saw the fear in Legolas’ eyes. The Elf was afraid of nothing...except perhaps things that he didn’t understand and had no way to fight. That Legolas thought he had been trapped by something new and ominous was enough to panic the Ranger beyond any concern for his own safety. He took Saruman by the throat and had him down on his knees in an instant, the lovely steel of an Elven dagger already breaching the skin of the old Wizard’s neck just at the knobby spine.
“If you kill me you will never know,” Saruman said, his voice far too calm for someone who was moments away from having his head removed.
Aragorn shoved him into the back of the car hard enough to rock it with the impact of the Maia’s evil skull. The Ranger started toward his companion, meaning to see if he could detect any smell from the strange substance which Legolas was even then trying to shake out of his hair.
“Saes!” the Elf said, stepping back. “I know not what sort of Dark Magic this might be, and I will not have you any closer!”
“I would help you!” Aragorn pleaded, taking another step.
Legolas darted away, clearly wanting to flee and yet needing to know more. “If this is a poison that would harm you as well, I will not bear the risk!”
That left no option but to learn what he could, so Aragorn grudgingly returned his attention to Saruman.
“If you strike me again I will speak not one more word,” the Wizard said darkly, plainly tired of being knocked around by a Man he considered to be his inferior in every capacity. He climbed slowly to his feet and surveyed his victim and his intended target with a raised chin and a cruel glint in his eye.
“What is this dust you have touched me with?” Legolas begged. He knew that the act had been deliberate. He was still trying to knock it from his clothing.
“It is Uranium 232. Does that tell you what you need to know? I thought not.” The Wizard turned his malevolent attention back to Aragorn. “If you touch him, or approach him, or have contact of any kind the dust will transfer to you as well. I do not yet know what the effect will be on our Elf friend, but I can assure you that it WILL KILL the Man.”
Legolas gasped and stepped yet another few feet away. “Then it IS a poison?”
“Not of any type you can comprehend. This is radioactivity.”
But Legolas had known about the Atom bomb dropped at the end of the war and the unimaginable horrors it had unleashed on an unsuspecting populace. He did not understand details, but he did know that Men were likely to sicken and die from exposure. His eyes darted about in panic. “Aragorn, I will return to speak with you after I have rid my skin and hair of this menace!”
“No, wait!” the Ranger begged, but the Elf was already fleeing into the dark desert night.
Words carried from the emptiness. “Be careful of the Dark Wizard!”
“Now that I have you alone, we should talk,” Saruman said calmly. Aragorn fought his urge to wipe that expression off the devil’s face. “Let’s go back inside, where it’s comfortable.”
“I will see you dead for this,” Aragorn told him.
Aragorn watched with unwanted fascination as Saruman set the bulky machine on a table. “It is called a Geiger Counter,” the Wizard explained. “It can find the particles of radioactive substances.” He turned it on, and Aragorn winced as the machine emitted a nasty series of clicks. Saruman picked up a wand attached to the machine and pointed it toward Aragorn. The Ranger did his best not to flinch away as the clicks increased their speed, then leveled off. “Good,” Saruman concurred. “I’ve no idea what the background radiation level is in Middle-earth, but you’re quite low for a Man in this place. We’ve done a good job of polluting the air and ground in this part of the country with our nuclear testing.” For the first time his voice showed disapproval.
“You are responsible for this poison being released into the world?”
“Hardly. I’ve tried to tell my colleagues that they are underestimating the long-term risks. Imagine – if you can – a killer that stays lethal through all the ages. It decreases its potency only a fraction over a span of time that even the most ancient of Elves would think great.”
“And you have exposed Legolas to this risk!” The Ranger was on his feet, the knife once again in his hand without any conscious decision to pull it from its sheath.
“More than exposed,” the Wizard allowed. He held up a hand to forestall the impending impalement. “I’m sure he’s breathed in enough particles to be radioactive for the rest of his life. Let me show you.” He picked up the boxy equipment and carried it over to where the vial that had held the radioactive dust lay on a bit of paper near the door. The Geiger counter shrieked with mechanical rage before the Maia had even gotten very close. “Even just a gram of this dust was more than enough to do the trick. I had taken it from one of the test samples of an early detonation. You see, I’ve been waiting a long time for someone to show up to bring me back to Middle-earth. And I’ve had a long time to plan.”
“Plan?” Aragorn repeated, feeling stupid and afraid. This was just so far beyond his comprehension. “I had not come to return you, but rather to find a way to return myself and Legolas!”
Saruman turned off the screaming radioactivity counter, opened the door and threw the vial outside. “I would not want to be the family who will move into this house when I’m gone,” he said glibly, before returning to take a seat near the Ranger. “I’ve found that I am completely immune to the effects, which is a nice bonus for someone in my line of work. I suspect that our friend the Elf may be less at risk than a human would be. After all, there is the immortality thing. I’ll be very curious about the outcome of my little experiment.”
“This is what you PLAN? An experiment?”
“No, you dolt. I would not waste my time!” This was starting to sound a bit more like the Saruman of Isengard. “I do not think that Gandalf the Supposedly White would bother himself to come after ME. But I KNOW that he will be coming after YOU, my dear Future King of Gondor.”
“Gondor?” The word sounded alien in this time and place. “Gondor...why would any of that matter now that I’m gone? I have been away so long that by now Sauron has either won the war or fallen back into Shadow with the destruction of the Ring!”
Saruman laughed then, a sickly sound, like scraping branches. “Oh, you really are just so deliciously ignorant!” Aragorn didn’t raise a complaint in the urgent need to know more of what the Wizard was thinking in that twisted mind of his. “Trust this, if you can’t trust me, my stupid northern bumpkin. Gandalf will be coming after you, and his need will be urgent. You are, amazingly enough, the point upon which all turns in the tide of the War. Even your idiotic little Hobbit friends stand no chance without your interference. I have seen the future of Middle-earth, much though I despise it. Why do you think I fled through the mirror in the first place?”
“Gandalf will come for me?”
“Yes, and I intend to be sure I can return WITH you! As grim as Middle-earth will be, I find that I tire of what Men have made this world.”
He didn’t believe Saruman for an instant, and Aragorn knew that he would do everything in his power to keep the Wizard from returning to his evil tower with any of the knowledge he had gained in this world. It was staggering to even contemplate a Middle-earth with an insane, and utterly ruthless, Wizard practicing his dark skills of advanced warfare, wielding his deadly weapons. Armies of Orcs with machine guns, missiles, air power – even the ultimate horror of this atomic madness – were a real possibility. Elves, Dwarves, Men, and all the creatures of Middle-earth would be wiped out in moments, and the world would be remade in whatever twisted way Saruman might fancy.
But Aragorn had to learn more. “Why did you do this thing to Legolas, then? What possible harm has he caused you?”
Saruman smiled, showing that his teeth had been manipulated here in some strange way to become straighter and brighter in the light. It was creepy. “I have done this thing to your ‘companion’ only to win your utter cooperation, my crafty friend. For now I not only hold the key to controlling the Elf, but I can control you as well.”
Frowning, Aragorn tipped his head. “My cooperation? How could that be? You have merely endangered his health, from what I understand.”
“At least you realize that you know too little,” Saruman said. His dark eyes were sparking with what passed for humor. “You will be taking me with you, Ranger. If this comes to pass I will consider sparing your lover’s life.”
Rage passed anew along Aragorn’s nerves, and he had to go find the Elf, regardless of the risks. He slammed the Wizard down to the furniture on his way out the door, cursing him in darkest Dwarvish, and then went out the door into the New Mexico night.
It was a quiet night in the City Room of the Alamogordo Standard Telegraph. The Editor was sitting behind his massive, cluttered desk reading through a stack of Hollywood Starlet slicks, eyebrow quirked at the goings-on at the latest parties and premieres. He ignored the ringing phone for a moment in favor of a luscious full-page shot of Rita Hayworth, but the interruption finally grew too great to ignore.
“City Desk – this better be a two-alarm fire.”
“Mister MacQuarrie, I assume.”
His mysterious informant! Perfect timing! The local Scout Troop’s Soap Box Derby was currently slotted in for tomorrow’s headline. “Ah, my favorite scoopster! What have you got for me tonight?” He fumbled for a pen and paper, having to settle for the margins of yesterday’s racing forms from Santa Anita.
“Total anonymity, Mister MacQuarrie.”
“Of course, of course. Did you see anything in the paper telling WHERE we got the scoop on that plane test last week? The Air Force was all over me like ice cream on the Fourth of July, and I didn’t tell them jack! What is it this time...another flight scheduled?”
“Something much more interesting,” the unknown informant assured him. This guy’s voice always gave the editor a case of the willies. He was just plain creepy. But his stuff always panned out, like gold.
“You remember that little incident in Roswell? Three years ago, was it?”
“Roswell? That dump? Nothing ever fucking happens in Roswell. It’s a pimple on the ass of the state.”
“Concentrate, Mr. MacQuarrie. The mysterious crash in Roswell.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember now. Weather balloon. A couple of local sun-stroked crackpots were telling us about some sort of government cover-up but that’s just...hold it...you got something new for me? You got a new rumor about the Roswell thing?”
“Not a rumor, a bit of truth. There is someone here in New Mexico who is not of this earth.”
Utter silence, and then MacQuarrie burst into laughter. “Good one, buddy! You almost had me going there for a minute! An alien in Alamogordo! Now that WOULD be news!”
There was quiet on the line for a count of ten, and then the creepy voice again, raising the hairs on the back of the Editor’s neck with its chill calm. “That is exactly what I am telling you. And he will be easy to locate. He’s radioactive.”
The Hollywood magazines slid to the floor, unnoticed, as the editor leaned forward. “You’re shitting me...right? Right?”
The first flush of pure rage caught Aragorn as he saw the fear in Legolas’ eyes. The Elf was afraid of nothing...except perhaps things that he didn’t understand and had no way to fight. That Legolas thought he had been trapped by something new and ominous was enough to panic the Ranger beyond any concern for his own safety. He took Saruman by the throat and had him down on his knees in an instant, the lovely steel of an Elven dagger already breaching the skin of the old Wizard’s neck just at the knobby spine.
“If you kill me you will never know,” Saruman said, his voice far too calm for someone who was moments away from having his head removed.
Aragorn shoved him into the back of the car hard enough to rock it with the impact of the Maia’s evil skull. The Ranger started toward his companion, meaning to see if he could detect any smell from the strange substance which Legolas was even then trying to shake out of his hair.
“Saes!” the Elf said, stepping back. “I know not what sort of Dark Magic this might be, and I will not have you any closer!”
“I would help you!” Aragorn pleaded, taking another step.
Legolas darted away, clearly wanting to flee and yet needing to know more. “If this is a poison that would harm you as well, I will not bear the risk!”
That left no option but to learn what he could, so Aragorn grudgingly returned his attention to Saruman.
“If you strike me again I will speak not one more word,” the Wizard said darkly, plainly tired of being knocked around by a Man he considered to be his inferior in every capacity. He climbed slowly to his feet and surveyed his victim and his intended target with a raised chin and a cruel glint in his eye.
“What is this dust you have touched me with?” Legolas begged. He knew that the act had been deliberate. He was still trying to knock it from his clothing.
“It is Uranium 232. Does that tell you what you need to know? I thought not.” The Wizard turned his malevolent attention back to Aragorn. “If you touch him, or approach him, or have contact of any kind the dust will transfer to you as well. I do not yet know what the effect will be on our Elf friend, but I can assure you that it WILL KILL the Man.”
Legolas gasped and stepped yet another few feet away. “Then it IS a poison?”
“Not of any type you can comprehend. This is radioactivity.”
But Legolas had known about the Atom bomb dropped at the end of the war and the unimaginable horrors it had unleashed on an unsuspecting populace. He did not understand details, but he did know that Men were likely to sicken and die from exposure. His eyes darted about in panic. “Aragorn, I will return to speak with you after I have rid my skin and hair of this menace!”
“No, wait!” the Ranger begged, but the Elf was already fleeing into the dark desert night.
Words carried from the emptiness. “Be careful of the Dark Wizard!”
“Now that I have you alone, we should talk,” Saruman said calmly. Aragorn fought his urge to wipe that expression off the devil’s face. “Let’s go back inside, where it’s comfortable.”
“I will see you dead for this,” Aragorn told him.
Aragorn watched with unwanted fascination as Saruman set the bulky machine on a table. “It is called a Geiger Counter,” the Wizard explained. “It can find the particles of radioactive substances.” He turned it on, and Aragorn winced as the machine emitted a nasty series of clicks. Saruman picked up a wand attached to the machine and pointed it toward Aragorn. The Ranger did his best not to flinch away as the clicks increased their speed, then leveled off. “Good,” Saruman concurred. “I’ve no idea what the background radiation level is in Middle-earth, but you’re quite low for a Man in this place. We’ve done a good job of polluting the air and ground in this part of the country with our nuclear testing.” For the first time his voice showed disapproval.
“You are responsible for this poison being released into the world?”
“Hardly. I’ve tried to tell my colleagues that they are underestimating the long-term risks. Imagine – if you can – a killer that stays lethal through all the ages. It decreases its potency only a fraction over a span of time that even the most ancient of Elves would think great.”
“And you have exposed Legolas to this risk!” The Ranger was on his feet, the knife once again in his hand without any conscious decision to pull it from its sheath.
“More than exposed,” the Wizard allowed. He held up a hand to forestall the impending impalement. “I’m sure he’s breathed in enough particles to be radioactive for the rest of his life. Let me show you.” He picked up the boxy equipment and carried it over to where the vial that had held the radioactive dust lay on a bit of paper near the door. The Geiger counter shrieked with mechanical rage before the Maia had even gotten very close. “Even just a gram of this dust was more than enough to do the trick. I had taken it from one of the test samples of an early detonation. You see, I’ve been waiting a long time for someone to show up to bring me back to Middle-earth. And I’ve had a long time to plan.”
“Plan?” Aragorn repeated, feeling stupid and afraid. This was just so far beyond his comprehension. “I had not come to return you, but rather to find a way to return myself and Legolas!”
Saruman turned off the screaming radioactivity counter, opened the door and threw the vial outside. “I would not want to be the family who will move into this house when I’m gone,” he said glibly, before returning to take a seat near the Ranger. “I’ve found that I am completely immune to the effects, which is a nice bonus for someone in my line of work. I suspect that our friend the Elf may be less at risk than a human would be. After all, there is the immortality thing. I’ll be very curious about the outcome of my little experiment.”
“This is what you PLAN? An experiment?”
“No, you dolt. I would not waste my time!” This was starting to sound a bit more like the Saruman of Isengard. “I do not think that Gandalf the Supposedly White would bother himself to come after ME. But I KNOW that he will be coming after YOU, my dear Future King of Gondor.”
“Gondor?” The word sounded alien in this time and place. “Gondor...why would any of that matter now that I’m gone? I have been away so long that by now Sauron has either won the war or fallen back into Shadow with the destruction of the Ring!”
Saruman laughed then, a sickly sound, like scraping branches. “Oh, you really are just so deliciously ignorant!” Aragorn didn’t raise a complaint in the urgent need to know more of what the Wizard was thinking in that twisted mind of his. “Trust this, if you can’t trust me, my stupid northern bumpkin. Gandalf will be coming after you, and his need will be urgent. You are, amazingly enough, the point upon which all turns in the tide of the War. Even your idiotic little Hobbit friends stand no chance without your interference. I have seen the future of Middle-earth, much though I despise it. Why do you think I fled through the mirror in the first place?”
“Gandalf will come for me?”
“Yes, and I intend to be sure I can return WITH you! As grim as Middle-earth will be, I find that I tire of what Men have made this world.”
He didn’t believe Saruman for an instant, and Aragorn knew that he would do everything in his power to keep the Wizard from returning to his evil tower with any of the knowledge he had gained in this world. It was staggering to even contemplate a Middle-earth with an insane, and utterly ruthless, Wizard practicing his dark skills of advanced warfare, wielding his deadly weapons. Armies of Orcs with machine guns, missiles, air power – even the ultimate horror of this atomic madness – were a real possibility. Elves, Dwarves, Men, and all the creatures of Middle-earth would be wiped out in moments, and the world would be remade in whatever twisted way Saruman might fancy.
But Aragorn had to learn more. “Why did you do this thing to Legolas, then? What possible harm has he caused you?”
Saruman smiled, showing that his teeth had been manipulated here in some strange way to become straighter and brighter in the light. It was creepy. “I have done this thing to your ‘companion’ only to win your utter cooperation, my crafty friend. For now I not only hold the key to controlling the Elf, but I can control you as well.”
Frowning, Aragorn tipped his head. “My cooperation? How could that be? You have merely endangered his health, from what I understand.”
“At least you realize that you know too little,” Saruman said. His dark eyes were sparking with what passed for humor. “You will be taking me with you, Ranger. If this comes to pass I will consider sparing your lover’s life.”
Rage passed anew along Aragorn’s nerves, and he had to go find the Elf, regardless of the risks. He slammed the Wizard down to the furniture on his way out the door, cursing him in darkest Dwarvish, and then went out the door into the New Mexico night.
It was a quiet night in the City Room of the Alamogordo Standard Telegraph. The Editor was sitting behind his massive, cluttered desk reading through a stack of Hollywood Starlet slicks, eyebrow quirked at the goings-on at the latest parties and premieres. He ignored the ringing phone for a moment in favor of a luscious full-page shot of Rita Hayworth, but the interruption finally grew too great to ignore.
“City Desk – this better be a two-alarm fire.”
“Mister MacQuarrie, I assume.”
His mysterious informant! Perfect timing! The local Scout Troop’s Soap Box Derby was currently slotted in for tomorrow’s headline. “Ah, my favorite scoopster! What have you got for me tonight?” He fumbled for a pen and paper, having to settle for the margins of yesterday’s racing forms from Santa Anita.
“Total anonymity, Mister MacQuarrie.”
“Of course, of course. Did you see anything in the paper telling WHERE we got the scoop on that plane test last week? The Air Force was all over me like ice cream on the Fourth of July, and I didn’t tell them jack! What is it this time...another flight scheduled?”
“Something much more interesting,” the unknown informant assured him. This guy’s voice always gave the editor a case of the willies. He was just plain creepy. But his stuff always panned out, like gold.
“You remember that little incident in Roswell? Three years ago, was it?”
“Roswell? That dump? Nothing ever fucking happens in Roswell. It’s a pimple on the ass of the state.”
“Concentrate, Mr. MacQuarrie. The mysterious crash in Roswell.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember now. Weather balloon. A couple of local sun-stroked crackpots were telling us about some sort of government cover-up but that’s just...hold it...you got something new for me? You got a new rumor about the Roswell thing?”
“Not a rumor, a bit of truth. There is someone here in New Mexico who is not of this earth.”
Utter silence, and then MacQuarrie burst into laughter. “Good one, buddy! You almost had me going there for a minute! An alien in Alamogordo! Now that WOULD be news!”
There was quiet on the line for a count of ten, and then the creepy voice again, raising the hairs on the back of the Editor’s neck with its chill calm. “That is exactly what I am telling you. And he will be easy to locate. He’s radioactive.”
The Hollywood magazines slid to the floor, unnoticed, as the editor leaned forward. “You’re shitting me...right? Right?”
Subtitles
- Chapter One: The Leap
- Chapter Two: Landing on your Feet
- Chapter Three: All the wild Things
- Chapter Four: Funny Paper Heroes
- Chapter Five: Caught
- Chapter Six: Blitz
- Chapter Seven: Hitting the Road
- Chapter Eight: Being Wrong
- Chapter Nine: Assumptions
- Chapter Ten: Coffee and Hot Cross Buns
- Chapter Eleven: Fate of the Brave
- Chapter Twelve: The Forest for the Brave
- Chapter Thirteen: Arrow in the Dark
- Chapter Fourteen: Little Brown Birds
- Chapter Fifteen: Popcorn and Prize-winning Pumpkins
- Chapter Sixteen: The Distance Breeched
- Chapter Seventeen: A Song to Light the Dark
- Chapter Eighteen: The Meaning of Fellowship
- Chapter Nineteen: Meanings Behind Words.
- Chapter Twenty: If Elves were meant to fly
- Chapter Twenty-one: Across the Western Sea
- Chapter Twenty-two: Atcheson Topeka and the Santa Fe
- Chapter Twenty-three: Strange Feathers
- Chapter Twenty-four: A Bitter Fruit
- Chapter Twenty-five: Looking for the Exit
- Chapter Twenty-six: Tainted
- Chapter Twenty-seven: The Killing Blow
- Chapter 28: Epilogue