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stuck up said? Turn in your uranium and plutonium at once. The dopes! The second notice covered pistols, rifles, shotguns, and bayonets. That touch of idiocy is almost cute. Bayonets!”
    They had reached State Highway 19 and stopped; Norton lay dead ahead and Chiunga Center was fourteen miles to the right on the highway. A convoy of trucks marked with the red star was rolling westward at maybe thirty-five. They were clean, well-maintained trucks and they were full of Russian soldiers in Class A uniforms. They caught a snatch of mournful harmony and the rhythmic nasal drone of a concertina.
    “My Lord!” Betsy said. “They really do sing all the time. And in minor fifths. I thought they were putting it on at the mess tent, impressing the Amerikanskis with their culture and soul, but there isn’t any audience here.”
    The last of the convoy, a couple of slum-guns, field kitchens like any army’s field kitchens complete to the fat personnel, rolled past and Justin realized that they were waiting for him to get out and proceed on foot to Norton.
    “Take it easy,” he said to the Bradens, and watched the car swing right and pick up highway speed. The Bradens were about to enter into their own peculiar version of the kingdom of heaven. He himself needed another pump rod. The one Croley sold him turned out to be a painted white metal casting instead of rolled steel. It had, of course snapped the first time he used it.
    Perce, Croley’s literally half-witted assistant, waved gaily at him as he approached the store. Perce bubbled over: “Gee, you should of seen ’im, mister, I bet he was a general or maybe a major. Boy, he came right into the store and he looked just like anybody else on’y he was a Red ! Right into the store. Boy!”
    Perce couldn’t get over the wonder of it, and Justin, examining himself, was not sure that he could either. When would this thing seem real ? Maybe it seemed real in the big cities, but his worm’s-eye view frustrated his curiosity and sense of drama. It was like sitting behind a post in a theater, only the play was The Decline and Fall of the United States of America . A Russian—a general or maybe a major—appeared and then disappeared. The local underground Reds were summoned to service—where and what? The convoy passed you on the road, to duty where?
    Croley was tacking up a notice, a big one, that covered his bulletin board, buried the ration-book notices, the draft-call notices, the buy-bonds poster. It said:
SOVIET MILITARY GOVERNMENT
Unit 449
Chiunga County, New York State
    Residents are advised that on and after April 23, 1965, the following temporary measures will be observed:
A curfew is established from Nine O’Clock P.M. to Five O’Clock A.M. All residents must be in their homes between these hours .
Fissionable material must be turned in to this command at once since uranium, thorium, and plutonium have been declared nationalized and unlawful for any private person to hold .
All privately held pistols, rifles, shotguns, and bayonets must be turned in to this command or representative. For the township of ________ this command’s representative is __________. The weapons should be tagged with the owner’s name and address and will later be returned .
Violators of these measures will be subject to military trial and if found guilty liable to sixty days in jail .
    S. P. Platov
Colonel, Commanding
    Justin shook his head slowly. Sixty days! Was this the Red barbarian they had all been dreading? He seemed to hear Lew Braden saying again: “Smart cooky… exactly right.”
    Croley had gone behind his counter for something, a price-marking crayon. He was filling in the blanks in Number 3. “For the township of NORTON this command’s representative is FLOYD C. CROLEY. The weapons should—”
    Croley stepped back, looked for a moment at the black, neat printing, stuck the crayon behind his ear, and turned to Justin, waiting and blank-faced.
    Justin asked: “Since when