The Postman by David Brin Page A

even look at the “credentials” he had forged, the trip into oldtown this afternoon had been wasted. Gordon was down to his last ace. He smiled for the crowd, but he really wanted to cross his fingers.
    From a side pocket of the leather bag he pulled out asmall bundle. Gordon made a pretense of shuffling through the packet, squinting at labels he knew by heart.
    “Is there a … a Donald Smith, here?” he called up at the townspeople.
    Heads turned left and right in sudden, hushed conversation. Their confusion was obvious even in the gathering darkness. Finally someone called out.
    “He died a year after the war! In the last battle of the warehouses.”
    There was a tremor in the speaker’s voice. Good. Surprise was not the only emotion at work here. Still, he needed something a lot better than that. The Mayor was still staring at him, as perplexed as the others, but when he figured out what Gordon was trying to do, there would be trouble.
    “Oh well,” Gordon called. “I’ll have to confirm that, of course.” Before anyone could speak, he hurried on, shuffling the packet in his hand.
    “Is there a Mr. or Mrs. Franklin Thompson, in town? Or their son or daughter?”
    Now the tide of hushed whispering carried almost a superstitious tone. A woman replied. “Dead! The boy lived until last year. Worked on the Jascowisc stead. His folks were in Portland when it blew,”
    Damn!
Gordon had only one name left. It was all very well to strike their hearts with his knowledge, but what he needed was somebody alive!
    “Right!” he called. “We’ll confirm that. Finally, is there a Grace Horton here? A Miss
Grace Horton …
”
    “No there ain’t no Grace Horton!” the Mayor shouted, confidence and sarcasm back in his voice. “I know everyone in my territory. Never been no Grace Horton in the ten years since I arrived, you imposter!
    “Can’t you all see what he did? He found an old telephone book in town, and copied down some names to stir us up with.” He shook a fist at Gordon. “Buddy, I rule that you are disturbing the peace and endangering the public health! You’ve got five seconds to be gone before I order my men to fire!”
    Gordon exhaled heavily. Now he had no choice. Atleast he could beat a retreat and lose nothing more than a little pride.
    It was a good try, but you knew the chances of it working were slim. At least you had the bastard going there, for a little while
.
    It was time to go, but to his surprise Gordon found his body would not turn. His feet refused to move. All will to run away had evaporated. The sensible part of him was horrified as he squared his shoulders and called the Mayor’s bluff.
    “Assault on a postal courier is one of the few federal crimes that the pro tem Congress hasn’t suspended for the recovery period, Mr. Mayor. The United States has always protected its mailmen.”
    He looked coldly into the glare of the lamp.
“Always,”
he emphasized. And for a moment he felt a thrill. He
was
a courier, at least in spirit. He was an anachronism that the dark age had somehow missed when it systematically went about rubbing idealism from the world. Gordon looked straight toward the dark silhouette of the Mayor, and silently dared him to kill what was left of their shared sovereignty.
    For several seconds the silence gathered. Then the Mayor held up his hand. “One!”
    He counted slowly, perhaps to give Gordon time to run, and maybe for sadistic effect.
    “Two!”
    The game was lost. Gordon knew he should leave now, at once. Still, his body would not turn.
    “Three!”
    This is the way the last idealist dies
, he thought. These sixteen years of survival had been an accident, an oversight of Nature, about to be corrected. In the end, all of his hard-won pragmatism had finally given way … to a gesture.
    There was movement on the parapet. Someone at the far left was struggling forward.
    The guards raised their shotguns. Gordon thought he saw a few of them move