Science Fiction Short Story Review: "The Return" by H. Beam Piper

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This story takes places some two centuries after a nuclear holocaust that took place sometime in the 1990s. The United States, as have all nation-states, has ceased to exist as a social or political entity. One group of people, based on the remains of a military establishment in Ridgeway in what was once Arizona, has managed to re-establish some industrialization. They even have a helicopter, a means of sending two men, Jim Loudons and Monty Altamont out to make contact with other settlement that may exist. Their primary mission, however, is to uncover a cache of microfilmed books, hidden before the last of the bombs destroyed the university library in Pittsburgh. They have the means of printed the books from the microfilm. Most of the humans the encounter, however, have degenerated to a semi-human, hostile state. Those who haven’t are living in the Stone Age. The promise of communication through radio brings blank stares. Loudons is still limping from a leg wound when, just outside of Pittsburgh, they spot smoke coming from what looks for all the world like a stockade. They notice people reacting to their approach in an organized, almost military fashion. Could this be…? As they get to know them, they realize they have flintlock guns, pre-industrial technology, but a tight, military organization. They’re under constant attack from “Scowlers,” the degenerate humans resulting from the atomic fallout. They also have a coherent religion based on a Slain and Returned One, and an Evil One who was also slain and returned. It’s not Christianity. There are hints all along as to what’s going on, so the end was not a surprise. The rest of it was an adventure story. But it just read like a set-up for a joke. Nevertheless, I saw it coming from a long ways away. _____ Title: “The Return” first published in Astounding Science Fiction Jan. 1954 Author: H. Beam Piper (1904-1964) and John J. McGuire (1917-1981) Source: ISFDB The text is available from Project Gutenberg: