by D. F. Jones
For a long time I just sat and stared, bemused, at that map. The appalling roll call of the lost cities: San Francisco and Stockton, Oakland and Sacramento, Modesto, Merced, Madera…. Auburn was now less than ten miles from this inland sea. Half of San Jose was in the sea….
Alongside this gigantic disaster, news from other states or from abroad was not more than fill-in on radio news. It was of no interest to leam that the British, by a policy of sitting quietly in their sealed-up houses, and aided by a strong southwest gale which swept the cloud quickly on its way, had survived the crisis with less than half a million casualties. The news that most of Chicago had survived this latest, greatest fire rated only a passing thought. It was much more important to know that a nuclear submarine was to cross New Bay to Fresno to provide the city with electric power….
Next day, my scanty preparations made, I got the orders Williamson had cut for me. I was assigned the survey of New Bay from its northern tip at Meridan, down the east side to Sonora in Tuolumna county. My base would be Auburn, deep in the Limited Zone, and there I would meet up with my staff, both of them, including escort.
I flew out in an Army light plane. As far as Fresno it all looked normal, but when we took off from there….
New Bay looked as if it had been there for a million years. Blue water under a clear sky, incredibly beautiful and quite unbelievable as a killer, a destroyer of cities, towns; yet there, north of Fresno, I saw State Highway 99, straight as an arrow, disappear abruptly into the water. Other, later generations would swim and sail these waters, but not this one.
I never knew Auburn in the pre-SARAH days; the Auburn I knew was close to hell. The population had shrunk to perhaps two thousand, decimated by the earthquakes and disease. There was no central electricity and the drainage system was shattered. Food was scarce; everything was scarce except fear, for Auburn was not so much a battered town as a fortified ruin in which the survivors lived in dread of a return of the earthquakes, and at night that fear was overlaid by another, the fear of outlaws.
The Army ran the area, and thin as they were on the ground, they controlled it pretty well in daylight. At night it was a different story: then bands of desperate men and women who lived in the hills came down…. The crackle of small-arms fire was a nightly occurrence. It was a terrible experience, although I was fortunate enough to get my small party into an Army compound on most nights. The outlaws had nothing to lose, and the fighting was incredibly bitter. Neither side took prisoners.
For the better part of three weeks we worked, surveying by day, compiling our reports by oil lamp at night; hungry, frightened, and often sick with stomach troubles. Work, eat, sleep, and nothing else. I hardly thought of Bette, although she troubled my dreams at times. World events meant even less up in the Zone than they had in San Diego. I remember hearing that the gas cloud had caused havoc in Northern Europe, that an estimated twenty million were dead in Poland, Germany, and Russia. All I felt was annoyance at having to wait for the more important local announcements on food and fuel. Williamson was right; life was very cheap, life was simpler, and life could be very horrifying….
We had been out all day in the high ground north of Auburn, chasing a fault. Hot and dusty, clothes tom with scrambling over the new broken rock, my assistant and I were exhausted, and our Army driver not much better. We were reloading the jeep when it started.
The jeep was parked around a hundred yards off the dirt road, on a boulder-strewn plateau which overlooked the long fissure we had been investigating and mapping. Our driver, a tough, laconic Texan, was suddenly still, listening.
“Hold it, Doc!”
I heard it too, a car. The Texan grabbed his automatic rifle from the jeep; we unbuttoned our holsters.
An open-top came bumping and swaying around the bend, trailing dust. At the sight of us the driver swerved sharply off the road and screeched to a halt. Before it stopped I knew we had trouble. Open-tops were bad news; outlaws favored them for the greater freedom they gave for gun-play and grenade throwing. Our driver shouted something, and we crouched behind the jeep. He fired; missed.
The very fact that it was a jeep was lucky. Outlaws were usually well-armed, and if they had not wanted the jeep undamaged, we would have got a couple of hand grenades. POST-SARAH roads made jeeps priceless.
Five figures leapt from the car, hunched, fanning out for cover. One remained, firing from the hip to keep our heads down. Bullets zipped and sang viciously as they ricocheted from the rocks.
“The bastards aim to pick us off! Take the left front, Doc—stop ’em gitting behind us!”
There was no time to get scared. A man broke cover, and ran across an open space. I fired, three, four times. He fell, and lay twitching in the autumn sun, and my only sensation was relief.
The fight had lasted for perhaps ten minutes when we were saved by an Army patrol. Hearing the shooting, they came our way, a sergeant and three other men. Five minutes and it was over—almost.
We had been very lucky indeed; I was the only casualty, with a badly grazed arm caused by a flying rock chip.
“Okay, you guys!” The sergeant sauntered casually over, while his men checked the bodies and collected the arms. He was a pretty average looking man, late thirties, fattish, with a nice, slow smile.
“Hey, Sarge—look what I got!” A dusty soldier approached, carbine held loosely in one hand, helmet strap unfastened. Just as casually, he held with his other hand a figure, bent low, stumbling behind him, moaning like an animal.
It was a girl, in dirty jeans and shirt, hand grenades dangling at her waist. She was bent double because the soldier was pulling her by her long hair. He looked pleased, still chewing gum. “She’s okay, too—a busted ankle, I guess!”
The sergeant took one look, and sprang forward, grabbing the girl’s flailing arms.
“You stupid bastard! Now—get that belt off her! She could have blown you to hell—both of you!”
Subdued, the soldier took the belt off. The girl struggled, her face distorted with fear and rage, screaming mad, meaningless obscenities. The men took as little notice as if they had been roping a steer. The other two soldiers came up as the sergeant moved back with the belt of grenades.
“They’re all dead, Sarge—only had to finish one off!” The speaker’s eyes widened as he saw the girl, now on her knees, still held by the hair. “Wow!” he said, with hushed wonder. He stepped forward and ripped the girl’s shirt down, pinioning her arms. She wore no bra. “And wow again!”
They were young lads. Before SARAH there were millions like them. Decent young guys, maybe married….
The sergeant smiled indulgently. “Okay, boys—but be quick about it!” He took in my expression, and jerked his head toward the derelict car. “Over there!”
“C’mon!” Two grinning soldiers, their eyes bright, were dragging, half-carrying the girl; the third was tearing off her jeans. He shouted excitedly, “Me first! I got her!”
The sergeant looked at my small wound. “That’s okay—gotta dressing?” He took it, and deftly bandaged my arm.
“That girl—” I stopped; she was really screaming now.
The sergeant gave my arm a final pat, satisfied with his work. He shrugged. “Haveta let the boys have their fun— women are mighty scarce in these parts.”
“Yes, but this—”
“Look, mister! Those guys just saved you—if we hadn’t come by, you’d all be very dead! Settle for that!”
The girl had stopped screaming; there were only horrible, animal moans now. A man laughed. The sergeant looked impatiently at his watch.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” he conceded, “but it gives the boys incentive in a fight. Mind you,” he went on severely, “I don’t allow any funny stuff with bayonets afterwards.”
Shaken and sick, I clambered into the jeep and nodded to the waiting driver. Reluctantly, he started up. Two shots rang out.
“I told ya!” The sergeant was triumphant. “No funny business in my section
!”
I had enough material for a reasonably detailed report on my area, and was about to suggest I go back, when Fresno ordered me to return for a conference. The sense of relief was collossal. For perhaps a week there would be no more death and dirt, sickness and utter desolation, degradation and fear….
We bummed a lift in a battered USN assault craft. This way across New Bay was a lot safer than trying to get down State Highway 49. Even Army convoys had been ambushed on that route, and even heavily armed jeeps in convoy were no guarantee of a safe passage, and there were not enough armored cars to go around.
To be afloat once more was fine, too. We chugged out across the blue water, already unmindful of what lay beneath us, avoiding the occasional bloated corpse which still came up. The Navy did not want to know, any more than we wanted to recall the deserted ruins, the empty roads and the unregarded dead….
I felt like an old-time cowhand hitting town after a long cattle drive, and Fresno heightened the illusion. It had a distinct frontier-town flavor: jeeps, full of soldiers in travel-stained combat rig, heavy trucks raising dust, tented camps, and crudely painted signboards. The real anachronisms were the billboards of pre-SARAH days; “All you can EAT for $2.00!” and “We fly thirty jets a day to Florida.” This was another world: food was just adequate, dollars were meaningless. As for thirty jets to anywhere—
A surprising feature was the large number of horses in town, mostly pulling rubber-tired trailers. Horses used less oxygen, and their manure was quickly swept up for fertilizer. All cars were, of course, on state or federal business. Citizens either rode horses, hitched lifts, or walked, and a lot of Californians discovered they had legs. It was tough on some, but very good indeed for most.
I checked in at NRC HQ, got allocated a bed, and received my orders for the next day’s conference. Battling with Logistics and Supply for badly needed supplies, I learned, quite casually, that there was a lot of typhoid in town. The news reminded me that I still had to get the third part of my shots.
NRC Accommodation Post One (Fresno) had, no doubt, been a fine hotel in the old days. Now, four beds to a room, hot water one hour a day, and elevators for two hours (9-11 P.M.) only was no great catch, but after Auburn it was heaven. I dumped my bag, cold-showered, and changed into the fresh clothes I had drawn from the communal laundry. The meal was a marked improvement, too: canned meat and potatoes, a banana, and a bottle of Coke. Reminded by the mess hall notices that most water was unfit to drink, I sought out the NRC medical unit.
This was housed in the main hospital, a very busy place. I collected my final set of shots, one more stamp on my ID card, and left, clutching a bottle of water-sterilizing tablets I had managed to acquire. I was getting to be an old hand, snapping up anything that might be useful. No longer a freshman, I also had a small wound. I, too, was entitled to my private nightmare….
Being in the NRC was, I imagined, similar to Army life. You had your own particular job to do, and that was it. Outside of that you had no responsibilities. Like now, I had to be at the conference at 8 A.M., but until then, nothing. What I did with the evening was my business. I stood outside the hospital considering. To drink on top of the shots was a sucker’s trick, just supposing I could track down some liquor. I could go back and lie on my bed, bone up on my report for the morning, but I would inevitably fall asleep, and that would louse up my first night in a real bed in weeks. How about a woman? There were plenty willing to oblige, especially an NRC man, who might have a pack of cigarettes of spare.
I watched a nurse go by, not thinking of her in particular, but testing my desire against her as a female. She was nice enough, shapely legs, but it was no good. I was too deep in my work, too sick with horror at all I had seen lately. Besides, it would be a hasty affair, a quick lay in the back of an abandoned car or up some dark alley, and I had also seen too many abandoned cars and dark alleys recently.
For ten, fifteen minutes I just stood on the hospital steps, my mind drifting, watching the bustle. Ambulances in, full; ambulances out, empty. Harassed nurses, interns waving clipboards at drivers. Noise, dust, heat….
“Mitch!” A quiet, so well-remembered voice. I swung around.
She smiled uncertainly, waiting for my reaction.
“It can’t be—you, here!” I too was uncertain, awkward, aware of the month-long gap and so much else. Her face was a little drawn, but her hair was still smooth, shiny … Bette.
She forced a laugh, knowing that at this moment we were strangers.
“We can’t stand here, blocking the traffic.”
To underline the point, two men with an empty Stretcher pushed past.
She took my arm. “Come on. We can use the hospital commissary.”
Nearly dazed, I let her lead me down endless corridors, a chill, bare cement service stairway. Neither spoke.
We got some coffee and found an empty table and sat opposite each other. She smiled again, seeking an opening. “You’ve lost weight, Mitch.”
“Have I?” I had no idea how to begin. “What are you doing here?”
She looked away, her gaze flickering around the noisy, impersonal room. “What else could I do?”
It was a very ambiguous answer. With feminine ease she shifted her approach angle, speaking calmly. “It was obvious. No point in going to Australia. We joined Mayfly to escape, and we had done that. Suffren was right; with the danger past, we were doubly bound to return. ‘He who fights and runs away….’ Okay, so another day had arrived. You knew that.” Her gaze stopped wandering; she looked straight at me. I had to do the pitching.
I lit a cigarette as casually as I could, resting one elbow on the table to steady my hand. I pitched. “And what about Bill?”
“Yes, Bill. You didn’t give me much chance, did you?” She was incredibly self-possessed, and I felt a sudden stab of doubt about the strength of my position.
“From where I stood, no explanation was necessary.”
“No.” Her eyes were steady. “And you’re so sure you’re right!”
“Aw, Bette—don’t try that one!” I said warmly. “We were all wise to the situation when we left the atoll! But for that little whore Sandra, Karen would have blown the whole goddam thing wide open!”
She nodded, and smiled faintly. “Yes, she sure would!” There was real sadness in her voice. “Poor Karen!”
I didn’t much care for that. “Poor Karen! That’s great! You move into her territory—”
She snapped back. “Act your age, Mitch! What you know about women could be written on the back of a six-cent stamp—and still leave room for the Constitution! Back in San Francisco, Karen knew she had lost out to me —if I chose!” Impulsively she reached across, then drew back her hand as if I was red hot. “Try to understand, Mitch! I know that sounds very egotistical, but it’s true, and women don’t need to have these things spelled out. Bill was mine for the taking from that very first trip—after the tidal wave, if you want to know the exact moment. Not that he realized it then, but Karen and I, we knew.”
I thought back to Karen and myself in the cabin, and wondered how much of that had been intercepted.
Bette went on, “Karen just hoped I’d keep clear, and knowing how I was about you, decided it was a fair bet. You see, to cap it all, she was well aware that she’d never nail Bill down. She couldn’t measure up to his standards— not that it stopped her from trying—but there was never a chance—and she knew it! Bill was happy with her because she was not demanding and didn’t get in the way of his real love affair with Mayfly. And I think she was wise to all that, too.”
I was groping, but I stuck to it. “Okay, assuming all this is so, and she knew it from the beginning, how come she suddenly blew her top on the atoll?”
“I’ll explain, but let me do it my way. When we got back from that picnic—I’m talking about Pago Pago—Bill was waiting with your letter. He was shattered. Kept saying, ‘What the hell got into Mitch? Why didn’t he say something?’ For sure, SARAH never
got him into such a state!”
She sipped her coffee, grimaced, and continued. “He wasn’t the only one! I’d seen you were, well, a shade screwy, after the atoll, but with that little bitch Sandra in the way, there was never a chance to get to you. She had the eyes of a hawk.”
I had to nod in agreement to that.
“Anyway, I realized we were all somewhat in shock after that experience, and thought—hoped—you’d come around. Then Pago Pago; you went into your shell—”
“What the hell did you expect! With you hooked on Bill, plus half the Navy—”
“I was not hooked on Bill!” She clenched her fist to retain control of herself. “Let me finish! Once Karen had read your letter—and cried over it—she unloaded the whole sad, silly story. Bill was struck speechless and I wasn’t much better. There was one hell of a scene, and at the end Karen was utterly convinced how wildly wrong she had been. Then she really cried.”
“Poor old Karen!” I could imagine her state of mind. All the same…. “That doesn’t explain everything.” In fact, I felt it explained nothing. “To me the most telling thing—and I saw it myself—was the look you gave Bill when we arrived at Pago Pago; like the sun shone out of his left ear.”
“I’m not denying it.” She nodded. “In a sense, you’re right. As a seaman, he is, for me, the man. To that extent he does occupy a special place, but that place is not in my bed! Superficially, you might think we were made for each other, but that is not so. There’s a lot more to Bill than you imagine. On the surface he’s got charm, he’s even-tempered, even a little old-maidish, but if you imagine those are the qualities for a man to live as he does, think again! Deep down he has the cold, ruthless English nature, and that’s not for me. In other ways we were too much alike, and we’d have fought. Oh no! When Karen overheard him say he’d sail around the world with me, sure, I knew he was testing my reactions, and he got a big zero! You must believe that—in the end, Karen did.”
I tried another. “And the night before the tidal waves?” Surprisingly, she laughed. “That’s one story you’ll never believe! After you and Karen left, we sat drinking and doping out our plans. To level with you, I expected him to start something, but I knew it would be as oblique an attack as it had been before.” She shook her head in frustration. “You’ve got to get it clear, Mitch. Bill didn’t chase women—his pride wouldn’t let him! Women came to him. Karen, for one.”
