by Larry Niven
“The Roman place.”
“Yes.”
“You’re in that?”
“Mark and I seem to have drawn the lucky numbers. With Mr. Christopher and his brother. And Al Hardy. And a few others, I guess.”
“Will there be shooting?” Are you going to be killed?
“Maybe. They shot at Harry. They killed that other man, the one from the dude ranch.”
“Aren’t you afraid?” she asked.
“Terrified. But it’s got to be done. And when it is, I’ll ask Hardy to let me take Mark up to the mountains.”
She didn’t ask him if he had to go. She knew better than that. “Will you come back?”
“Yes. Do you want me to?”
“Yes. But… but I’m not in love with you.”
“That’s all right,” he said. He chuckled. “After all, we hardly know each other. Will you ever be in love with me?”
“I don’t know.” I don’t dare let myself be. “I don’t think I’ll ever love anyone.” There’s no future in it. There’s no future at all.
“You will,” he said.
“Let’s not talk about it.”
There is rain in the Sahara. Lake Chad fills to overflowing, and engulfs the city of Nguigmi. The Niger and the Volta are in flood, drowning millions who have survived the tsunami. In eastern Nigeria the Ibo tribe rises in rebellion against the central government.
Further to the east the Palestinians and Israelis suddenly realize there are no great powers capable of intervening; this time the war will go to a conclusion. The remants of Israel, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia are on the march. There are no jet planes, and little fuel for tanks. There will be no ammunition resupply, and the war will not end until it is fought with knives.
Second Week: Mountain Men
Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day.
Isaac Watts, 1719; Anglican Hymnal #289
Water poured from the sky. Harvey Randall was almost past noticing, as he hardly noticed the places where the road was gone. It was automatic to avoid the deepest holes, to walk carefully across the mud that flowed in rivers across the blacktop. It felt good to be moving, to stride up the steep winding road into the High Sierra. There were no cars and no people; only the road. He had food, and a knife, and the target pistol. Not much food, and not much ammunition, but he was lucky to have anything at all.
“Hey, Harv, how about we take a break?” Mark called from behind him.
Harvey kept on walking. Mark shrugged and muttered something under his breath, and shifted the shotgun from his right shoulder to his left. He carried the weapon barrel down under his poncho. The weapon was kept dry, but Mark didn’t believe he was dry anywhere. He’d sweated enough that he might as well not have the poncho. It felt like a steam bath inside the rain gear.
Harvey picked his way across a rivulet of water. So far he hadn’t found anyplace that he couldn’t have taken the TravelAll, and he cursed the Senator and his hardnosed assistant; but he did that silently. If he said anything, Mark would agree, and Mark was in enough trouble with Al Hardy. One of these days Mark would get himself shot, or thrown out of the Senator’s Stronghold, and Harvey Randall would have a decision to make.
Meanwhile he could put all his effort into walking uphill. Step. Pause for a tiny fraction of a second, rear knee locked to catch an instant of rest; weight on the forward foot, swing on another step, another instant of rest… Absently Harvey reached into a belt pouch and took out a chunk of dried meat. Bear. Harvey had never eaten bear before. Now he wondered if he’d ever eat anything else. Well, by evening they’d be a good nine miles from the Stronghold, and anything they shot they could keep and eat for themselves. The Senator’s rules again: no hunting within five miles of his ranch.
It made sense. The game would be needed, later, and no point in scaring it away. All of the Senator’s rules made sense, but they were rules, laid down without discussion, orders issued from the big house with nobody to say no except the Christophers, and they weren’t arguing. Not yet, anyway.
It was George Christopher who’d let Harvey go; Hardy hadn’t wanted to risk it. Not that he cared about Harvey, but the weapons and the food Harvey carried were valuable. But Maureen had talked to Hardy, and then George Christopher had come out and given Harvey the supplies and told him about road conditions.
Not a coincidence. Harvey was sure of that. Christopher had no reason at all to help Harvey Randall — and he’d got into the act the day Maureen talked to Al Hardy and her father about it; the day she’d shown any open friendship with Harvey Randall. That made too much sense to ignore.
It was easy to see what Maureen meant to George Christopher. What did he mean to her? For that matter, what does Harvey Randall mean to Maureen Jellison?
I think I’m falling in love, Harvey whistled to himself. Only… I don’t know what it’s like. Being a faithful — well, very nearly faithful — married man for eighteen years is not much preparation for romance.
Or maybe it is. He had always thought that any two people sufficiently determined to make a go of it would be able to. Now he wondered. What is this love business? He’d have been willing to die for Loretta — but he hadn’t been willing to stay home because she was afraid. He could face that now, but he wasn’t sure what it meant.
Finally it was afternoon, time to start making camp. He let his eyes search the woods around him as he hiked. He felt very alone and vulnerable. Time was, when you went far from trailhead you could count on meeting good people; but that was before Hammerfall. Some would-be robbers had come down from these hills not two days before, and they or others like them could be waiting in ambush anywhere. So far, though, he hadn’t seen anyone, and that was fine with Harvey.
The road led through pine forest, steep hillsides, and there was standing water anyplace level. It wouldn’t be easy to find a good campsite in this rain. A boulder cave, like the one they’d made the sentry shelter out of, would be best. He’d have to be damned careful, though; something or somebody would be making use of any dry spot he could find. Bears, snakes, anything.
There was a skunk in the first place they looked. Harvey passed it by with regret. It would have been a good campsite, two boulders tilted against each other, actually dry ground in there; but the beady eyes and unmistakable odor were invincible. Skunks could carry rabies, too. A skunk bite could be the most dangerous thing up here. There weren’t going to be any Pasteur treatments for rabies, not for a long time…
The next cave held a fox, or perhaps a feral dog. They chased it away. The area under the boulders wasn’t dry, and wasn’t really large enough, but they were able to rig up their ponchos on cut branches so that at least they didn’t have water pouring on their heads.
Now for a fire. Harvey spent the rest of the daylight gathering wood. There was standing deadwood, soaked, but if he split it there was some dry wood at the core. There wasn’t enough for more than an hour of fire, maybe longer if they were careful. When it was completely dark Harvey used some of his precious lighter fluid.
“Wish I had a railroad flare,” Harvey said. He poured lighter fluid carefully onto the base of his tiny stack of dry wood. “You can start a fire in a blizzard with a flare.”
“Fucking Hardy wouldn’t give you one,” Mark said.
“You’d better be careful around him,” Harvey said. He lit a match. The lighter fluid caught, and the fire blinded them for a moment. The wood caught, and even that tiny bit of heat was welcome. “He doesn’t like you.”
“I don’t think he likes anybody,” Mark said. He began to arrange larger pieces of wood near the fire so they’d dry out. “Always smiling, but he doesn’t mean it.” Harvey nodded. Hardy’s smile hadn’t change from before Hammerfall. He was still the politician’s assistant, the man who was friendly with everyone, but now his smile was a threat, not something warm and friendly.
“Jesus,” Mark sai
d.
“Eh?”
“Just thinking about those poor bastards,” Mark said. “Harv, it gave me the willies.”
“Don’t think about it.”
“I had to pull on the rope,” Mark said. “I won’t forget it.”
“Yeah.” There had been four frightened kids in the Roman place. Two boys and two girls, none of them more than twenty. Two were wounded in the fight, when Hardy and Christopher captured them. Then there’d been a shouting match between Hardy and Christopher. George Christopher wanted to shoot all four of them on the spot. Al Hardy argued they ought to be taken back to town. Harvey and Mark had sided with Hardy, and eventually Christopher gave in.
Only, when they got them to town, the Senator and the Mayor held a trial the same afternoon, and by evening all four were hanging in front of the City Hall. George Christopher’s way would have been kinder.
“They killed the Romans and that other chap, the guy from Muchos Nombres,” Harvey said. “What else could we have done with them?”
“Hell, they got what was coming,” Mark said. “It was just all so fucking quick. And the way those girls screamed and cried…” Mark fed the fire again, brooding.
The executions had shocked a number of the townspeople, Harvey thought. But nobody said anything. The Romans had been their friends. Besides, it could be dangerous to argue. Behind Al Hardy’s smiles and perpetual calm and easy manners was the ultimate threat. The road. There was always the road, for those who wouldn’t cooperate, for those who caused too much trouble. The road.
They were almost at the top, the highest point the road would reach, when it was time to make camp on their third day. The rain hadn’t let up, and the higher they climbed, the colder it got. They’d need a fire tonight, which meant that they’d have to take turns tending it.
Harvey was carefully laying out his sticks, and hadn’t yet reached into his pockets for the lighter fluid, when they smelled it.
“Smoke,” Mark said. “A campfire.”
“Yes. Well hidden,” Harvey said.
“It’s got to be close. We’d never smell it from far, not in this rain.”
They probably wouldn’t see it, either. Harvey sat absolutely still, motioning Mark for silence. There was a strong wind blowing from higher up. It had to be carrying the campfire smells. The rain was like a wet curtain, and in the dying light they couldn’t see more than a few yards.
“Let’s go look,” Mark said.
“Yeah. We’ll leave the ponchos. We can’t get any wetter than we are already.”
They moved cautiously uphill, up the road, peering into the gloom.
“Over there,” Mark whispered. “I heard something. A voice.”
Harvey thought he’d heard it too, but it was very faint. They moved in that direction. There wasn’t any point in trying to be quiet. The wind and rain covered most sounds, and their feet squished in the wet leaves and mud of the forest floor.
“Just hold it.”
They stopped dead still. The voice had been a girl’s. Not very old, Harvey thought. She was very close, probably hidden in a thicket just ahead.
“Andy,” she called. “Two visitors.”
“Coming.”
Harvey stood rigid for a moment. It was… “Andy!” he shouted. “Andy, is that you?”
“Yes, sir.” His son came down the trail.
Harvey rushed forward to greet him. “Andy, thank God, you’re all right—”
“Yes, sir. I’m fine. Is Mother… ?”
Harvey felt it clutch him, the memory lying across his soul, the pathetic bundle in the electric blanket. “Raiders,” Harvey said. “Looters killed your mother.”
“Oh.” Andy moved away from his father. A girl came out of the thicket. She held a shotgun. Andy went to her and they stood together. Together.
The boy’s grown up in two weeks, Harvey thought. He saw the way he stood with the girl. Protectively, and very naturally, and it reminded him of the words in the marriage ceremony: “One flesh.” They stood that way, two halves of one person, but so very young. There were wisps of thin hair on Andy’s chin. Not a real beard, just the stubble that Loretta had made him shave because it looked bad, although it was nearly invisible…
“Is Mr. Vance here?” Harvey asked.
“Sure. Come on this way,” Andy said. He turned, and the girl went back to her thicket. She hadn’t said a word. Harvey wondered who she was. His son’s… woman. And he didn’t even know her name, and the boy hadn’t told him. And there was something terribly wrong, but Harvey didn’t know what to do about it.
Gordie Vance was glad to see him. Harvey was even happier to see Gordie. Gordie had built a large shelter, logs and thatched roof that shed rain, and he had dry wood, and there were fish and birds hanging under the shelter. A pot of stew bubbled on the fire.
“Harv! I knew you’d get here. Been waiting,” Gordie said.
Harvey looked puzzled. “How did you expect me to find you?”
“Hell, this is the jump-off place, isn’t it? Where we always parked.”
There wasn’t enough light to be sure, but the place didn’t look any different from any other clearing near the road, and Harvey knew he’d never have recognized it. “I’d have gone right past—”
“You’d have come back when you got to the lodge,” Gordie said. “What’s left of the lodge.”
There were a dozen under the shelter. They were mostly in pairs, sleeping bags zipped together.
Boys and girls. One of each, in pairs. Boy Scouts and…
“Girl Scouts?” Harvey asked.
Gordie nodded. “I’ll tell you about it later. We had some trouble up here last week. It’s okay now. You… you met Janie, didn’t you?”
“The girl with Andy?” Harvey looked around. Andy wasn’t there any longer. He’d led Harvey and Mark to the shelter, and he’d left without saying a word.
“Sure. Janie Somers. She and Andy…” Gordie shrugged.
“I see,” Harvey said, but he didn’t see. Andy was a boy, a child…
At fourteen a Roman boy was given a sword and shield and enrolled in a legion, and could legally become head of a household, a property owner. But that was Rome and this is…
This is the world after Hammerfall. And Andy has a family and he’s an adult.
The other children — weren’t children. They were watching Harvey very closely. Not the way children watch an adult. Suspicion, maybe. But neither anger nor respect nor . … They were children who’d grown up a lot.
And there was a girl in Gordie’s sleeping bag. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen.
It was dry and warm. Harvey’s clothes hung near the fire, and he sat in Gordie’s sleeping bag, the bag’s luxurious dryness wrapped around him, his feet and legs dry for the first time in days.
The tea was bark, not real tea, but it tasted good, and so had the bowl of stew Gordie served earlier. Mark slept, a smile on his face, very near to the campfire. The others were asleep too, or acted as if they were. Andy and Janie, clinging to each other in their sleeping bag, nestled together; others, Gordie’s boy Bert with another girl. And Stacey, the girl Gordie slept with, was curled against Gordie’s knees, dozing a little.
Old home week in the deep woods.
“Yeah, it got rough at first,” Gordie was saying. “I took the crew back to Soda Springs after we saw the Hammer fall. We rode out the rain and the hurricanes there. Fourth day we started back this way. Hiked four days. When we got here, there were some bikers. They’d found the girls camping up here. Took over.”
“Took over. You mean—”
“Christ, Harvey, you know what I mean. They’d raped one of the kids to death, and the lady who’d brought the kids up got herself killed trying to fight them.”
“Jesus,” Harvey said. “Gordie, you didn’t have any guns—”
“Had a twenty-two pistol,” Gordie said. “Just in case. But it didn’t figure in what happened.”
This was a new Gordie.
Harvey wasn’t sure how, because he made the same jokes, and in some ways he was a lot like the Gordie Vance Harvey had known, but he wasn’t, not really. He wasn’t a man you could imagine as a banker, to begin with. He seemed to belong up here, with a two-week beard, and no gut but not hungry. Comfortable and dry and very much in charge and at ease…
“They were stupid,” Gordie was saying. “Didn’t want to be wet. They’d rigged some tents up, store-bought tents, along with their camper. We’ve still got their gear. Used some of it putting this shelter together.” He waved to indicate the logs-and-boulder structure, a shed roof with walls and fire pit. “They were all inside, even the ones they thought were on guard. So we knocked them in the head.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Gordie said. “Then we cut their throats. Andy killed two.”
Gordie let that sink in for awhile. Harvey sat, motionless, then deliberately looked across the fire to where his son lay sleeping with his… his woman. A woman he’d won by conquest, rescued…
“And after that the girls just hopped into bed with you?” Harvey demanded.
“Ask them. You see how it is,” Gordie said. “We didn’t rape anybody, if that’s what you mean.”
“Only technically,” Harvey said. He wished he hadn’t said it, but the words were out.
Gordie wasn’t angry. He laughed. “Statutory rape. Who’s to enforce that? Who cares, Harvey?”
“I don’t know. The Senator might. Gordie, Marie came with me. She’s at the Senator’s ranch—”
“Marie? I figured she’d be dead,” Gordie said. “She really came looking for Bert, of course. She wouldn’t have cared about me.”
Harvey didn’t say anything. It was true enough.
“She doesn’t really care about Bert either,” Gordie was saying.
