Footfall

by Larry Niven

  A semi roared past. There was a little traffic. Food trucks. Come to that, in normal times one out of every three trucks carried food. People had to eat. But there wasn’t a hell of a lot except trucks.

  The rest area was empty. Almost empty. Not quite. He heard sounds at the far end, and went to investigate.

  What Gynge saw was a tired old man on a picnic table with his pants off and a girdle stretched out beside him. Bikers called it a "kidney belt," but it did the same thing any girdle did: it held in a sagging gut. The old man’s gut was a good-sized beer belly. He was trying to hug one knee against his chest, but his gut blocked the way.

  The man sat up, blowing. His frame was large; Gynge saw that he must have been formidable in his time. He didn’t look formidable now. His red beard had gone mostly gray, and the hair of his head was following. He sat up, consulted the book beside him. Then he stretched his right leg out in front of him, bent forward as far as he could manage, threw a hand towel around the arch of his foot, and pulled on both ends.

  If the man had brought friends, they had had plenty of time to appear. Gynge watched a little longer. The red-and-gray-haired man switched legs, groaning.

  One full day on a motorcycle had done him in.

  Harry lay on the picnic table and groaned. Two whiplash accidents within two weeks would leave their mark for the rest of his life. His spine felt like a crystal snake dropped on flagstones! He knew well enough that he was overweight. That was what the kidney belt was for, but it hadn’t been enough, and his guts were about to fall out all over the picnic table.

  He’d bought a book of stretching exercises. Some of those were supposed to help a bad back. It was worth a try . . . but it felt like he was breaking his back rather than mending it.

  He had switched legs before the stranger stepped into view. A biker, probably. He strolled up to Harry’s bike, in no apparent hurry; ran his eyes over it; then stepped up to Harry. Looming. He was all muscles and hair and dirt, no prettier than Harry felt, though younger and in better condition.

  He asked, "Why a towel?"

  Harry flopped on his back, panting. He said, "A towel is the most massively useful thing a traveler can have. And that was a stretching exercise, because my back is giving me hell. See—"

  "Skip it. Give me the key to the Kawasaki."

  "Help me up."

  The bandit did, by the slack of Harry’s jacket. He looked down at the feel of something hard over his heart. Harry’s jacket trailed from his hand, and the .25 Beretta was in the jacket pocket.

  "I hold the key to a door you don’t want to open," Harry said.

  Anyone with a grain of sense would have at least stopped to think it over. The bandit reacted instantly: he batted at the threatening hand and swung a fist at Harry’s jaw.

  Harry fired at once. The fist exploded against his jaw and knocked him dizzy. His gun hand was knocked aside too. Harry brought it back and fired twice more, walking the pistol up the man’s torso.

  He shook his head and looked around fast. The gun wasn’t very loud. It wasn’t big either, and Harry didn’t entirely trust a .25 bullet. Any sign of a companion? No. The bandit was still on his feet, looking startled. Harry fired twice more, reserving one bullet for mistakes.

  Now the bandit toppled.

  Harry had spent some time finding the campground, but it wouldn’t be possible to stay. He rolled off the table, pulled his pants on. then his kidney belt. He paused to catch his breath and to listen.

  The bandit was still breathing, almost snoring. Harry looked down at him. "I’ll do you the best favor I can," he said. "I won’t check to make sure you’re dead."

  The wounded man said nothing. Ah, well.

  Harry walked his bike to the bandit’s motorcycle. There was nearly a gallon of gasoline in it. Whistling, Harry disconnected the fuel line and drained the gas into a pickle jar he fished out of the trash. When he’d put the last drop into the Kawasaki, he went through the bandit’s possessions. There wasn’t much.

  Then he mounted the Kawasaki and rode away, groaning. Harry was a firm believer in natural selection.

  * * *

  Jeri woke at dawn. Melissa was awake, but huddled in her sleeping bag. "I never knew deserts could be cold," she said.

  "I told you," Jeri said. "Now watch." The sleeping bags were head to head, with the Sierra stove between. Jeri made two cups of cocoa without poking more than her head and shoulders out of her bag. In the half-hour they spent drinking cocoa and eating oatmeal, the world warmed. Jeri put her hat on and made Melissa don hers. They left their sleeping bags and rolled them with one eye each on the highway below.

  They had moved uphill, away from the car, into a clump of bushes at the crest. With heads above the bushes, using binoculars, they could see clearly for miles. The highway ran straight as a bullet’s flight, broken by a dish-shaped crater nine miles to the west. The precision of that crater grew scarier the more Jeri thought about it. It sat precisely on the intersection of two highways.

  They watched for traffic. Jeri’s hand kept brushing the hard lump in her purse, the .380 Walther automatic. If she saw a safe-looking ride, she and Melissa could get down to the highway in time to stick out their thumbs. She hadn’t seen much yet. Traffic was nearly nonexistent. A clump of four motorcycles had passed, slowed to examine the stalled car, argue, then move on west. She stayed hidden.

  "What will we do?" Melissa asked.

  "We’ll think of something," Jeri told her. I may have to pay for a lift. Hopefully with money. She prayed for a policeman, but there weren’t any. Someone ought to come look at the crater. Is it radioactive? And why here? What could aliens possibly care about, this far from anywhere?

  From the west came a motorcycle. It slowed as it approached the crater. Jeri wondered if it would turn back. It moved out into the desert and circled the lip of the crater. Big cycle, big rider. He had some trouble lifting it back onto the road. He rested afterward, smoking, then started up again. They watched him come.

  Ten minutes later Melissa lowered the binoculars and said, "It’s Harry."

  Jeri snorted.

  "It’s Hairy Red, Mom. Let’s go down."

  "Unlikely," Jeri said wearily, but she took the glasses. The lone biker’s head was a wind-whipped froth of red hair and beard; that was true enough. He kept the bike slow. He couldn’t be a young man, not with the trouble he’d had lifting the bike. The bike: it sure looked like Harry’s bike. Hell’s bells, that was Harry Reddington!

  "Go," Jeri said, "run!" She sprinted downhill. Melissa surged past her, laughing. They reached the bottom well ahead of the biker. Jeri puffed and got her wind back and screamed, "Harry! Harreee!"

  It didn’t look like he would stop.

  * * *

  Harry saw the four bikers coming from a long way off. They were on the wrong side, his side, of the dirt divider. He was seeing trouble as he neared them . . . but they veered across the divider and, laughing, doffed their helmets to him as he passed. Harry would have liked to return the gesture, but he had one hand on the handlebars and one on the gun Carlotta hadn’t taken . . . because Hairy Red sure wasn’t in shape to defend himself with his fists. His belly band was tightened to the last notch, and Harry felt like he was leaking out from under it.

  Beyond the bikers was a station wagon, presumed DOA. Beyond the wagon, two figures running downhill. Harry made out a woman and a little girl.

  He didn’t have time for emergencies or room for passengers,

  They reached the road. They were yelling at him. The adult was a good-looking woman, and it was with some regret that he twisted the accelerator.

  "Harreee!"

  Oh, shit. Harry’s hands clamped the brakes. Jeri and Melissa Wilson, standing in the road. Just what he needed.

  Your word of honor on record

  , he thought. Dead or captured by God knows what, Wes Dawson had left his life on Earth’s surface in Harry Reddington’s care. Carlotta Dawson wasn’t the type to survive without
help. Stuck out here with a dead station wagon, what were the chances that Jeri Wilson and her daughter would ever tell anyone that Hairy Red had driven past them? He twisted harder, and stopped precisely alongside Melissa, and smiled at the little girl. Shit.

  Harry Reddington climbed from the bike as if afraid he’d break, and straightened up slowly. "Jeri. Melissa. Why aren’t you at the Enclave?"

  "I have to find my husband. Oh, Harry, thank God! Where are you going?"

  Harry answered slowly; he seemed to be doing everything slowly. "I was staying at Congressman Dawson’s house. Now his wife is in Dighton, Kansas, and he sure can’t do anything to take care of her, so it’s up to me."

  "Well. Want some cocoa?"

  "Sure, but—You’ve got a Sierra stove?"

  "Up the hill."

  "What’s wrong with the car?"

  "Out of gas."

  "Let’s get that cocoa." Harry accepted Jeri’s hospitality knowing full well what it implied, knowing that it was too late. Three passengers on a motorcycle was going to kill his shock absorbers. "Those bushes at the top? I’d better ride the bike up. I’d hate to lose it."

  * * *

  Harry let the bike coast to a stop. It was hot as soon as they stopped moving. Harry poured a little water onto his bandana and mopped his face. Getting sunburn to go with the windburn. Bloody hell.

  "We’re almost there," Jeri said. "Why are you stopping?"

  "Got to," Harry said. "Everybody off."

  Melissa leaped off from her perch on the gas tank in front of Harry. Jeri climbed off the back. Every muscle complaining. Harry slowly got off and set the stand. Then be tried to bend over.

  "Back-rub time?" Jeri asked.

  "Can’t hurt," Harry said. He pointed to a stream that ran beside the road. "Melissa, how about you go fill the canteens."

  "Doesn’t look very clean—"

  "Clean enough," Harry said.

  "Pour all the water we have into one canteen and just fill the other from the stream," Jeri said. "Harry, you look like a letter S. Here, bend over the bike and I’ll work on that."

  Harry waited until Melissa was gone. "I don’t quite know how to say this. Hate to be the one to do it, but somebody’s got to. We’re almost there. Another ten, twelve miles—"

  "Yes. Thank you. I know it was out of your way, and it can’t be comfortable, riding three on a bike—"

  "It’s not, but that isn’t the problem," Harry said. "You got across the Colorado River the day before the aliens came, didn’t you?"

  "Yes—"

  "And all you’ve seen since is a few towns, and that crater."

  "Harry, what are you trying to say?"

  "I looked on the map. That town you’re headed for—there’s a dam just above it." He didn’t say anything for a moment, to let that sink in. "Jeri, I goddam near didn’t get across the Colorado River. There’s nothing left of the town of Needles. Or Bullhead City. Or anything along the Colorado. They hit Hoover Dam with something big. When Lake Mead let go, it scoured out everything for two hundred miles. I mean everything. Dams, bridges, houses, boats—all gone. I had to get a National Guard helicopter to take me and the motorcycle across."

  "Oh."

  "Yeah. So I don’t know what we’re going to find up ahead. You got any idea of where Dave lived in that town?"

  "No," Jeri said. "He never told me anything about it. Harry—Harry, it’s got to be all right."

  "Sure," Harry said. He couldn’t even try to sound sincere.

  * * *

  One more rise. Over the top of that little ridge—

  Jeri sat uncomfortably among the gear tied to the bike. She couldn’t stop crying. Wind-whipped, the tears ran tickling across her temples and into her hair. Damn it, I don’t know anything yet, why am I crying? At least Melissa can’t see.

  What should I tell her? Warn her? But . . .

  The bike lumbered over the top of the ridge.

  A sea of mud lay below. The reservoir had been ten miles long and over a mile wide; now there was only a thick sluggish ripple at its center, a tiny stream with obscenely swollen banks. A thick stench rose from the mud. They rode slowly, feeling that hot wind in their faces, smelling ancient lake bed mud.

  There was no need to tell Melissa anything. She could see the dead lake, and must be able to guess what was ahead. It used to be we could protect children, spare them from horrible sights. They always do that in the old novels.

  They rode along the mud, banks toward the ruins of the dam at the far end. Long before they reached the dam there were new smells mingled with the smell of decayed mud and the hot summer. Everywhere lay the smell of death.

  The town below the dam was gone. In the center the destruction was complete, as if a bulldozer had come through and removed all the buildings, then another came along to spread mud over the foundations. Farther away from the stream bed was a thin line of partially destroyed houses and debris. One house had been torn neatly in half, leaving three-walled rooms to stare out over the wreckage below.

  Above the debris line nothing was touched. People moved among the debris, but few ventured down into the muddy bottom area.

  They’ve given up looking for survivors

  . She could feel Harry’s chest and back tighten as they got closer to the ruined town. A sheriff’s car stood beside a National Guard jeep to block the road. Harry let the bike coast to a stop. He had his letter ready to show, but it wasn’t needed.

  "I am Mrs. David Wilson," Jeri said. "My husband lives here, at 2467 Spring Valley Lane—"

  The young man in sheriff’s uniform looked away. So did the Guard officer.

  She knew before the sergeant spoke.

  "You can see where Spring Valley Lane was, just down there, about a mile," the sergeant said. He pointed at the center of the mud flat.

  "Maybe he wasn’t home," Melissa said. "Maybe—"

  "It happened about two in the morning," the sergeant said. "Maybe five minutes after they blasted the Russian space station."

  "Warning didn’t help anyway," the deputy sheriff said. "They did something that knocked out the phone system at the same time. The only way we could warn anybody downstream was to try to drive faster than the water. That wasn’t good enough."

  "How bad was it?" Harry asked.

  "Bad," the Guard officer said. "The whole Great Plains reservoir system, everything along the Arkansas River, is gone. There’s flooding all the way to Little Rock and beyond." He drew Harry aside, but Jeri could make out what he was saying.

  "There’s a temporary morgue in the schoolhouse three miles east of here," the officer was telling Harry. "Some bodies still there. The best-looking ones. We’ve had to bury a couple of hundred. Maybe more. They’ve got a list of all they could identify."

  "Thanks. I guess we better go there. Anyplace I can get some gas?"

  The officer laughed.

  * * *

  The wallet held two pictures of Jeri and one of Melissa. Jeri stared at her own face distorted by the tears that kept welling in her eyes.

  My pictures. I think he would have been glad to see me

  . The driver’s license was soaked, but the name was readable. "That’s his," Jeri said. The thinly bearded young man in dirty whites made notes on a clipboard. "David J. Wilson, of Reseda, California," he said. "Next of kin, Mrs. Geraldine Wilson—"

  He went on interminably. He took David’s wallet and went through that; noting down everything inside it. Finally he handed her a shoe box. It contained the wallet, a wristwatch, and a wedding ring. "Sign here, please."

  She carried the box out into the bright Colorado sunshine. My God, what am I going to do now? There was no sign of Harry or Melissa. She sat down on a bench by the school.

  What do they want? Why are they doing this? Why?

  "Mom—"

  Jeri didn’t want to look at her daughter.

  "Harry told me, Mom." Melissa sat beside her on the bench. After a moment Jeri opened her arms, and they held each oth
er.

  "We have to go," Melissa said.

  "Go?"

  "With Harry."

  "Are we—where are we going with Harry?"

  "Dighton, Kansas," Harry said from behind her. "And we got to be starting right now, Miz W. We’re on the wrong side of the river, and there aren’t any bridges downstream at least as far as Dodge City. We have to go upstream and cross above where the reservoir was. It’s maybe two hundred miles the way we’ve got to go. We need to get started,"

  Jeri shook her head. "What—I don’t know anyone in Kansas."

  "No, ma’am, and I don’t either, except Mrs. Dawson." Harry snorted. It was easy to tell what he was thinking. Harry Red had no woman of his own, just other people’s widows . . .

  "Harry, you don’t want us on your bike."

  "I sure don’t," he said. "What’s that got to do with anything?"

  Melissa stood and pulled her by the hand. "Come on, Mom, we don’t want to stay here."

  I might meet David’s friends. Find out how he spent his last months—

  That’s morbid, and you’ll more likely meet his New Cookie. Or was she with him? Did the Earth move for you, sweetheart?

  "All right, let’s go, then. Harry, I thought you were out of gas." "He used his letter," Melissa said. "Talked the highway patrolman into a full tank for the motorcycle."

  "Should get us there," Harry said. He led the way around the corner. The bike stood there. It didn’t look in very good shape. It looked overloaded even with no one on it.

  "Even loaded down with three?"

  "Should." Harry climbed aboard, groaning slightly. He looked a little better; the monstrous belly was tighter, and his back wasn’t quite so thoroughly bent. "Anyplace you want to go first?" he asked.

  Jeri shook her head. "They . . ."— she took Melissa’s hand—"they buried over a hundred in a common grave. I don’t want to see that—"

  "Me, neither, Mom." Melissa hopped onto the bike in front of Harry.

  The young are so damned—resilient. I guess they have to be. Especially now