Footfall

by Larry Niven

  "I'm still the chef," he told Cora Donaldson, "but I can use some help. Can you get here around noon? Bring whatever you can find in the way of food, and tell me what I can count on now."

  "Rice."

  "Rice." He made a note. "How much rice?"

  "Lots. I mean really a lot." She giggled. "Only good thing about this war, I'm losing weight, because I'm getting sick of rice-hey, I look good. You'll like the new me."

  "Great. Okay, then. Bye." He inspected his list and dialed again.

  There was no beef in the land, Sarge Harris complained. "Cattle cars are too big. Snouts blast `em, think they've got tanks or weapons in them."

  Probably not. The major says they're not doing that just now. But no point in arguing.

  "Yeah. Chicken costs an arm and a leg, too." "Maybe that's how chicken farmers get red meat," Sarge said.

  "Heh-heh. Sure. Look, what can you bring?"

  "Eggs. Traded some carpentry work for them."

  "Good. Bring `em." Ken hit the cutoff button and dialed another number.

  Patsy Clevenger admitted to being one of the lucky ones. An occasional backpacker, she'd stored considerable freeze-dried food in sealed bags; but the steady diet was driving her nuts. She jumped at his offer. Sure, she could bring a freeze-dried dessert, and flavored coffee mix, and pick up Anthony Graves, who was seventy and couldn't drive anymore. Ken shifted the receiver to his other ear.

  The Copeleys lived at the northern end of the San Fernando Valley, They could get fresh corn and tomatoes, and almonds, and oranges. Could they bring a pair of relatives? Because the relatives had gas. Hell, yes!

  He tried Marty Carnell, just on the off chance. The meteorchewed highways had probably stranded him somewhere on a dog-show circuit—

  But Marty answered.

  "I've done this once before, and it worked out," Ken told him. "It isn't that everyone's starving. Things haven't got that bad. But anyone's likely to have a ton of something and none of everything else, and the way to make it work is to get all the food together and make a feast."

  "Sounds good."

  "Okay. Get here around noon—"

  "For dinner?"

  "Stone soup takes time, and I want sunlight for the mirror. I'd guess we'll eating all day and night. Come hungry. Have you got meat?"

  "I found a meat source early on. I can keep the dogs fed till I run out of money, but it's horsemeat, Ken. I've been eating it myself—"

  "Bring it. Can you bring five pounds? Four will do it, and you won't recognize it when I get through, Marty. I've got a great chili recipe. Lots of vegetables."

  The Offutts would have to come by bicycle. Chad Offutt sounded hungry. With no transportation, how the hell were they to get food? How about some bottles of liquor in the saddlebags? Ken agreed, for charity's sake. Damn near anyone had liquor; what was needed was food.

  Ken hung up.

  He caught himself humming while he lugged huge pots out into the backyard and set them up around the solar mirror. It seemed almost indecent to be enjoying himself when civilization was falling about his ears. But it did feel good to finally find a use for his hobbies!

  The Copeleys had brought everything they'd promised, and yellow chilis too. The pair of guests were a cousin's daughter and her husband—Halliday and Wilson; she'd kept her maiden name—both much younger than the others, and a little uncomfortable. They seemed eager to help. Ken put them to cutting up the Copeley's vegetables.

  "Save all seeds."

  "Right."

  The lost weight looked nice on Con Donaldson. She chatted while she helped him carry dishes. Things were bad throughout the Los Angeles Basin . . . yeah, Ken had to agree. Con had tried to get to Phoenix, but her mother kept putting her off, she wouldn't have room until her brother moved out. . . and then it was too late, the roads had been chewed by the snouts' meteors. Yeah, Ken had tried to get out too.

  He should have asked someone - to bring dishwashing soap! Someone must have an excess of that.

  Marty was cuffing horsemeat into strips. "Could be a lot worse," he said. "We could be dodging meteors. I can't figure out what the snouts think they're doing."

  "They think they're conquering the Earth," Ken said. "It's their methods that're funny. They're thorough enough. I haven't heard of a dam still standing. Have you?"

  "No big ones. No big bridges either."

  "But they don't touch cities." Could be worse, He might have fled with no destination in mind. Still, it was hard times. Food got in, but not a lot, and not a balanced diet. There would have been no fruit source here without the Copeleys' oranges and the lemon tree in Graves' backyard.

  Reflected sunlight blazed underneath Ken's largest pot. The water was beginning to boil. He ladled a measured amount into the chili, then moved it into the focus.

  He'd built the solar minor while he was still married, and after the first month he'd almost never used it. They'd gone vegetarian for a few months too, and his wife hadn't taken the cookbooks with her. He had the recipes, he had the skills to build a balanced meal, and the phones worked sometimes. If the snouts shot those down, he might try to form a commune. His next-door neighbor had fled to the mountains, leaving the keys behind. More important, he'd left a full swimming pool. Covered, to prevent evaporation, the water would last until the fall rains, and the goldfish would keep the mosquitoes down.

  Then there was the golf course across the street. The President asked everyone to grow food, especially to put up greenhouses. There wasn't any water for the golf course, but there were flat areas, good places for tents if the commune got big enough.

  When the aliens had blasted Kosmograd, everything had turned serious. So had Kenneth Dutton. Two years before he'd studied greenhouses; but in one two-day spree he'd built one, from plastic and glass and wood and hard work, and goddam had he been proud of himself. It worked! Things grew! You could eat them! He'd built two more before he'd even started the Stone Soup Parties, just because he could.

  Past two o'clock, and the Offutts weren't here yet. Not surprising, if they were on bicycles, especially if malnutrition was getting to them. Sarge Harris hadn't arrived either. Lateness was less a discourtesy than a cause for worry: had dish-shaped craters begun to sprout in city roads? The snouts had been gone for three weeks, but when might they return? And with what?

  Patsy Clevenger arrived with Anthony Graves. Graves was short and round and in fair health for a man pushing seventy. He had been a scriptwriter for television. He brought treasure: lemons from his backyard and a canned ham. They settled him in a beach chair from which he could watch the proceedings like a benevolent uncle.

  Ken pulled the kettle to the side, where sunlight spilling from the mirror would keep the chili simmering. "An hour," he announced to nobody in particular. He dumped rice into another pot, added water, and set it in the focus. Fistfuls of vegetables went into the water pot. Cook them next. Chop up vegetables, boil or steam them, add mayonnaise and a chopped apple if you had it. Leave out a few vegetables, fiddle with the proportions, forget~ome of the spices, as long as you didn't put in broccoli it was still Russian salad if you could get mayonnaise. Where was Sarge Harris?

  Sarge didn't arrive until four. "I got a late start, and then there was a godawful line for gas, and then I tried three markets for potatoes, but there weren't any." At least he had the eggs. Ken set Cora to making them into mayonnaise.

  The sun was getting too low for cooking. Mayonnaise didn't need heat. Coffee did. Better start water warming now. Sometimes there was no gas. Patsy's flavored coffee could be drunk "iced": room temperature, given the lack of ice.

  The chili was gone, and a vegetable curry was disappearing, and the Copeleys' young relatives were just keeping up with the demand for lemonade. There was breathing space for Ken to find conversations; but he tended to drift when his guests started talking about how terrible things were. By and large, they seemed cheerful enough. It felt like Cora might stay the night, and that would be nice, since it fel
t like Patsy would not.

  Tarzana didn't have electricity. Ken Dutton and his guests stayed outdoors. Light came from the bellies of the clouds, reflected from wherever the Los Angeles and San Fernando Valleys still had electricity. Occasionally a guest would go inside, feeling his way through the darkness toward the flickering light from the bathroom. At the next Stone Soup Party there would probably be no candles at all.

  He'd boiled a few eggs to decorate the Russian salad. That looked like it would hold up until the party was over.

  Some of the guests were cleaning out the pots. It had been settled without much discussion: better to get most of the cleaning done before Ken served coffee. The suspicion existed that anyone who conspicuously shirked cleanup duties might not be invited back. For some it was true.

  Sarge poured a torrent of dirty water into a patio drain. "At least we kicked them out of Kansas," he said.

  Graves, who had seemed half as'eep in his beach chair, said, "Did we? I'm told they spent much of their efforts raiding libraries and collecting . . . well, memorabilia, items that might tell them something of our nature."

  "Sure. Wouldn't you?"

  "It was a reconnoitering expedition. In a way, it reminds me of the Phony War."

  "The what?"

  The old man laughed. "I don't blame you. Nineteen thirty-nine to summer of 1940. Germany and France were officially at war, you see. But nothing was happening. They stared at each other across the Maginot Line, between two lines of trenches, and did nothing. The papers called it the Phony War. I expect they didn't like not having a story. For the rest of us, it was a calm and nervous time."

  "Like now. Nothing happening,"

  "Precisely. Then the Nazis came rolling across and took France, and nobody said Phony War any more."

  Patsy followed through. "Suddenly they'll bomb all the cities at once'?"

  "They might give us a chance to surrender first. The trouble is, they've never answered any of our broadcasts. This may be that chance, by their lights, and we're obliged to work out how to surrender. Well, how?"

  "If we spend all our time thinking about how to surrender, then they've got us beaten," Patsy said heatedly. "I'd rather be trying to flatten them. Even if we lose a few cities."

  Ken nodded, though the thought brought a chill. Los Angeles? Behind him Marty said, "Ken, could I have a word with you?"

  They stepped inside, found chairs by feel. It was too dark to read expressions. Faint sounds from somewhere in the house might indicate that a couple had felt their way to a couch or a bedroom. Life goes on.

  Marty asked, "Were you serious about getting out?"

  "Sure, Marty, but there are problems. I don't own a piece of the Enclave."

  "Yeah. Well, I do, as long as the law holds up. Heh. After the law stops mattering is when a man needs something like the Enclave, and I'm short in my dues"

  "Well, they might—"

  "No, what I was thinking was John Fox. He's in—this isn't to get around—he's in Shoshone, just outside of Death Valley, camping out till this is all over. He knows what he's doing, Ken."

  "1 never knew you were much of a camper."

  "No. But Fox is, and he might be glad to see us if we showed up with food. Would you like to go with me?"

  Ken glanced through the picture window, automatically, before he answered. No fights going, nobody looked particularly unhappy; the Russian salad hadn't disappeared yet, though Bess Church's wheel of Cheddar cheese had gone like snow in a furnace. The host wasn't needed: good. He said, "Food and camp gear, sure. I don't have camp gear, and I bet it's in short supply. Anyway, suppose John isn't glad to see us? No way we could phone ahead."

  "Shoshone's still a good bett Why in God's name would even snouts bomb Shoshone? And John doesn't own those caves. We camp out nearby—"

  "No."

  "Then where?"

  "I mean no, I'm not leaving." Ken Dutton had made his decision before he understood the reasons. Now they were coming to him, in the sight and sounds of his crowded and happy territory. "Maybe I'm crazy. I'm going to stick it out here."

  "Yup, you're crazy. Thanks for dinner."

  Marty'd go, Ken realized. He hadn't done any of the cleaning up. He wasn't planning to come back.

  * * *

  Jenny woke to a tingling in her left arm, the one that had been under Jack. When she opened her eyes, she saw his.

  "Hello, sailor. New in town?"

  He grinned. "I like watching you."

  She extracted her arm to look at her watch. "Time we got to work."

  "We still have an hour." He moved closer to her. "Not that I can—"

  "It's all right. But I can't sleep."

  "So?"

  She sat up. "Let's watch the weirdos. We've got pickups in the Snout Room."

  "Sounds good."

  He stayed in bed, with the sheet over him. Fastidious. Likes to see me nekkid, but not to be seen. I'd say it was cowardice, but how can you say that about a guy who'll put his ass in from of a bullet for the President? Maybe his scars are classified . . .

  "Is this legal?" Jack asked.

  "Sure. I'm Intelligence. I can do anything!"

  "Yeh, as long as they don't replace the Supreme Court. Jenny, we've got to obey the rules, because we can get away with not obeying them."

  "It's all right. The writers know they're being watched. And Harpanet's a prisoner. No rights. Satisfied?"

  "Yeah—"

  "And there's nothing else to watch on my TV, I guarantee you that." She switched on the set.

  The picture swam into focus. An empty box of a room: no rugs, no furniture, no occupants; nothing but a movie screen and projector, and a broad doorway with edges of freshly cut concrete. "Wrong room," she said, and fiddled again. "We've already assigned three rooms in the complex, and God knows what they'll think they need next. Hem."

  The alien lolled at his ease in a sea of steaming mud. The humans around him were in beach chairs and swimsuits. Mud had splashed Sherry and Joe and Nat, who were crowded close to the edge. Wade Curtis stayed farther back, wearing an African safari bush jacket and seated in a fold-up chair with a beer can in his hand. Just above him was a huge globe of the Earth. A bar on wheels showed in one corner.

  "See? They took our swimming pool! We move the furniture out when nobody's using it. The alien likes his floor room," Jenny said. "How about a swim?'

  Jack eyed the mud with distaste. "No, thanks. Have you got all the rooms bugged?'

  "No. Hell, no! Half these hard-SF people are ex-military, and they'd spot that, and the other half are liberals! We've got pickups in the mudroom and the Snout Room and the refuge, that's the room they use to write up their notes and talk and get drunk, but it's right next to the Snout Room. The mud's new. He seems to like it, doesn't he?"

  "Can you get us sound too?"

  "Sure." Jenny turned a dial.

  Wade Curtis' unmistakable voice boomed from the speaker. "We've pretty well driven the Traveler Fithp out of Kansas. We're picking through the debris now. We'd like to know where the fithp will attack next."

  "I wasn't told," Harpanet said. His pronunciation was good, yet something blurred the words: loose air escaped through the nose and lips, and there was an echo-chamber effect, perhaps due to his huge lung capacity.

  Jack said, "He learns fast. I've talked to French diplomats with thicker accents." But Jenny was repressing a shudder. The carnage in the smashed digit ship was still with her, and she had trouble facing the Snout.

  Curtis was saying, "Your officers don't seem to tell you much of what you're doing."

  "No. A fi' learns little because he might be taken into the enemy herd. That has happened with me. I have told you this." The alien might have been affronted.

  "It is a new way of thinking, and hard for us," Sherry Atkinson said. "We must learn what we can." She slipped into the mud, quite unselfconsciously, and rubbed behind the alien's ear with both hands. She was already the muddiest of the lot, Jenny noted.
/>   Curtis asked, "Did your superiors show interest in any area besides Kansas?"

  "Kansas?"

  "The region you invaded, this area." Wade pointed. The erstwhile snout-held territory in Kansas was already circled on the great globe, with a black Magic Marker.

  "No such interest was shown in my presence."

  "What we're afraid of is a massive meteorite impact, something of asteroid size."

  The alien was silent for a time. Reynolds busied himself at the bar. Suddenly the alien said, "Thuktun Flishithy—Message Bearer?—was docked to a moonlet of the ringed planet for many years. This many." The alien's trunk emerged from the mud, and he flexed a clump of four digits, three times. "Pushing. We were not told why. I once heard officers call the mass chaytnf."

  "What does it mean?"

  "It means this part of a fi'." The alien rolled (and Sherry shied from a wave of mud). One broad clawed foot emerged.

  The sci-fi types all seemed to freeze in place; but Jenny didn't need their interpretation. Her hand closed painfully on Jack's arm. "My God. It's real. Of course, the Foot, they're planning to stomp us-"

  "They're talking too damn much."

  "Huh? The alien's talking a lot more than they are."

  The blurry voice from the TV set was saying, "It was not so large as many of the—asteroids—at the ringed planet. I think 8 to the 12th standard masses—"

  "Standard mass is your mass? About eight hundred pounds . . . Curtis took a pocket calculator out of his bush jacket. "Jesus! Twenty-seven billion tons!"

  Nat Reynolds said, "At . . . ten to twenty miles per second, that could—Harpanet, where are they going to drop it?"

  "I was never told that it would be impacted against Earth. If so, the Herdmaster may have sought more data, perhaps in Kansas."

  "Jesus, Jenny," Jack said, "they're telling too much. We have to see them. Now."

  * * *

  When a pretty girl enters a swimming pool, the natural thing to do is follow. Nat didn't follow at once. The pool was filled with thick mud, but he was already muddy, and there were showers he set his glass down, jumped in, and waded forward. Harpanet turned and sprayed Sherry with a jet of dark mud. Nat saw her startled and appalled before she threw up her arms and turned her back. Hell, Sherry was from Oklahoma; this was hardly fair! A California boy knows how to water-fight. Nat half cupped his hands and sent water jetting at the invader.