by Larry Niven
Harvey said nothing. Mark, behind him, shook his head slowly. His eyes met Marie’s. She nodded.
Harvey Randall turned away. He stood in the rain, saying nothing, looking at nothing.
“Leave the Caddy and get in the TravelAII,” Mark said.
“No.” Marie tried to smile. “Please, can’t you wait until I get some clothes? Harvey—”
“He’s not making decisions just now,” Mark said. “Look, there’ll be clothes. Not much food, but plenty of clothes.”
“I have perfectly good outdoor equipment at home.” Marie was firm. She knew how to talk to employees, Gordie’s or Harvey’s. “And boots that fit. I am very hard to fit. You can’t tell me that ten minutes will make that much difference.”
“It’ll take longer than ten minutes, and we don’t have any time at all,” Mark said.
“It certainly will take longer if we stand here talking about it.” Marie started the car. She began moving forward, slowly. “Please wait for me,” she said, and drove away, south.
“Jesus,” Mark said. “Harv? What…?” He let his question stay unfinished. Harvey Randall wasn’t making decisions just now. “Get in the goddam car, Harv!” Mark ordered.
The bark in Mark’s voice moved Harvey toward the TravelAII. He started to get into the driver’s seat. Mark growled, “Joanna, take the bike. I’ll drive.”
“Where… ?”
“Back to Harvey’s place. I guess. Hell, I don’t know what we ought to do. Maybe we ought to just go on.”
“We can’t leave her,” Joanna said firmly. She got out and took the bike. Mark shrugged and climbed into the TravelAII. He managed to turn in a drive and started back the way they’d come, cursing all the way.
When they reached the cul-de-sac, Marie Vance was sitting on her front porch. She wore trousers of an expensive artificial fabric. They were cut in a rugged square pattern and looked very durable. She wore a cotton blouse and a wool Pendleton shirt over it. She was lacing medium-height hiking boots over wool socks. A blanket lay beside her. The blanket was lumpy.
Joanna braked the motorcycle on the lawn. Mark got out and joined her. He stared at Marie, then back at Joanna. “Goddam, that’s the quickest change I’ve ever seen. She could be useful.”
“Depends on for what,” Marie said evenly. “Who are you two, and what’s wrong with Harvey?” She went on lacing her boots.
“His wife was killed. Same outfit that broke into your place,” Mark said. “Listen, where were you going in that Caddy? Is your husband with Andy Randall?”
“Yes, of course,” Marie said. “Andy and Burt are up there. With Gordie.” She tied the boot and stood. “Poor Loretta. She — oh, damn it. Will you tell me your names?”
“Mark. This is Joanna. I worked for Harv—”
“Yes,” Marie said. She’d heard about Mark. “Hello. You’re staying with Harvey, then?”
“Sure—”
“Then let’s go. Please put this bundle in the car. I’ll be right out.”
Hard as fucking nails, Mark thought. Coldest bitch I ever saw. He took the blanket. It was lumpy with clothing and other objects. Marie came out with a plastic travel bag, the kind used to hang clothes when carried on board an airplane. There wasn’t a lot of room in the back of the TravelAII, but she was careful about how she laid it, smoothing out wrinkles.
“What’s all that?” Mark demanded.
“Things I’ll need. I’m ready now.”
“Can you drive Harv’s buggy?”
“On roads,” Marie said. “I’ve never tried to drive except on roads. But I can handle a stick shift.”
“Good. You drive. It’s too big for Joanna.”
“I can manage.”
“Sure, Jo, but you don’t have to,” Mark said. “Let Miz-”
“Marie.”
“Let Miz Marie-”
She laughed. Hard. “It’s just Marie. And I’ll drive. Do you have maps? I don’t have a good map. I know the boys are up near the southern edge of Sequoia National Park, but I’m not sure how to get there.” Dressed in trousers and wool shirt, thin nylon jacket she’d brought from the house, hiking boots, she looked smaller than Mark remembered, and somehow less competent. Mark had no time to wonder why.
She’ll have to do, Mark thought. “I’ll lead on the bike. Joanna will ride shotgun in the car. I think we ought to put Harv in the back seat. Maybe if he gets some sleep his brain will turn on again. Christ, I never saw a guy go to pieces like that before. It’s like he killed her himself.” Mark saw Marie’s eyes widen slightly. To hell with that, he thought. He went to the bike and kicked it into life.
They went back out, turned north again. The road was deserted. Mark wondered where to go now. He could ask Harv, but would he get the right answer, and how would he know if he did? Why the hell is he so broke up about it, Mark wondered. She wasn’t much wife anyway. Never went anywhere with Harv. Good-looker, but not much of a companion. Why get so broke up? If Mark had to bury Joanna he’d hate it, but it wouldn’t break him apart. He’d still function, and he’d turn a glass over for her next time he had a drink — and Harv had always been tough.
Mark glanced at his watch. Getting late. Time to move fast, through what was left of Burbank and the San Fernando Valley. How? If the freeways weren’t down they’d be packed with cars. No good. He thought of routes, and wished Harvey’s head was working again, but it wasn’t and it was up to Mark to lead. When he reached Mulholland he turned left.
The horn sounded behind him. Marie had stopped at the intersection. “This isn’t the way!” she shouted.
“Sure it is. Come on!”
“No.”
God damn it. Mark drove back to the TravelAII. Marie and Joanna sat tensely in the front seat. The shotgun was poised in Joanna’s hands, pointing upward; Marie sat with one arm carelessly near the gun. She was a lot bigger than Joanna.
“What is this?” Mark demanded.
“The boys. We are going to find our boys,” Marie said. “And they are east of us, not west.”
“Hell, I know that,” Mark shouted. “This is the best way. Stay on high ground. We get across the valley on Topanga, stay along the Santa Susanna hills and go up through the canyons. That keeps us off the freeways and out of the passes where everybody else will be.”
Marie frowned, trying to imagine a map of the L.A. basin. Then she nodded. That route would take them to Sequoia She started the car moving again.
Mark roared on ahead. As he drove he muttered to himself. Frank Stoner had said the Mojave was the place to be. Stoner knew everything. It was good enough for Mark. It was a place to go, and once there they could figure out what to do next. It was a destination.
But Harv would want to get his kid out. And that Vance woman wanted hers. Funny she barely mentioned her husband. Maybe they didn’t get along. Mark remembered Marie as he’d first seen her. Class. Lots of it. That might be interesting stuff.
They drove on through the rain, across the backbone of Los Angeles, and the rain kept them from seeing the destruction in the valleys to either side. The roads were clear of traffic, and the TravelAII got over the rapidly building piles of mud wherever the road dipped below the ridgeline. They were making miles, and Mark was pleased.
Randall dozed and woke, dozed and woke. The car seat jolted and tilted and jerked. Thunder and rain roared in his ears. His own ghastly memories kept pulling him almost awake. When lightning flashed he saw it again, his strobelit living room, crystal and silver intact, dog and wife dead on the Kashdan rug… When voices came he thought he was hearing his own thoughts:
“Yes, they were very close… she was completely dependent on him…”
The voices faded in and out. Once he was aware that the car had stopped, and there were three voices speaking in a tangle, but they might have been inside his head too.
“Wife is dead… wasn’t there… yes, she said she was going to ask him to stay home… lost his house and his job and everything he owned… not just
his job, but whole profession. There won’t be any more television documentaries for a thousand years. Jesus, Mark, you’d be a basket case too.”
“I know, but… didn’t expect… curl up and die.”
Curl up and die, Randall thought. Yeah. He curled tighter in the car seat. The car began moving again and it jolted him. He whimpered.
Tuesday Afternoon
Unhappily where matters as basic as territorial defense are concerned, our higher brain centers are all too susceptible to the urgings of our lower ones. Intellectual control can help us just so far, but no further. In the last resort it is unreliable, and a single, unreasoned, emotional act can undo all the good it has achieved.
Desmond Morris, The Naked Ape
For two hours the Earth had turned, while Hammerlab made one circle and a fraction more. Europe and West Africa had moved from sunset to night.
Perhaps they were all afraid to speak. Rick knew he was. If he spoke, what would come out? Johnny’s ex-wife and children had not been in Texas. Rick hated him for it: a shameful secret. He watched the turning Earth in silence.
It was hot in Hammerlab. Sweat didn’t run in free fall; it stayed where it formed. When Rick remembered he mopped it away with the soggy cloth clutched in his left hand. When tears formed they covered the eyes like thickening lenses. Blinking only distorted the lenses. They had to be mopped away; and then he saw.
Orange holes glowed on the dark Earth, like cigarettes poked through the back of a map. Hard to tell where each glowing spot was. City lights had disappeared across Europe, covered by clouds, or simply gone. Sea looked like land. Rick had watched land become sea in places: down the American East Coast, and across Florida, and deep into Texas. Texas. Could an Army helicopter move faster than a wall of water? But the winds! No, she was dead…
But he’d seen the strikes in daylight, and Rick remembered. The glow in the Mediterranean had died away. The smaller Baltic strike had been quenched almost immediately.
Much bigger strikes in the mid-Atlantic still showed. You saw only a diffuse pearly glow until Hammerlab was right above one. Then you looked down into’ the clear center of the tremendous hurricane: down through a clear pillar of live steam, into an orange-white glare. Three of these, and they were much smaller now. The sea was returning.
Four small bright craters scattered across the Sudan, and three in Europe, and a much larger one near Moscow, still shed their orange-white light back to space.
Johnny Baker sighed and thrust himself back from the window. He cleared his throat and said, “All right. We have things to discuss.”
They looked at him as if he had interrupted a eulogy. Johnny went doggedly on. “We can’t use the Apollo. That big Pacific strike was practically on our recovery fleet. The Apollo’s built for sea landings, and the sea… all the oceans… hell…”
“You must beg a ride home,” Pieter Jakov said, nodding. “Yes. We have room. Accept our hospitality.”
Leonilla Malik said, “We have no home. Where shall we go?”
“Moskva is not all of the Soviet Union,” Pieter said gently, reprovingly.
“Isn’t it?”
Rick was giving him no help. He was framed in the window, and Johnny saw only his back. “Glaciers,” Johnny said. Yes, he had their attention. “There was a strike above Russia, in the… ?”
“Ikara Sea. We did not see it. It would have been too far north. We only infer it from the way the clouds swept down.”
“The clouds swept down, right. That had to be an ocean strike. The clouds will keep coming down across Russia till the crater on the seabed is quenched. They’ll dump tens of millions of tons of snow all across the continent. White clouds and white snow. Any sunlight that falls will be reflected back to space for the next couple of hundred years. I…” Johnny’s face twisted. “God knows I hate to ruin your day, but those glaciers are going to sweep right down to China. I really think we ought to head for some place warm.”
Pieter Jakov’s face was cold. He said, “Perhaps Texas?”
Rick’s back flinched. Johnny said, “Thanks a whole lot.”
“My family was in Moskva. They die by fire and the blast. Your family dies by water. You see, I know how you feel. But the Soviet Union has survived disasters before, and glaciers move slowly.”
“Revolution moves quickly,” Leonilla said.
“Eh?”
Leonilla spoke in rapid Russian. Pieter answered in kind.
Johnny spoke low-voiced to Rick. “Let them talk it over. Hell, it’s their rocket ship. Listen, Rick, they could have got a helicopter there in time. Rick?” Rick wasn’t listening. Finally Johnny looked where Rick was looking, down toward the dark mass of Asia…
Presently Leonilla switched to English. Almost briskly almost cheerfully, she said, “Glaciers move slowly, but revolutions move quickly. Most Party members, and everyone in the government, were Great Russians like me, like Pieter. Well, too much of Great Russia was under the strike. What will be happening now, as the Ukrainians, the Georgians, all the subject people, realize that Moscow no longer holds their lives? I have tried to convince Comrade General Jakov… What are you staring at?”
Rick Delanty turned to her, and she shied back. Facial expressions differ among races and cultures, but she knew murderous hate when she saw it. A moment later Rick moved; but only to give her room at the viewport.
There were dozens of tiny sparks above the black cloud cover of Hammerfall. More were coming through. A field of tiny rising sparks, fireflies in formation…
Leonilla lost her handhold. She drifted back across the width of Hammerlab, held by the hate in Rick’s eyes, unable to look away. Pieter saw that look and braced himself, one hand gripping hard to moor himself, the other fist clenched and ready, braced himself to defend the woman from a threat he didn’t understand.
And Johnny Baker dived in a clean arc across to the communications panel. He turned frequency dials in carefully controlled haste, pushed buttons, and spoke. “LOOKING GLASS, THIS IS WHITE BIRD; LOOKING GLASS LOOKING GLASS, THIS IS WHITE BIRD. SOVIET UNION HAS LAUNCHED MASSIVE ICBM FORCE, I SAY AGAIN, SOVIET ROCKETS ARE RISING. CONFIRMED OBSERVATION. Goddammit, the bastards are launching everything they’ve got! Five hundred birds, maybe more!”
Pieter Jakov reached the console. He pulled frantically at circuit breakers. The indicator lights on the panel went out. Baker and Jakov faced each other.
“Delanty!”
“Sir.” Rick launched himself toward Jakov. Even as his body moved across the capsule, Leonilla was shouting in Russian. Then Rick had Jakov — but the Russian had gone passive. His face was a mask of hatred to match Rick’s.
“Send your warning,” he said. “You will tell them nothing they do not know.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Rick Delanty shouted.
“Look,” Pieter said.
Leonilla’s voice was strangely flat. “There is another flare above Moscow. A new one.”
“Eh?” Johnny Baker looked from the Russian general to the woman, finally let himself drift toward the viewport. He knew already. He knew what it would look like, and he saw it at once. At the edge of the red-orange glare that marked Moscow, a tiny vivid mushroom bloomed in red and violet-white.
“Late strike.” The lie was thick on his tongue, for HamnerBrown was two hours past and his eyes were already searching for the others. He found two small mushroom-shaped clouds and a tiny sun that blossomed as he watched. “Jesus,” he said, “the whole world’s gone crazy.”
“Gilding the lily,” Rick Delanty said. “Not enough to get hit by a comet. Some son of a bitch pushed the button. Aw, shit.”
All four now watched the scene below: the rising fireflies of Soviet rockets, and the sudden blue-white glares across what had been European Russia. Whatever industry might have survived the comet was…
Madness, Johnny Baker thought. Why, why, WHY?
“I don’t think we’ll be welcome down there,” Rick Delanty said. His voice was strange
ly calm, and Johnny wondered if Rick had gone crazy too. He couldn’t look at Leonilla.
Finally Rick snarled deep in his throat. Just a sound. It had no meaning and was directed at no one. Then he turned and kicked himself away from them all, down the length of Hammerlab. Jakov was at the other end, near the airlock to the Soyuz, and Johnny Baker had the insane thought that the Russian was going for a concealed weapon.
That’s what we need. A pistol fight in orbit. Why not?
Madness and revenge were fine old traditions where Jakov came from.
“That’s that,” Johnny said quietly. “It would have been nice to stick together. The last of the astronauts. But I guess not. Rick?”
Rick was down at the Apollo airlock, and he was cursing, quietly, but loud enough that they could hear.
Johnny turned back to watch Jakov. The Russian made no move to open the airlock to the Soyuz. He hung in space, poised as if ready to do something, but he didn’t move at all. He was staring down at the stricken Earth below.
Rick’s bellow echoed the length of the cabin. “Shit!” Then, “Sir. The Apollo’s in vacuum. Shall I close up my hat and go see if the heat shield’s damaged?”
“Don’t bother. Shit!” A hole anywhere in the Apollo would kill them during reentry. They were back to one spacecraft. Johnny turned back to Pieter Jakov, who was still watching through the viewport.
A blow to the back of General Jakov’s neck, right now, before he expects it. Or go back to Russia. As prisoners of war? Hardly. Johnny Baker remembered scenes from the Gulag Archipelago. His hand arched to strike. Rick could handle Leonilla, and they’d have…
He thought it, but he did nothing. And Pieter Jakov turned toward them all and said, carefully, “They’re moving east. East.”
They stared at each other, Baker and Jakov, for a moment that stretched endlessly, then both dived frantically toward the communication panel.
“Roger, Looking Glass, White Bird out,” Johnny Baker said.
“You got through?” Rick demanded.
“Yeah. At least somebody acknowledged.” Johnny Baker looked down at the roiling mess below. “I think God hears us pretty well up here. I don’t see any other way we could have got a message through that.”