by Larry Niven
Harvey started to say that of course he did, but then he thought better of it. If a horse and rider could climb that mountain in the dark, Alice and her stallion could. But it didn’t seem right, to send young girls out into the snow and dark. Wasn’t that what civilization was all about, to protect Alice Cox?
“Meanwhile,” Hardy continued, “we called in some reserves. Just in case. They’re loading up your TravelAII.”
“But… what do you think Deke was saying?” Harvey asked.
“Hard to say.” Jellison sounded tired. He looked as exhausted as Forrester, and had the same gray color. His voice was grim. “You know the New Brotherhood tried an attack on the power plant this afternoon.”
“No.” Harvey felt relief. The power plant was over fifty miles away. The New Brotherhood was there, not here. They’d be fighting Baker. Relief, then guilt, and he shrugged off the guilt because it was the last thing he needed now. “What’s happening?”
“They were in boats,” Al Hardy said. “They sent in a surrender demand, and when Mayor Allen told them to go to hell—”
“What? Wait! Mayor Allen?”
Hardy showed his irritation at the interruption. “Mayor Bentley Allen is in charge at the San Joaquin Nuclear Plant, and no, I don’t know the details. The point is, Randall, that the New Brotherhood only had about two hundred people for the attack on the power plant. It was not much of an attack, and it did not succeed, and they did not renew it.”
Harvey looked over at Maureen. She was gathering up the Thermos and some honey and brown sugar in a briefcase. She’d known about the fight at the power plant, and she didn’t look as if she’d lost anyone there. He asked, “Casualties?”
“Light. One killed, of the Mayor’s police. Three wounded, don’t know how bad. None of them were from our relief force,” Hardy said.
“Hm. Good news from all over. I knew Bentley Allen,” Harvey said. “I know he was on duty in central L.A. at Hammerfall. He’s some kind of man, to get out of that! Funny, though, how we always assume anyone who isn’t at the Stronghold must be dead.”
Al, Maureen, the Senator They watched him thoughtfully, seriously. “Not so funny as all that,” he said. “All right, so two hundred New Brotherhood attacked the power plant. That means… What does it mean?” Harvey followed the thought to a conclusion he didn’t like. “They thought the power plant would be easy. They sent their main strength somewhere else. Here? Sure, here. Before we can get ready.”
Hardy nodded. His lips pulled tight in a thin line, not a grin, a gesture of self-disgust. “Dammit, we did the best we could.”
“I was in charge,” Jellison said.
“Yes, sir, but I should have thought of it. But we were so busy trying to organize for the winter. We never had time to think about defense.”
“Hell, we’ve got defenses,” Harvey said. “You couldn’t expect a whole damned army to show up in the San Joaquin Valley.”
“Why couldn’t I?” Hardy demanded. “I should have. The point is, I didn’t, and now we all have to pay for my mistakes.”
“Look,” Harvey said. “If you hadn’t got us all working on food, there’d be nothing here to fight for. You don’t have to—”
The CB set beside Eileen came alive. Alice Cox’s voice came through clearly, high-pitched, young and afraid, but every word intelligible. “Senator, this is Alice.”
“Go ahead, Alice,” Eileen said into the mike.
“Mr. Wilson reports they are under heavy attack,” Alice Cox said. “There are a lot of them. Hundreds. Mr. Wilson says over five hundred. Mr. Wilson says he can’t hold them. He’s sending his people out now, and he wants instructions.”
“Holy shit,” Harvey Randall said.
“Tell her we’ll have orders for them in five minutes,” Senator Jellison said.
Eileen nodded. “Alice, can they wait five minutes?”
“I think so. I’ll tell Mr. Wilson.”
“You don’t sound surprised,” Harvey said. “You knew already.”
Al Hardy turned away. Senator Jellison spoke carefully. “Surprised? No. I had hoped the New Brotherhood would wait until their deadline ran out, but I am not surprised that they did not.”
“So what do we do now?” Harvey asked.
Al Hardy bent down to the maps. “We’ve been doing it since we got their ultimatum. I’ve had everybody we could spare from Forrester’s work digging in up on these ridges.” He pointed to penciled lines on the map. “Chief Hartman and his people have been working up there two days straight. George Christopher isn’t due back for three days. We hope he’ll have reinforcements, but we can’t count on it. Hartman’s people are exhausted and they are nowhere near through digging in. I gather that Forrester’s superweapons are not complete.”
“No. He expected another week,” Harvey said.
“Which we don’t have,” Jellison muttered.
Al Hardy nodded. “Harvey, you’ve been working all day, but not outside digging the way Hartman’s people have been. And someone must go buy us some time.”
Harvey had been expecting that. “You mean me.” He saw that Maureen had paused, briefcase full of sassafras and honey in her hand. She closed the door without going out and stood at the door looking back into the room. “It’s time I earned my keep,” Harvey said.
“That’s about the size of it,” Jellison said. He glanced at Maureen. “Was that stuff important?”
She nodded.
“You’ll get to talk to him before he goes. He’s got an hour or so,” Jellison said.
“Thank you.” She opened the door. “Be careful, Harvey. Please.” Then she was gone.
“I’ve got some troops for you,” Al Hardy said crisply. Now that the decision was made, he was all business again. Harvey thought he’d liked him better when he was sounding worried. “Not the best people we have. Kids, I’m afraid.”
“Expendables,” Harvey Randall said. He kept his voice flat.
“If need be,” Al Hardy said.
The worst of it, Harvey thought, is that it makes sense. You don’t put your best people out to buy time. You keep your best troops to dig in, and you send out what you can spare. Hardy can spare me! So can the Stronghold…
“We don’t expect miracles,” Senator Jellison said. “But it’s important.”
“Sure,” Harvey said.
“We want you to take the TravelAIl,” Hardy said. “We put your CB back into it. Take the TravelAII and a truckload of gear and go buy us some time. Days if you can, but hours anyway. As the Senator said, we don’t expect miracles. Deke’s people will make a fighting withdrawal. They’ll blow bridges and burn what they can on the way out. You go meet them. Take chain saws and dynamite and the winch on that TravelAll and make a mess out of the road.”
“Put them on foot,” Jellison said. “Get the New Brotherhood on foot. Ruin those roads. That buys us a day, maybe more, right there.”
“And how long do I stay out?” Harvey asked. He was having trouble with his breathing, and hiding it. You need time to psych yourself up, he thought; that, or zero time to get scared.
Jellison laughed. “I can’t order you to go sit there until they kill you. Maybe I would if I thought you’d do it… Never mind. Just let Deke’s people get past you, then come home — and take as long getting here as you can. Unless you’ve got a better idea?”
Harvey shook his head. He’d already tried to think of a better idea.
“You’ll do it?” Hardy barked the question, as if trying to catch Harvey in a lie.
It was irritating as hell, and Harvey barked back. “Yah.”
“Good man,” Hardy said. “Eileen, have the message relayed to Deke. Operation Scorched Earth is on.”
Task Force Randall, a dozen boys, the oldest seventeen; two teen-age girls; Harvey Randall; and Marie Vance.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Harvey demanded.
She shrugged. “They don’t need a cook just now.” She was dressed for hiking: boots, h
at with earmuffs, and several layers of clothing topped by a jacket that was all pockets. She carried a scope-sighted rifle. “I’ve done some varmint hunting. I can drive. You know that.”
Harvey looked at the rest of his command and tried not to show dismay. He knew only a few of them. Tommy Tallifsen, seventeen, would be his other leader. He couldn’t imagine what Marie’s status would be. “Tommy, you drive the pickup.”
“Okay, Mr. Randall. Barbara Ann will come with me. If that’s all right.” He indicated a girl who didn’t look more than fifteen.
“It’s all right,” Harvey said. “Okay, everybody get in.” He went back up onto the porch. “Jesus, Al, they’re just kids.”
Hardy looked at him, mildly disappointed, mildly disgusted. You’re messing u p my patterns. Or, Don’t make waves. “They’re what we’ve got. Look, they’re farm kids. They know how to shoot, and most of them have worked with dynamite before. They know these hills pretty well, too. Don’t put them down.”
Harvey shook his head.
“And,” said Hardy, “they’ll die just as dead if the New Brotherhood breaks through. Marie too. You too. Me too. Hell, you’re not going out to fight!”
“Not with just four guns, we’re not.”
“These are the guns we can spare. These are the people we can spare. Just get out there and work. You’re wasting time.”
Harvey nodded and turned away. Maybe farm kids were different. It would he nice to believe… because he had seen too many city boys, older than these, in Vietnam; kids just out of training camp, who didn’t know how to fight, and they were scared all the time. Harvey had done a series on them, but it had never been cleared by the Army.
He told himself: We aren’t going out to fight. Maybe it will be all right. Maybe.
They stopped in town and loaded supplies into the truck, and onto the carrier on top of the TravelAIl. Dynamite. Chain saws. Gasoline. Picks and shovels. Fifty gallons of used crankcase oil, a bitch to move. When it was all loaded, Harvey let Marie drive. He sat in the second seat to let one of the local boys sit up front with the map. They drove down the highway, out of the valley.
Harvey tried to get the boys talking, to get to know them, but they didn’t volunteer much. They’d answer questions, politely, but they sat wrapped in their own thoughts. After a time Harvey leaned back in his seat and tried to rest. But that reminded him gruesomely of the last time Marie had driven the TravelAII, and he jerked upright.
They were leaving the valley. It made Harvey feel naked, vulnerable. He and Mark and Joanna and Marie had gone through too much getting there. He wondered what the boys thought. And the girl, Marylou, he couldn’t remember her last name. Her father was the town pharmacist, but she’d never been interested in the store. She seemed interested in the boy she sat with. Harvey remembered his name was Bill, and Bill and Marylou had both managed some kind of state scholarship to UC Santa Cruz. The others thought them odd, that they’d want to go so far away to college.
Marie drove up the ridge that led out of the valley. Harvey had never been here before. Up on top of the ridge were moving lights: Chief Hartman’s people digging in, still working at midnight despite the cold blowing wind. The roadblock below the ridge had only one guard huddled in the small shelter. They passed it and were out of the valley.
He saw it and felt it: They had entered the universal chaos left by Hammerfall. It was scary out here. Harvey held himself very still, so that he wouldn’t shout at Marie to turn the TravelAII and break for safety. He wondered if the others felt the same way. Better not to ask. Let us all feel that nobody else is scared. and that way nobody will run. They drove on in unnatural silence.
The road was washed out in places, but vehicles had made paths around the broken pavement. Harvey noted places where the road could easily be blocked; he pointed them out to the others in the car. He couldn’t see much through the intermittent sleet and the thick dark out there. The map showed they were in another valley, with a series of ridges to the south much lower than those surrounding the Stronghold.
This would be the battleground. Below lay a branch of the Tule River, the main line of defense for the Stronghold. Beyond was territory Hardy wouldn’t even attempt to hold. In a few days, perhaps only hours, the valley they were now driving through would be a killing ground, a place of battle.
Harvey tried to imagine it. Noise, incessant noise: the stutter of machine guns, a crackle of rifle fire, dynamite bombs, mortars; and through it all the screams of the wounded and dying. There wouldn’t be any helicopters and field hospitals here. In Vietnam the wounded were often in hospitals faster than they’d have been if they’d been civilians at home in an auto accident. Here they’d have to take their chances.
They? Not they. Me, Harvey thought. Who was it that said “A rational army would run away”? Somebody. But run to where?
The Sierra. Run to Gordie and Andy. Go find your son. A man’s duty is to his children… Stop it! Act like a man, he told himself.
Does acting like a man mean to sit calmly while they drive you where you’ll be killed?
Yes. Sometimes. This time. Think about something else. Maureen. Have I got a chance? That wasn’t a satisfying line of thought either. He wondered why he was so concerned about Maureen. He hardly knew her. They’d spent an afternoon together here, a lifetime ago, and then they’d made love; and three times since, furtively. Not much to build a life around. Was he interested in her because she was a promise of safety, power, influence? He didn’t think so, he was certain there was more, but objectively he couldn’t find reasons. Fidelity? Fidelity to the woman he’d had an adulterous relationship with; in a way a kind of fidelity to Loretta. That wasn’t getting him anywhere.
There were a few lights visible through the gloom; farmhouses in the battleground, places not abandoned yet. They weren’t Harvey’s concern. Their occupants were supposed to know already. They drove on in silence until they came to the south fork of the Tule River. They crossed it, and now there was no turning back. They were beyond the Stronghold’s defenses, beyond any help. Harvey felt the tension in the car, and felt strangely comforted by it. Everyone was afraid, but they weren’t saying it.
They turned south and went over a ridge to the valley beyond. The ground seemed even and smooth on both sides of the road. Harvey stopped and planted homemade mines: jars of nails and broken glass over dynamite and percussion caps; shotgun shells pointed upward and buried just above a board pierced by a nail.
Marie watched, puzzled. “How will you get them to walk out here?” she asked.
“That’s what the oil is for.” They wrestled the drum of crankcase oil to the side of the road. “We shoot holes in that when we get past. When the oil’s on the road, nobody can walk on it, drive on it, anything.”
The route beyond was ridge, valley, ridge, valley, with the road curving to cross low spots in the ridges. It was rippling landscape, a land with waves in it. Ten miles beyond the Stronghold they passed the first of Deke Wilson’s trucks. It was filled with women and children and wounded men, household possessions and supplies. There were baskets tied to the top and sides of the truck bed, filled with goods — pots and pans, useless furniture, precious food and fertilizer, priceless ammunition. The truck bed was covered by a tarpaulin, and more people were huddled under it, along with more goods. Bedding and blankets. A birdcage but no bird. Pathetic possessions, but everything these people had.
A few miles on there were more trucks, then two cars. The driver of the last didn’t know whether any others would get out. They crossed a broad stream and Harvey stopped and planted dynamite, leaving the fuses marked with rocks so that any of his party could find them to blow the bridge.
There was a faint tinge of gray-red in the east when they reached the top of the last ridge before the low rolling hills where Deke Wilson’s farm band lived. They approached it carefully, concerned that the New Brotherhood might have got past Deke’s people and come to secure the road, but no one challenged the
m. They stopped the TravelAII to listen. The infrequent popping of gunshots came from far away. “All right,” Harvey said. “Let’s get to work.”
They cut trees and built a maze on the road: a system of fallen trees that a truck could get through, but only slowly, by stopping to back up and turn carefully. They made dynamite bombs and put them at convenient places to throw down onto the road, then Harvey sent half his troops out to the sides, the others down the hill. They cut trees partway through so that they would fall easily. The others ranged out to both sides, and Harvey could hear the growl of the chain saws, and sometimes the sharp whump of half a stick of dynamite.
The gray became a red smear behind the High Sierra when the work parties returned. “A couple more trees cut and one charge set off, and that road’s blocked for hours,” Bill reported. “This won’t be so hard.”
“I think we should do it now,” someone said.
Bill looked around, then back at Randall. “Shouldn’t we wait for Mr. Wilson’s truck?”
“Yes, wait,” Marie said. “It would be awful if we stopped our own people from getting through.”
“Sure,” Harvey said. “The maze will stop the Brotherhood if they get here first. Let’s take a break.”
“The shooting is getting closer,” one of the boys said.
Harvey nodded. “I think so. Hard to tell.”
“It’s officially dawn,” Marie said. “Muslim definition. When you can tell a white thread from a black one. It’s in the Koran.” She listened for a moment. “There’s something coming. I hear a truck.”
Harvey took out a whistle and sounded it. He shouted to the boys nearest him to spread out and get off the road. They waited while the truck noises got louder and louder. It came around the bend and there was a screech of brakes as it stopped just short of the first tree. It was a large truck, still only an indistinct object in the gray light. “Who’s there?” Harvey shouted.
“Who are you?”
“Get out of the truck. Show yourself.”
Someone leaped out of the truck bed and stood on the road. “We’re Deke Wilson’s people,” he shouted. “Who’s there?”