by Sandy Nathan
“Sam Baahuhd married a fed?” Jeremy sat back and guffawed. “That is so Sam!” The others tittered.
“I have to tell you guys something hysterical.” Jeremy pulled himself out of his laughing jag long enough to talk. “Remember the last night on Earth, when we were down in the underground and I threw out a bunch of ideas about how to run the shelter?” Jeremy looked around. “They made them into Commands, like they were in the Bible. And they live by them.”
“You’re kidding me!” “Those were bullshit!” “You were raving when you said all that.” “Nobody could keep those rules, they didn’t make sense.” The response was uproarious.
“Guess who’s God in this system? Me, the Great Tek!”
“They’ve never seen you have a screaming fit, Jeremy!”
“Maybe they have!”
Sam stiffened, flushing. They were laughing at what he held sacred.
“What are things like down there now, Sam?” It was Mel again.
“I took pictures inside the underground yesterday,” Jeremy said. “It’s worse than my worst-case scenario. The villagers have mutated into monsters.”
“Monsters?”
“Tell them about them, Sam.”
Sam couldn’t refuse a command from the Great Tek. “The Bigs come from the line of Sam from his wife Mollie. I’m a Little.”
“You’re a little? How big are they?” Mel asked incredulously.
“A little Big is this much bigger than me.” He held his hands apart about six inches. “A big Big is this much.” His hands were two feet apart. The people stared at him.
“How many Bigs are there?” Mel asked.
“When I was allowed in the hall, I counted,” he signaled twenty-four with his hands, “Bigs. And,” he signaled ten, “Big Bigs. That was ten winters ago. They could have many more children today. Bigs grow very fast. A Big of this many years,” he signaled ten, “is as big as him.” Sam pointed at Jeremy. They gasped.
“Kids that big?” Mel asked. “How can people grow that fast?”
“Not everyone grows, just the Bigs. They run everything, because they are so strong. They grow big very fast.” Sam hunched over, the way he did when the Bigs were around. This talk was forbidden. He hoped the others didn’t notice him cringing.
“What’s it like down there, Sam?” Mel said, his brows knitted in concern as he peered at Sam sharply. “I saw the shelter before it was closed up. It seemed like it was set up to support a decent way of life. How did that change? I mean the Bigs can be big, but why should they be bad? What goes on down there?”
Sam struggled to explain life in the shelter. “I don’t know how it changed, just that it did. Everything is dark now, except where the Bigs allow light. We can’t count days and nights in the dark. Not knowing if it is day or night, or summer or winter, makes people more frightened. They don’t ask questions if the Bigs come. They don’t talk.
“Before the Bigs took over, we could look up at the windows in the ceiling when we were working in the fields. In winter, snow fell and we could see frost around the glass. The days were short. The crops didn’t grow as much. Winter to winter measured a year. I marked the years on a wall. When the Bigs took over and made things dark, I still got to go to the fields to work. I was the strongest one. So I could keep track of the years.
“The Bigs always ran the underground, but the others, like me, had some say. Two winters ago, the Bigs took over everything. Before that, men who were not Bigs could have children. Their babies lived in the nursery with their mothers for a time; after that, a mama stayed with them. The mothers worked or went to the pit.
“When the Bigs put all the women in the pit, they were supposed to have babies in the nursery, but they didn’t. They had them in the hall and raised them there. I know, because I became the mama in the nursery. I took care of the babies. Not many babies came to me after the Bigs took over.
“I kept the children safe.” Sam could hardly go on, but he needed to. They had to rescue his people, the ones he’d saved. “The Bigs take the ones with the disease and the Big babies. I kept the others safe.”
No one said anything. Sam didn’t know what that meant.
“You’re not the same bloodlines as the Bigs?” Mel asked.
“I am Sam and Emily, with some Arthur. I am straight from Sam Baahuhd’s son Chad from his second wife, Sally. That was from the old days before we went underground, when he had four wives. And I’m from Sam Baahuhd’s daughter Shira from Emily. I have no Mollie in me. I am the last like me.”
“Like you?”
Sam looked down. “The last who can stand and talk and think. Many of my people …” His face worked as he attempted to say it. “Many have no,” he indicated his arms and legs. “Some cannot see or talk.” He looked down.
“How many are like that, Sam? And how many of your people are there, aside from the Bigs?” Mel’s voice was gentle.
“I don’t know. The women are in the pit, but they die or disappear. Maybe this many, once.” He opened and closed his hands three times. “But t’was long ago.”
“The others, who can’t walk and so on?”
Sam opened and closed his hands again, indicating fourteen people.
Mel sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Thirty-four Bigs, maybe thirty women, fourteen handicapped people, and Sam. That’s seventy-nine people.”
Sam looked ragged, like every word had taken something from him. “I don’t know for sure.”
“Do you know how old you are?”
“I know how many years I have. My mama counted the years when I was little, then I counted after. I am,” he held his spread fingers up, opening and closing his hands twice and ending with nine fingers open. “I carved marks on the wall. One mark for every winter. I follow the Commands. I can read some. I was learning to do numbers, but they took away the lights.”
“You’re twenty-nine years old, son,” Henry said, “I’d be happy to teach you numbers as far as I go. And you’ve got a numbers expert here in Jeremy.”
“Sure, I’ll teach you what I know—and Mel was my history teacher. He knows everything.”
Mel laughed. “Not everything, Sam, but I’d be glad to tutor you.”
Sam could barely breathe. He’d told them almost everything. Everything but what he dare not share. They would hate him if they knew that. She would hate him.
“Who takes care of the disabled people?” Lena asked.
“I do.” Sam was shaking. “The Bigs wanted to have sport with them and kill them, but I hid them. I take them food. We have tunnels and secret places that the Bigs don’t know. The diggers made them—I am a digger. Sam Baahuhd was the first digger. I hid the children, too.”
“Children?”
“The children of the lines of Arthur and Winnie and Sam but not Mollie. The Bigs kill them. I took them from the nursery and hid them in a secret place. I fed them.” He could hardly breathe.
“How many of them are there, Sam?” Lena asked.
“Eleven children. Good children. They will die with me gone.”
Ellie held her hands to her cheeks, silver eyes wide and gleaming. She grabbed at Jeremy. He pulled her close and shot Sam a dirty look.
“Help babies, Jeremy,” she whispered. “Help them.”
“Sweetie, don’t worry. We’ll get it fixed.” He turned to his mother. “Mom, Ellie and I are going to sleep in the container tonight. She’s had a hard time.”
“Certainly, dear. Just put Sam’s and my things outside the door.”
Jeremy carried Ellie to the container, shooting Sam another look. Sam was shaken by it, but the conversation continued after Ellie and Jeremy left.
“Do you want us to help save your people, son?” Henry asked.
“Yes! But I dinna know how many can live out here. It’s hard for me. Those who canna walk or talk … The children could live here. They should be saved.”
“And the Bigs?”
“They should all be killed. If they come here, they will
kill the men and take the women.”
“What about the women in the shelter?”
Sam looked down again. “They’re in the pit. Some are crazy, and some have become like the Bigs. They like to hurt and torture the weak ones. All the women have the smell.”
“The smell?”
“Yes, between the legs. They are sick. And they are bad, too.”
The group looked at each other.
“We need to take a good look at those pictures tomorrow,” Mel said.
“You’re right,” Henry agreed. “First thing in the morning.”
James had been very quiet. “We just got out of someplace bad. This sounds a thousand times worse. What can we possibly do? I think we should …” He made a hopeless gesture. “We should forget the whole thing. It’s not our problem.”
“It is our problem, James. You should have seen Sam when we found him. In addition to being emaciated and covered with funguses, they put an eye in his belly. Like those we had in the ceilings before the war so the government could spy on us. Russian techs developed a portable form that was surgically inserted under the carrier’s skin. It was used for surveillance or as a bomb. They almost always kill the carrier.” Veronica turned to Sam. “Why did they put that thing in you? Why did they throw you out the canary hole?” she asked softly.
Sam’s voice dropped to a murmur. “I am a digger.” He spoke as though the others should know what that meant, as though it was a badge of distinction. “We are kept in different rooms so we cannot talk. I make tunnels to go from one room to another. I bring messages and food. I hide things. They caught me. The first time, they didn’t kill me.” His body trembled. “When they caught me again, they took my sister. The last time, they put the eye on me.”
“They killed your sister?” Henry gasped.
“After they were done,” he said, looking down. “I didn’t stop digging, so they put the eye on me to see where I was going. If I stopped, they hurt me to make me go. I was going to die, so they put me out the hole.”
The people around the circle stared at him.
“OK, everyone,” Henry broke the silence. “We just got a reality check on our neighbors. We’ve had a short honeymoon back on Earth. Tomorrow, we’ll begin to deal with it. Right now, though, I want something that I haven’t had for a very long time. Veronica, did the general put any of that good Russian vodka in his things?”
“He certainly did, Henry. I wouldn’t mind a bit myself.” She got up and went to the storage unit, returning with a bottle of clear liquid and some glasses. “See, only the best.” She held the bottle out so they could see the imperial crest. “The Tsar’s own.”
Henry stood up to help her pour. “Anyone? Did what Sam had to say give anyone a thirst?” The others raised their hands.
“Me, too!”
“Me, three.”
Sam sat, jaws clenched, hands curled into fists. He couldn’t believe what they were going to do. As the lady began to pour, he shot to his feet, grabbed the bottle and threw it over the edge of the cliff. He heard it shatter on the rocks below.
“It is against the Commands!” He turned to them. “Ye don’ understand!
“I keep the Commands. Without the Commands, I would be the same as the Bigs!” he shouted, anguished.
He ran to the farthest corner of the cave and slid down the wall. He sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, shivering.
They would come for him now and beat him. Or perhaps throw him off the cliff. He could hear them talking about him.
“Sam, I want to apologize to you,” Henry was the only one who approached him. “I’ve never been a slave, but my people have. I know in my bones what it’s like to have no rights, to have the man beat you or rape you or do anything he wants to you, any time. We disrespected something that means everything to you—the Commands and your beliefs. The United States Constitution gave everyone freedom of religion, but we didn’t allow you that back at that campfire. We won’t do that again. You have my friendship, Sam.”
Henry bent down and embraced him. Sam watched him go to where he and Lena were sleeping. What had happened was more shocking than if Henry had taken a stick to him.
Everyone had walked away from the fire, going to separate sleeping places. Panic overtook Sam. His people lived in the darkness in tiny rooms. They touched each other. They couldn’t see, so they oriented themselves with touch. Touch kept them from going crazy. Touch became sight.
His skin cried out for contact. They would have touched him underground, because they knew how hard talking about what he had was. All of it was punishable with death.
If he could have slept with her, it would have been all right. They’d slept together the nights before. But she had gone. He picked up his pad and looked for a place to spend the night.
Veronica remembered Sam’s earnest face over the campfire. Jeremy had sat near Sam. They looked like they were about the same age. What had she been thinking?
She thrashed in her bed, unable to get comfortable. If she missed Sam’s warm strength of the night before, tough. The aching inside would subside and the longing would go away. She was in control.
Her mantra went around in her mind, not quite obscuring the image of his beautiful face.
15
Sam’s face felt wooden and his eyes ached. He’d spent the night exploring the cave and ancient dwellings. Night was his time; he could see very well in the dark, and he could feel and sense better than that. He knew their entire domain by the morning, moving past sleeping bodies without being detected.
He paused at her spot. She didn’t sleep, either. She had chosen a shallow cave in the back of the main cavern for her sleeping place. It wasn’t a good place—it gave no privacy or protection. He stood by it and listened, then moved past. She didn’t know that he had heard her weeping.
The cave had many smaller grottos carved into the rear walls. Some were smoothly sculpted. He didn’t know how to explain them; they were unlike the underground with its angular surfaces of poured concrete or the dirt burrows made by diggers.
The walls of the smaller caves were smooth and hard, made so by wind and rain, not people. He had little experience of natural forces. Sam had heard rain on the glass above the solar growing fields and seen it roll down the panes. He hadn’t felt wind until he was outside. He still hadn’t felt rain. Touching the walls soothed him.
People had carved some grottos deeper into the cliff. He could tell by the angular cuts and straight surfaces. Diggers had once lived here. Something rattled when he entered one alcove. He backed out.
Close to dawn, he found a series of joined caves on the side closest to where the sun had gone down, away from the others. A large chamber merged with the main cave. It had several smaller rooms in back where a person or two could sleep. He put his bedding in the largest of the spaces, claiming the entire cluster as his own. He had never known better quarters or so much room. It was a place where a man could have a family.
Sam had spent the dregs of the night touching the stone walls of his new abode. He took off his clothes and rubbed every bit of his skin on the rock. Shoulders, arms, back. All of himself. Then he rolled into a ball on the floor. Sleep claimed him for an hour.
When he came out of his cave onto the ledge, the lady was standing in front of the first container, talking to Jeremy and Ellie. He couldn’t hear their voices, but they stood close together. They didn’t smile. Jeremy put his arm around Ellie and drew her toward the adobe houses. The lady whirled and headed toward the edge of the ledge. His eyes followed her, but he was afraid to approach her. She looked furious.
“Well, are you ready, Sam?” Henry’s voice startled him. The others were standing in a huddle where the fire had been the night before. Henry had approached from that direction. “Today’s the day we go through the container and see what we’re going to wear for the rest of our lives.”
Sam turned to look for the lady. She had stormed as far away as she could. She stood with her back
to them, hands clenched.
16
Damn! Damn! Damn! How could they think of doing that to that lovely girl? Jeremy had told her the goldies’ plans for Eliana and the human men.
Is there anywhere in the universe where women aren’t targets of abuse? she thought. She felt like opening the munitions container and blasting everything she saw. But that wouldn’t be enough. Her chest rose and fell. Girls were always the target. Pretty girls.
Forcing herself to breathe deeply, Veronica managed to control her rage enough to see the sparkling scene spreading out below her. The golden meadow, curving river, wide-open oak savannah, and the thick forest to the east. Far away, she could see the depression in the trees that indicated the ocean was beyond.
Look at it, Veronica, she thought. What do you see?
A brittle snort escaped her. Once, her family’s estate had covered half the basin. The mansion had been right over there, out of sight in the trees. Fifty thousand square feet under one roof. If that wasn’t enough, she had her other ranches and homes. And factories, plants, and facilities around the globe.
All of it was gone.
She’d had her ownership records copied and carried them with her on a cylinder, hoping that she’d be able to claim what was hers, one day. Another choked snort escaped. Where? How? No legal system existed. No laws, government. No place to record ownership.
Hilarity swept her. She’d forgotten something: She was bankrupt. She’d mortgaged everything she had to fund bomb shelters for people all over the world.
As it turned out, only the shelter on the estate survived. The mega-shelter created with federal funds, the general’s money, and her own. And look what happened there. Mutants and monsters. She choked back biting laughter.
She laughed so hard that tears came. It was just so funny … Her hands went to her face. She felt like someone had cast it in plaster. She hadn’t slept at all the night before.
Suck it up, Edgarton! Kick it! Fight it! Her spine yanked her erect. Fight or you’ll die. She heard a noise behind her. They were all waiting, thinking the container could be unpacked like a suitcase. Idiots. Kick it, Edgarton. Move it.