“Bogie,” Carver said.
Ember looked. There was a figure where the girl had come from. Ember lifted her rifle and sighted through the scope. It was a woman standing there, lean but healthy. She lifted her arm in a wave, then turned away. In a moment she was gone.
The girl’s mother. The woman had seen Ember feed the child, the signal of acceptance. The woman herself could not be trusted, for hunger was stronger than civilization, but she was unlikely to be an enemy now. Her child not only would live, she would be well fed. That was not formal kinship, but there could be fair force in informal kinship.
They completed the burning, then went home. This pasture would be left fallow for a time, then reseeded with better stocks of algae. Cobblestone seemed to understand the way of the street, remaining close to Ember and not making a sound. She should get along. They saw no other people, and no animals. The famine had cleared the land most efficiently. Only hunters and farmers survived, and the hunters were diminishing because easy prey no longer existed. The second agricultural revolution was occurring, with the farmers gradually replacing the hunters.
At last Ember heard the cry of the baby. In a moment Crystal emerged from the birthing chamber. “A girl. Healthy. Daisy will name her Algae.”
“Of course.” Ember turned to the child she had adopted at the algae farm. “Cobblestone, that’s my great-granddaughter just born, who will be like a sister to you. Sisters may quarrel, but they never eat each other.” The child nodded gravely. “Now I will send a message.” She covered her immense relief for the safe birth by focusing on her writing pad.
Soon she had it: THE BABY IS BORN, THE FUNGUS MOTHERS WILL MEET THE ROACH FATHERS TOMORROW AT THE NEUTRAL ZONE. She gave it to the runner, who disappeared.
Then she went in to see the baby, taking Cobblestone along. Education in kinship was too important to set aside at an event like this.
Next morning they waited for the runner to verify that the neutral zone was clear. Then they set out: first Daisy Flower, carrying Algae; then Ember, leading Cobblestone. They wore their heavy, huge-brimmed hats and shoulder flares to protect them from the direct rays of the sun while showing their upper torsos, and the baby was under a small canopy. Their skirts flared also, showing their legs to the hips while similarly shading them. They wore tight vests and stockings, and wrist-length gloves and ankle-tight shoes, so that no portion of their flesh apart from their veiled faces actually showed, but its outlines were quite clear. All of them were female; that was important for this very special occasion.
From the other side two men were approaching. They wore flanged helmets, skintight suits, gloves, boots, and colored codpieces. Only their eyes showed above their cloth masks. Their outlines too were quite clear; there was no doubt about their gender. They were armed with swords, clubs, and knives, and loops of rope hung from their shoulders.
Daisy stepped under the broad roof of the unwalled neutral zone shelter first, formally taking possession. The lead man halted outside it. “May I join you, woman?” he inquired according to the ritual.
“Who are you, man?” Daisy responded.
“I am Oak Tree, of the Roach clan.”
“Will you take the oath of espousal?”
“I will.”
“I am Daisy Flower, and this is my daughter, Algae.”
“I make the oath of espousal, to make you my wife this day, until I leave this shelter.”
Daisy smiled with more than formal acceptance. “I accept your oath. Welcome to my shelter, Oak.”
Oak stepped in. He spread his arms, and Daisy moved into them. They kissed, the baby and a weapon or two nestled between them. “Oh, it’s happened at last,” he said, evidently awed. “Our child!”
“Now we can marry,” Daisy said, letting him take the baby. “Our families can be at peace.”
Ember approached. “May I join you?” she asked.
“Yes, Grandmother,” Daisy said. Ember stepped in.
The second man came close. “May I join you?” he called.
“Who are you?” Daisy asked.
“I am Blaze, Oak’s grandfather, and head of his family.”
“Then we are kin for the night, for I am espoused to your grandson, and have his child here.”
“We are kin,” Blaze agreed, and entered.
The two women now lined up to meet the two men, making more personal introductions. Ember faced Blaze—and the world changed. His outline seemed to be limned in fire and water, his body at once old and young. Those green eyes, that fiery birthmark on his forehead. He was the man of her dream! The one she had desired all her life, yet never found, and had thought must be an impossible fantasy. Now she knew he was real—ironically when they both were in their seventies, well beyond the age of romance.
He spread his arms, his face a mask of awe and adoration. She let go of Cobblestone’s hand and spread hers. They embraced. They kissed. The universe hovered in place.
Beyond the age of what?
“How long has it been?” she asked, when she was able to speak.
“Three million years, I think,” he replied. “Or sixty. I never thought to really find you.”
“I knew you as a child.”
“I loved you as a dawning woman, but could not have you.”
“I wish you had found me then, when I was fresh and full. I searched for you all my life, but never found you.”
“I wish you had found me in my virile youth, instead of now that I am withered old. I searched for you when speech was new.”
“I never loved my husband enough, because he wasn’t you.”
“I sought you in a young woman, when my wife grew older, but didn’t find you.”
“I looked for you in Sumer, when I lost my husband.”
“You were not among the Hittites.”
“You were not in Rome.”
“You were not among the Huns.”
“You were not in China or Africa.”
“You were not in Lithuania or England.”
“I was in India, but I sent my granddaughter to England.”
“She did remind me of you.”
“What are you two talking about?” Daisy asked. “I was never in England!”
They broke their embrace and looked around, bemused. Both Daisy and Cobblestone were staring at them. “Would they understand?” Ember asked him.
“Does it matter?” Blaze replied.
“Have they gone senile?” Oak inquired.
Ember shook her head. “They don’t remember.”
“How could they?” he asked. “They are only echoes of us.”
“Beloved echoes,” she agreed.
Daisy frowned. “This is supposed to be the formal recognition of kinship and ending of the state of siege between our families,” she said. “Exactly what are you saying?”
Blaze smiled wryly. “Let’s just say that Ember and I may have met before. We are merely trying to identify the place and time of our contact.”
“Well, you won’t do it if you keep babbling about Rome and the Huns!”
Blaze looked helplessly at Ember. She thought a moment, then made a suggestion. “It is necessary for all of us to know each other well, so that we never henceforth mistake each other for nonkin. Let’s pair off and talk for awhile. Then we can shuffle the pairs and talk some more, until we are satisfied.”
“We’re a pair!” Daisy said eagerly, moving into another embrace with Oak.
Blaze and Ember walked to the far side, out of sight of the younger couple, who was oblivious. Cobblestone trailed along. As soon as they were private, they moved into another embrace. “We must find a way to be truly alone,” he said.
“At our age?” she inquired archly.
“You disagree?”
“Not if you don’t.”
They embraced and kissed again. Then they took seats, and Ember put the child in her lap. “This is Cobblestone, whom I adopted a few days ago.”
“I thought I recognized her. Her m
other is distant kin to us, but recently lost her man.”
“We are beyond the age of making children. Will you accept her in lieu?”
“I will accept anything that comes with you, my love Ember.”
“My love, my love Blaze,” she agreed.
“I dreamed always of you, but never thought to find you here,” he said. “Not after losing you at the Isle of Woman.”
“It’s been so long,” she agreed. “And it’s fantasy, of course. We share dreams, but our real lives have been right here in America.”
He shook his head. “You are old, and so am I, yet it is as if we are also in the childhood of our species, furry and playing with fire.”
“We share an imagination of history,” she decided. “We fancied ourselves as characters in the history we studied, making it come alive. We were young when the species was young. Now we are old with the species.”
“But you are right: our current lives in this century are what count now. I want to know you, Ember.”
“And I you. Where were you born, this time?”
“In California, on the day they dropped the Bomb.”
“August 6, 1945,” she agreed. “The same for me, the state of New York. We were the first of the nuclear age.”
“Do you remember the Korean War?”
“Not really. I was only five. But I do remember the Vietnam War.”
“The Cuban missile crisis? I was afraid I’d get drafted.”
“And Kennedy’s assassination. I was in a college class.”
“Woodstock.”
“The Iran hostages.”
“The fall of the Berlin Wall.”
She laughed. “The birth of my granddaughter Daisy.”
“The cure for AIDS.”
“And the other immune system diseases like rheumatic fever and diabetes. That was a great breakthrough. It rid the world of a terrible scourge and saved many lives.”
“But not as many as when they found the cure for the viral diseases,” he said. “Everything from the common cold to hepatitis. I was so glad to see those frequent sniffles go.”
“And the parasitic infestations,” she said. “Once a quarter of the world was infected with malaria. No more!”
“It was an even greater day when they found the cure for cancer—all cancers. That used to kill more people than any of those others, especially when the ozone layer thinned and skin cancer ran rampant.”
“Until they were able to stop heart and circulatory diseases. Those made cancer look small.”
“And finally the brain diseases,” he said. “Everything from depression to suicide. Many murders, too, because they stemmed from deranged minds.”
“So everyone lived longer,” she concluded. “Infant mortality practically stopped, and the number of centenarians multiplied.”
“So we saw the world’s human population pass ten billion much faster than projected.”
“And that was the beginning of the end.”
He shook his head. “The end started much earlier. Perhaps with the evolution of man himself. We thought we could breed without restraint forever.”
“But we would have been all right if the climate hadn’t changed,” she pointed out.
“We were the cause of that change,” Blaze said seriously. “We burned all the fossil fuels, we destroyed the last forests, we polluted air, earth, and sea. We overloaded the atmosphere with CO2 and made it heat. We were lucky that the extra water in the warmer air made more snow at the poles, so that they didn’t melt and raise the sea level. But that heat still changed the weather patterns, and that in turn signaled the coming end of our civilization.”
“The drought,” she agreed. “North America became mostly desert, while the African Sahara turned to mud. Oh what mischief! I knew trouble was coming, and I hauled my family from New York to the Great Lakes region, hoping that there we’d be assured of food. Daisy was fifteen then, and didn’t like leaving her friends. You must have done much the same.”
“I did, but for a different reason. I got nervous about the San Andreas Fault, and decided it was time to get away from the California coast. There had already been several major quakes, and I feared the big one was due. So we moved to Yuma, Arizona.”
“But isn’t that right near—”
“That’s right. I hadn’t really studied the matter. I didn’t realize that the San Andreas Fault is actually the place where a midocean ridge is being overridden by a continent. The East Pacific Ridge had already separated the Baja California Peninsula from Mexico by opening up the Gulf of California. Now it cracked open some more terrain, extending the gulf northward. We were right at the edge of it. The earthquakes leveled the city. We happened to be camping out, so nothing fell on us, but it felt as if we were being tossed from mountain to mountain. Then we heard the roar of the water rushing into the new chasm. It was sheer luck that we weren’t close enough to be dropped in.”
“But I thought the midocean ridges were where magma welled up from below,” Ember said. “So it made new mountains.”
“It does—but first it cracks open the earth. The mountains form on either side. We were at the east side. We fled the region, of course, though flowing lava always fascinated me. I don’t think I’ve ever been so frightened, but I had to appear confident so that the family wouldn’t panic. As it was, my wife was injured, and later she died.” He paused. “I didn’t mean to mention that.”
“My husband died thirty years ago, suddenly. I know the feeling.”
“Yes. My dream was of you, but she was a good woman. The rest of us were in Phoenix when the Great Drought wiped out the crops. We had to flee the city eastward and scrounge for roots in the country. Where were you?”
“Somewhere in Indiana when the Great Famine struck. We grubbed for roots too, and rooted for grubs. We fled down the river, mainly because that was where the wild foraging was best. It was no fun time. We learned not to be choosy about our food, lest we starve.”
“But at least you were away from the cities. You know what was happening there.”
“I know.” Ember’s memory of three years ago remained vivid. “We were I think in the vicinity of Memphis when we truly came to understand what we had tried to deny.” She closed her eyes, reliving the horror.
They were slowly poling their small boat down the muddy channel of what had before the drought been the mighty Mississippi River, hoping to get past the city without trouble. Strangers were increasingly hostile, wanting to rob them or worse, so they now had to consider all other people likely enemies. So far they had been able to get by without outright combat, but they had made battle plans for the time of need, and rehearsed tactics precisely.
A man stood on the bank. “Hey, who are you?” he called.
“Just a family passing through,” Crystal called back. “Not looking for any trouble.”
“Pull over.”
“Four men; no guns,” Carver reported. Guns were important, but there had been so much violence in the city when the Famine came that ammunition had run low, and of course no factories were making it anymore.
“Then we’ll just slide on past them,” Ember decided. “Keep poling.”
Carver and Crystal did so. Daisy, at seventeen, rode in maidenly innocence in front, while Ember at seventy-three rode in old-maidenly frailty in back. The family was the epitome of harmlessness. Their boat was decrepit and their clothing tattered. Who would want to bother these ragged stragglers?
The man strode out into the channel. He carried a stout club. Clubs had become the personal weapon of choice for many, because they were easy to use, required no ammunition, and did not get stuck in the target. The family had clubs in the bottom of the boat, out of sight. “I said pull over,” the man said, making a warning motion with the club.
“Aggressive,” Ember murmured. “He will intercept us. Innocence ploy.” For they had had to stave off molesters before, and had several battle plans to address particular situations.
T
he polers desisted and sat down in the boat, their hands falling to their sides—near the clubs and their concealed knives. Daisy smiled brilliantly at the advancing man. “Oh, we thought you said to pull on by. What do you want with us, sir?”
The man took a closer look at her. Daisy had a sweet face and a fine figure, not too much eroded by the lean diet of the past year. Her shawl was open in front, and her worn blouse showed more of her braless bosom than would have been proper in polite society. It was fastened together by a single large safety pin, the buttons having long since been lost. Ember had worked carefully on that blouse, tightening it just so, preparing it for the Daisy Innocence ploy.
“Uh, just to, uh, talk,” the man said, catching the prow of the boat with his free hand while peering down into the pleasant valley behind the safety pin. “Where you folks going?”
Meanwhile the other three men were wading out, converging on the boat, their clubs ready. There was nothing casual about their attitude. They were husky, and evidently had not gone hungry recently. Those were bad signs.
“CM, two, three,” Ember murmured before the men reached the boat. That was their coding for Combat Mode, with designated weapons. The hands of the others shifted slightly, touching their bodies. Clubs, the #1 weapon, would not be used this time. The stakes had escalated.
“Just downriver, looking for food,” Daisy answered the front man innocently. “If you have any, we don’t have any money, but we’re willing to work.”
One of the men laughed. “Oh, you’ll work, all right,” the front man said. Then, to the others: “Leave the girl; she’s a nice piece. We’ll take turns at her before we slaughter her.” The others lifted their clubs.
Daisy screamed, piercingly. That was their signal for desperate action. Daisy, Carver, and Crystal brought out their knives—the designated #2 weapons—and stabbed in concert at the men closest to them. Carver and Crystal got theirs in the bellies, and the men screamed and fell into the water. But the front man was standing too far away for Daisy to reach, though she lunged across the prow; he whipped his hand from the boat and stepped hastily back. Then, enraged, he stepped forward again, his club about to strike Daisy on the head.
Isle of Woman (Geodyssey) Page 48