The Rackham Files

by Dean Ing

  "Finally, I'm sure you don't really believe what I'm saying. You'll just have to try some little thing to see where the real limits are, just to test us as you always do. Believe me, dear, I can hardly wait. I want you to try some little bitty thing I can interpret as a little bitty test, so I can blister your big bitty bottom after your father and Harve are through warming it up for me.

  "I can't tell you how many times I've considered this, Lance. I've wanted to do it, but I didn't want to stunt your development. Now it's time we all stunted the direction it has taken. What you consider a harmless prank might kill someone. Because you didn't know and didn't care. Those bouillon cubes, for example, were very very important. It's not important that you know why. What is important is that you're going to forget and pop off, sneak a bit of food or tinker with something without asking. And when you do, dear, I am going to make up for ten years of coddling your backside. Ern? Harve? Do you have anything to add?"

  We thought she had it covered rather well and said so. A long silence followed. Lance opened his mouth a few times but always closed it again. For the first time in my memory, he was not physically leaning in his mother's direction. At last Shar said, "Would you like to go now?"

  "Yes'm." It was almost inaudible.

  "I recommend it." A chastened Lance scuttled back to the card game. I wondered if Shar had exaggerated her willingness to whale her darling. No doubt Lance wondered, too, but not enough to check it out right then.

  Ern asked, "You cold, Shar?"

  "My shakes have nothing to do with the temperature," she said. "The more I said to Lance, the more I realized how true it was. I feel ashamed of myself but I want to go over there right now and—and—"

  "And whack on him some," I finished for her. "You're okay, sis, but you're right about letting us tan his hide first. If you took first licks you might hurt him."

  "We have casualties already." She laughed a bit shakily. "I wish we could go upstairs and get those quince preserves."

  "They're in little jars in the root cellar," I said and went in search of the stuff, which didn't need special sealing when I used only honey as sweetener. For some reason honey seemed to dissuade mold; so much so that the fermenting of mead, a honey wine, was an expensive process. I couldn't even get the damned stuff to ferment with added yeast, and I knew a lot of old-timer tricks.

  Returning with two jars of preserves under wax, I thought of using a candle as a food warmer. If we lit a candle in the root cellar, it would be downstream of us. Its heated air and carbon dioxide would tend to drift out through the valve Shar had made. Ern thought it worth a try, using an empty bean can with vents punched around its top and bottom as a chimney. For fondue warmers I had a dozen squat votive candles, which quickly became broad puddles of fluid wax unless you had a close-fitting container to keep the puddle from spreading. Ern made one from several thicknesses of foil.

  Mrs. Baird's bedpan needed emptying, and Lance performed the chore with the expression of one who has an unexpected mouthful of green persimmon. Ern went to the root cellar with him and tried our little food warmer, which Shar wanted to use for hot water to make a quince-preserve gruel. If the Baird woman could swallow such warm sweet stuff she might—well, it might help. I'm sure my sis was thinking about the tremendous strain I had added to our survival efforts by bringing in a woman who was perhaps better dead than suffering. And who almost certainly would die regardless of anything medical science could have done.

  The evening brought its full share of good and bad news. It was good that by nine o'clock the tunnel reading was down to one rem, since that meant the sizzling ferocity of radiation outside had dropped to "merely" two hundred rems an hour—half its level only a few hours previous. It was also nice that Shar remembered my hot-water heater in its insulated niche near the furnace, so much out of sight that I'd forgotten its fifty-gallon supply of clean water just waiting to be drained from its bottom faucet. Seventy gallons of drinking water might last us two weeks, and we could use the waterbed stuff for washing.

  If we absolutely had to, we could boil the mattress water and hope the chemical would lose its potency. Ern guessed that a lot of people would be drinking from waterbeds, and with a dilution of one pint of chemical to two hundred gallons of water, the user only swallowed a few drops of mild poison in each gallon of water. Better than dying of thirst; far worse than drinking from your hot-water heater.

  I couldn't decide whether it was good or bad news that, if the eleven o'clock news from Santa Rosa could be believed, our government had removed restrictions against the purchase of weapons by expatriate Cubans in Florida. There was no longer any doubt that Cuba had been a launch site for cruise missiles against Miami, Tampa, Eglin, and other targets. Want an Uzi with full auto fire? Bazooka? A few incendiary bombs? See your friendly dealer in the nearest bayou or yacht club, so long as you can say "Fidel come mierda sin sal" three times quickly. Castro's radar scopes were already measled with blips that consisted of every known vintage aircraft and surface craft, mostly crewed by disgruntled Cubans who had scores to settle and machismo to spare.

  Later we might regret this response. For the moment Soviet Cuba had too much coastline to worry about to mount any further actions against the US. If many of those itchy-fingered expatriates went ashore and stayed there, Fidel's ass was grass. Put it down as good and bad news. Maybe "crazy news" was a better term.

  On the bad-news side, the radio announced that grocery sales were suspended nationwide for the next few days, with certain exceptions. Perishable produce and milk could be sold in limited quantities while the government assessed stocks of food, and if you didn't have enough food to last two or three days, you were going to get pretty hungry. This rationing plan was a long-standing preparation by the feds, a decision that few of us had ever heard about. I gathered from the broadcast that the government had funded many studies on nuclear survival but hadn't published them widely, perhaps because so few of us cared to request them through our congressional reps or the Department of Commerce.

  The radio claimed that an Oak Ridge study, Expedient Shelter Construction, was good news since surviving newspapers were printing millions of copies to be distributed across the land by every available means, including air drops of stapled copies. Was it such good news? I wished I thought so. The document hadn't reached the public in time. What did we care if five hundred copies gathered dust in emergency-technology libraries for a decade?

  One news item was almost certainly not a government news release because it suggested that disaster-related documents could be bought in hard copy or microfiche from an address they repeated several times:

  National Technical Information Service

  U.S. Department of Commerce

  5285 Port Royal Road

  Springfield, Virginia 22161

  I was sure the item was an ill-advised brainstorm by a local reporter, since the postal service couldn't possibly be functioning well enough to respond to millions of suddenly fascinated citizens who'd never heard of the NTIS before. If they'd known and cared years earlier the item might've been of tremendous importance. Now? Much too little, a little too late.

  The news of the Bay Area was too awesomely bad for belief if you listened between the lines. From San Mateo to Palo Alto and in most of Fremont, fallout was only a few rems per hour, though unofficial traffic in those areas would be by bike or on foot. Mill Valley, too, had escaped the brunt of nuke hammer blows. The main population centers were discussed only as a list of places declared off limits and subject to martial law, where deputized crews probed into the debris as far as they dared: San Rafael, San Francisco, Burlingame, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, San Jose, Hayward, Oakland, Vallejo.

  Shar jotted down all the details we could recall from the broadcasts, on the theory that we didn't yet know which detail might save our collective skin in the long run. We'd have plenty of time to cobble up notes on the area maps in my office long before we risked going outside.

  Within ou
r own tiny subterranean world we made our own bad news. Though Devon managed to get his mother to swallow some lukewarm quince gruel, she couldn't keep it down. He drank a half-pint of it only after Shar insisted that there would be plenty for both of them. When Shar brought up the question of the solitary bouillon cube it seemed a small thing, but it forced a decision none of us wanted to make.

  Despite her youth, Kate Gallo was adult in every practical sense. That's why, when Shar demanded a committee decision on which of the Bairds would get the pitiful antidiarrhea dose of clear bouillon broth, I insisted that Kate have her say in it. I had to wake her. By then the kids were asleep.

  After fifteen minutes of "yes-but," Ern said with a sigh, "It boils down to one likely fact, one agreement, and a hundred conjectures. Probable fact: Mrs. Baird won't be with us much longer, no matter what we do. Anybody disagree with that?" Nobody did. "And we seem to be agreed that if one cup of broth is barely enough to matter, splitting it between them would probably make it a pointless gesture.

  "But the boy may be in the same fix as his mother. I've noticed a few blisters on his hands and neck. Still, he may pull through in spite of that. I think it's time for a vote," he finished.

  In a small voice Kate asked, "Couldn't we have a secret ballot?"

  "Why didn't I think of that," Shar said with a smile and quickly tore four small squares of paper, writing "M" and "F" on each before folding them. "Just circle which should get the broth, male or female," she said, handing the ballots out. Perhaps my sis was trying to make us more objective with this abstraction from names to simple symbols. If so, it didn't work.

  Ern took the pen, did something with it in shadow, handed the pen to Kate. I had no doubt with his engineering-determinist's mind, he favored Devon, who had a fighting chance.

  Kate needed lots of time. I figured her for the one most likely to favor Mrs. Baird, since the woman, like Kate herself had been, was an underdog.

  Shar took the pen and turned away for only a moment before passing the instrument to me. I needed only a moment, too.

  Then Shar took the folded squares, shook them between cupped hands, and opened them.

  On three of them, neither letter was circled. On the fourth was a circle around the "M." "Three abstentions," Kate snorted. "That's totally unfair!"

  "It does provide a decision," said Shar.

  "Forced on one of us alone," said Kate, her voice rising until she caught herself. Of course only one of us knew which three had abstained. Kate went on, "If this is to be a committee decision, we should all take part."

  The slow precision with which she fashioned another ballot told me that Shar was affronted by this snip of a girl. "Very well, we'll try again," said my sis, her mouth set primly.

  We all took longer the second time. When Shar counted the ballots there was no longer any question; there was still one abstention, but the other three votes favored Devon. We all breathed more easily. No one said anything about that abstention, since the abstainer could not have changed the consensus.

  Before settling back to sleep Kate muttered, "One lousy bouillon cube. I wish Lance had eaten it."

  "No you don't, Kate," Shar said gently. "It may be the tiny nudge that saves a life."

  "I hope so. You'll have to claim we found another one and gave it to Mrs. Baird."

  "I intended to. Good night, Kate," spoken with respect.

  I padded back to the root cellar and warmed some instant coffee that tasted of quince preserves. It was my first warm brew in days, a scent of ripe summer fruit that deepened my anguish over the decisions we had made; unknown decisions we would have to make later; the millions who were no longer alive to puzzle over decisions. Presently the tepid coffee began to taste of salt and I drained it, brewing more for Ern.

  But my brother-in-law slumped snoring at the air pump he had contrived, the brandy bottle empty beside him. I roused him and took his place, unwilling to blame him for the dereliction. I had known Ern's mild dependence on booze for a long time, and I'd brought the stuff to him myself.

  III. Doomsday Plus Two

  It was Devon Baird who woke me before seven in the morning, and he was barely able to shake me after working at the pump. Someone had set the coffee warmer in the open where the candle's glow penetrated the tunnel. You could tell which of us was which but little more than that, since Ern had disconnected my car battery to prevent trickle losses.

  Devon fought tears as he admitted, "It's not your time yet, Mr. Rackham, but my arms won't pull that thing anymore. I'm just not worth a durn for anything."

  I took Shar's watch from him, hit its glow stud, and saw Devon stumble as I stood up. "You've brought your mother out of an annex of hell," I said gruffly, "and you're doing more than your body can handle. You want a criticism?"

  Snuffling, but determined: "Say it."

  "We all think you're going to be a great help if you'll take it easy and give your innards a chance to recuperate. You're pushing yourself too hard." I settled down at the air pump and added, "The sooner you get your strength back, the sooner you can do hard work."

  His tears began to flow then. He asked if he could sit with me, and I said truthfully that I was honored. Five minutes later he was sleeping, his fuzzy cheek still damp against my back, one slender arm draped over my shoulder so that his hand brushed my face as I moved to operate the pump. Ern was right: Devon was developing blisters on his hands.

  Near the end of my shift, Lance awoke and tried to talk to Cammie. "Give her a break," I whispered. "She's been working the pump, Lance. But as long as you're up, you might as well take over for me."

  "I'm not up," he said, and then he must have remembered something because he did as I asked while I carried the sleeping Devon to his makeshift place near his mother. Then I returned and sat near Lance, who squelched his singsong cadence as he worked the pump. Something about, "Columbus had a cabin boy, the dirty little nipper . . ."

  I patted his back the way I used to do when he played outside on the swing set. "How many verses do you know, pal?"

  Long silence to prove I wasn't his pal. "Of what?"

  "There must be a hundred verses of 'Sonofabitch Columbo.' At your age I knew most of 'em."

  "I've heard a few," he acknowledged, softly humming the tune. He didn't sing the words anymore and made sure we didn't touch. Clearly my nephew had changed only to the extent that he was wary of punishment, protecting his flanks. When Lance had worked for a half-hour, I suggested he wake his dad. He was happy enough to do it, happier still to snuggle down against Cammie. As Ern took over at the pump, I settled back near Kate, and as I drifted into sleep, I reflected that I could depend on Lance. He wouldn't be trying to wake the others again if he knew it would earn him an extra stint at the pump.

  I don't know whose idea it was to dump the crapsacks up on my screen porch. By the time I was through yawning and blinking late in the morning, Shar had already done it while Ern monitored radiation levels in the basement. Shar reasoned that, since it took only a half-minute to make the round trip to the porch, she'd take only a fractional rem in the process—and any microbe that survived storage on that porch for a week deserved to live. Because the level outside was still upward of two hundred rems.

  Ern found two moderately hot spots in the basement. One, near the fireplace foundation, we knew about. The other was very localized at our air filters.

  Obviously the filters were collecting fallout. Just as clearly, judging by the negligible readings at the pump, they were stopping that fallout while passing clean air. Still, they made a hot spot that demanded a fix. I helped Ern lug cans of paint, the jerry can of fuel, and pillowcases full of earth shoveled from the root cellar to make a barrier around the filters. We made a bridge of shelving over the filter boxes and stacked books atop it, which isolated the filter boxes fairly well.

  I asked Ern why he poured a gallon of fuel into a double boiler from the jerrycan. "Because we need to cook some food before it spoils," he said, and let me wonder
what we'd use for a stove and how we'd get rid of the smoke. I couldn't argue the need for it; we were already tired of canned veggies, and my stock of frozen food was thawing.

  Shar had her own solution to the fresh vegetable problem, with the pound of alfalfa seeds I had forgotten in my kitchen. I supposed the stuff was too old to germinate after long storage, but my sis knew better. She dumped a handful of seeds into a one-gallon plastic jug and poured a cupful of water in, then set the jug aside. I would've bet a case of dark Löwenbräu against those seeds sprouting in near-total darkness. And I would've lost.

  No matter how stir-crazy we became, the basement reading was still dangerously high—four rems. Shar's graph predicted a flattening out of the radiation curve, and Ern calculated that the radiation in the basement wouldn't drop below one rem for at least another day. During the next twenty-four hours we would absorb a total of ten rems in the tunnel but fifty if we moved into the basement. Enough said. One look at Mrs. Baird was enough to make me shrink from heavy doses.

  Kate kept the kids occupied by introducing them to a dreadful card game called I Doubt It that reduced her foursome to tears of laughter while they operated the air pump. At the other end of the tunnel, my sis and I squinted at her notes in the light of a naked bike lamp while Ern sketched and rummaged through junk in the root cellar. Shar also tended the tiny candle stove while it warmed a cup of water for that paltry serving of broth.

  "How long do you think the woman has?" We no longer used her name, as though by that means we could depersonalize her.

  "She could go anytime, Harve. Her bedpan is showing blood, and the poor thing has lost so much fluid she weighs next to nothing. If only—"