The Fires of Coventry

by Rick Shelley

  Anna Knowles could carry little more than herself. She moved slowly, awkwardly. Eric stayed at her side, one hand on her arm, helping to support her weight, helping her keep her balance. Their sons were in front of them, though the boys kept looking back at their home. Ida looked toward Anna, but had to look away. Unless a miracle happened, Ida knew that she would be in the same condition as Anna in little more than six months, ready to give birth with nowhere to do it safely. Six months: even if the Federation burned everything and then left immediately, six months would not give the people of Coventry time to rebuild, even with help from the outside.

  The Knowles family needed longer than the Baileys to reach the edge of the forest, at the corner where their properties met. Toward town, the Watersons were moving toward them as well, but stopped before leaving their own property, turning to watch the destruction of their house.

  It was the first of the latest six to be put to the torch. Windows were broken out on the ground floor. A soldier with a flamethrower went from one to the next and sprayed gelatinous fire through each broken window. Two other men attached small packets of explosives after quickly boring holes into the walls near ground level at each corner. Once the primers were set, the soldiers ran to a safe distance.

  When the soldiers started to set fires in the Bailey house, Ida gripped her husband’s arm so hard that he flinched in pain. Her fingernails seemed to stab through the sleeve of his shirt and into the flesh beneath. Long tongues of fire leaped out from the flamethrowers. The blazes spread quickly. In less than three minutes, the flames were visible through the upstairs windows as well, and smoke was pouring out through the openings on the ground floor.

  The charges on the Waterson house went off first, and the building seemed to rise a little off the ground before settling down into itself. Dust and smoke billowed out to the sides and then rose in a dense cloud. For a moment, it looked as if the explosives had extinguished the fires, but then new tongues of dirty flames rose through the smoke. it

  The subsequent explosion of their own house took all of the Baileys by surprise except Al. He had not taken his eyes off of his home, not even when the blasts sounded at the Watersons’. His parents and sisters all jumped, and looked at their house as it exploded in a similar cloud of dust and smoke. A few seconds later, an incendiary device placed in their floater went off, engulfing the vehicle in orange flames.

  Ida started to cry silently, the girls with more sound. Reggie swallowed hard and blinked several times, fighting to keep tears from his eyes. Al remained absolutely motionless, his fists still clenched at his sides, no emotion at all on his face. Gradually, his eyes narrowed a little. They’ll pay. I’ll make them pay, he promised himself, if it takes the rest of my life.

  The soldiers remained only long enough to make certain that none of the houses would remain habitable, that nothing of value could be salvaged from them. The explosions at the Knowles house did seem to put out the fire. Two of the soldiers went close enough to toss in incendiary bombs in order to rekindle the blaze. Then the soldiers moved on to the next set of houses.

  “You’d think we were no more than gnats, safe to ignore,” Eric Knowles said. “Doesn’t bother them a bit to turn their backs on us. They didn’t even check to make sure that none of us had weapons.”

  “We might as well be gnats,” Reggie said. “Less than gnats. Even they can bite hard enough to get themselves swatted.”

  “Don’t start talking like that,” Ida said. “You know there was nothing we could do.”

  “There should have been,” Reggie said, almost viciously. “We should have been ready to defend ourselves.”

  “It’s too late for should have been’s,” Ida said. “All we can do is face whatever comes and make the best of it. Let’s get away from here. I don’t want to watch my home burn the rest of the way. It’ll be better when I can’t see what’s happening.” I hope, she thought, without any great confidence.

  Mason and Elizabeth Waterson had finally joined the other families with their children, three boys and a girl ranging from three to ten years of age. Their four, the three Bailey children, and the two Knowles boys all stayed close to their own parents.

  Everyone’s attention was diverted from the fires then by a series of sonic booms that seemed to come from the east. At first they could see nothing. Then a flotilla of shuttles went over from east to west, heading in the direction of Coventry City.

  “Dozens of them,” Al said. “They’re bringing in more soldiers.”

  Another half dozen came in separately, seconds behind the first. These were lower, and banked into a turn to the right.

  “More coming here,” Eric said. “Guess these bastards weren’t doing the job fast enough.”

  8

  The three families watched until the last shuttle disappeared. For the most part, that vigil let them forget—for just those few seconds—what was happening to their homes.

  “We’ve got a long way to go,” Elizabeth Waterson said then, glancing at Anna Knowles. “And we can’t travel all that fast.” Her voice was hoarse, cracking, scarcely under control.

  The group turned and moved off into the forest, away from the burning wreckage of their homes. The other families that had cached supplies with them would undoubtedly be along soon. Their homes would be in the next batch destroyed. They walked slowly, accommodating their pace to Anna’s, stopping frequently for a minute or two to let her sit and catch her breath. Her face remained pale, bloodless. The effort to walk the rough trail was obviously taxing her almost to the limit. Eric suggested that the others go ahead, but the Baileys and Watersons both declined—to Eric’s obvious relief.

  “You may need us,” Reggie said. Anna’s face seemed to go even whiter at his words. She knew that they were worried that she might go into premature labor. This was her third child, and labor might be short; she might have her baby very quickly once the first contraction came.

  “I haven’t been getting much exercise lately,” Anna said, her voice weak and reedy. “If I’d known something like this was going to happen….”

  “We’ll manage,” Ida said. “We’ve had plenty of experience among us. We’ll cope.”

  “Don’t try to pass it off like sprinkles on a picnic,” Annasaid. “I know how bad it’s going to be. If there are any problems with the delivery, there’s nothing any of us can do.”

  “Nothing is going to go wrong,” Eric said, helping Anna to her feet. “With the baby or anything else. We’ve all got our nanobugs to keep us healthy, no matter what.” Molecular health maintenance automatons, agents that coursed through the system to keep people healthy, were routine parts of life on a civilized planet like Coventry.

  During the next stage of the trek, Reggie and Eric told the Watersons that they had moved part of their supplies. “The last time we came out, after everyone else quit coming,” Reggie said. “We got nervous about leaving everything in one place.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Mason said. “I thought about it myself that night. I figured the two of you had already left by then, so I didn’t do anything. I just hope our stuff’s still there.”

  “It should be,” Eric said. “The one thing we haven’t had to worry about is neighbors stealing.” Yet, he thought glumly.

  “It hardly matters how much we stashed,” Mason said. “It can’t be enough. If only we could have hauled out a few food replicators and solar panels to power them, we might have had a better chance to make it through the winter.”

  “There’s plenty of game,” Reggie said. “I know you’re not much of a hunter, but Eric and I have done some. And for at least the next few weeks we’ll be able to pick nuts and berries. There should be nuts available all winter. One thing working for us, anything that looks edible is, you know that.”

  “How long will the game last with everyone hunting?” Mason asked. “The animals will leave, those that aren’t killed.”

  “Then we’ll follow the animals, wherever they go,” Reggie s
aid. “It’s either that or just lie down and give up.” Give up now, or give up later? Reggie shook his head, then looked at his wife and children. He would not give up. Nomatter what it took, he would provide. As long as he could breathe and move.

  Before they reached the dry gully, they were resting more than they were moving. Anna seemed to lose strength with each pace. The next group of families caught up with them and went on. It was mid-afternoon before the Baileys and their companions were within sight of the gully and the trees that concealed the supplies.

  “We’d better plan on staying here all afternoon,” Reggie whispered to Eric when the latter finally let himself be drawn away from his wife. Anna was lying down, next to the gully. Two folded blankets were under her, and another covered her. Her eyes were closed, but her husband wasn’t certain that she was asleep.

  “I sure don’t want to try to move her in the dark,” Eric replied. “I didn’t think it would be so hard on her this soon.”

  “Part of it must be the shock,” Reggie said. “I know how hard it was on me, seeing our home destroyed.” The medical nanobugs would—unless there were an almost unheard-of malfunction—protect Anna against any physical illness, but they could not cope with emotional or mental distress that did not result from physical imbalances. They also could not completely cope with the lack of muscle tone Anna admitted to. She simply had not been getting enough exercise during her pregnancy. In normal circumstances, that would have made little or no difference.

  “Maybe. I’m going to have to figure some way to provide shelter for Anna right away. When the baby comes, it could be a week or more before we’ll be able to move on. They’ll both need more than a blanket to roll up in, even if nothing goes wrong.”

  “We’ll help, as much as we can. You know that. Over where we put the rest of our stuff, it should be easier than here. All that loose rock. We can stack up enough for walls, then we just have to rig some kind of roof.”

  “And hope it doesn’t rain too hard, or too soon.” Eric looked at the sky. About a third of the trees in this areawere deciduous, and many of those had already shed their leaves.

  “I haven’t heard a weather forecast since the landings,” Reggie said. It was the first time he had thought of that lack. “I don’t think it’ll rain tonight, though. The sky’s been as clear as glass. But we’re getting pretty well into autumn. We usually get a lot of rainy days in the fall.”

  “I know. I’ve got one waterproof tarp, over at the other place, but it’s only eight by twelve.”

  “It’ll be enough to keep Anna dry.”

  “If she’s up to it, maybe we can move around sunset, maybe a little before to give us time to get there before it’s full dark. Or we can wait for morning. I’m having trouble thinking. My mind’s more than half numb from it all.”

  “We’re going to try to find a better place for Anna,” Eric told the other families as sunset approached. She had slept for a time, uneasily, but had wakened and claimed to feel better than she had all day. “Someplace where we can build a shelter without too much trouble.”

  Eric and Reggie had told the others about their second cache. After they had told the Watersons, not telling the others might have left hard feelings. But neither Eric nor Reggie felt any compulsion to draw a map.

  The two families left the others, weighted down by taking everything they had left at the first cache along with the things they had brought that day. There were no farewells among the adults, and few among the children. Reggie and Eric both helped Anna, one walking on either side of her when that was possible, supporting some of her weight. They made slightly better time than they had earlier, but even so it was almost too dark to see by the time they reached the rocky area where Eric and Reggie had cached most of their supplies.

  Anna sat on a rock while the others started a small fire, then started putting together what little shelter they could for the first night. There wasn’t so much as a two-man tent in their supplies. Neither family had ever gone in for camping. A day’s excursion, with a picnic in the middle, was all of the “back to nature” that they had cared to assay.

  The children sat around the fire when they were not helping to arrange things for the first night. All of them were subdued. They had watched their homes burning. They were out in the “jungle.” Night had come. It was chilly, and they had not yet eaten supper. Even the youngest knew that this was serious.

  Clothing that had seemed far too warm during the day was not warm enough now. The men had made the best arrangements they could for Anna, spreading the tarp from a rock wall and weighting the other side down with stones, then turned to unpacking the lightweight thermal blankets that had been cached.

  “We’ll just have something light to eat tonight,” Ida Bailey told her daughters. “We ate so much earlier.” She kept her voice light, not to give away that she was already worried about how soon they might run short of food.

  “I’m not real hungry anyhow,” Ariel said, and her twin nodded agreement.

  Anna was already asleep, but restless. Eric kept a worried watch. He no longer worked to keep the worry from his face, as he had while she was awake. Their sons, Walter and William, also spent much of their time watching their mother. Their father was worried; they were frightened. Walter was ten, William seven.

  Supper was cold, sandwiches and vegetable crisps. There was only water to wash it down. No one complained. After the meal, the children rolled up in their blankets. Even with fear and cold noses, the youngest refugees quickly escaped into sleep.

  Only Al Bailey did not sleep. He stared at the campfire, hardly blinking. His thoughts were filled with grandiose, and expanding, fantasies of the vengeance he would take on the Federation soldiers who had burned his home, and then on those faceless people on some distant world who had ordered the crime. It took an hour or more for those fantasies to finally carry Al into sleep.

  Ida and the men were still up. After doing a rough check to make sure that everything they had stored in the cave wasstill there, Eric was pacing. Ida and Reggie sat close together, where they could watch the children as well as Anna.

  After he was certain that Al was finally asleep, Reggie stood and stretched. He walked away from the campsite. He was tired, more exhausted than simple exertion could account for, but he did not want to risk sleep yet—though he could not have explained why. For the past hour, he had been doing little thinking of any kind, allowing himself to be lulled into almost a trance by staring at the fire. It was so much easier to put off all thought for as long as possible.

  I’ve got to think, he told himself. We can’t just drift along without trying to find ways to do things smarter. We’ll die if we drift along like that. Death would be the ultimate escape. He closed his eyes for a moment. Don’t even start thinking like that. You’ve got a family to think about.

  Make preparations. They had cached everything they could, but it would not be enough. Within days it would be necessary to start hunting for game, meat to help the mostly dehydrated vegetables of their stores last longer. And the sooner they started hunting, the better it would be.

  But will gunfire bring those soldiers back? That had not occurred to him before. Hearing shooting might draw curious soldiers, or worried soldiers.

  It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to hunt no matter what. Maybe they won’t be close enough to hear. Or maybe they’ll realize that the odd shot now and then is no more than what it will be, people trying to get food, and not worry about it.

  There were other questions. Should they stay where they were or move on, look for better shelter farther from the enemy soldiers and the ruins of their homes? Could they move any farther with Anna obviously frail and perhaps about to give birth within days, if not hours? Reggie had no idea how long he had been standing alone, thinking, when Eric joined him.

  “We’re going to have to stay here, I think,” Reggie said, very softly. “At least until Anna has her baby and feels up to moving. As long as it takes.”

/>   “We’d be safer moving farther away,” Eric said, glancing back to where his wife was sleeping, “but I think you’reright. We’d have to carry Anna, and leave too much of our stuff unguarded while we made however many trips it would take to get all of our things moved. You can take your family on, though, and we’ll try to catch up later. When we can.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense. We won’t leave you here. It’s not even an option. We’ll stick together. It’s the only chance we’ve all got.”

  “I figure to build a better shelter for Anna in the morning,” Eric said, and Reggie nodded.

  “We’d better try to get some sleep,” Reggie said a moment later. “We’ll need whatever we can get.”

  “Maybe we should take turns watching,” Eric said. “Keep the fire burning, make sure nobody sneaks in to … do anything.”

  “You go sleep. I’m not tired yet.”

  In the morning, there was coffee and soup, the latter made from dehydrated packets that the women had stocked in considerable quantity added to water from a nearby stream. Only the children seemed rested by their sleep. Ida, Reggie, and Eric had all taken turns standing guard, watching Anna and keeping the fire burning. Even after sunrise, Anna only got up for a few minutes to take care of the most essential needs, with the help of her husband, in the latrine that the men had just dug some distance away from the campsite and their water supply. Then she lay down again, so exhausted that she scarcely had the strength to eat her breakfast.

  The men worked as quickly as they could to construct a more substantial shelter for Anna and the rest of them, and for their supplies. Six hours of steady labor produced a redoubt that would keep out all but the most ferocious of rains, and most of the wind. Hauling flat rocks and stacking them against the side of a rocky outcrop provided strong walls on three sides, with a door opening covered by a small tarp. The larger tarp that Eric had packed was stretched over cut saplings to provide a roof, weighted down along the edges by more rocks, and covered with layers of leaves andsmaller branches to give it a little insulation. Anna almost had to be carried inside. The entrance to the cave where Eric and Reggie had stored their supplies was also inside, back in the far corner.