Rings of Ice

Chapter 2: Flood

Zena felt as though a judge had just passed a sentence of life imprisonment on her. Stuck without power, perhaps two hundred miles from the security of the mountains.

“Start it! Start it!” Gus cried. There was a kind of whine in his voice, reminiscent of his cry for help when hurt.

Thatch tried, turning the ignition switch to the starter again and again, but the motor was dead. Now the beat of rain on the roof seemed louder.

“Let it alone,” Zena said wearily as the battery began to fade. “If we run the current down, we’ll never get it going!”

“We shall have to push it,” Gloria said.

“No!” Gus cried. Now the overtone of desperation was unmistakable. How quickly his confidence degenerated during stress! “The water’s up to the floorboards!”

“Maybe we should leave it here and walk,” Zena said without enthusiasm. One thing she knew: they had to keep moving, or they were all dead.

“No!” Gus screamed. “Start the motor!”

Gloria looked at him with an expression Zena understood, for she felt the same. What was wrong with handsome Gus, that he shied away from anything difficult or messy?

“I hate to get wet again,” Gloria said. “But if you’re right about the flooding, we can’t afford to stay here. One of us will have to steer; the others can get out and—”

“No!” Gus cried again. “Not the girls!”

“We are not made of sugar and spice,” Zena said. “I’ll push.”

“But first,” Gloria said firmly, “I have to tell you—”

Zena had to interrupt. “I don’t think this is the time, after all.” If there were to be a scene, it should be scheduled when all hands weren’t needed for an emergency.

Gloria ignored her. She/he removed his long blonde hair.

Gus and Thatch both stared. Under that fair wig was a dark crew cut.

“She shaved her head!” Gus exclaimed, not catching on.

Gloria opened his blouse and reached inside, around behind his back. In a moment his full bra was unhooked. It came away solidly, leaving a bare masculine chest.

Now Gus comprehended—or thought he did. “A fairy!” he exclaimed.

Gloria turned to him. “Say that again, and I will flatten your nose against your lying face. I am a transvestite, not a homosexual—and I have in the past done police work.”

“Thatch!” Gus cried, falling back.

Police work, Zena thought. Policemen dressed like women, walking through parks at night so as to lure unsuspecting thieves and rapists! But why should such an undercover agent be illegally hitchhiking on the interstate?

Thatch stepped between Gus and Gloria, smaller than either but abruptly possessed of initiative. “What’s the idea, pretending to be a woman?”

“It is not something you would readily understand,” the man said with a dignity marred only by his lipsticked lips and pendant earrings. “I do not like exposing my identity to you in this fashion. But there is work to be done. Stand aside.”

Thatch considered, then yielded to the tone of authority and gave way. The transvestite stepped out of the dress and stood only in lacy feminine panties—but there could now be no question about his physical masculinity. His lacquered fingernails and toenails were incongruous.

“Call me Gordon,” he said, and opened the door. Again the rain blasted in, a terror in its ferocity. “I will push— alone if need be. We’ll talk later.”

The water was indeed up to the floorboards. The bottom step was below the surface of the tormented lake that extended as far as they could see. There was something fascinating about the way the neat shag rug extended up to the edge—of troubled water.

Gordon stepped down, almost knee-deep in the pool. Zena followed him, plunging in before she could change her mind. The sluice from the sky struck her head and shoulders as though determined to scour the features from her face, and the shock of chill water jumped up above her knees. She shivered and proceeded.

A gust of wind caught at her, almost sweeping her into a full immersion. She stumbled, but Gordon’s hand was at her elbow, holding her erect with surprising strength. Now that he was almost naked, she wondered how she ever could have mistaken him for a woman.

“That took guts,” she said.

He did not pretend to misunderstand. “I want to join this group, at least until this storm abates,” he said. “But not under false pretenses. And Gloria doesn’t like to get wet.”

“You talk as if Gloria is a different person!”

“I’m the different person,” he said.

“You’re not going to arrest anybody?” She was trying to be facetious, but it didn’t sound right.

“I did police work, but I really wasn’t a policeman. It was more like a stake-out. Thought I might make myself useful. But it wasn’t my style. I just prefer—being myself.”

Being Gloria, he meant. To him, the male identity was no more than a necessary evil, a temporary state for emergencies like massive flooding. Well, she thought, it was his life.

They trod back toward the rear of the vehicle. One more figure descended from the open door: Thatch.

“We’ll have to time our push together,” Thatch shouted over the beat of the rain. “This bus is heavy, and the water will drag.”

So it was happening again, Zena thought through her misery of renewed drenching. Thatch was an unimpressive, somewhat shy man—but when a challenge came, his competence expanded. Gus was the opposite.

The three lined up along the back, partly sheltered from the downpour, and shoved. At first it seemed the vehicle would not budge—but that was because the water made progress difficult to ascertain. From here to the graying fringe of visibility, there was no reference point except the oblong bulk of the motor-home. It was moving, slowly, for their feet gradually fell behind. And it was deepening; the water climbed slowly to her waist.

Was this the future of the world? A lake of troubled water with no shore? The overall rise of the oceanic level should not be more than two thousand feet—just about enough to submerge the eastern half of the continent. Anyone who made it to a suitable elevation would be all right.

Pushing the vehicle was tedious, fatiguing work. Zena was gasping after a minute, and the men were not much better off. How much did this box weigh? Six tons? What would they do when it came to an uphill push?

“Rest!” Thatch cried, and they stopped. The rain was still cold, but now it was refreshing; such expenditures of energy were great for generating body heat.

“We don’t have enough manpower,” Gordon said. “We’ll never make it this way.”

Thatch nodded. They slogged on around to the driver’s side. Zena actually found it easier to swim, because of the height of the water on her. “Can’t do it,” Thatch called in.

Gus rolled down the window a crack. “I didn’t ask for excuses!” he yelled. “Just get this bus out of here!”

Zena was speechless at this arrogance. Gus, the biggest and probably the strongest among them, physically, relegated to steering duty though he could not drive. Gus, inside because he was afraid to get his feet wet—this man now took it upon himself to order them to do the impossible!

“The thing’s too heavy,” Thatch explained. Zena was annoyed to note the apologetic tone. “We can’t push it uphill.”

“Well, I won’t let you in until you do!” Gus said, closing the window.

Thatch looked at the other two, and they looked at him. “Just got to get it up out of the water,” Thatch said.

Now Zena exchanged a glance with Gordon. What were they to do? Break in and haul Gus out?

Thatch walked around to the back, paddling the water with his hands to speed the progress. There was a ladder there, leading up to an external luggage rack on the roof. He climbed up and peeked under the tarpaulin. “Two bikes and some rope!” he called down.

“Rope?” Zena repeated, seeing a possibility.

“If you’re thinking of pulling it out,” Gordon said, “remember that the weight’s the same. We need leverage.”

“Yes. A pulley,” she agreed.

“Which we don’t have.”

Thatch climbed down. “We’ll need tools—a wrench at least. There’s one inside.”

“We can’t get inside,” Zena pointed out.

“Ask Gus to throw it out.”

Zena sloshed around to the front. At least, she mused, this immersion would stretch her tight jeans. Though probably not the way she wanted. “Gus—wrench!” she shouted.

The window lowered a crack. “What for?”

“I don’t know. Thatch needs it.”

“Promise?”

Zena stamped her foot in exasperation. Deep in water, with the rain attacking the rest of her, it was a wasted effort. “Yes! Do you think we’re going to start breaking windows to get in? If we can’t move it, we’ll just have to wade on and leave you here.”

He considered. Obviously those outside had the ultimate control of the situation. “All right.” The window closed.

That might, she thought, actually be the best solution. Leave Gus and bus, go north afoot.

After about ninety seconds the window reopened. An object flew out, splashing into the water. “Thanks!” Zena called wryly to the closing window as she fished for the wrench. She had to hold her breath and dive down to do it. “I might even find it in a few minutes, if the current doesn’t wash it away!”

The two men had the rope and bicycles down when she returned. “Screwdriver,” Thatch said.

Now he told her! Wordlessly, Zena handed over the wrench and went back for the screwdriver.

They had the wheels off the bikes by the time she got back. Then they went to work on the tires, letting out the air and prying the rubber off the rims.

“A pulley!” Zena exclaimed, gazing at the first stripped wheel. “Someone has a brain! But will it work?”

Neither man answered, and she realized the question had been pointless. It had to work, or the bus would be stranded in the rising flood.

“Survey the rope,” Thatch told her brusquely. “How many feet?”

For a moment she was annoyed at being addressed as though she were a servant. But she realized that this was the other face of Thatch, the problem-solving side. Far better this than capitulation to the threat of the elements.

She climbed the little ladder and poked her head under the tarp. She became aware of the rain again, blasting volubly at the heavy canvas, and she shivered. How nice it would be to be inside the bus, dry and moving.

There were three hanks of sturdy nylon clothesline, thousand-pound test by the look of it. She had used similar for swings and around-the-house jobs after her father grew too ill to do them. Two were evidently fifty-foot lengths, the third a hundred feet. “Two hundred feet, in three pieces!” she called down.

“Three wheels, then,” Thatch muttered. “Don’t want to cut it unnecessarily.”

Gordon tried the cord against the rim of one wheel. The rope was much smaller in diameter than the original tire, so the fit was quite loose; but the metal ridges held it in well.

“Survey for anchoring points,” Thatch told Zena. This was too much. “Don’t order me about!” she snapped.

Thatch set the last wheel against the rear of the vehicle and started out himself, shading his eyes with his hand to peer through the mist.

“I’ll do it!” Zena cried, chagrined. She had objected to female work; how could she object to male work now? “I’m sorry. Tell me what you want.”

“We’ll both do it,” he said. “Visibility’s too poor for one.” If he were pleased at his victory, or even aware of it, he did not show it. He was merely doing his job, taking each hazard as it came—including difficult females. Zena found herself at a loss to adjust to such an attitude; she was accustomed to push-and-shove, action and reaction.

They moved out, ploughing through water that seemed to be rising even as they searched. She tried to swim, but that was little better; there was a current in it. The water was tugging her somewhere, making her uneasy despite her other discomforts. Where was this lake going? What might be carried along in it? Old tires? Broken bottles? Dead horses?

They spotted the lined posts of a guard rail, well anchored but almost submerged. And a tall, firmly-positioned direction sign. Other than these, all was blank water. There were trees, but they were set far back from the highway, useless for this purpose.

“Three tie-ons should do it, for a start,” Thatch said. “Fifty, one hundred, and one-fifty.”

“I don’t see how—” Zena started.

Thatch headed back, not trying to explain. Damn him!

Gordon had split the end of one length of line and formed it into two little loops. These he hooked over the projecting ends of one bicycle wheel’s axle, and fastened them in place by screwing the wheel-nuts down tight against them. The arrangement made little sense to Zena. Obviously the wheel could now be hung from the rope in such a way that it would turn freely, but one turning wheel would hardly provide the leverage required.

“We have anchorages,” Thatch said. “Fifty, one hundred, and one-fifty feet.”

“Wrong ratios,” Gordon said, completing the split-end mounting of another wheel. “Twenty-five, fifty and one hundred is the most we can do—a little less, actually, allowing for the ties and the wheel diameters. I hope the rope can take the strain, even so. Here, I’ll show you.”

Gordon produced a crayon and drew on the glass of the bus’s back window. The lines were waxy and faint, but could be followed:

“You see, we have a three-stage reduction system,” Gordon said. “Each pulley doubles the force, reducing the forward motion by half. By the time it gets to the load— which will be the bus—our projected one horsepower of pull has become eight horsepower. But our hundred feet of forward motion has become only twelve and a half. No way around that; we’ve got to give up distance in favor of power. And we won’t really get that much power; maybe fifty per cent will be taken up by the inefficiency of the system. Wheel resistance, rope friction, and so forth. But it should be enough to get the job done, eventually.”

“But the rope’s only good for a thousand pounds,” Zena protested. “Half a ton. The bus must weigh ten times that!”

“Good point, and I am concerned,” Gordon said. “But there are mitigations. The cord around each wheel is in effect doubled, and we can double the high-tension link too. That should give us a ton—and of course we’re hauling, not lifting. If we’re careful…”

Yes, he had thought it out. What a change from sexy blonde Gloria! Gordon was a more practical male than he chose to let himself believe.

Tediously they set it up and strung it out. They made the anchorages to the posts of the fence, and fastened the base rope to the front of the motor home. “Take off the brakes!” Thatch yelled to Gus.

Then they trudged out and took hold of the front rope, near the lead wheel. There were some last-minute adjustments to get the assembly straight; actually the wheels were out of sight as they lay under the water. But when they made a concerted pull the bike wheels came up and the rope moved. It was working!

They moved the bus forward ten feet. Then Zena ran back to prop the wheels while the men held on. The resistance of the system that made the hauling hard also helped them hold it in place between pulls. Gus could have used the brakes, but it seemed better to leave him out of it for now.

Another set of attachments, another ten or twelve feet. And another, and another. Hours passed, and the gloom of evening closed in, and still the rain pelted down mercilessly. There seemed to be no one living in all the world except the three of them—and of course lazy Gus, dry and warm inside.

Zena felt the first stirrings of what she suspected could blossom into a full-fledged hate-affair. This preposterous situation!

At last they reached unflooded roadbed. And Gus let them in. But it was not the comfort she had expected in her delirium of fatigue. The motor had been dead for hours and the interior was chill.

“We’ve got to caulk this crate,” Gus said. “The water came in. The rug’s ruined!”

Zena stifled another hysterical laugh. “The rug!”

“Not only that,” Gus continued seriously. “The refrigerator’s stopped.”

Cold as she was, Zena hardly cared. She moved back to poke into the closets, seeking more dry clothing. Even one of those dowdy dresses would do.

“Water must have snuffed the pilot light,” Gordon said. “That’s of small moment. But you’re right: we can’t let the water flood us out every time we pass through a lake. We’ll have to seal off every access. We can put plastic sheeting over the external access panels, braced by hard-board and sealed over with furnace tape. Main problems will be the passenger door and the engine compartment. We’ll have to forage for what we need.”

Gus looked at him. “You know, I think I like you better as a man. You’ve got a head for practicalities.”

Exactly Zena’s thought. Gordon did not deign to answer.

Zena found a warm dress and shut herself into the bathroom to change. She could hear the men talking, despite the noise of rain outside.

“Now get the engine going!” Gus told Thatch.

“I don’t know anything about motors!” Thatch protested.

“I do,” Gordon interjected. “Gloria’s a fool about cars—that’s why we ran out of gas. But I can—”

“You can start it?” Gus cried happily.

“I’ll need a light, and some shelter when I lift the exterior access panel. So the rain doesn’t short it out all over again. And some dry cloth, and tools.”

“Fix him up!” Gus snapped to Thatch.

“There’s an interior access,” Thatch said. By the sound of it, he was rummaging in the closets.

“Why so there is!” Gordon exclaimed. “Beautiful!”

Zena emerged from the bathroom to find Gordon at work between the two front seats. She didn’t know what he did, but before long there was the blessed roar of the motor. They were on their way again!

She slept for an hour on the back couch, then woke as the bus stopped. For a moment she thought it meant more flooding, but then she heard a woman’s sharp voice.

“Three men?” the unseen female inquired. “Long trip north? I’m hungry and I’m wet, but I’m not ripe for harem duty yet! Move on—I’ll take my chances here!”

After more dialogue, too low to be intelligible, the door closed and they moved on. Zena smiled, thinking of the harem accusation. The nomenclature was wrong. A harem would be one man and three women. Then she frowned, realizing that the nameless woman would probably pay for her spirit with her life. Where would she find another lift to the mountains?

Harem… she thought as she drifted back to sleep.

She dreamed of being decked out in filmy petticoat-trousers, waiting for the Sultan.

Abruptly she was awake. Harem! That was what Gus and Thatch had been planning! Obvious all along, but she had somehow blinded herself to it. Nothing so ambitious as an empire—just making time while the sun shone.

She peered out at the rain. Sun?

That faceless girl—left behind to die, just because she had pride and spunk.

Zena was on her feet. “Turn around!” she screamed, rushing up the passage.

Gus and Gordon, nodding in the dining alcove, snapped alert. “What?” Gus demanded.

“You left a girl out there to die,” Zena accused him. “Now turn about and go back and pick her up!”

“Are you crazy? That was an hour ago!” Gus said.

“Twenty-five minutes ago,” Gordon corrected him, looking at his dainty feminine watch.

“I don’t care how long ago!” Zena yelled, sounding hysterical in her own ears. “Thatch, you turn around.”

“Uh-uh,” Gus said. “She didn’t want to come.”

“Because you threatened her with—turn it, Thatch!”

“She’s got a point,” Gordon said. “I haven’t felt easy about that myself. At least we could have given her a lift to high ground.”

“Look,” Gus said reasonably. “We never threatened her with anything. You’re not even interested in women, are you? She jumped to a conclusion.”

“Then we should have disabused her of that conclusion,” Gordon said, the color rising to his face.

Gus raised his two hands in demurral. “Don’t forget— she was black.”

“Black!” Zena cried. “You turned her away for racial—”

“No!” Gus said. “I’m no racist, and neither is Thatch. Especially not about young women. But she must have seen our white skins and been afraid. No way she’d set foot inside this bus! If I were a white girl invited aboard with three black men, I’d feel the same.”

“Race never entered my mind,” Gordon said. “But your point is well taken. Even Gloria would hesitate. In retrospect, I think we are guilty. We should have reassured her, or tried to.”

“We’ll lose time,” Gus said. “We could all drown!”

But the vote was now two to two. Gus pondered a moment, then capitulated. “All right, Thatch. They’ll just have to learn the hard way.”

Obediently, Thatch turned. They made their way back in silence.

It was difficult to locate the precise spot where they had left the girl, because the interstate was largely featureless in the rain. They cruised for thirty-five minutes—more than far enough—but didn’t see any figure on the street. The pouring rain and thickening fog made a wider search impossible. The girl was gone.

“She could have flagged us down, if she had wanted to,” Gordon said.

Gus was disgusted. “All that time and gas wasted. And the water getting deeper all the time. We could have used the break to forage for caulking materials, too. Are you satisfied now?”

“At least we tried,” Zena said. “We aren’t savages.” But over an hour had been wasted, which meant another inch of rain and possibly another six inches of channelized flooding. Had she prejudiced their own chances by her foolish quest?

“Have we passed the Suwannee River yet?” Gordon inquired.

“No,” Gus replied. “Why the hell do you think I’m in such a hurry?”

That hardly helped Zena’s conscience. The worst flooding would be in the Suwannee River valley, naturally—no peaceful stream of folklore and song today!

They moved on north, glumly. One hour, two hours, slowly because of the deteriorating visibility. Gus began to hum “Way down upon the Suwannee River …” and it was all Zena could do to resist the baiting. She began to nod again—and the bus slowed.

Flooding again? She held her breath. No, Thatch had spotted another person. A woman in a yellow cape, trying futilely to fix the motor of her car.

“I’ll talk to her!” Zena cried. “You men keep your big mouths shut!”

Gordon smiled, Gus frowned, and Thatch seemed to be indifferent. Zena got out, ignoring the harsh beat of water on her head, hair, and third set of dry clothes, and approached the woman. She felt like a procurer, and it made her sick. But the alternative—

“We have a man who might be able to start it for you,” Zena called.

The woman faced her, the fine lines of her face set off by the fringe of rain-bedraggled hair outside her rain cape. “It’s out of gas and the battery’s dead. I just wanted you to know I was in trouble. I waited in the car for hours, knowing the highway had been closed to traffic, hoping—until I heard you come. Are you a rescue vehicle?”

“No such luck,” Zena said. “But we’ll help you.”

“You saved my life!”

For a fate worse than death? “Look, we’re a party of four, at the moment. Three men—and one of them seems to have notions of picking up grateful girls. You know. I hit him, and I think he’s harmless. But with this flooding—we may be trapped together for days.”

“Nothing could be worse for me than being trapped here.”

“That’s what I thought. But—”

“I don’t think this rain is ever going to end!”

“Not soon, I’m afraid. We’ve already passed through serious flooding, and the worst is coming. Frankly, I think you’d better hitch a ride with us. I just wanted you to know—”

“I understand. There won’t be any trouble. Usually I travel with my husband, but he’s in California right now. I don’t think you appreciate how grateful I am for the chance to get moving again.”

“You don’t have to be grateful—but it will help if you pull your weight. We’re all dead tired from hauling this tonnage out of a flooded section.”

“I understand,” the woman repeated firmly. “I’m Karen Jimson.”

“Zena Emers.” They shook hands formally, while the rain beat down on both their heads. “Let’s get the heck inside!”

They went up to the bus and climbed in. “Karen, this is Gus, Thatch, Gordon,” Zena introduced. “Men, this is Mrs. Jimson. She’s out of gas, so will ride with us—until the rain stops.”

Karen nodded in turn to each of the men. The light of the interior and the clinging wetness of her clothes under the cape showed her to be a young, buxom girl, not quite running to fat. “I have to fetch some things from the car,” she said.

“Married!” Gus expostulated the moment Karen was out of earshot.

“Why, whatever difference does that make?” Zena inquired sweetly.

Soon Karen was back with two small suitcases. “We’re all tired,” Gordon said. “Why don’t we park here and sleep? I can start the motor in the morning—and delay is better than cracking into something from fatigue. Thatch hasn’t had a break since we started, has he?”

“I don’t think we’d better stop,” Zena said, still conscious of the delay she had caused. “The water is still rising.”

“Then let me drive,” Gordon said. “Thatch has to have relief.”

Even Gus had to agree to that. “You girls take the back bunks,” he said. “A bed pulls down above the driving compartment, but we can’t use that while we’re in motion. Thatch and I can use the dining alcove.”

There was no protest. The men folded down the alcove-bed, and Zena closed off the rear section, forming it into a room. She stripped, dumped the dripping things in the sink on top of the last batch, found an oversized negligee in the female closet, donned it, and lay down. She expected sleep to come rapidly, but instead she lay tired and awake.

Karen removed her wet garments more slowly. Zena had not meant to snoop, but couldn’t resist. Karen’s figure, unlike Gloria’s, was genuine; she was a well-fleshed woman.

Karen opened one of her suitcases and removed something. Zena could not make out what it was. The woman leaned over, did something, and finally straightened.

Then Zena saw the needle. Karen had injected something into her own thigh.

Zena felt a throb of dismay. Karen had seemed like an ideal prospect for the long haul: sensible, well-adjusted, handsome. Obviously she wasn’t. Drug addiction would be an overwhelming liability in this situation!

Should she tell the others? No, that would do no good, and the truth would surely emerge in its own course. Besides, she didn’t want to admit she had been peeking.

How much misery and crime was allowed to flourish unchallenged in the world, she wondered, because of the silence of hypocrites like herself? Perhaps it was best that it all be washed out by the deluge. She knew she would have a bad night—but instead she slept soundly throughout.

The bus stopped in the early gloom, waking everyone. Gordon turned off the motor and stood, stretching. “I’m hungry,” he said.

Gus, sleepy, started to protest the delay, then saw what lay ahead. A broad lake obviously too deep to drive through. The Suwannee was at hand!

“I’ve done my stint,” Gordon said as he raided the refrigerator. “No sense wasting gas, which is already low. We’re stranded for the time being.”

He did not really believe in the permanency of the rain, Zena remembered. No sense arguing.

“Thatch, do something!” Gus cried. Gus believed!

Thatch peered about. “No anchorages for pulleys,” he said. “I’m afraid this is it. We’ll just have to swim.”

A fair assessment, Zena thought. The bus had been nice, very nice, but they couldn’t stay in that cocoon forever while the water rose.

“Get this machine across!” Gus shouted. His volume made the others wince. He seemed to be afraid.

Thatch looked at him helplessly. “If I try to drive it there, it’ll stall.”

“Why should it? We caulked it.”

Now Zena remembered: there had been a stop in the night, and some getting out and working. She had heard it, but no one had called her to help and she had been too logy to rise on her own initiative. Thatch and Gordon must have sealed the crevices and panels, or tried to.

“That may keep the water out of the residential section,” Gordon said. “But not out of the motor. It will stall.”

“Maybe it will, maybe it won’t,” Gus said angrily. “Drive, Thatch.”

Thatch shrugged and got into the driver’s seat.

“This is crazy!” Zena said. “It’s useless to—”

The motor started. Thatch drove the vehicle into the water. Zena held her breath, knowing what was going to happen.

But the water was more shallow than it had looked. The bus continued, making enormous splashes to either side. The shore line receded behind, fifty feet, seventy-five, a hundred.

Zena let out her breath. And the motor stalled.

“Now you’ve done it!” Gus said angrily to Thatch.

Zena wanted to yell at Gus, but sighed instead. Yelling might be satisfying, but it would not solve any problems.

Gordon finished his breakfast and went to the bathroom. “I’m going to sleep,” he announced.

Karen looked about. “Is there anything I can take that floats? I can’t swim.”

“You won’t have to swim!” Gus said. “We’re getting this thing across. Time to start pushing, Thatch.”

“We can’t push it that far,” Zena objected. “We tried that before.”

“You can start” Gus said. “It’s still downhill, some. Get moving, Thatch.”

“Get moving, Thatch!” Zena mimicked. “For God’s sake, Gus, downhill means deeper into the water!”

“We can still push,” Karen said. “I’ll help. But let’s eat first.”

“There’s not much food,” Zena said, remembering the woman’s injection of the prior evening. Was Karen in a drug euphoria? “And we don’t want to waste it.” Actually, she hadn’t resented Gordon’s meal. He was an asset to the group; was Karen?

But Karen had found some wrapped lumps of sugar. She opened them and ate them quickly.

They took turns using the little bathroom, where Zena’s several sets of soggy clothing remained in the sink. The closet supply would not last forever; they would have to find a way to dry things. “Don’t flush the toilet,” Zena warned. “We may need the water. We can’t trust what’s outside.”

Karen went back to the bedroom. “Oh!” she said.

Zena came to look. Gloria had remanifested, and was asleep on the couch Karen had used.

“That’s Gordon’s other self,” Zena explained. “He says he is a woman in a male body.”

“He seemed perfectly sensible to me,” Karen said, shaken. “I never guessed he was—”

“He isn’t. Just let him be. Her be. We all have our little secrets.”

Karen looked quickly at her, seeming to comprehend in that moment that Zena knew about her addiction. But she did not speak again.

They went out into the rain-blasted lake: Thatch and Karen and Zena. By common consent they left Gloria to sleep; he/she had done his/her part by driving at night. Gus, of course, was a hopeless case; the girls could not have dragged him out, and Thatch would not.

It was downhill. They pushed, and the bus moved, slowly. And the water deepened, climbing Zena’s thighs. The rain lanced down, as ever.

Zena knew it couldn’t last. They would soon be exhausted, and it would be impossible to get the bus up out of the water without using the pulley system. And impossible to use the pulleys without anchorages. Also, the increasing depth of the water was making things extremely awkward.

They stopped to rest, gasping. “Why do I go along with this idiocy?” Zena asked rhetorically. She was waist-deep now and more than physically weary.

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“What?” Zena looked about, confused. But it had not been Thatch speaking. Gordon had joined them.

“We didn’t see you,” Karen said. “There was only some blonde…”

Gordon grinned. They got together and pushed again, making slightly better progress now that they were four. The water was up to Zena’s shoulders and the whole of the vehicle’s chassis was beneath the troubled surface. They would never get it out of this!

“Stop,” Gordon said.

Zena stopped pushing, glad to get her chin out of the waves. But the bus continued moving. Thatch and Karen also stood back.

They stared as it proceeded without them.

“I was afraid of that,” Gordon said. “The current’s taken it. We have lost control.”

“Current?” Zena felt stupid, perhaps from fatigue. But of course there was a current! All this water was in transit, flowing from high ground to low ground. The bus presented a broad expanse of surface to intercept that force, now that the main body of it was in the water. A much more powerful push than three tired people could produce—or combat.

“The brakes!” Gordon cried, “Gus, put on the brakes!” But it was hardly likely that Gus could hear.

Zena forged up to the front, finding relief in full swimming but barely exceeding the bus’s velocity. She realized that Karen was being quite brave, if she really couldn’t swim, for at the rate they were going the water would soon be over her head.

“Gus—brakes!” Zena cried.

Now Gus heard. “You’ve got her going well! Don’t quit now!”

“We’re not doing it! The current—”

“Current!” Gus looked out the window, alarmed.

The bus kept moving. “Put on the brakes!” Zena screamed.

“I did!” Gus screamed back. “They’re locked!”

“They can’t be. It’s going faster than ever!”

Then, slowly, she realized. The brakes were not working, because the entire vehicle was floating!

Slowly, ponderously, like a runaway but clumsy barge, the bus wallowed in the current, going where the water took it. Zena just stood there and stared, bemused. Thatch and Gordon came into view on the other side, mouths open. Karen stood a little farther back.

Zena began to laugh, hysterically. Karen joined her. In a moment Gordon laughed too—a girlish titter. The incongruity of that set Zena off worse, though she understood the reason for that falsetto. Gloria was the dominant personality, when it came to falling apart.

Thatch merely shook his head.

The bus began to drift sidewise, off the highway.

“Thatch, do something!” Gus’s voice came back despairingly. “It’s coming in the engine hatch!”

“Well, sit on the hatch!” Gordon shouted. “Hold it down, or the whole thing will sink!”

“Maybe ‘capsize’ is the word,” Zena said, fending off another attack of the hopeless giggles.

Thatch swam after the bus.

“No way to stop it,” Gordon said. “It’ll float right on out to sea.”

But fate intervened again. Before Thatch caught up, the bus snagged on something under the surface, rotated in a quarter circle, and hung there, bobbing gently. It was off the highway, but no longer drifting with the current.

They came up to it again, four heads showing above murky water. “Thatch, I told you to get this bus across!” Gus called irritably from the interior. He was still sitting on the engine cover between the front chairs.

Zena quelled another flash of emotion: rage or mirth, or both. She knew she was overreacting. Was the man totally impervious to reason? “I’m sure he is doing his best,” she said, with what irony she was not certain herself.

Thatch considered, then swam away. The others clung to the bus uncertainly. Zena didn’t have the gumption to challenge Thatch on where he was going; it could be a plan to save the motor-home, or merely a call of nature.

“Well, let’s get inside for now,” Gordon said.

They splashed around to the door, Gordon helping Karen, who looked wan. Zena reached it first—and met another aggravation. It would not open.

“Gus, don’t be childish!” she cried, exasperated.

But Gordon fathomed the problem. “It’s not him, it’s the water. The pressure’s holding it shut.”

“And if we do yank it open,” Karen pointed out, “all the water will pour inside and sink the ship.”

Zena laid her head against the metal. “What are we going to do?”

“Use the window,” Gordon said. “That’s how I came out. I’ll boost you up.”

Karen went first, wriggling through with Gordon supporting her fleshy legs and Gus getting whatever grip he could on her robust upper torso. Watching that, Zena had second thoughts about her mode of entry. “You go next,” she said to Gordon. “Then you can help me in from inside.”

Gordon didn’t need boosting. For all his effeminate preferences, he was a well-conditioned man. He hauled himself up and through with minimum trouble.

Still, Zena lingered. “We’re forgetting Thatch! Maybe I should wait here—”

“Suit yourself,” Gordon said amenably. “But if you get cold, I’ll spell you.” He looked about inside. “We’ll have to do some bailing; that engine cover’s still leaking. Karen, why don’t you perch on it, and I’ll find a bucket…”

Zena was cold, but didn’t care to admit it. They waited, more or less helplessly. Buckets of water flew out the window to merge with the rain: Gordon was at work.

In due course Thatch returned. He bore several long poles that he had evidently fashioned from saplings.

“Oars!” Zena cried, comprehending.

“We still have to carve them flat,” Thatch said. “But they won’t fit inside.”

“Well, do it outside!” Gus snapped from the window.

“Why don’t you come out and do it yourself?” Zena snapped back.

Gus looked down at her, amazed. “And get wet?”

She thought he was joking then realized with a sick feeling that he was not. They might all drown for lack of manpower, but big Gus would not get wet.

Zena shrugged and looked at Thatch. “Have another knife?”

He did. First they had to float the poles back to shore, where they could be worked on. This was simply a matter of supporting the forepart of one’s body on the wood and kicking the feet. It was against the current, but not too difficult.

The air, as she came back into it from her submersion, seemed chill. Was the rain cooling, or was it just her? She hoped she wasn’t coming down with any illness. That would be all they needed now: a contagious disease.

They worked on the oars side by side, sitting astride them and pushing the kitchen knives away two-handed. It was awkward, but seemed to get the job done with minimum risk. A bad slip, a gash across the wrist—that could be fatal!

But she was growing unnecessarily morbid, looking for pretexts to feel sorry for herself, when there were plenty of real problems to occupy her attention!

“Thatch,” she murmured, suspecting that he would not hear her through the beat of rain, and half hoping for that.

“Yes?” he replied.

All right: out with it! “Karen—I saw her inject herself with something last night.”

He paused. “I’d better tell Gus.”

“No, you idiot! What use would he be?”

“He knows what to do.”

“What is it with you two?” she cried “You do all the work. He’s nothing but a parasite.”

“He does his part.”

“His part! What’s his part? Conspicuous consumer?”

“He leads.”

“Some leadership! He won’t even poke his nose outside.”

“Well, it’s wet outside.”

“Oh come on now, Thatch!”

He didn’t answer, and she didn’t push it. When the knife began to dull Thatch showed her how to sharpen it with a little whetstone he had, and the laborious work continued.

When they had four oars, they got up. Zena’s hands were cramped and hurting; there would be blisters. Now for the swim back.

“About time!” Gus called as they drew alongside.

“Don’t you know that every hour makes it worse? We have to reach high ground.”

“We can put the oars through the windows, and row,” Thatch said. “It won’t matter how deep the water gets.”

“You have no anchorages in the windows,” Gus said.

Zena was fleetingly amused to see how the normal roles of the two men had reversed. Now Gus was protesting while Thatch gave answers.

“I’ll take care of that,” Gordon said. “I’ve been considering the layout. We’ll have to nail some blocks in.”

“Then we can’t close the windows!” Gus said. “The rain will come in.”

So that was it: Gus was really concerned about his personal comfort. True to form after all!

“I’ll remove the blocks once we’re back on land,” Gordon said. “It’ll get wet in here—but that’s the least of evils.”

“The rugs! The furniture!” Gus exclaimed.

Gordon ignored him. “Pass in an oar handle, folks, so I can piece this out. We need room for the oarsmen, too.”

“There are no blocks,” Gus said.

“We’ll have to cut some lengths off the ends of the oars,” Gordon said.

They had no saw, so had to carve off segments with the knives. Thatch was good at this, though Zena saw that his hands were badly blistered; he had cut down the trees this way, too. More time was lost, while the rain rained. Zena was afraid the bus would float off its impediment before they were ready. She decided not to voice this thought, however. What could they do about it except worry?

But the water level now seemed to be constant, though the rain never abated. Apparently the broad flow sufficed to keep it stable, here—for the time being. Gordon, with much hammering and unladylike swearing, got the makeshift apparatus done.

At last they were ready for the big effort. Gordon helped Zena in, and Thatch stayed outside to make sure the oars were functioning correctly. Zena and Karen had the rear pair; they braced their feet against the back panel of the bus and sat facing rearward on the two side couches, holding on to the heavy awkward oar handles. Gus had the dinette-alcove oar; he was seated similarly on the bed set there. Gordon stopped bailing, set a box of shoes, wet clothing and other artifacts on the engine panel to help hold it down, and took the kitchen oar. He had the hall to move in.

“Now push down and forward on your oars,” Thatch called from behind. “That lifts them up and forward, outside.”

Zena tried. It was like wrestling a rigid snake. The leverage was all against her.

She wasn’t the only one; Karen was struggling valiantly to master her oar, and finally got it pinned under her body. A banging up front indicated that at least one of the men was having trouble too.

“Get them together!” Thatch shouted. “Otherwise the craft will spin about.”

But Zena could not manage her oar, let alone coordinate it with anyone else’s.

“No, no, it’s all wrong!” Thatch cried.

“Come in here and take my oar,” Gus called. “I’ll show you how to organize.”

Thatch swam up and climbed in the window, while Gordon bailed some more. There was a constant inflow of water from somewhere, despite the patching and caulking, and the rug was covered an inch deep. The two men changed places. Then Gus strode down the hall and perched on the rear couch with his feet clear of the water. He faced forward between the two girls.

“Take your places,” he cried. “Now everybody push down.” His voice carried better than Thatch’s and had a greater imperative. Zena found herself responding with extra effort despite her resentment. Trust Gus to land the softest spot!

“Karen, get your hands on it, not your chest,” Gus continued. “Gordon, don’t move it yet—just hold it in place. You’re stronger than the girls, so you’ll have to hold back a little. Now, when I call ‘Forward,’ I want you all to push your oars toward me, together—but keep those handles down! Okay—now forward!”

They shoved their unwieldy handles forward. Under his direction they let the handles rise, so that the paddle ends dropped more or less neatly into the water outside. No splash was audible through the steady noise of the rain, but Zena felt the change in balance. “Now, pull back, hard!”

They pulled together, and the bus lurched free of its encumbrance. It tilted and wallowed alarmingly, then steadied. Zena hoped she would not be seasick.

“Now we’re on the high seas,” Gus said, unperturbed. “Keep those oars moving! Down—forward—up pull!”

Zena obeyed almost mindlessly, and felt the bus begin to move. They were doing it—they were rowing it across the water!

And it was idle Gus who had accomplished that final unified action, not Thatch or anyone else. Gus had after all emerged as the leader when it counted. Thatch had tried, but failed: he had neither the voice nor the talent to organize people. In performance, Thatch was a loner.

The rowing became easier as they got the hang of it, though it was cruelly tiring. Zena’s arms were soon numb with fatigue, but Gus kept the cadence going and she didn’t dare be the first to stop.

Then Karen collapsed over her oar. “Halt!” Gus bawled. “Gordon, start bailing before we sink! The rest of you rest in place, catch your breath. We’re nearing land; one more drive will do it.”

Thank God, Zena thought. For the rest and for the sight of the end. She had never before labored so hard.

Then they resumed, and it was as bad as before. Karen had recovered enough to pull her oar, but Zena could tell they were not making the progress they had been. The current of the water and the sheer weight of the bus were too much.

Suddenly the engine cover burst its latches. Water gushed in, carrying away the box and flooding the interior. The bus began to sink.

“Keep paddling!” Gus cried.

Then they ran aground. The vehicle seemed to bounce slightly as the wheels touched bottom. The water continued to climb inside, but Zena knew they would not drown.

“Keep rowing!” Gus yelled. “I’ll steer!” He got down and waded up the hall to the driver’s seat.

However, the rowing was now ineffective. Gus set the brakes and they relaxed, dead-armed. They had made it, after a fashion.

Now the rain seemed extra loud, though it had never abated. Zena wondered why. Perhaps this was because she had been out in it so long, and then had had to struggle with the oar. For the first time since daybreak, she had nothing to do but listen.

“Is there any sugar?” Karen asked. No one answered.

What a deluge this was! If only they had listened to her, those paramilitary experts of the space station. All this could so readily have been avoided…

“Let’s go with the pulleys!” Gus said, sloshing back down the aisle. “The water’ll drain once we get out.”

Zena sighed. At least he had gotten his feet wet. That was progress of a kind. “Gus, we’re worn out!”

“You’ll be drowned if we don’t get on out of here before the deep flooding starts,” he responded. “This thing won’t float so well next time, now that it’s waterlogged. It was sinking the whole time we were paddling.”

“We were paddling,” Zena muttered ironically.

“You can rest once we’re driving again.”

Wearily they got up and clambered out the front window. Gordon got the pulley apparatus down from the roof-rack while Thatch and Zena surveyed for anchorages. They were in luck: There were several illegal billboards with firm grounding posts. Many things, Zena thought bitterly, were not made the way they used to be, not made to last. Billboards were.

The hauling took an interminable time, even though Karen was there to help. But long before it was done, she weakened and had to go back to the bus. “That’s the trouble with drug dependency,” Zena muttered. “The high gives out, and you’re worse off than before.”

“Drug addiction!” Gordon exclaimed.

“Yes, I saw her take a shot last night. I don’t know what kind.”

“That doesn’t necessarily make her an addict.”

“Why would she hide it, then?”

Gordon didn’t answer. The three of them continued hauling.

At last they made it out of the water. They blocked the wheels and trekked around to the door and inside.

Gus and Karen were just rising from what had obviously been an intimate liaison. While the three dead-tired people had labored outside, the two rested ones had indulged in the most basic of entertainments.

“All right, get the motor started!” Gus said, covering up in more ways than one. “Long drive ahead!”

Wearily, Gordon worked on the motor, while Thatch saw to the draining and cleaning of the refrigerator, range and other conveniences. A layer of thin mud was over everything that the water had touched. Zena checked the lashings on the oars, which were now mounted on the roof, and made sure the ropes and pulleys were secure. She was not only worn out, she was sick.

She stood against the back of the bus, face shielded from the rain, and sorted it out. What, specifically, was bothering her? Was it the inequity of allowing three hard workers to carry the load for two shirkers? No, not exactly; Karen had manned an oar and helped for a while with the hauling. She really had been about to drop. Gus had performed a necessary service by calling the cadence for rowing; otherwise they’d be floating yet—perhaps right out to sea. Or worse, they’d be sunk because of that burst engine cover—in twenty feet of dirty water, with one of their number unable to swim. How many of the rest could have bucked the current and made it the long distance to shore?

Was it that Gus had taken advantage, forcing his attentions on a woman too tired to resist? No, Gus was lazy, and self-interested, but hardly that forceful about sex; Karen could have rebuffed him with a word, or failing that, a scream, had she chosen to. Certainly she had made a miraculous recovery of energy! Another shot of her drug?

Was it, then, that Karen was married? That was disturbing—yet really it was her own business. Certainly a married woman knew what it was all about, and could make her own decisions.

What, then? Why should Zena herself be so upset about a matter that was hardly her affair? She had problems enough of her own to worry about!

Her stomach heaved, but she managed to hold her gorge down. The last thing she wanted to do was waste precious food! Probably she was merely reacting to the strain of overwork and the mind-deadening smash of rain, on and on.

The motor coughed, making her jump, for she was almost astride the tail pipe. Gordon had worked his magic once more and they were about to be on their way— again.

Inside, all was not well. They were low on food, water, and gasoline.

“We’ve got to get more,” Gus said.

“There isn’t any more,” Thatch replied, sounding querulous. That was another thing: how had this Gus/Karen thing affected Thatch? “No stores or stations will be open in this rain—and we don’t have enough money.”

“Don’t give me that!” Gus snapped. “I tell you we need supplies, not excuses—and within the hour!”

Just like that, Zena thought. Gus was true to form.

“It wouldn’t be right to—” Thatch was saying.

“You think anybody’s going to care what we take—after it’s all underwater?” Gus demanded. “We’d better salvage what we can!”

“He has a point,” Gordon said. “I don’t approve of theft, but this is hardly a typical circumstance.”

Thatch nodded regretfully. “I suppose not.”

“Aren’t you making a big assumption?” Karen asked. “Pretty soon this rain will stop, and—”

“No. It’ll never stop,” Gus said. “Not till all this is way underneath. That’s why we’re driving so hard for the mountains.”

The motor was running smoothly now, and Gordon came inside. “Thatch and Zena and I have to collapse,” he said. “Gus’d better drive.”

Thatch began to shake his head, but Karen cut him off. “I know how to drive.”

“Women don’t—” Gus began.

“Oh, it will be quite safe,” Karen said, “with you to help me.”

Gus tried to protest, but she led him to the front. He seemed to be unable to resist her suggestion.

Zena looked at Thatch, but he was already lying on the dinette bed. Then her eye caught Gordon’s—and he winked.

Karen could make Gus go along because she had taken the trouble to show him what she could do for him. Smart, smart! Maybe Gordon had suggested the notion to her.

Zena quelled another surge of nausea and flopped wetly on the back couch.