Rings of Ice

Chapter 6: Food

Dust Devil took to keeping Zena company in the garden, and the little cat was sociable enough in his way. He went after the larger insects—and these were becoming large indeed. Perhaps the presence of the puppy Foundling in the bus had encouraged the cat to seek other pastures, though the two animals seemed to tolerate each other well enough.

Usually Gordon hauled water for home and garden, carrying it in two buckets hung from a crude shoulder yoke. The best spring they had found was a mile away, so it was a time-consuming, tedious, tiring job. This time Karen came.

“Karen!” Zena cried. “You can’t do that! You could go into shock!”

Karen carefully poured each bucket into the little irrigation trenches Zena had made, then came to sit by her. “No danger of that. I regulate my insulin according to need—and hard exercise helps utilize the glucose in my system anyway.” She sighed, looking at the meager rivulets her water had made. “But it is true I shouldn’t overdo it. I’ll rest for a while.”

“Where’s Gordon?”

“Out scouting with Thatch. This moss is growing over everything, making the terrain unfamiliar, so he has to be updated every so often.” She shook her head. “I rather envy Gloria. When she gets tired or fed up, presto—a man!”

“Moss?”

“You’re too absorbed in your garden, Zena! Haven’t you noticed it?”

“I suppose I have. I just didn’t realize its extent. I keep it out of the garden automatically.”

They watched Dust Devil pounce on a huge brown beetle that had been bulldozing its way toward the garden. The thing buzzed and fought in a manner that made Zena shudder. If bugs now stood up to cats, what would be next?

“I think this cloud-cover encourages it,” Karen said. “We don’t get much direct sunlight any more.”

“Yes. I hope we don’t have trouble with vitamin D deficiency.”

“Plenty of that in those vitamin pills we loaded up on. They’ll last a year, at least—and the rain can’t go on longer than that, can it?”

“Unlikely. Too bad we couldn’t find you similar reserves of—” Zena paused, having second thoughts as she spoke, but it was too late. So she modified the subject and went on: “Would you mind explaining just what your insulin does? I know it keeps you going, but—”

“I could lecture for hours! But in essence, it’s this way: I have what is called ‘juvenile diabetes mellitus’. That’s the most serious kind; for some reason children get it much worse than adults. It means a portion of my pancreas called the ‘islets of Langerhans’ that normally makes insulin has failed. Insulin is needed to get the glucose, the blood sugar, out of my blood and into my muscles. Without it, my body starves, no matter how much sugar piles up in my blood. It’s like a trainload of food with nobody to unload it for the starving people. The pileup gets worse and worse—”

“That’s why diabetics have sweet urine!” Zena exclaimed, understanding.

“That’s why. So much sugar there that we’re pissing it out—and dying for lack of it in our body cells. Real irony. So we take insulin, to make up for what our body lacks, and that does the job. But if we take too much, it uses up too much of the blood sugar, making a critical shortage, and—”

“Shock! I see it now. But you take more insulin when you’re working hard—”

“Less, honey. Work helps the insulin, so I need less. If I don’t cut down, I’m in trouble, unless I take more sugar.”

“So you’re really saving insulin when you do this water carrying.”

“That’s right. And since my supply is limited, that’s all to the good.”

Zena felt a sudden chill. She had gotten to like Karen as she understood her better; the woman was a hard worker with a steady temper. “How limited?”

“Don’t worry! I use Lente U80—that’s a fairly long-lasting combination, and strong. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated. You’ve seen my hexagonal vials? Insulin is shape-coded. I have a good six months supply, and with careful management I can stretch it out—”

“Six months!” Zena cried, appalled. “What then?”

Karen looked at the sky. “Well, it doesn’t keep forever, anyway. That’s a pretty heaven.”

“Karen—”

“But I don’t understand that shape to the north. That set of cow horns. Is that the devil coming for us?”

How could Karen be so strong? It was death she contemplated in six months, or however long her insulin lasted. Certainly not more than a year. Yet she carried on without complaint.

Karen turned, concerned at Zena’s silence. “Why Zena, you’re crying,” she said gently. “I’m sorry.”

“I never cry!” Zena protested, wiping her face with the back of one dirty hand.

“Oh, you should cry! I cried a lot when this started— the needle, the sugar-watching. It’s no shame.”

“It is to me!”

“It shows you’re human. No shame at all—so long as you get up afterwards and do what must be done. So that there is a continuity. I’m sure you will. Meanwhile I take it as a signal compliment—if your first tears are for me.”

“Oh, Karen, this is awful! Can’t we find some more insulin?”

“Only if some company still makes it. That’s possible. Gus has been listening in on the radio, just in case.”

Zena had thought Gus was merely entertaining himself instead of working. Now she was embarrassed. She had been misjudging people again.

“It is just possible that there is some in Atlanta …”

Atlanta. Where they dared not inquire.

“I really am curious about those horns,” Karen reminded her. “I’m not unduly superstitious, but I feel watched.”

Zena looked north. “It’s the polar opening. The cloud canopy can’t cover the globe entirely—there’s nothing for it to rotate about at the poles. So it falls there, or fails to form, and leaves a circular opening. Nothing supernatural.”

“But we can’t see the north from here, and it’s not a circle.”

“The cloud layer is becoming reflective. The image bounces off the bottom surface and reaches us inverted. We only see part of it, and naturally it’s distorted.”

“You mean we’re seeing around the horizon?”

“Two and a half thousand miles around,” Zena said. “Maybe more. The effect will get stronger as the canopy thickens.”

“Not the devil…”

“Not the devil!” They exchanged smiles.

The garden languished, but the sky grew in splendor. Halos of light appeared around the dimming sun—huge circular rainbows, with all their colors. At first they were hazy, extremely faint, but now they could be seen by anyone. Sometimes there was a double ring, and sometimes only a semicircle.

Still that serpent of Mindel writhed across the welkin, growing darker and stronger in its changing manifestations. Some days it hardly showed in the high haze; other days it seemed ready to swallow the sun itself.

Zena had a sobering thought: What if Mindel did not collapse before Riss arrived? Then the third ring of ice would overshadow the second canopy, and break down on top of it, forming either a double canopy or a doubly thick one. Which would make the eventual rain that much more severe.

And if that rain took longer than two months, as it probably would, considering how much water had to be cleared this time, the fourth ring, Wurm, would form on top of that. There would be not two, but three canopies breaking down together.

It would be one hell of a deluge.

Gus was trying the radio again, while Gloria washed the dishes. “Gus, I want to apologize,” Zena said.

He glanced up. “Forget it.”

“I haven’t even told you what for!”

“It’s about the radio, isn’t it? I knew you’d understand when you thought it out.”

“Have you found anything?”

“Lots of stuff. Nothing we can use. It would help if I could talk to them, ask questions.”

“I understand there are five stages of dying,” Gloria said.

“Nobody’s going to die!” Gus snapped.

Gloria was unshaken. “The first is denial. The second is anger.”

“How about action?” Gus growled.

“I’m thinking of inevitable death, that the patient knows is coming. Like leukemia, or—”

“Diabetes,” Zena put in—and again was sorry. She spoke too often, now, before she thought.

“God won’t let it happen,” Gus said.

“God let the rings of ice happen!” Zena said.

“That’s the third stage,” Gloria said. “Bargaining with God. I’d respect prayer more if it came at occasions other than the last resort. The fourth stage is depression—and the last is acceptance.”

“Karen has reached it,” Zena said. “I haven’t.”

Gloria glanced at her. “You fight these things like a man. How would you like to exchange bodies with me?”

Gloria meant no offense, but the question floored Zena. Assume a male body? Her stomach knotted.

“Don’t tease her, Glory,” Gus said. “She’s not transsexual, she’s merely inhibited. Once she feels at ease, she’ll be all woman.”

“Thanks!” Zena said bitterly.

“That’s the way it goes,” Gus said. “First denial, then anger—and finally acceptance.”

He was right about the anger, anyway.

Gus came out to look at the garden. “It isn’t doing well,” he said.

Zena’s hand tightened on the hoe. “Give it a chance! It’s only been two months since the rain stopped.”

Gus carried a fistful of the little packages they had found in a garden store. “Carrots,” he read off the first. “Ready in 78 days.” He looked at Zena’s row of carrots. “Are they going to be ready in 18 more days?”

Obviously they weren’t. The tops were growing, but no significant carrot roots were forming.

“Lettuce,” Gus read. “Ready in 45 days.”

“We’ve been using it for a month,” Zena said with a certain pride. “Also the chive.”

“But none of it is going to seed,” he pointed out. “What will we have for the next season?” He looked at another package. “Radish—ready in 23 days.”

“I don’t know what went wrong there. We got a few from the first planting, but these later ones don’t seem to be developing. Maybe the soil—”

“Cora—12 weeks. Pumpkin—112 days. Cucumber—”

“What are you getting at?” Zena said irritably.

“I’m getting at the fact that there is a pattern to what isn’t growing. We have not had a single plant form a root—a storage root—or go to seed. Not after Mindel spread its shadow across here.”

Zena realized it was true. “Those first radishes were before that! The other plants—”

“That’s right. Those plants need light to grow on—direct sunlight. Maybe ordinary clouds don’t interfere too much, but Mindel is high and thick, with extraterrestrial impurities. The vegetables can grow, but the light trigger that makes them mature never comes. Maybe the soil affects it too; Gunz-water has soaked into it. But we aren’t going to be able to do much more farming.”

“We can eat the leaves,” she said. “Carrot tops can be cooked, and turnip greens—”

Gus smiled. “Sure, Zena. I’m not deprecating your effort here. You’ve put in so many hours it’s a wonder you’re not stir-crazy. I just wanted you to understand that we can’t live entirely on your garden, now or ever. Greens won’t keep; we need solid vegetables like potatoes, or grains, for storage. Or meat—plenty of it.”

“We’ve pretty well cleaned out the edible wildlife we can catch around here,” Zena said. “Foundling has a good nose and the hunting instinct.”

“Except the bugs. I understand insects taste pretty good when you know how to fix them.”

“Gus!”

“Yeah, it turns my stomach too! So we’ll have to do what the others are doing, the way Thatch reports from his reconnoitering. Go fishing.”

Floy emerged from the bus and came over. “Hey, I thought of something. I’ve been reading that Annular book.”

“It’s good reading,” Gus said.

“It says people must have lived a long time, back when there was a canopy, thousands of years ago. Like in the Bible, maybe they really did live nine hundred years.”

“Could be,” Gus agreed. “The rays of the sun kill every living thing.”

“But the sun is necessary to reproduction,” Zena pointed out. “The plants—”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Floy said, perturbed. “If we need the sun to grow to maturity, will I be frozen like this, never quite big enough—”

“You’re okay as you are,” Gus said. “Don’t let anybody tell you differently!”

But this time Floy was not put off by his compliment. “Never able to have a baby of my own? I don’t care if I live nine hundred years, if I can’t—”

“No babies!” Gus exclaimed. “God, I hadn’t thought of that! We can’t have a new order without—”

“We were talking about fishing,” Zena said. “That’s dangerous.”

“Fishing? No more dangerous than starving,” Gus said.

“The waters of the world have changed, Gus. There’ll be unpredictable currents, strange tides—and probably few fish.”

“Should be plenty of fish!” he said. “All that water—”

“But it’s fresh water! It will drive the salt fish away.”

“Now where could they go?” he asked reasonably.

“Or kill them off in huge numbers. There could be disease—”

“Thatch says the fish exist. Maybe new species are taking the place of the old.”

“It doesn’t happen that rapidly! It would take them generations.”

“Why don’t we just go down to the shore and see?”

She sighed. Gus was usually right, even when he was wrong. A useful and obnoxious trait. “What do you want me to do?”

“And me!” Floy put in.

“Help make the net.”

“The net?”

“The predator fishes come in close to land, Thatch says. Chasing the scavengers. The best way to catch them is by netting them. We may have to use the bus to haul the net out of the water, but we’ll have plenty of food.”

“It can’t be that simple.”

“It isn’t. The word is those fish are fierce.”

Zena laughed, and so did Floy. “Fierce fish!”

“The kind that survive in rough times,” he said.

It took them a week to gather the line to make a strong net, and ten more days to fashion it. Gus insisted that every intersection be knotted precisely, and that every loop around the edge be tested. He had questioned Thatch closely and made many diagrams of his own, becoming expert in his fashion. Gus did not, however, do any of the finger-bruising work himself.

A question of a different and significant nature had developed in Zena’s mind, meanwhile. By the time they were ready for their first fishing expedition, she was sure, But whom should she tell—and when?

They piled into the bus and drove down the mountain. The ride was rough but strangely scenic. Zena had been intent on her gardening and net-making, and had not traveled since the ill-fated gasoline raid.

The forest was much as she had known it. But abruptly at its edge the change began. She remembered the desolation of bare rock, where the rain had washed out every sign of human habitation or construction except for sections of the highway and the most solid buildings. Now it was all green.

The moss had sprouted everywhere, covering the scoured surfaces and softening the bleak outlines. But this did not improve the look of the land; it rendered it even more foreign than before.

The steeper slopes, however, remained bare. In some places there was a desert of packed sand with multicolored rocks projecting jaggedly. Tufts of grass grew up around the edges of the rock, and a number of tall weeds had sprouted—but none of these had gone to seed.

Below, the land leveled out somewhat, and the vegetation became more lush. Still it was a matter of scattered clusters of trees, a light covering of weeds, and the rest filled in by the moss. There were no flowers. Small canyons had been cut through what had once been rolling hills.

The shore, too, was strange. It was not the ocean, but an arm of the Tennessee River, backed up behind the Appalachian range, maintained at super-flood stage by the continuing runoff from the mountains. By the time it dropped to more reasonable levels, Mindel’s rain would begin, and it would become a sea in fact as well as appearance.

Now dying trees projected from the placid water, and there was no formal beach.

“First we have to cast the net, and get it out of sight below the water,” Gus said. “Let it sink right down to the bottom. Then we’ll have to attract the fish.”

“We can’t spread it properly from the shore,” Thatch said.

“Well, swim out with it. It has to be done right.”

“It’s not safe,” Thatch said. “If there are large predators—”

“Of course it’s not safe!” Gus said. “But they’re not here yet. We’ll have to lay it in a hurry.”

But Thatch still balked at swimming far out, and Gordon agreed. “We’ll have to make a boat,” Gordon said.

They searched the shoreline for driftwood, and came up with assorted branches and trunks. They lashed this pile into a kind of raft. It looked clumsy and barely seaworthy, but it floated. Thatch lay on top of the pile and reached out and down with his hands to paddle on either side. Slowly he moved outward, trailing the net.

Fifty feet out he let the net sink, and started back. He floated higher now, for the net had been heavy. But his drift continued outward. “Oh-oh!” Gordon said. “There’s a tow!”

Zena saw a flash of something farther out to sea. “They’re coming!” she cried.

“We should have anticipated this!” Gordon exclaimed. “I’ll carry out a rope. When I get there, pull us both in— fast!”

He dived into the water and stroked quickly toward the raft. But the fins of the approaching fish were faster. “They’ll both get caught!” Zena cried.

Karen ran to the bus and brought out their rifles. She handed one to Zena. “Aim very carefully!” she cautioned.

Gordon reached the raft and scrambled on board. The thing shifted dizzily. “Pull!” he shouted. “Pull! Pull!”

Gus just stood there. Karen whirled around, the rifle leveled. “Pull that rope!” she screamed at Gus.

Startled, Gus began pulling. Karen aimed at the turbulence in the water and waited. “For a moment I thought you were going to shoot Gus!” Zena said.

“For a moment I thought so too,” Karen muttered. “We can’t afford to sacrifice the only two real men we have!”

Thatch and Gordon were splashing madly to drive off the fish. Fins were circling completely around them now. Zena could make out the shapes in the water only dimly, but they looked inordinately large. And fast.

Then one leaped out of the water. Zena gasped. “What is it?”

“Shark, maybe,” Karen said. “Or a sawfish. I don’t know, but it must be a yard long. No trout, for sure! We’re in trouble!”

Another jumped, and Karen’s rifle went off. The fish splashed back into the water and immediately there was a vigorous disturbance there. “You hit it!” Zena cried.

“Oh, yes, I’ve used a rifle before,” Karen said, preoccupied. “I doubt we can kill those things with bullets, but the blood makes them kill each other. Whatever you do, don’t hit the men!”

Zena was in little danger of doing that. The image of men falling before her machine gun was before her, and of flaming gasoline, and the acute physical pain of first intercourse came again—her punishment for those killings. She did not dare fire!

Then another giant fish sailed out of the water toward the raft, and her rifle went off.

“Too high!” Karen said. “Bring your aim down.”

“Porpoises!” Zena exclaimed. “Some of those are porpoises! Friends of man!”

“Not any more,” Karen said. “Maybe when man was dominant, they were friends.” Her rifle fired again. “But these are too small! Could they be giant piranhas?”

“How could a whole new species evolve in just a few months?”

“If there were canopy conditions before, canopy species could have evolved then,” Karen said. “Variants of the ones we know now. With the canopy back, they might metamorphose, returning to that prior state.”

“I doubt it,” Zena said. But she knew that animal life was capable of many unexplained phenomena—and there were the strange, vicious fish before her.

Now Gus had succeeded in hauling the raft into shallow water. It snagged on the bottom and began to fall apart. The two men jumped off and waded ashore. “The teeth on those things!” Gordon said.

“The net! The net!” Gus shouted.

They all rushed to their stations, hauling on the lines in unison. The net came up and forward, trapping the fish. The weight seemed to be enormous.

“Look at that!” Gordon cried.

Zena glanced at him, thinking he had seen a sea monster in the net; but he was staring at the sky. She followed his gaze, and froze in place.

A terrific band of color was there, like a rainbow, but almost a complete circle. In fact it was a double circle around the sun except that the sun itself could not be seen. Instead there were two or even four imitation suns intersected by the rings, each with a fiery comet-tail pointing outward. Fault rainbows were tangent to the outer ring, two below and one above. This brilliant complex filled the sky to the west, hanging above the water, making the cloud canopy seem suddenly darker.

Gus let go the net and dropped to his knees. “The end of the world!” he cried.

“Hold that net,” Karen cried. But it was too late; the net had sunk, and the strange fish were escaping over the rim to free water.

“A sign from God!” Gus said, still staring.

“It’s a prismatic effect of Mindel!” Gordon said. “You ought to know, it’s in your book. A complex canopy halo formed by refraction through the cloud layer.”

“But never like this!” Gus said.

“Riss just arrived,” Zena said. “Two canopies joined together, intensifying the effect. Dramatically.”

Slowly Gus came out of it. “I—suppose it is. I didn’t know it would be like this, so bright, so big.”

“Meanwhile we have lost our catch,” Zena said ungraciously.

“We’ll try it again tomorrow,” Karen said. “We do have the dead fish—what’s left of them.”

“We’ll camp here tonight and try first thing in the morning,” Gordon said. He scooped out a piece of fish. “Not much here for us. I’m no naturalist, but these specimens seem quite strange. They must be freshwater species, but not the conventional game fish. I wonder—Loch Ness —”

“What are you talking about?” Gus demanded. “Loch Ness is in Scotland.”

“The Loch Ness monster. There have been stories about many such creatures in isolated lakes of the world—that may not be so isolated any more. If conditions have been changed to favor them over the conventional species—”

“That’s what I was saying!” Karen said. “And if that’s so, we’re in for an age of monsters like never before!”

“But these are fish,” Gus said.

“Strange ones,” Karen reminded him. “Who knows where they’ve been hiding, waiting for this day, this season?”

Zena watched the image in the sky, now fading. “It is rather like a sign,” she said.

Karen looked at her. “You mean something by that, girl. Is it what I think you mean?”

“I suppose it is.”

“Great news! We’ll have a party!”

“Is it?” Zena asked. “Great news?”

But Karen was already telling the others. “Zena’s got her baby! She’s pregnant!”

Zena didn’t have the nerve to look at Thatch to see how he was taking it. “Without marriage, without love,” she murmured, feeling let down now that the news was out. “How can it be good news?”

But the others were far more positive. Zena expected Gus to say “I didn’t know you had it in you!” but she was spared that. “It was a sign of God!” Gus said. “That the plants may not procreate, but man will continue!”

“Not necessarily,” Zena said. “This dates from before the Mindel canopy.”

That surprised and dismayed Gus. Apparently it hadn’t occurred to him that Zena could have engaged in such activity that early. It was satisfying to have kept the secret from him, and proof that Thatch did not engage in locker-room talk. But if it had not been for the gasoline-raid fiasco, Gus would have been right.

They did have a little party, breaking out the last bottle of cheap wine in their supply. They sang songs of the old world, the world of four months ago. The night was warm and bright, for Mindel now brought light around the globe, as though to make up for what it subtracted from the daytime. And Zena felt a little better.

Canopy Mindel/Riss loomed dark and low, so thick that daylight had become dusk and even the haloes had faded. Zena harvested the last of the chive and checked the ground in case she had missed any of the small turnips. Soon, now, Mindel would let go, and all vestige of the little garden would be washed out forever.

She heard a hammering back at the camp. Alarmed, she hurried back; Thatch and Gordon were out in the bus on a final foraging mission, not home yet.

It was Gus, using the sledgehammer to pound in a row of stakes. Zena stopped short and stared. Gus—working on his own?

“Come on,” he yelled, seeing her. “Help me get these in.”

“But why?” she asked, setting down her burden.

“I saw strangers scouting us. They know Mindel’s going to let go soon. They want the bus.”

“So you’re building a palisade?”

“For defense. I figure they’ll strike as the rain starts. I only hope it holds off until we get the bus in and the wall finished.”

“I haven’t seen any strangers.”

“That’s because you were working, not watching. They’re there, all right—and they have guns.”

Zena felt a chill. Gus had been right too many times before. He was lazy, but he didn’t make many mistakes. That was how he earned his keep. If he took this threat seriously enough to do physical labor himself, she had better help!

But it took a great many stakes to make even a short wall, and Gus had not had time to prepare enough. Zena used the saw to lop off hard pine branches, and a hatchet to make points on the stakes already standing. It was awkward, fatiguing work.

Floy appeared with cat. “Hey, there’s men around here,” she said. “Dust Devil spotted them. I don’t know what they’re up to, but I don’t like it.”

“Then haul wood!” Gus said. “All our firewood has to be inside this stockade before the bus gets here.”

They were still hard at work when the bus arrived. “Didn’t like the look of Mindel,” Gordon said as they pulled up. “We’d better buckle up for the deluge.”

Foundling bounded out the door, a healthy and aggressive dog. His hackles rose as he sniffed the air. “He knows something,” Gordon said, “and it’s not the dragon in the sky he smells! Has anyone been snooping around here?”

“Yes,” Floy said. “Dust Devil saw—”

“I think we’d better gird for an attack,” Gordon said. “Nobody’s bothered us before, but many people know we’re here and the bus is a nice residence—particularly when it gets wet out. And someone may envy our women, too.”

“Everybody carry a weapon,” Gus said. “And stay inside the palisade. Don’t give them a clear shot.”

They had three firearms. Karen carried the pistol, while Gus and Thatch had the rifles. Zena and Gordon wore knives. Nervously they went about their preparations, completing the palisade and covering their firewood and other stores.

Nothing happened. Mindel hung on to its massive mists, and no attack came. Night advanced, darker than before; but the monstrous serpent writhed in the sky, bearing its own illumination. The guard was set, watching the eerie quiet. Zena slept nervously, one hand on her abdomen where the new life was forming, the other on the hilt of the knife.

In the morning Thatch made a small fire so that they could roast morsels of wild cow, conserving fuel for the bus’s range. The odors drifted all over the neighborhood, but no strangers came forth. Still Dust Devil stalked about, hissing at nothing, and Foundling growled.

“I’m about ready to go and get them,” Gordon muttered.

“That’s what they want!” Gus said. “We’ll stay right here.” Then he looked at Gordon, considering. “Maybe you’d better change.”

Gordon smiled grimly. “Yes. In case they come in peace.”

He converted to Gloria, as fetchingly female as ever. There was no sign of knife or hatpin, but Zena knew they were handy. She remembered how shocking Gordon’s first revelation of transsexuality had seemed—and thought of the contrast now. Gordon/Gloria had been accepted by this group for what he/she was, and that was important. Had this person ever before had such acceptance?

Could a female psyche actually have a male body? Dimly she remembered some clinical comment on the subject in a technical journal. Apparently it was possible. More likely the basis was psychological, but in any event, Gordon believed it. He might in time have undertaken surgery for feminization, had the rains not come.

Now he would have to be a man. Floy needed him as such.

The day continued, and Mindel held off, taunting them with its potential devastation.

“We’d better sleep in the daytime,” Gus decided. “Karen and I’ll watch now, and the rest of you—” he paused, looking at his hand. “Wet,” he said, surprised.

“It’s started,” Floy cried. “Mindel’s first drop!” She clapped her hands as well as she could.

“One drop doth not a deluge make,” Zena muttered. She did not enjoy the prospect of being cooped up in the bus for more months, short of food, and her baby coming.

But other drops were falling, making a patter across the dry ground.

Foundling growled, louder. “Oh-oh,” Gus said. “Battle stations!”

Thatch took his rifle and crawled under the canvas covering the wood. Gloria donned a rain cape and stood in the bus door. The others stayed inside the vehicle, peering out the windows.

A man strode up to the palisade gate, solid and unshaven. “Starting to rain,” he called. “Can I take shelter here?”

Zena tried to see him more clearly, but couldn’t. There were several colonies of people in the neighborhood, but the voice was not familiar.

Gloria pushed open the door. “Sorry, mister,” she said sweetly. “I don’t feel quite safe letting strangers in.”

The man paused, evidently taking her measure through the line of stakes. Gloria’s measure, to the uninitiated, was impressive. “Well, can you give me directions how to reach the town? I’m lost.”

“Of course,” Gloria called. “Follow the tracks down to the coast, and turn left. There’s a settlement about two miles along.”

“I can’t hear you,” the man said.

Gloria stepped down delicately and moved through the increasing rain to the gate. “Follow the tracks, there behind you, down to the—”

“And could you give me a little water? Or a cup to catch this rain in?”

Gloria trekked back to the bus, took a cup, and brought it to the man. She had to open the gate to pass it through without spilling.

The man crashed against the gate, knocking her back. A pistol appeared in his hand. “Okay, men,” he shouted.

Gloria’s arm circled his throat, her knife glinting dose. “Drop the gun,” she said.

Instead the man whirled, thinking to throw the weak woman aside. The blade slashed across his throat, and he fell soundlessly.

Gloria jumped to bar the gate, but another man was already coming through. Gloria’s shoulder hit him low, and he did a flip into the compound. Zena wanted to run out and help in the defense, but knew that would be suicidal. They did not know how many men the attacking party had.

Now three more men charged through the gate. “Fire!” Gus yelled. But he was the only one in a position to do so; Karen had to guard the rear approach. Gus did shoot, and one man cried out.

Then Thatch opened up from the woodpile. He fired three times, and two men went down. But Zena saw two more men rising over the rear of the palisade; evidently they had piled boxes or brush there during the distraction, and now could hurdle it. “Karen!”

Karen fired. One of the attackers cried out and fell back; the other came on over and landed near Thatch. A struggle ensued. Zena knew why Karen held her fire; she didn’t know which man she might hit.

The rain was coming down heavily now. It beat upon the metal roof and made a spray throughout the battle area.

A man lurched through the bus door. There was a livid scar across his cheek. Gloria must have slashed him in passing, Zena thought. No—it was not that recent. “Okay, girls,” he yelled. “Up with your hands and off with your skirts!”

Zena made an underarm toss. Her knife flew at the man’s face—but missed. So she charged him.

He was tough. She was unable to throw him in this confined space, and knew that in a moment his muscle would overcome her. Then something furry landed on his face, and he screamed.

Zena disengaged and found Floy there, her fingers curved and bearing nails like claws. Zena remembered the eyeball the cat had eaten before. “No!” she cried.

But the intruder had had enough. He half scrambled, half rolled down the steps and outside, where he found his feet and staggered off into the rain. Now Foundling’s growling was audible; the dog was fighting too.

Suddenly all was quiet. Zena could not let herself believe that the attack was over, but a minute passed with no sound except the intensifying beat of rain.

“I’ll check,” Floy whispered. She went out, while Gus and Karen continued to watch at the windows. They had been right not to desert their posts; attackers could have come from any direction.

This time Floy screamed. “No!”

Zena scooped up her knife and leaped to the ground.

Bodies were lying there and the water that coursed away from them was pink. Floy huddled over one. It was Gordon, his wig knocked askew, his clothing ripped and stained red. To one side lay the man with his throat cut; to the other was someone with a monstrous hatpin protruding from his ear. Gordon himself had taken a bullet in the stomach.

Thatch appeared with his rifle. He was holding his left arm crookedly, and blood dripped with the water. “Oh, God, did I do that?” he asked. “Did I shoot Gordon?”

Zena knew exactly how he felt.

Gordon opened his eyes. The rain splattered off his upturned face. “You idiot,” he said. “Anyone can see it’s a pistol wound.” Actually his injury was concealed by the clothing, and Zena doubted it would be possible for any of them to tell what type of weapon had done it.

“Get him inside!” Floy shrieked.

“Don’t bother,” Gordon said. “Watch the perimeter.” He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in gasps. “Zena—”

“Yes,” Zena said immediately. She was trying to get the cloth away from his wound, but already was certain it was an ugly one. “We have some morphine—”

“Meat,” he said. “You have to have it. Use my body first, so that it doesn’t spoil.” He writhed, and caught his breath again. “Promise.”

Zena looked at him with horror, and knew that he was dying. “Promise!” she said.

“Floy—your hand,” he whispered. Floy took his hand with both of hers, her face wide-eyed and frozen. “I could have been a man with you…”

“I know, I know!” Floy cried, leaning over him. “Oh please, please—”

Gordon shuddered again, then lay still. His eyes were open despite the rain. Alarmed, Zena felt for his pulse, but already she could see that he had stopped breathing.

Zena stood, and saw Thatch there. “I’d better check outside the gate,” he said. “If they attack again—”

“Foundling will warn us,” Zena said. “You come inside.” She knew they had to leave Floy alone for a while. “How bad are you wounded?”

“Forearm,” he said, letting her guide him. “Hurts, but not serious.”

This turned out to be an accurate assessment. It was a wide grazing wound, bloody but not deep. Zena fixed a tight compress and a sling, and he was able to function well enough.

They kept watch for fifteen minutes, but there was no further violence. Foundling scouted the area and came back, satisfied. They had driven off the attackers, killing four.

Floy hauled herself into the bus. “Shovel,” she said grimly.

“We can’t do it,” Zena said. “We promised.”

“I heard,” Floy said, her voice level and empty. “But we have to bury something. And have a service. And a marker.”

“His head,” Karen said. “With the wig on it.”

“No. He was a man. I want the wig.”

The enormity of what they contemplated began to grow on Zena. “This—we can’t actually—”

“I heard,” Floy repeated. “I heard what he wanted. It has to be.”

It has to be. The words struck at Zena, reminding her deviously of the new life inside her. Now there was a parallel emptiness in her, for Gordon had in many ways been the nicest and most effective member of the group. His sudden death was a double shock, because it was not the death she had girded for.

“I’ll do it,” Karen said.

And Karen was the second nicest. Even when niceness included the guts to do something utterly gruesome—for the common good.

They waited until morning, then set about the disposition of Gordon. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to get through it all myself,” Karen said. “I’ll use the knife if someone will hold.”

Gus turned away, looking as sick as Zena felt. Floy sat in the driver’s seat, the blonde wig on her head. Zena knew that she, Zena, should volunteer, but the job was too awful.

“I’ll hold,” Thatch said.

“You can’t, with one arm!” Zena protested, though she felt relief.

“I must.”

The two went out. Zena exchanged glances with Gus, knowing how he felt. They had known that there could be deaths in the group, but now that it had come there seemed to be no adequate means to handle it, emotionally. Except to go on, as Karen had said, taking care of the gruesome practical matters as necessary.

Gus took a rifle and stationed himself by his window, which faced away from the scene of activity. Zena went to the back and watched there. She had to trust that Floy would catch anything at the front. There could be another attack.

They waited silently for a long time, listening to the awful beat of Mindel’s rain. It seemed as though the very world were being blasted away by this fall of water, much harsher than the first rain. Zena tried not to picture what Karen and Thatch were doing out there, but inchoate yet horrible pictures formed. Now and then she thought she heard an exclamation.

At last Thatch appeared in the doorway. He had a dripping package under his good arm. “Floy,” he said.

Floy moved. She still wore the wig, which added to Zena’s discomfort. “Now the shovel,” she said dully.

“I’ll do it!” Zena cried, wanting to participate in some way, hoping it would ameliorate the mixed distaste and guilt she felt. She took the shovel and went out around the bus. The rain soaked her in seconds, but it was as though her flesh were the metal of the vehicle, holding the wetness out from her personal core. All the bodies were covered by canvas now, fortunately.

Floy was behind her, clutching the package tightly. “I can feel his nose,” she said.

Zena thought for a moment she was going to faint. She put her hand against the wall of the bus, steadying herself while her head cleared. “Where—”

“Anywhere,” Floy said. “It’s the thought that counts. He knows I love him.”

Love. What a void this child spoke of!

Zena put her foot to the shovel and dug into the mud. The thought stayed with her, naggingly: Floy could speak of dismemberment and love at the same time, and mean it. Mean both. Zena could not comprehend either concept, herself. What was she made of?

“Sugar and spice,” she muttered, scooping out the muck. How could they bury anything here?

“I don’t know what I’ll do without him,” Floy said. “He was teaching me to dance.”

Zena continued excavating. Who was she to give advice?

It seemed to take a long time, because the mud kept washing back into the hole. Thatch appeared, carrying a stone. “I tried to carve his name,” he said. “Gordon Black. But it’s all scratches.”

“It will do,” Floy said.

“I can’t get it any deeper,” Zena said, panting from her exertion. She tired easily, with the baby in her. “The water—”

“It will do.” Slowly Floy unwrapped the package. Now, oddly, her hands were sure. In a moment Gordon’s face was open to view, the eyes still open.

Solemnly Floy kissed it.

Then she re-wrapped it and set the bundle into the pool of dirty water in the hole. Now, at last, she stumbled, and had to catch her balance by dunking the head under the murky liquid. “Goodbye, Gordon,” she said.

Thatch bowed his head, and Zena followed his example. “Rest in peace,” he said. “We thought a lot of you.”

“Amen,” Zena said. Then she scraped mud in to cover it.

When the hole was full, Thatch set his scratched rock on top. It sank somewhat but stayed in place.

Floy turned to Zena. There was such childish woe in her face that Zena dropped the shovel and put her arms about the girl. Wordlessly they stood there, both crying.

Mindel beat upon their backs, seeming now to be an extension of their tears.