Rings of Ice

Chapter 4: Raid

The long drive continued. They stopped and scrounged for food wherever they could, alert for ambushes, but had little further trouble of that nature. Once again a tire blew out, but that turned out to be from a weak patch Thatch had put on. Floy and Dust Devil turned out to be excellent advance guards, for the cat reacted with loud hostility to the presence of any other living creature and the girl had acute perceptions. Gloria did most of the cooking, for she seemed to have a special talent with the dubious items available.

They encountered few other people, and those contacts were wary and hostile. Where had all the rest gone? Zena wondered, but she did not pursue the subject avidly. Most of those trapped in the cities, like her mother—here Zena clamped her teeth down hard and forced herself to continue her train of thought—most of those trapped when the rain started would have left soon, either because of the flooding or because of hunger. Many in the suburbs would have hidden in their houses until the foundations washed out—and they too would have had to eat. With the civilized supply mechanisms in disorder, anarchy would have come very quickly, as they had seen. It was the sheer luck of this party that they had stayed with the interstate despite the flooding that had driven most others away, and that this highway avoided cities. Even those waiting to ambush moving vehicles would have had far richer pickings elsewhere.

Karen was sweating. Zena noticed this, because it was not that hot in the bus. They were not wasting fuel on such luxuries as heat. Nervousness?

“I’m hungry,” Karen said.

“You know we have to ration food,” Zena replied tiredly. “Nothing till suppertime.” As if they didn’t have major problems to worry about, instead of minor neurotic hungers!

“There must be something,” Karen said, standing up. Then she swayed, and had to catch herself against the table. Zena put out a hand to steady her, and felt a racing pulse. Karen’s skin was clammy, and she was pale.

“Is there something you want to tell us?” Zena asked. If this were a drug reaction, how much better to get it out into the open!

“I wish I were home!” Karen said.

“With your husband?”

“Yes. He understands.” She shook her head. “But I’ll never see him again.”

Zena would have tried to reassure her, but knew the very effort would be hypocritical. Better to let the ugly truth stand. Karen was probably a widow already.

Karen sat down again and looked at Zena. She was breathing shallowly. “Sugar,” she said.

Zena blew out her breath in disgust. “No sugar!” Here she had thought the woman was suffering an emotional trauma because of separation from her spouse…!

“No sugar.” Karen echoed faintly.

“What is this thing about sweets?” Zena demanded. “Don’t you have more serious concerns than spoiling your teeth?”

“I’m sorry,” Karen said. And began trembling.

She just wasn’t about to admit she was an addict! Well, maybe she was trying the cold-turkey cure, and those candy bars had become a counter-fixation. Unfortunately the candy was gone already, used as food for the group. Karen had eaten more than her share. Distraction was best, now.

Zena brought out the battered cards. “Honeymoon bridge again?”

“Yes!” It was like grasping a liferaft.

But the game did not go well, though Karen was ordinarily a good hand at it. She misplayed frequently. “Can’t you even see the cards?” Zena asked sharply. “You just threw away an ace from your dummy, dummy!”

“I thought it was a deuce.”

“A deuce! You’re seeing double!”

“More like a blur,” Karen admitted.

“Karen, are you sure you don’t want to say something?”

“What?”

“You’re shaking, you’re panting, you’re cross-eyed. Are you ill?”

“I’m hungry! Some sugar…”

“Forget the darn sugar!”

Gus looked back from the front seat. “You mean ‘damn,’ don’t you?”

“Damn!” Zena cried with feeling. It was a better word. “Karen, I asked you a question!”

Karen looked confused. “What question?”

“Are you ill? Or is it—something else?”

“Something else?”

Zena threw her hands up in an overdramatic gesture that cost her half her cards. “You’re evading the issue!”

“I wonder where it is?” Karen murmured, standing unsteadily.

“Where what is?”

“The issue.” Karen leaned over to peer under the table. “Not here.”

Zena, sure now that she was being mocked, was silent.

Karen tried to stand erect again, but lost her balance and spun sidewise, half-falling against the table. One hand struck the wall that enclosed the adjacent shower-stall. Zena was shocked to see blood welling from scraped knuckles. This had passed beyond the joking stage!

But Karen didn’t seem to notice. “Got to go home,” she said, trying again to stand.

“You can’t go home! Look at your hand!”

She looked. “Oooo, icky! Must wash it. Take a shower.” She started to undress.

They had undressed in semi-public many times, but this was different. No one was going out into the rain now. “Stop the bus!” Zena cried, alarmed. “Karen’s sick!”

Thatch obligingly slowed the vehicle. Gloria appeared, in her nightgown and curlers. Zena noted that only passingly: hair curlers for a wig?

“Who are you, miss?” Karen demanded.

“You know Gloria,” Zena said. “Gloria, Gordon, our cook?”

Karen whirled around, letting her shirt fling wide, and fell against Gloria. “Hello, Gloria Gordon! What kind of a lesbian are you?”

Gloria looked puzzled, but automatically caught her. The sight of Karen’s genuine bosom against Gloria’s false one disgusted Zena. “Are you feeling well?” Gloria asked.

“No,” Karen said, and began to cry. “Zena’s been teasing me.”

“She’s been getting worse—” Zena said, stung. “I think it’s withdrawal.”

“Sugar,” Karen blubbered.

“Sugar,” Gloria repeated. Then, abruptly: “God, yes! Get her some sugar, right away!”

Thatch shook his head. “We don’t have any. She ate it all before.”

“Well, something sweet!” Gloria cried. “Quick, it’s an emergency!”

“This is no time for candy—” Zena began.

“Can’t you see,” Gloria said. “It’s hypoglycemia.”

“What?”

“Low blood sugar. Insulin shock. This girl has diabetes!”

“Diabetes!” Zena echoed, mouth open.

Thatch dived into the breadbox. “Here’s an old sweet roll.”

“Break off a piece with icing and put it in her mouth. Hurry—before she goes into shock!”

Thatch obeyed. Gingerly he pushed a fragment between Karen’s teeth while Gloria held her upright. “Chew it, dear,” Gloria said. “Swallow. Don’t choke, now! That’s it!”

Karen did so. They fed her another piece.

In less than a minute she straightened and looked around. “What am I doing here?” Karen asked. “Why are you holding me?”

“She couldn’t recover that fast!” Zena said.

Gloria let Karen go, and made a warning motion to Zena. “You were about to pass out, dearie.”

“Nonsense. I was playing cards with Zena.” She paused. “Sugar.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you were diabetic?” Gloria demanded.

Karen sat down. “I see I banged my hand.”

“Don’t you remember?” Zena asked, still suspicious of these strange symptoms.

“That’s right, I don’t remember. I never do.”

Thatch looked concerned. “How often does this happen?”

Karen took the rest of the sweet roll from his hand and began munching on it. “Only when I take insulin and then don’t get enough to eat.”

“Insulin is dangerous,” Gloria said. “You could have gone right on into shock and died, because we didn’t know. You should have told us!”

Karen looked at her. “Did you tell the folks about your condition—right off?”

Gloria’s face froze. Then she smiled, a trifle grimly. Zena realized that shaving the chin must be a vital part of the Gordon-Gloria changeover, for any suggestion of a beard would have destroyed the effect. Gus and Thatch were getting to look like hoboes, but Gloria’s cheek was smooth. “I see your point.”

“I don’t see it!” Gus said. “Changing clothes won’t kill anyone. Going into a coma like this—”

“Not a coma,” Karen said. “Shock. There’s a difference.”

“Different names for the same thing, aren’t they?” Gus insisted. “You pass out—”

“With insulin shock I pass out because there is not enough glucose in my blood. With diabetic coma there is too much. Sugar wouldn’t stop the coma.”

“So you kept silent because you were embarrassed,” Zena said.

“Not precisely,” Karen said, licking the last crumbs off her fingers. “I realized from what you said that it would rain for a long time, and I didn’t want to be stranded.” She looked out the window, and the beat of rain seemed to become loud. “I have plenty of insulin, but without shelter or food—”

“What do you think we are!” Zena exclaimed.

“Practical people,” Gloria answered for Karen. “Diabetics require more food, when they’re on insulin—and they need it on schedule. She’s a liability. Right, Gus?”

Zena was affronted. “How can you say a thing like that!”

“We can’t put her out,” Gus said, alarmed.

Then Zena realized Gloria’s purpose. Gus was the one most likely to demand selection of the fittest—but he had already been subverted by Karen’s sexual offerings. Gloria had challenged Gus and brought an automatic denial—and now it would be extremely difficult for Gus to reverse himself or to enforce an inhumane standard for the rest of them.

Unkind politics, but better than putting a sick woman out to die! No wonder Karen had been eager to be obliging. She had known that one day soon her life might depend on it.

“Get on with the driving, Thatch!” Gus said irritably.

On through the rain. Floy amused herself by trying to dance—and the result was pitiful. In the confines of the bus she only bruised herself against the furniture and made a racket. Sometimes Gordon danced with her, holding her very close so that she could not go astray—and that bothered Zena because she remembered Karen’s ‘lesbian’ comment. Gordon was male, but viewed himself as female, and this body-flush-to-body motion with the awkward child—but of course she was inventing hobgoblins, Zena told herself. Floy would have driven them all crazy, if Gordon had not taken her in hand and found positive outlets for her graceless energies.

But what bothered Zena most was not external but internal—the subtleties of group interaction. Thatch drove, Gloria cooked, Floy and the cat stood guard at night, Gus exerted his peculiar type of leadership. Karen kept Gus happy. Every person was finding his function. Except Zena.

She tried to participate, but somehow found herself excluded. The foraging parties no longer included her, and there wasn’t much to do inside the bus except play cards. She felt useless.

Not that the others held it against her. They were all oddly solicitous of her needs. She was not being shunted out of the party; rather she was being set up for some very special position obvious to everyone except her. What could it be?

They had reached high ground. The rain still came down, but there was no further concern about flooding. It would take weeks for the water to reach this height at an inch an hour.

“We’ll have to get as far up in the mountains as we can,” Gus said. “So we’ll need a real load of supplies— grain, canned stuffs, medicine.”

“It’s all been raided,” Thatch objected.

“Not by a long shot. Smart people are saving it. We just have to find their cache.”

“Hey,” Floy said, delighted. “We’ll raid the raiders!”

“That’s about it,” Gus said grimly. “And they’ll be tough cookies. But it’s that or starve.”

They kept watching for likely prospects. As they skirted a city—there was no way to tell which one it was, as all signs and landmarks had been altered by the storm—they saw lights at one large building. Only a temporary thinning of the attendant fog enabled them to see the glow from a distance. “Warehouse,” Gus said with satisfaction. “Whatever they have in there, we need—you can bet on it.”

“It’ll be guarded,” Thatch said. None of them bothered to raise moral objections any more; they had all long since recognized that the survival of the most competent was the new morality. “Guns, probably.”

“And booby traps,” Gordon said. “Otherwise it would have been raided and cleaned out by now.”

“All of which makes it an excellent place to avoid,” Zena said, growing alarmed.

“Which is what everyone else must have been thinking,” Gus said. “By now they must be getting careless. Most of them sleeping, while only one or two guards are on duty. Distract those, and we can take our pick of what’s inside—so long as we make it fast.”

“Fine, in theory,” Gordon said. “But what’s going to distract a couple of armed men looking out into the rain?”

“Girls, of course.”

“Now wait a minute!” Zena said.

“Yes,” Gordon agreed. “Nude or near-nude. Dancing, maybe. Striptease. That’d be good for five or ten minutes.”

“I have no intention of—” Zena began, outraged.

Gus waved her aside. “Not you, of course. You’ll guard the bus.”

“What do you mean, ‘of course’?” Zena demanded.

“I get the hint,” Karen said. “He sees me as more the striptease type. Okay, if that’s what it takes to put sugar on the table—”

“Not you either,” Gus said. “You’re needed at the other end.”

“Surely you don’t mean the child,” Zena cried, proceeding from one sense of outrage to another.

“That child isn’t badly built,” Gus said. “Stand up, Floy.”

Floy stood, putting her hand against the wall to prevent herself from lurching off balance. Gus put his hands about her waist, cinching it. “See, she’s slim but female, and she’s got a bust, too.”

“Preposterous!” Zena cried.

“Can I dance?” Floy asked wistfully.

“That’s the general idea, honey,” Gus said.

“You know that won’t work!” Zena said. “Gus, this is sickening!”

“She can dance,” Gus said evenly. “She just needs the right music.”

“Sure, that’s right!” Floy said eagerly. “The music’s always wrong! But good music—”

“This is pointlessly cruel!” Zena said.

“Will you shut up a minute?” Gus demanded. “Anything sexy is sickening or cruel to you! We’ve got a job to do.”

Furious, Zena shut up. Better to find out exactly what Gus was up to, so that she could scotch it before someone got hurt.

“We don’t have much in the way of musical instruments,” Gus continued. “But we have some pans and tools. You’ll have to play them yourselves, of course.”

“Of course,” Gordon agreed, taking up pan and screwdriver. He struck the one with the other, producing an unmusical clash. “You try it too, Floy.”

Floy tried it too. Then they banged together, and the noise was earsplitting in the confines of the bus.

“Now dance,” Gus said, holding his hands over his ears.

Floy flung out her arms. They smashed into the furniture. “Ow!” she yelled.

“Well, you need more room to do it right,” Gus said. “That’s been your problem all along. You have the idea, though.”

“Do you really think it’ll work?” Floy asked, so excited it was painful for Zena to watch.

“Sure!” Gus said. “So long as you give yourself room and beat the music right.”

Gordon put on his blonde wig. “I hate to get this wet,” he said.

“It’s a good cause,” Gus said. “Get back to the bathroom and convert. I’ll talk to the others.” Gordon went back, and Gus continued: “Now Thatch and Karen—you know what you have to do?”

They nodded. “But no killing,” Karen said.

It was belatedly evident to Zena that much discussion and planning had been done while she was asleep. This whole thing had been blocked out in advance as a contingency, and now the pieces were meshing nicely.

Why had she been excluded? She was ready to help, to do her part; they all knew that. Every person in the group had to pull his weight for the survival of the whole.

Gloria came forward. “Now it has to be coordinated,” Gus cautioned the rest. “We don’t dare bring the bus too close at first, and when we do it’ll be sans lights. If they don’t go for the diversion, call it off immediately. We don’t want to take losses.”

“They’ll go for the diversion,” Gloria said. “You watch.”

Zena felt numb. This was like a commando raid—and she was being excluded and ignored.

“Zena, sit up here,” Gus said. “I think I have this driving straight, but you’ll have to tell me if anything goes wrong.

Gus—driving? “I can drive it,” she said.

“No, I know where it has to go,” he said.

Zena shook her head with resignation and took the passenger’s seat.

“Raiding party get out first,” Gus said, fastening his hands tightly on the wheel. “We’ll give you time to get close. Listen for the music.”

“Check,” Thatch said. “That’s one thing about the rain—it’ll cover our noise and our tracks.”

Gus drove. It was clumsy, and the vehicle tended to wander, but he guided it down a side road toward the lighted building. Karen must have been instructing him, Zena realized. She could easily have told him about the basic rules of driving, and demonstrated, during those long shifts when the others were asleep or inattentive.

As the building loomed higher, Gus stopped, stalling the motor on the brake. “Now!”

Thatch and Karen got out and disappeared into the night. The rain closed in behind them like a wet shield. Gloria came up and helped Gus re-start the motor. “I’ll walk ahead now,” Gloria said. “You move along slowly without lights, and I’ll whistle if I meet a hole or an obstruction.”

“Right,” Gus said. Zena saw that his hands were sweaty on the wheel. How had they prevailed on him to actually do useful work?

Slowly they proceeded. The darkness was not total; it was possible to make out the general channel of the road between the buildings. Then the glowing torches of the building came into full view.

Gus turned off the motor and coasted. “Got to stop here. They might have a floodlight. Diversion squad—you circle around about halfway before you start. We don’t want to lead them to the bus!”

“Right, dearie,” Gloria said. “Floy, don’t forget your music.”

Floy picked up her pan and screwdriver and went out.

Zena abruptly realized that she was alone with Gus. Was that why she had been spared exterior duties? If so, she would toss him on his ear!

But he made no move toward her. His eyes were ahead, as he peered through the rain. “God, I hope this works!” he said.

“Why wasn’t I included in?” Zena demanded, realizing that she was being perverse. She had been protesting when she thought she was going to be part of the “diversion.”

“You are included in,” he said. “It’s important that you not risk yourself unnecessarily.”

“While you send that child out to bang a pot and do a strip?”

“She enjoys it. It’s what she can do.”

“And what is it I can do?”

“Pipe down,” he said. “It’s about ready to start.”

Zena clenched her teeth in a fury. This oaf was treating her like a child—and, worse, she was playing the role!

There was a faint banging, as of tools striking pans. And a kind of unmelodious singing.

Floodlights came on at the building. “They’ve got a generator!” Gus whispered. A spotlight played across the empty parking lot, searching for the sound. In a moment it picked out the two figures dancing in the rain.

Zena stared. From this distance, which was not as far as it seemed in the rain, Gloria looked just like a chorus girl and Floy looked like a woman. They were both gyrating in a manner that made Zena queasy inside, flinging their hips and chests about, and they were banging dissonantly on their instruments. First one flung aside a piece of apparel, then the other did. They really were doing a striptease!

The spotlight followed them as they wound closer to the building. Zena found their motions obscene. Gloria could not peel off much more without turning male, and little Floy—

Floy was dancing, really dancing! Her arms and legs were waving about matching the dubious music, and the jangle of the pans seemed to fit her style. She was dancing to the dissonance.

Zena could not take her eyes off that spectacle. She was appalled yet fascinated. There had never been free-form expression like this. Floy really did have a talent for it. The motions of her body were no longer uncoordinated; they reflected the beat of an unearthly music. The girl did have a woman’s body, as Gus had noted—a body suddenly effective, in its inimitable fashion.

“I knew she could do it!” Gus murmured with satisfaction. It was as though he were a coach, watching his player perform on the field.

But he was right. He had told Floy she could do it— and now she could.

“Give me a piece like that any time!” Gus breathed.

“What?” Zena asked him sharply.

For the first time she saw him embarrassed. He had forgotten she was there. Yet she hardly felt she had scored any victory.

The spotlight moved away from the dancers. Then it clicked off entirely.

“Now!” Gus cried, exultant. “How the hell do I start this thing?”

Zena showed him how. They moved up to the front of the building.

Karen was just completing the tying and gagging of the second man. “The other’s inside,” she called. “No booby traps, they claim. They know what’ll happen if any of us get hurt. Keep an eye out to see reinforcements don’t come.”

“What will happen?” Zena asked, not expecting an answer. Obviously a threat had been made: an eye for an eye. She hoped it was a bluff—and she hoped the bluff worked.

It was a phenomenal haul. Food, clothing, medical supplies, books—they loaded the floor of the bus with as much as seemed safe to carry, then climbed aboard.

The last thing they did was to cut the bindings on their prisoners. “We haven’t hurt you or your property,” Gordon told the men. “All we’ve done is take what we need for survival. We won’t be back. If you’re smart, you won’t go chasing after us—and next time you won’t be taken in by any free shows! There’s plenty of stuff left for you, and maybe this lesson will enable you to keep it longer.”

Seeming dazed, the men showed no fight. There was no pursuit.

They found a suitable place with good elevation and good drainage, and camped there. The bus became a stationary home in the mountains. Gus and Karen moved into the back room permanently, while Gordon and Floy took the dropdown bed above the driving compartment. Zena slept in the dinette, while Thatch used the mattress from the rear ceiling bunk, now placed on the floor. The rugs of course were ruined, and constantly wet.

It had been two weeks since the rain started, and it had eased at times but never abated. For every hour it slacked off to half-an-inch an hour, there was another hour at two inches an hour.

Thatch and Gordon went out each day to forage, for they knew their raided supplies would not last indefinitely. Floy and her cat went out frequently to explore the immediate neighborhood, guarding against ugly surprises. Sometimes Zena saw Floy dancing, alone in the rain, flinging about that body with sensual abandon. Karen set about making things out of the material now at hand: blankets and ponchos for inside and outside work.

Gus turned on the radio and plowed slowly through the static, searching for news. There wasn’t any.

“It’s all anybody can do to survive,” Zena said. “Let alone broadcast. No facilities, no power.”

“Try shortwave,” Karen suggested.

Thatch spread an aerial wire outside and Gus tried band after band. There was some talking, but it was in a foreign language. Then an English broadcast, faint but distinguishable: “…severe erosion. Estimated losses: fifty percent.”

They clustered around the set, listening to the clipped British accent. “Liverpool: completely flooded. Estimated height of water at sea: thirty-five feet. Effective height inland: sixty feet. Estimated losses: sixty percent. Edinburgh: completely flooded. Estimated height of water—”

“Those losses are people!” Zena exclaimed, appalled. “The British isles are drowning!”

“So are we,” Gus said. “Shut up.”

One day, Zena thought, she was going to push him out into the rain!

They listened to the grim chronicle of losses: one coastal city after another wiped out by the terrible tide.

“No further word from the Continent,” the voice continued. “Estimates based on prior statistics extrapolated for the past day’s fall: Amsterdam losses ninety percent, Brussels seventy-five percent, Paris eighty percent, Berlin —”

“Paris has nine million people!” Gordon cried. “Seven and a half million dead?”

“I believe it,” Karen said. “We saw what happens.”

“It’s not just the water level,” Zena said. “The food shipments break down, the ocean brine intrudes—”

“Hush!” Gus cried. “America’s on!”

“…ninety percent.”

“What city?” Zena cried. “I didn’t hear the—”

“New York,” Gordon said. “The Hudson River runoff—”

“Can’t be much better inland,” Karen said.

“If you don’t want to listen, go outside!” Gus yelled.

But they already had the story. The rain was worldwide, and things were worse overseas than here. At least there were mountain ranges in America!

Something had gone out of their existence, however. Until now it had been possible to imagine a dry refuge somewhere else in the world. Now they alt knew there was none.

Gus dug out his raided books and commenced reading mysteries. Zena, afraid that the confinement and boredom would drive her crazy, read Heaven and Earth.

“This makes no sense at all!” she expostulated to Gus. “This Annular Theory takes no note of, and makes no allowance for, the theory of drifting continents. Most of the things Isaac Vail seeks to account for can also be explained by continental drift. The pattern of ice ages—”

“You’re forgetting two things,” Gus said.

“What two things?”

“First, Mr. Vail died in 1912—long before the continents started drifting. So you can’t hold that against—”

“The continents have been drifting for billions of years!”

“You know what I mean. Second, look at that.” He gestured at the rain outside. “The canopy is here again. Does your continental drift explain that?”

“No, it doesn’t have to. The rain is here for another reason.”

“Uh-huh,” he said smugly.

“Oh, go listen to your radio!” she said.

He did. Or tried to. The rain continued—but not the shortwave broadcasts. Zena estimated that between eighty and ninety feet of rain had fallen—and the British news was off the air.

Zena fell out of bed. “What happened?” she cried. Thatch sat up on his floor mattress, rubbing his eyes. Floy stuck her head in the door and yelled: “It stopped!”

Zena stared at the window. A few drops of water dribbled down it—but the steady beat of rain was gone. No wonder her sleep had been disturbed!

Gloria rolled out of the upper bunk. “It’s the fortieth night after the fortieth day,” she said. “The flood is over!”

Zena checked the calendar. “Ridiculous!” she said. But forty days had been marked off.

They dressed and went outside, even Gus. The surface of the road was still slick, where it wasn’t pitted or washed out, but no water was being added from the sky. The effect was eerie.

They returned to the bus and had a sober breakfast. “Is it really over?” Floy asked. “Are you all going home now?”

Home. Zena turned away.

“This is our home now,” Gus said. “And there may be more rain. We’ll have to be careful, very careful.”

Yes, there would be more rain. Zena knew that what had just passed was only a minor squall compared to what was to come. But how could she tell them that?

Now the dawn was coming. They stood in a row outside and watched the first sunrise in over a month. It was spectacular, for the massive moisture in the atmosphere made the rays of the sun splay grandiosely.

“Other survivors will be abroad soon,” Gus said. “And they’ll be hungry and not too civilized. We’ll have to survey the entire area and double our guard.”

Zena groaned inwardly, but knew he was right—again. This could be the most dangerous period for them, because they had good shelter and good food.

By full daylight, unconscionably bright, they saw that erosion was horrendous. Zena estimated that approximately a hundred feet of rain had fallen. It had scoured the landscape, ripping out trees and houses, undercutting the road itself. What remained was a steaming wasteland seemingly bare of life.

Thatch and Gordon cut walking staffs and set out on an area hike. Gus and Karen returned to the bus to sleep. That left Zena and Floy for the nearby explorations and guard duty.

“At least they let me out!” Zena said. “I haven’t been allowed to do anything useful for weeks!”

“You’re lucky,” Floy said, leaning heavily on her pole so as not to fall.

“What’s lucky about it? Everybody has to pull his weight, and I’m eager to pull mine.”

Floy shrugged awkwardly.

“Now don’t you do it too!” Zena cried. “I haven’t raised an issue about it because there’s been no privacy—but something’s going on. What’s the big secret?”

“You really don’t know?”

“Of course I don’t know.”

“Well, Gus says there’s going to be a lot more rain. Enough to drown the whole world, maybe.”

“Gus is right, for all the wrong reasons. But—”

“So we’ll have to make more people. Babies.”

Zena sighed. “Gus has had the making of babies on his mind from the outset. The mechanics of it, anyway. He and Karen—”

Floy shook her head. “Karen wouldn’t live through it. That’s why she uses an IUD. And I’m too young, Gordon says. But you—”

“That’s enough!”

“Sorry. You said you wanted to know.”

Zena paused beside a plain of bare bedrock, scoured clean by the water. “I’m not having any baby!”

“You’re the only one who can. So Gus said to take care of you, because if anything happened to make you sterile—”

“I said enough!”

Floy fell silent and stepped over some rubble, using her stick as judiciously as she could. Out in the open she handled herself better, because she had more room to correct for error. Dust Devil leaped atop a boulder and peered about, tail switching. He smelled something.

“This is ridiculous!” Zena said.

“You’re always saying that.”

“That’s no refutation.”

“I wish I could do it,” Floy said. “Maybe in another year—”

“Whatever for?”

“I’m not much for doing things, but I could take care of a baby,” Floy said. “I’d make a strap for it, or a basket or something, so I couldn’t drop it, and I’d nurse it—”

“Nurse it!”

“There isn’t any other way,” Floy said. “No store-bought formula—and what’s wrong with it, anyway?”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

“Sure,” Floy said. “But why does it make you sick?”

Zena moved ahead, not answering. There was, really, no answer: she had been raised conservatively, and somewhere along the way had developed a strong aversion to the sordid aspects of life. Her devotion to meteorology and science had kept such matters safely distant—until the rain came.

That reminded her, deviously, of the stupidity of men. What had happened to those aboard the space station? Would there ever be a rescue mission for them, or would they suffocate when they ran out of air? They were above the rain—but the rain meant their doom, too. Poetic justice, but it was a vicious poem.

“No forage anywhere near here,” Thatch announced. “This is all slope, washed out to bedrock. We have to move on.” And Gordon nodded soberly.

“Where are we?” Gus asked, bringing out the map.

“Somewhere in the approaches to the southern Appalachian range,” Gordon replied. “Northern Georgia, probably. Not that it makes much difference now.”

“Sure it makes a difference! We must be somewhere near Atlanta.”

“That’s right. We skirted a huge city a day or so before we parked. I figured that was Atlanta. That’s how I knew we were reaching safe high ground.”

“Atlanta’s big enough, all right. Should be a lot of supplies there.”

“We’ve been through that!” Zena objected. “Cities are dangerous!”

“So is starving,” Gus retorted.

“If we head on into the mountains,” Gordon said, “we should strike the major pine forests. Those are built to take rain; most of those trees probably survived. And where there are trees, there is soil—and life.”

“How about gasoline?” Gus asked.

Gordon spread his hands. “Do we want to travel much?”

“I don’t mind your forest notion,” Gus said. “In fact, I like it. But we’ll camp there in a lot more style if we load up first on gas, and canned goods, and batteries and books and seed grains—”

“Seed grains?” Karen asked.

“Sure. We’re going to be farmers. We have to start raising our own food, if we expect to live any length of time. There won’t be any corner grocery store.”

Gordon puffed out his cheeks in a soundless sigh. “You’ve thought it through!”

But something about that plan bothered Zena. She couldn’t pin down the thought, except that it had no connection to her sundry other objections about their proposed lifestyle. Maybe she was merely inventing nebulous disasters.

“I don’t like going to the city any better than you do,” Gus said. “But our last haul was well worth it. If we can do that again, we’ll be set for a long time to come. And if we can grow a decent crop, and raise some animals, we can have a good supply for the next rain. I’ve got the long haul in mind.”

“We could all wind up dead for the short haul, heading into a big city,” Zena said.

But the nearby landscape was so bleak that there didn’t seem to be much of a choice. True, they might find intact pine forest further north—but they couldn’t eat pine needles.

They moved out cautiously. There was only one shovel, and that was needed for almost continuous road repair— or outright road building. Where the concrete and asphalt had resisted the ravages of the rain and run-off, the underlying foundation often had not, so that whole sections of highway bridged gorges. It was easier and certainly safer to drive over straight bedrock wherever feasible.

It took three days to reach the environs of the city. The Chattahoochee River had spread its boundaries enormously and excavated a canyon through the city—a swath of nothingness. Even now, with the rain stopped, a sizable run-off remained, and flooding was bad. Many buildings still stood, and Zena was curious to know what was inside them. Forty days without electricity, or fuel, or food…

“Look there!” Gus cried, pointing.

It was a complex of tremendous fuel storage tanks. “All the gas we’ll ever need!” Floy said excitedly.

“If no one else thought of it before us,” Zena said.

“And if that’s refined gasoline,” Gordon said.

“All right,” Gus said, taking charge. “We’ll strike at night, same as before, it may be guarded. If we can find a tap or something, maybe we can get what we need without anybody knowing the difference. But we’ll plan a good getaway route, just in case.”

At night they moved in as close as they dared with the bus, then parked and made a stealthy approach. Karen and Zena watched the tanks from a reasonable distance. Floy and the cat waited further back, and Gus of course was in the bus. They were to relay signals if anything went wrong.

The two women waited for what seemed an interminable time. There were sounds from various directions, but nothing significant. “Could be stray animals,” Zena whispered, not reassured.

Then something flew through the air. It landed with a pop and burst into flame. The entire area was illuminated—and Thatch and Gordon were shown up plainly beside the nearest tank.

“Raise your hands,” a man’s voice shouted. “We’ve got a machine gun trained on you.”

A machine gun! Zena moved toward the voice, which was only fifty feet ahead of her. She knew Karen would fade back to relay the news. Zena dared not run, as her shoes would make too much noise.

Thatch and Gordon raised their hands. Men came out of the shadows—three, four of them. “So you’re looking for gasoline, eh?” one said. “That means you’ve got a working truck, maybe. Where is it?”

Counter-trap—and they had walked into it Neither Thatch nor Gordon answered. “Well, we’ll make you talk!” the man said grimly. Something glinted in his hand.

Zena threw herself on the shapes by the machine gun. She clubbed one man on the back of the neck with the side of her hand, then wheeled to face the other. “Hey!” he yelled. Then he was rolling on the pavement, stunned by the force of her throw.

“Let them go!” Zena called to the group near the tank.

But even as she spoke, both men nearby rose and came at her. “It’s a girl!” one exclaimed.

Zena dived for the machine gun. She had had a briefing in firing such a weapon once, but that had been a long time ago. She would have to bluff it.

She turned the gun on its tripod to cover the two. “Get back!” she cried.

A scuffle broke out near the tank. She glanced there, and saw in the light of the flare that the four men were piling on the two. This was quickly getting out of hand.

She pulled the trigger. Her hand caught somehow in the mechanism, so that a fold of skin was pinched, but it fired! She whirled the massive thing around to cover the tank group, while the two near men dropped to the ground. She didn’t think she had hit anyone; they were merely getting out of the way—as well they might!

“Someone’s got the gun!” one of the nearby men yelled.

“Charge it!” one of the four by the tank yelled back. “We’ll grab these two as hostages!”

Zena knew they would do it. In moments Thatch and Gordon would be captive and probably dead—and her, too. There could be no honor or mercy, after the devastation of the rain. She saw the men in motion.

She pulled the trigger and held it down. The machine gun vibrated as the bullets poured forth. She swept the muzzle through a wide arc, trying to avoid the area where Thatch and Gordon were. There was a scream.

A shape charged upon her. She spun the gun again and let go another burst. The man crashed down beside her, his body touching her elbow, and she knew he was dead or dying.

“Thatch! Thatch!” she cried. “Get out of there! I’ve got the gun!” She had the sick feeling that she had hit him too.

But a shape got up near the tank. “Right!” Thatch’s voice came. He started to run.

Two more shapes lifted. “Which one’s Gordon?” Zena screamed, not daring to fire.

“Gordon’s gone already!” Thatch called back.

What did that mean? She saw the two figures converge on the one. The gun vibrated again. The two fell.

“Enough! Enough, Zena!” It was Gordon’s voice, from close at hand.

But she couldn’t stop. There was something about that massive, savage weapon with its shuddering death that infused power into her hands and arms and body, locking her grip. The stream of bullets continued to flow, pounding into the metal of the huge tank that acted as a backstop. There was the heady smell of gasoline.

“Stop!” Gordon cried. “You’re holing the tank!” He dropped to his knees and yanked her hands away from the gun.

Too late. A sheet of fire rose from the region of the torch and engulfed the tank. Gasoline was leaking out and burning as it emerged.

“Back! Back!” Gordon cried, hauling her up.

They ran, raggedly. Zena stumbled and felt a pain shooting through her foot. But she had to go on, limping; the foot seemed able to bear weight.

Gordon hauled her around the corner of a building. “God, I hope Thatch gets clear!” he gasped.

Then the big tank ignited. There was a sort of whoosh and a flare of light. Zena had a picture of a human figure silhouetted against the blast. Thatch?

“Come on!” Gordon yelled, pulling at her arm. When she didn’t move, he stopped and put his shoulder under her body and picked her up. He ran with her away from the ballooning heat and noise.

“Thatch! Thatch! Thatch!” she cried, over and over.

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” Gordon yelled back.

The terrible light faded somewhat as they put another building between it and them. Now they were near the bus.

Karen was there, and Floy. “I knew it wasn’t safe to go near you and that machine gun,” Karen explained. “So I brought word back about the trouble. Then we heard the tank go off—”

“Thatch! Thatch!” Zena cried as Gordon set her down. “Ow! My ankle!”

“He told me to move out while he covered the rear,” Gordon said. “I thought he was right behind me.”

“I must have shot him!” Zena said with a sick certainty.

“God Almighty!” Gus swore. “You shot Thatch?”

“I was trying to stop the men chasing him.”

“She hit the tank,” Gordon said. “That’s why it went off.”

Karen looked at Zena’s hands. “This one’s bleeding,” she said.

“Forget that!” Gus shouted. “Get out and find Thatch!”

There was a second boom. Bright, roiling smoke rose over the buildings. “All those tanks are going to go!” Gordon said. “If he’s near there, it’s hopeless.”

“You bitch!” Gus yelled at Zena. “It’s your fault!”

Zena could not defend herself. It was her fault.

Dust Devil jumped from Floy’s shoulder and bounded into the night. There was the sound of someone approaching.

“They’ve found us!” Karen cried, shrinking back. Normally she was unflappable; but her limit had been passed. Or she was running low on blood sugar again.

“No, that’s him,” Floy said. “Dust Devil doesn’t run to anyone he doesn’t know. Not like that.”

It was him. “I had to be sure no one followed us,” Thatch said. “I circled around.”

“Let’s go!” Gus cried. They piled into the bus, and Gordon drove it rapidly along their escape route.

No one spoke to Zena again. What could they say: that it was all right that she had messed up the whole project, set fire to the very gasoline they had come for, and almost shot Thatch?