Farnham's Freehold (4 page)

Duke secured the door, secured his pants. As he turned around, his father offered him the automatic, butt first. “What’s this for?” Duke asked.

“Suit yourself. If your parole isn’t good, I would rather find it out now.”

Duke took the gun, removed the clip, worked the slide and caught the cartridge from the chamber, put it back into the clip and reloaded the gun—handed it back. “My parole is good. Here.”

“Keep it. You were always a headstrong boy, Duke, but you were never a liar.”

“Okay… Boss.” His son put the pistol in a pocket. “Hot in here.”

“And going to get hotter.”

“Eh? How much radiation do you think we’re getting?”

“I don’t mean radiation. Fire storm.” He walked into the space where the bays joined, looked at a thermometer, then at his wrist. “Eighty-four and only twenty-three minutes since we were hit. It’ll get worse.”

“How much worse?”

“How would I know, Duke? I don’t know how far away the hit was, how many megatons, how widespread the fire. I don’t even know whether the house is burning overhead, or was blasted away. Normal temperature in here is about fifty degrees. That doesn’t look good. But there is nothing to do about it. Yes, there’s one thing. Strip down to shorts. I shall.”

He went into the other bay. The girls were still in the lower bunk, arms around each other, keeping quiet. Joseph was on the floor with his back to the wall, the cat in his lap. Karen looked round-eyed as her father approached but she said nothing.

“You kids can get up.”

“Thanks,” said Karen. “Pretty warm for snuggling.” Barbara backed out and Karen sat up.

“So it is. Did you hear what just happened?”

“Some sort of argument,” Karen said cautiously.

“Yes. And it’s the last one. I’m boss and Joseph is my deputy. Understood?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Mrs. Wells?”

“Me? Why, of course! It’s your shelter. I’m grateful to be in it—I’m grateful to be alive! And please call me Barbara, Mr. Farnham.”

“Sorry. Hmmm—Call me ‘Hugh,’ I prefer it to ‘Hubert.’ Duke, everybody—first names from now on. Don’t call me ‘Dad,’ call me ‘Hugh.’ Joe, knock off the ‘mister’ and the ‘miss.’ Catch?”

“Okay, Boss, if you say so.”

“Make that ‘Okay, Hugh.’ Now you girls peel down, panties and bra or such, then get Grace peeled to her skin and turn the light out there. It’s hot, it’s going to get hotter. Joe, strip to your shorts.” Mr. Farnham took his jacket off, started unbuttoning his shirt.

Joseph said, “Uh, I’m comfortable.”

“I wasn’t asking, I was telling you.”

“Uh… Boss,
I’m not wearing shorts!
”

“He’s not,” Karen confirmed. “I rushed him.”

“So?” Hugh looked at his ex-houseboy and chuckled. “Joe, you’re a sissy. I should have made Karen straw boss.”

“Suits me.”

“Get a pair out of stores and you can change in the toilet space. While you’re about it, show Duke where it is. Karen, the same for Barbara. Then we’ll gather for a powwow.”

The powwow started five minutes later. Hugh Farnham was at the table, dealing out bridge hands, assessing them. When they were seated he said, “Anybody for bridge?”

“Daddy, you’re joking.”

“My name is ‘Hugh.’ I was not joking, a rubber of bridge might quiet your nerves. Put away that cigarette, Duke.”

“Uh…sorry.”

“You can smoke tomorrow, I think. Tonight I’ve got pure oxygen cracked pretty wide and we are taking in no air. You saw the bottles in the toilet space?” The space between the bays was filled by pressure bottles, a water tank, a camp toilet, stores, and a small area where a person might manage a stand-up bath. Air intakes and exhausts, capped off, were there, plus a hand-or-power blower, and scavengers for carbon dioxide and water vapor. This space was reached by an archway between the tiers of bunks.

“Oxygen in those? I thought it was air.”

“Couldn’t afford the space penalty. So we can’t risk fire, even a cigarette. I opened one inlet for a check. Very hot—heat ‘hot’ as well as making a Geiger counter chatter. Folks, I don’t know how long we’ll be on bottled breathing. I figured thirty-six hours for four people, so it’s nominally twenty-four hours for six, but that’s not the pinch. I’m sweating—and so are you. We can take it to about a hundred and twenty. Above that, we’ll have to use oxygen just to cool the place. It might end in a fine balance between heat and suffocation. Or worse.”

“Daddy—‘Hugh,’ I mean. Are you breaking it gently that we are going to be baked alive?”

“You won’t be, Karen. I won’t let you be.”

“Well… I prefer a bullet.”

“Nor will you be shot. I have enough sleeping pills to let twenty people die painlessly. But we aren’t here to die. We’ve had vast luck; with a little more we’ll make it. So don’t be morbid.”

“How about radioactivity?” asked Duke.

“Can you read an integrating counter?”

“No.”

“Take my word for it that we are in no danger yet. Now about sleeping—This side, where Grace is, is the girls’ dorm; this other side is ours. Only four bunks but that’s okay; one person has to monitor air and heat, and the other one without a bed can keep him awake. However, I’m taking the watch tonight and won’t need company; I’ve taken Dexedrine.”

“I’ll stand watch.”

“I’ll stay up with you.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“Slow down!” Hugh said. “Joe, you can’t stand watch now because you have to relieve me when I’m tuckered out. You and I will alternate until the situation is safe.”

Joe shrugged and kept quiet. Duke said, “Then it’s my privilege.”

“Can’t either of you add? Two bunks for women, two for men. What’s left over? We’ll fold this table and the gal left over can sprawl on the floor here. Joe, break out the blankets and put a couple here and a couple in the tank space for me.”

“Right away, Hugh!”

Both girls insisted on standing watch. Hugh shut them off. “Cut for it.”

“But—”

“Pipe down, Barbara. Ace low, and low girl sleeps in a bunk, the other here on the floor. Duke, do you want a sleeping pill?”

“That’s one habit I don’t have.”

“Don’t be an iron man.”

“Well…a rain check?”

“Surely. Joe? Seconal?”

“Well, I’m so relieved that I don’t have to take that quiz tomorrow…”

“Glad somebody is happy. All right.”

“I was going to add that I’m pretty keyed up. You’re sure you won’t need me?”

“I’m sure. Karen, get one for Joe. You know where?”

“Yes, and I’m going to get one for me, since I won the cut. I’m no iron man! And a Miltown on top of it.”

“Do that. Sorry, Barbara, you can’t have one; I might have to wake you and have you keep me awake. You can have Miltown. You’ll probably sleep from it.”

“I don’t need it.”

“As you wish. Bed, everybody. It’s midnight and two of you are going on watch in eight hours.”

In a few minutes all were in bed, with Barbara where the table had been; all lights out save one in the tank space. Hugh squatted on blankets there, playing solitaire—badly.

Again the floor heaved, again came that terrifying rumble. Karen screamed.

Hugh was up at once. This one was not as violent; he was able to stay on his feet. He hurried into the girls’ dorm. “Baby! Where are you?” He fumbled, found the light switch.

“Up here, Daddy. Oh, I’m scared! I was just dropping off and it almost threw me out. Help me down.”

He did so; she clung to him, sobbing. “There, there,” he said, patting her. “You’ve been a brave girl, don’t let it throw you.”

“I’m not brave. I’ve been scared silly all along. I just didn’t want it to show.”

“Well… I’m scared too. So let’s not show it, huh? Better have another pill. And a stiff drink.”

“All right. Both. I’m not going to sleep in that bunk. It’s too hot up there, as well as scary when it shakes.”

“All right, I’ll pull the mattress down. Where’s your panties and bra, baby girl? Better put ’em on.”

“Up there. I don’t care, I just want people. Oh, I suppose I should. Shock Joseph if I didn’t.”

“Just a moment. Here are your pants. But where did you hide your brassiere?”

“Maybe it got pushed down behind.”

Hugh dragged the mattress down. “I don’t find it.”

“The hell with it. Joe can look the other way. I want that drink.”

“All right. Joe’s a gentleman.”

Duke and Barbara were sitting on the blanket she had been napping on; they were looking very solemn. Hugh said, “Where’s Joe? He wasn’t hurt, was he?”

Duke gave a short laugh. “Want to see ‘Sleeping Innocence’? That bottom bunk.”

Hugh found his second-in-command sprawled on his back, snoring, as deeply unconscious as Grace Farnham. Dr.-Livingstone-I-Presume was curled up on his chest. Hugh came back. “Well, that blast was farther away. I’m glad Joe could sleep.”

“It was too damned close to suit me! When are they going to run out of those things?”

“Soon, I hope. Folks, Karen and I have just formed the ‘I’m-scared-too’ club and are about to celebrate with a drink. Any candidates?”

“I’m a charter member!”

“So am I,” agreed Barbara. “God, yes!”

Hugh fetched paper cups, and bottles—Scotch, Seconal, and Miltown. “Water, anyone?”

Duke said, “I don’t want anything interfering with the liquor.”

“Water, please,” Barbara answered. “It’s so hot.”

“How hot is it, Daddy?”

“Duke, I put the thermometer in the tank room. Go see, will you?”

“Sure. And may I use that rain check?”

“Certainly.” Hugh gave Karen another Seconal capsule, another Miltown pill, and told Barbara that she must take a Miltown—then took one himself, having decided that Dexedrine had made him edgy. Duke returned.

“One hundred and four degrees,” he announced. “I opened the valve another quarter turn. All right?”

“Have to open it still wider soon. Here are your pills, Duke—a double dose of Seconal and a Miltown.”

“Thanks.” Duke swallowed them, chased them with whisky. “I’m going to sleep on the floor, too. Coolest place in the house.”

“Smart of you. All right, let’s settle down. Give the pills a chance.”

Hugh sat with Karen after she bedded down, then gently extracted his hand from hers and returned to the tank room. The temperature was up two degrees. He opened the valve on the working tank still wider, listened to it sigh to emptiness, shook his head, got a wrench and shifted the gauge to a full tank. Before he opened it, he attached a hose, led it out into the main room. Then he went back to pretending to play solitaire.

A few minutes later Barbara appeared in the doorway. “I’m not sleepy,” she said. “Could you use some company?”

“You’ve been crying.”

“Does it show? I’m sorry.”

“Come sit down. Want to play cards?”

“If you want to. All I want is company.”

“We’ll talk. Would you like another drink?”

“Oh, would I! Can you spare it?”

“I stocked plenty. Barbara, can you think of a better night to have a drink? But both of us will have to see to it that the other one doesn’t go to sleep.”

“All right. I’ll keep you awake.”

They shared a cup, Scotch with water from the tank. It poured out as sweat faster than they drank it. Hugh increased the gas flow again and found that the ceiling was unpleasantly hot. “Barbara, the house must have burned over us. There is thirty inches of concrete above us and then two feet of dirt.”

“How hot do you suppose it is outside?”

“Couldn’t guess. We must have been close to the fireball.” He felt the ceiling again. “I beefed this thing up—roof, walls, and floor are all one steel-reinforced box. It was none too much. We may have trouble getting the doors open. All this heat—And probably warped by concussion.”

She said quietly, “Are we trapped?”

“No, no. Under these bottles is a hatch to a tunnel. Thirty inch culvert pipe with concrete around it. Leads to the gully back of the garden. We can break out—crowbars and a hydraulic jack—even if the end is crushed in and covered with crater glass. I’m not worried about that; I’m worried about how long we can stay inside…and whether it will be safe when we leave.”

“How bad is the radioactivity?”

He hesitated. “Barbara, would it mean anything to you? Know anything about radiation?”

“Enough. I’m majoring—I
was
majoring—in botany; I’ve used isotopes in genetics experiments. I can stand bad news, Hugh, but not knowing—well, that’s why I was crying.”

“Mmm—The situation is worse than I told Duke.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Integrating counter back of the bottles. Go look.”

She went to it, stayed several minutes. When she came back, she sat down without speaking. “Well?” he asked.

“Could I have another drink?”

“Certainly.” He mixed it.

She sipped it, then said quietly, “If the slope doesn’t change, we’ll hit the red line by morning.” She frowned. “But that marks a conservative limit. If I remember the figures, we probably won’t start vomiting for at least another day.”

“Yes. And the curve should level off soon. That’s why heat worries me more than radiation.” He looked at the thermometer, cracked the valve still wider. “I’ve been running the water-vapor getter on battery; I don’t think we should crank the blower in this heat. I’m not going to worry about Cee-Oh-Two until we start to pant.”

“Seems reasonable.”

“Let’s forget the hazards. Anything you’d like to talk about? Yourself?”

“Little to tell, Hugh. Female, white, twenty-five years old. Back in school, or was, after a bad marriage. A brother in the Air Force—so possibly he’s all right. My parents were in Acapulco, so perhaps they are, too. No pets, thank God—and I was so pleased that Joe saved his cat. No regrets, Hugh, and not afraid…not really. Just…sad.” She sniffed. “It was a pretty nice world, even if I did crumb up my marriage.”

“Don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying! Those drops are sweat.”

“Yes. Surely.”

“They are. It’s terribly hot.” Suddenly she reached both hands behind her ribs. “Do you mind? If I take this off? Like Karen? It’s smothering me.”

“Go ahead. Child, if you can get comfortable—or less uncomfortable—do so. I’ve seen Karen all her life, Grace even longer. Skin doesn’t shock me.” He stood up, went behind the oxygen bottles, and looked at the record of radiation. Having done so, he checked the thermometer and increased the flow of oxygen.