Footfall (35 page)

Dawson was the only holdout. Finally he raised his own hand.

“You agree this is bad?’ Tashayamp asked.

“I do, for children,” Dawson said. “I just don’t think we have the right to stop it.”

“Why bad for children?”

“It’s filth,” Carrie Woodward protested. “Not fit for anyone.”

“You do not-do these things?’ Tashayamp asked.

Jeri smothered a laugh. Came Woodward’s face turned beet red. “My Lord, no, we don’t do that, no one really does that.”

Well, in your world, maybe. My turn to blush…

“This is true? No one does these things?”

“Some do,” John Woodward admitted. “Decent people don’t. They sure don’t put it on film!”

“The word. Decent. Means what?” Tashayamp demanded.

“Means right-thinking people,” Carrie Woodward said. “People who think and act like they’re supposed to, not like some people I know.”

Tashayamp translated. There was more discussion among the fithp.

“We’ve got to be careful,” Wes Dawson said. “Lord knows what ideas they’re getting—”

“None they shouldn’t have, Congressman,” Carrie Woodward said firmly.

“They don’t think like us. You’ve seen the toilets, haven’t you? Look, we all have to give them the same story,” Dawson insisted.

“Say little.” Dmitri said in Russian. Jeri was surprised that she could still understand. It has been a long time…

Evidently Dawson had understood that, too. “Right. Best they don’t find out too much.”

Find out what? That we don’t act the way we want to? That’s the very definition of human — “you explain this,” Tashayamp demanded. “How many humans do bad things?”

“All of them,” Jeri blurted. “Capitalists,” Dmitri said. “Commies,” Woodward retorted.

“All humans do bad things?” Tashayainp demanded. “All do what they know they must not do? Tell me this.”

They all began speaking at once.

Jeri sat against the wall with Melissa. She wasn’t really part of the discussion Wes Dawson was having with the Russians, but she was too close to ignore it.

“Perhaps we have told them too much,” Dmitri said.

Dawson said, “It’s better if they understand us—”

“What you call understanding a military man would call intelligence information,” Arvid Rogachev said.

“What can it hurt? Arvid, you’ve been helping them with their maps!”

“They show me maps and globes. I nod my head, and tell them names for places. This is not your concern.”

“It’s my concern if you side with the fithp. Look, Arvid, you’ve seen what they’ve done. Destruction and murder—”

“I understand war. I—”

“But do you understand what they could have done? They came here with a mucking great asteroid, and we’re still moored to it. Suppose they’d come with the same size asteroid, but a metal one. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of metals. Now they negotiate. Trade metals for land, for concessions, for information, anything they want. They could buy themselves a country. If we won’t play, even if we buy the metals and don’t pay their bills, they’ve still got their mucking great asteroid to drop!”

Dmitri Grushin was nodding, grinning. “What a pity. They don’t understand money. They are not capitalists. That’s your complaint, Dawson.”

And who cares? They’re going to smash the Earth. At least they decided they wouldn’t make the children watch Deep Throat and those other tapes. Jeri recalled going to a theater to see Deep Throat. Stupid. But they’ve put us all together, and now there are three more men to watch me use the toilet.

John and Carrie Woodward stayed near Jeri, as far from the Russians as possible, but it wasn’t far enough. They could still hear. They kept Gary with them.

They’ve got a problem. But we’re going to have to get along with the Russkis—

Jeri said, “Carrie, did you notice that you and John sounded a lot like the Russians?”

“Yeah,” John Woodward said. “I noticed. They’re for decency. Not like Dawson. He’d excuse anything—”

“No, he wouldn’t.”

“There are things people can do, and things they can’t do,” Carrie Woodward said. “Isn’t that what insanity means? Can’t tell right from wrong?”

“No.” Alice was across the room, far enough away that they’d nearly forgotten her. “It wasn’t why I was in Menninger’s.”

“Why were you there?”

“None of your business. I was afraid all the time.”

“Of what?’ Carrie Woodward asked.

Alice looked away.

Dawson looked over at them. The Woodwards wouldn’t meet his eyes. Carrie continued to talk to Jeri as if Dawson were not there.

“Don’t tell me you never wanted to be better than you are,” Carrie Woodward said. “Everyone wants to be better than they are. Jt’s what it means to be human.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Jeri said. “We don’t do the things we think we should, and we do things we’re ashamed of-what was it, in the Book of Common Prayer? We have done those things we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those things we ought to have done, and there is no health in us.’ People have wanted to do the right thing for most of history.”

“But nobody really knows what right and wrong are,” Dawson protested.

“Sure they do,” Jeri said. “C. S. Lewis saw that well enough. Most of us know what’s the right thing, at least most of the time. The problem is we don’t do it. That’s how we’re different from rocks. They don’t have any choice about obeying the laws. They do what they have to do. We do what we want. We sound like an undergraduate bull session.”

“Perhaps this is true,” Arvid said. “But we would not say laws, but—”

“Moral principle,” Dmitri said firmly. “Established by Marxist science.”

“Commies don’t have morals,” Carrie Woodward protested.

“This is unfair. It is also not true,” Arvid said. “Come, we do not so much disagree, you and I. It is your leader, your congressman who protests.”

Carrie looked to her husband. They didn’t say anything.

An hour later they were summoned to the theater again. This time the fithp stood in formal arrays, Herdmaster and mate at the top, others on steps below him, most with mates. Tashayamp stood near him. She trumpeted for silence.

The Herdmaster spoke at length.

Finally Tashayamp translated. “You are a race of rogues. You say you wish to live by your laws, but you do not do it. You say you have always wanted to live by your rules and you do not. Now you will. You will become part of Traveler Herd, live as fithp live, but under your rules. This we will give you. This we promise.

“You will teach us your laws. Then you will live by them.

“You go now.”

High fleecy clouds hung over the San Fernando Valley. The temperature stretched toward a hundred degrees, with a hot wind sweeping down to shrivel any vegetation not protected from it,

Ken Dutton carefully closed the door to his greenhouse. Once inside he dipped water from a bucket and threw it around, wetting down the lush growth. Then he hastened outside to turn the handle on the makeshift fan, drawing fresh hot dry air through the greenhouse.

When that was done, he went inside. The house had thick walls and cooled rapidly at night, so that it was tolerable in the daytime. Dutton lifted the phone and listened.

There was a dial tone. There often was. He took a list from the telephone drawer and began to make his calls.

“I’m still the chef,” he told Con Donaldson, “but I can use some help. Can you get here around noon? Bring whatever you can find in the way of food, and tell me what I can count on now.”

“Rice.”

“Rice.” He made a note. “How much rice?”

“Lots. I mean really a lot.” She giggled. “Only good thing about this war, I’m losing weight, because I’m getting sick of rice-hey, I look good. You’ll like the new me.”

“Great. Okay, then. Bye.” He inspected his list and dialed again.

There was no beef in the land, Sarge Harris complained. “Cattle cars are too big. Snouts blast ’em, think they’ve got tanks or weapons in them.”

Probably not. The major says they’re not doing that just now. But no point in arguing. “Yeah. Chicken costs an arm and a leg, too.”

“Maybe that’s how chicken farmers get red meat,” Sarge said.

“Heh-heh. Sure. Look, what can you bring?”

“Eggs. Traded some carpentry work for them.”

“Good. Bring ’em.” Ken hit the cutoff button and dialed another number.

Patsy Clevenger admitted to being one of the lucky ones. An occasional backpacker, she’d stored considerable freeze-dried food in sealed bags; but the steady diet was driving her nuts. She jumped at his offer. Sure, she could bring a freeze-dried dessert, and flavored coffee mix, and pick up Anthony Graves, who was seventy and couldn’t drive anymore. Ken shifted the receiver to his other ear.

The Copeleys lived at the northern end of the San Fernando Valley, They could get fresh corn and tomatoes, and almonds, and oranges. Could they bring a pair of relatives? Because the relatives had gas. Hell, yes!

He tried Marty Carnell, just on the off chance. The meteorchewed highways had probably stranded him somewhere on a dog-show circuit—

But Marty answered.

“I’ve done this once before, and it worked out,” Ken told him. “It isn’t that everyone’s starving. Things haven’t got that bad. But anyone’s likely to have a ton of something and none of everything else, and the way to make it work is to get all the food together and make a feast.”

“Sounds good.”

“Okay. Get here around noon—”

“For dinner?”

“Stone soup takes time, and I want sunlight for the mirror. I’d guess we’ll eating all day and night. Come hungry. Have you got meat?”

“I found a meat source early on. I can keep the dogs fed till I run out of money, but it’s horsemeat, Ken. I’ve been eating it myself—”

“Bring it. Can you bring five pounds? Four will do it, and you won’t recognize it when I get through, Marty. I’ve got a great chili recipe. Lots of vegetables.”

The Offutts would have to come by bicycle. Chad Offutt sounded hungry. With no transportation, how the hell were they to get food? How about some bottles of liquor in the saddlebags? Ken agreed, for charity’s sake. Damn near anyone had liquor; what was needed was food.

Ken hung up.

He caught himself humming while he lugged huge pots out into the backyard and set them up around the solar mirror. It seemed almost indecent to be enjoying himself when civilization was falling about his ears. But it did feel good to finally find a use for his hobbies!

The Copeleys had brought everything they’d promised, and yellow chilis too. The pair of guests were a cousin’s daughter and her husband-Halliday and Wilson; she’d kept her maiden name — both much younger than the others, and a little uncomfortable. They seemed eager to help. Ken put them to cutting up the Copeley’s vegetables.

“Save all seeds.”

“Right.”

The lost weight looked nice on Con Donaldson. She chatted while she helped him carry dishes. Things were bad throughout the Los Angeles Basin… yeah, Ken had to agree. Con had tried to get to Phoenix, but her mother kept putting her off, she wouldn’t have room until her brother moved out… and then it was too late, the roads had been chewed by the snouts’ meteors. Yeah, Ken had tried to get out too.

He should have asked someone — to bring dishwashing soap! Someone must have an excess of that.

Marty was cuffing horsemeat into strips. “Could be a lot worse,” he said. “We could be dodging meteors. I can’t figure out what the snouts think they’re doing.”

“They think they’re conquering the Earth,” Ken said. “It’s their methods that’re funny. They’re thorough enough. I haven’t heard of a dam still standing. Have you?”

“No big ones. No big bridges either.”

“But they don’t touch cities.” Could be worse, He might have fled with no destination in mind. Still, it was hard times. Food got in, but not a lot, and not a balanced diet. There would have been no fruit source here without the Copeleys’ oranges and the lemon tree in Graves’ backyard.

Reflected sunlight blazed underneath Ken’s largest pot. The water was beginning to boil. He ladled a measured amount into the chili, then moved it into the focus.

He’d built the solar minor while he was still married, and after the first month he’d almost never used it. They’d gone vegetarian for a few months too, and his wife hadn’t taken the cookbooks with her. He had the recipes, he had the skills to build a balanced meal, and the phones worked sometimes. If the snouts shot those down, he might try to form a commune. His next-door neighbor had fled to the mountains, leaving the keys behind. More important, he’d left a full swimming pool. Covered, to prevent evaporation, the water would last until the fall rains, and the goldfish would keep the mosquitoes down.

Then there was the golf course across the street. The President asked everyone to grow food, especially to put up greenhouses. There wasn’t any water for the golf course, but there were flat areas, good places for tents if the commune got big enough.

When the aliens had blasted Kosmograd, everything had turned serious. So had Kenneth Dutton. Two years before he’d studied greenhouses; but in one two-day spree he’d built one, from plastic and glass and wood and hard work, and goddam had he been proud of himself. It worked! Things grew! You could eat them! He’d built two more before he’d even started the Stone Soup Parties, just because he could.

Past two o’clock, and the Offutts weren’t here yet. Not surprising, if they were on bicycles, especially if malnutrition was getting to them. Sarge Harris hadn’t arrived either. Lateness was less a discourtesy than a cause for worry: had dish-shaped craters begun to sprout in city roads? The snouts had been gone for three weeks, but when might they return? And with what?

Patsy Clevenger arrived with Anthony Graves. Graves was short and round and in fair health for a man pushing seventy. He had been a scriptwriter for television. He brought treasure: lemons from his backyard and a canned ham. They settled him in a beach chair from which he could watch the proceedings like a benevolent uncle.

Ken pulled the kettle to the side, where sunlight spilling from the mirror would keep the chili simmering. “An hour,” he announced to nobody in particular. He dumped rice into another pot, added water, and set it in the focus. Fistfuls of vegetables went into the water pot. Cook them next. Chop up vegetables, boil or steam them, add mayonnaise and a chopped apple if you had it. Leave out a few vegetables, fiddle with the proportions, forget some of the spices, as long as you didn’t put in broccoli it was still Russian salad if you could get mayonnaise. Where was Sarge Harris?

Sarge didn’t arrive until four. “I got a late start, and then there was a godawful line for gas, and then I tried three markets for potatoes, but there weren’t any.” At least he had the eggs. Ken set Cora to making them into mayonnaise.

The sun was getting too low for cooking. Mayonnaise didn’t need heat. Coffee did. Better start water warming now. Sometimes there was no gas. Patsy’s flavored coffee could be drunk “iced”: room temperature, given the lack of ice.

The chili was gone, and a vegetable curry was disappearing, and the Copeleys’ young relatives were just keeping up with the demand for lemonade. There was breathing space for Ken to find conversations; but he tended to drift when his guests started talking about how terrible things were. By and large, they seemed cheerful enough. It felt like Cora might stay the night, and that would be nice, since it felt like Patsy would not.

Tarzana didn’t have electricity. Ken Dutton and his guests stayed outdoors. Light came from the bellies of the clouds, reflected from wherever the Los Angeles and San Fernando Valleys still had electricity. Occasionally a guest would go inside, feeling his way through the darkness toward the flickering light from the bathroom. At the next Stone Soup Party there would probably be no candles at all.

He’d boiled a few eggs to decorate the Russian salad. That looked like it would hold up until the party was over.

Some of the guests were cleaning out the pots. It had been settled without much discussion: better to get most of the cleaning done before Ken served coffee. The suspicion existed that anyone who conspicuously shirked cleanup duties might not be invited back. For some it was true.

Sarge poured a torrent of dirty water into a patio drain. “At least we kicked them out of Kansas,” he said.

Graves, who had seemed half as’eep in his beach chair, said, “Did we? I’m told they spent much of their efforts raiding libraries and collecting… well, memorabilia, items that might tell them something of our nature.”

“Sure. Wouldn’t you?”

“It was a reconnoitering expedition. In a way, it reminds me of the Phony War.”

“The what?”

The old man laughed. “I don’t blame you. Nineteen thirty-nine to summer of 1940. Germany and France were officially at war, you see. But nothing was happening. They stared at each other across the Maginot Line, between two lines of trenches, and did nothing. The papers called it the Phony War. I expect they didn’t like not having a story. For the rest of us, it was a calm and nervous time.”

“Like now. Nothing happening,”

“Precisely. Then the Nazis came rolling across and took France, and nobody said Phony War any more.”

Patsy followed through. “Suddenly they’ll bomb all the cities at once’?”

“They might give us a chance to surrender first. The trouble is, they’ve never answered any of our broadcasts. This may be that chance, by their lights, and we’re obliged to work out how to surrender. Well, how?”

“If we spend all our time thinking about how to surrender, thea they’ve got us beaten,” Patsy said heatedly. “I’d rather be trying to flatten them. Even if we lose a few cities.”

Ken nodded, though the thought brought a chill. Los Angeles? Behind him Marty said, “Ken, could I have a word with you?”

They stepped inside, found chairs by feel. It was too dark to read expressions. Faint sounds from somewhere in the house might indicate that a couple had felt their way to a couch or a bedroom. Life goes on.

Marty asked, “Were you serious about getting out?”

“Sure, Marty, but there are problems. I don’t own a piece of the Enclave.”

“Yeah. Well, I do, as long as the law holds up. Heh. After the law stops mattering is when a man needs something like the Enclave, and I’m short in my dues”

“Well, they might—”

“No, what I was thinking was John Fox. He’s in-this isn’t to get around-he’s in Shoshone, just outside of Death Valley, camping out till this is all over. He knows what he’s doing, Ken.”

“1 never knew you were much of a camper.”

“No. But Fox is, and he might be glad to see us if we showed up with food. Would you like to go with me?”

Ken glanced through the picture window, automatically, before he answered. No fights going, nobody looked particularly unhappy; the Russian salad hadn’t disappeared yet, though Bess Church’s wheel of Cheddar cheese had gone like snow in a furnace. The host wasn’t needed: good. He said, “Food and camp gear, sure. I don’t have camp gear, and I bet it’s in short supply. Anyway, suppose John isn’t glad to see us? No way we could phone ahead.”

“Shoshone’s still a good bett Why in God’s name would even snouts bomb Shoshone? And John doesn’t own those caves. We camp out nearby—”

“No.”

“Then where?”

“I mean no, I’m not leaving.” Ken Dutton had made his decision before he understood the reasons. Now they were coming to him, in the sight and sounds of his crowded and happy territory. “Maybe I’m crazy. I’m going to stick it out here.”

“Yup, you’re crazy. Thanks for dinner.”

Marty’d go, Ken realized. He hadn’t done any of the cleaning up. He wasn’t planning to come back.

Jenny woke to a tingling in her left arm, the one that had been under Jack. When she opened her eyes, she saw his.

“Hello, sailor. New in town?”—

He grinned. “I like watching you.”

She extracted her arm to look at her watch. “Time we got to work.”

“We still have an hour.” He moved closer to her. “Not that I can—”

“It’s all right. But I can’t sleep.”

“So?”

She sat up. “Let’s watch the weirdos. We’ve got pickups in the Snout Room.”