Triumph (15 page)

"It is men I feel sorry for, sometimes, when I see them look at Angelica. It always makes me think of a Chinese proverb my mother used to repeat, in Chinese. In English, it might sound rather dull:

To men, lovely women are flowers;

They would pick every sort;

Only women know that the picked flower withers . . .

As does the one left untouched.

"Not that
philosophy,
but the attitude it shows, in men, is what I refer to. They watch Angelica laugh, or sing, or dance--even, load the dishwasher--and they are seeing a flower of a sort they must pick. They cannot help trying. It is so tragic! Or is it funny?"

That was the third entry in Lodi Li's irregularly-kept diary.

Other written records were also made. Some, like Ben Bernman's, were full of scientific terms and contained little about human doings within the shelter. Thus, while the Chinese girl was noting her impressions of people and moods, Ben, in the communications chamber, wrote, under the same day and date and year, the following:

"This afternoon the amateur radio sender who signs himself 'Buckie' and whose call letters are W2HL6V, sent the following message, with a steadily-more-uneven 'key':

"'Seems we were mistaken about the air-filtration capacity of this dump. We have no means of determining outside radiation levels but they must be high. Far higher, at least in the first few days, than our system could cope with. As stated yesterday, radiation sickness first appeared among us four days ago. Dr. Stannar, Mrs. Jeffry L. Teal, Mary Teal, Evelyn Bishop, and Reverend Thomas C. Bullen have died, since my previous message was sent. Am ill myself. All those remaining alive in this shelter are ill and plainly dying. List of living, now: Mr. Charles Tobin, Mrs. Perry Wigman, Genevieve Phelps, Collin M. Wetmore, and an unidentified man rescued from street before this deep shelter was sealed, who has not regained consciousness and is now near the end. Plus self. Have raised no other ham operator anywhere. Static still unbelievable. Nearby Des Moines apparently still burning, as our air remains smoky. This will probably be my last trick. Buckie.'

"At Sachem's Watch Center," Ben wrote on, in his scrawling hand, "we have now received parts or the whole of some fifteen messages similar to the above. One by one those amateur radio operators, so often of great value in past disasters, have apparently met the same fate. All, in any case, seem to have gone off the air. Today the first word of conditions in the Soviet reached us, as we intercepted--and Connie Davey translated from French--part of a government message sent from a powerful station located in Africa. In the midst of a long description of political and social turmoil in various African nations (and an accompanying request for aid in 'pacifying hysterical native tribes') the message merely noted that 'information' now reaching them 'indicated' all of European and Asian Russia, Siberia included, was 'dead and motionless, mere cinders, without signs of life.'

"George and I speculate this report may have come through messages from space-station personnel or even some plane making a very dangerous reconnaissance over the U.S.S.R. It confirms my own estimate of the effect of the successful American penetration of enemy defenses by the anticipated one-third to one-half or better of our various bombers, besides sea-borne planes, missiles, and submarine-fired weapons. The U.S.S.R. lies dead!

"The ground levels of radiation here have now dropped to an average of about 150 roentgens--far higher, after a two week period, than had been anticipated by the federal officials and military. But this may be due to some special accumulation of hot isotopes in our particular area. The incredible (but not quite!) million-roentgen levels produced (plainly) by deep, oceanic mines surrounded by sodium oxide and set off along our coasts, has, of course, halved its level every fifteen hours and is not now a major factor in the residual readings.

"I have recommended, however, that any attempt at surface reconnoitering be deferred for some weeks. In such a lapse of time, I estimate, the radiation in this immediate environment will have sunk to perhaps ten roentgens, or less. However, we must be conservative about emergence, as it may require blasting to open an exit, not then readily closed off. Also, wind and rain may abruptly raise local levels of radioactivity. We must not, I feel, open any hole from this amazingly-efficient shelter until we are sure it is safe to do so. We can, after all, probably subsist here, in comfort, for a period of time Farr privately mentioned to me which I still am unable to contemplate:
two years.

"We have twice reoxygenated the recycled air in the vast caverns Farr excavated.

We shall do so weekly. No outside air has been drawn upon and the system now in use works better even, I think, than that of the latest-type nuclear submarines. With our presently-used capacity for dehumidification, the removal of CO2, smoke, and other noxious substances, and the recycling of oxygen-enriched air, together with the near-incredible
extent
of the shelter and its accessory tunnels and chambers, it will not be necessary to draw upon external atmosphere for several months, for human use. Even then, after a careful examination of the outer-air-filtration equipment I am satisfied we could, for a long period, bring atmosphere of a much higher radioactive level than now exists into the system and remove almost one hundred per cent of all hot atoms.

Fortunate, indeed, Farr had the private resources to build such systems! And ironic that an adaptation of the gaseous-diffusion plant at Oak Ridge, which made possible the first two uranium-isotope bombs, has enabled at least this group to anticipate such long-period survival.

"I might add a note about water supplies and waste-disposal facilities, only just now inspected by me. These are as ingenious and costly as the long-range means for maintaining a breathable atmosphere. In tanks only slightly less deep than the main Hall (515 feet under the summit of Sachem's Watch) enough pure water is in storage to supply all the possible wants of our fifteen persons for well over one year. In addition, as this water is used, pumps bring into other tanks, from very deep, semi artesian wells, fresh stores of water.

"Farr states some artesian wells in Connecticut have been found by drilling to a depth of as much as seven thousand feet! His own drilling struck, at 3670 feet, fresh water with pressure, or 'head,' enough, to rise to within 670 feet of drilling-site. It is cold, pure, hard water. When drawn into holding tanks it is first measured for radioactive contamination. (To date, there has been no trace of increase in the carefully-established

'background' level of this source--a very low level for deep-rock water--.007

microcuries.) Radiation contamination of any measurable degree in that water source should not be expected, Farr says, until next spring, as Farr (fantastic man!) had geologists determine the origin of his well water and check their theories with
tracers!

The water was shown to come from a wide area of the Berkshires. Tracers showed that autumnal rain falling there did not appear in the deep water table penetrated by Farr's drilling till the ensuing April or May.

"Hence our air and water seem virtually inexhaustible.

"We can see why other short-term survivors in deep, otherwise safe shelters (who had spark-gap radio or other forms of communications gear) have already perished: they perished owing to slight interchanges of their air with the briefly, immensely radio-contaminated air over the United States.

"As to sewage. This is carried through ordinary piping to a central vent where the water accompanying it, from sinks, flush toilets, etc., takes it down on a slanting course, through a three-foot-wide shaft, to a point almost nine hundred feet beneath this elevation. There (as was the case at many levels) more natural caverns were found.

Through one, an underground river made its way. Initially, Farr planned to use it as his sewer-disposal outlet.

"Subsequently it occurred to him that, granting all-out war, the soils hereabouts might be too 'hot' for successful farming, for some years and to a depth of many inches: a depth making the task of clearing away the layer of radiation-contaminated soil virtually impossible on any scale practical for agriculture.

"He therefore diverted the subterranean stream and recut certain of the deep caverns for sewage-holding. In them the wastes are treated automatically, by bacteria and chemicals, and stored, by natural flow and by layering through valving of the water source. This uncontaminated and very fertile material will then be available, through a stand-by but heavily-plugged access tunnel, as fertilizer, if needed--just as the treated end-product of many big-city sewage-disposal plants is now sterilized, bagged, and sold, at a profit, by such municipalities." (On rereading that day's entry Ben struck out the word "is," and replaced it with "used to be."

"The technically most difficult problem Farr faced," he wrote on, "was air supply and exhaust disposal for his powerful diesel motors, on which we depend for all our electrical power. Farr says he first considered installing a pair of nuclear reactors. But he decided their operation, even though they required no air, as do internal combustion machines, was too 'tricky' for whomever might manage to make it down here in the event of nuclear onslaught. He also feared some nearby enemy bomb hit might crack any feasible reactor shielding and so make his great subterranean 'city' uninhabitable. Hence he settled for diesels of the greatest obtainable efficiency. Their fuel is in 'tanks' like those that hold our supplies of water: enlarged caves and, also, gigantic chambers cut into the naked rock, all lined to prevent seepage. The air system now in use will adequately supply the diesels for months, as well as the people here.

"The diesel exhausts with their load of toxic substances are drawn off and expelled under great pressure, into a vent that was cut to the base of this hill, or, as they call it, mountain. There, after passing numerous baffles, it is extruded into the open atmosphere. However, in the early days of our stay here exhaust gasses were stored (under ever-increasing pressure) in certain caverns. Only when the exterior radiation reached a preselected level were the openings of the vent--immense steel blocking-doors--

automatically moved away. If they'd been fused, or if the vent had been rubble-blocked, it could have been opened by detonating preset charges! Positive pressure now expels all exhaust fumes at the foot of the cliff in a valley now half-filled with the rock Farr removed and dumped below us.

"Of course, if the exterior radioactivity should remain high for so long that the reoxygenation and recirculation of our present, reconditioned air should begin to threaten to use up our oxygen stores (owing to high air consumption of the diesels), our gaseous-diffusion system could be set going at a rate that would furnish safe air for the diesels only, while the people here continued to breathe, for a long additional time, the preassault, reworked and wholly safe air we now use. What
ingenuity
and what
determination
Farr has shown!"

His final entry that day read:

"It begins to appear that, save for expectable human chaos, the subequatorial half of the planet is safe. The few broadcasts we have intercepted through the still-highly-ionized static, which have included monitor readings, show these to be, at Lima, Accra, in Colombia, and at Rio de Janeiro, of about the order they reached following the 1966

tests of massive H-devices by the U.S.S.R.: i.e., from 1.5 roentgens down to a (commoner) reading of a few score microcuries.

"Morale in this group remains high."

That same evening, while Lodi wrote in her diary and while Ben brought up-to-date his report of the status of the outside world, various other now routine events occurred. A bridge game was being played by Valerie, Connie, Al--who played shrewdly--and Peter Williams--who, though a beginner, was an eager and quick learner.

Some others kibitzed or read one of the thousands of books available in the shelter library chamber. George Hyama stubbornly struggled to find a means to damp out the ion-uproar over the continent and receive some picture and sound he could tune in on TV--either from a space relay or from any station still operating and in his range. Kit, toward the standard bedtime hour, saw Faith come into the Hall alone, carrying a book, and with a nod he succeeded, much to his surprise, in making her tum around and walk back quietly into the passage.

He overtook her as she opened the library door. He followed her inside. No one else happened to be in the large, book-lined room. He waited for the door to shut, automatically. She replaced the book and turned to him, her face flushed a little, its expression resigned. Kit seized her vehemently, kissed her, and after that lifted and carried her to one of the lamp-lit divans. He set her down and turned to retrieve one of her slippers, which had dropped off as she had been unexpectedly lifted clear off the floor.

He replaced the shoe, started to kiss her again, and halted, stiffly, at her first word: "Don't."

"But, damn it, Faith, we're engaged! We've been in this hole for two weeks! And I haven't had even ten minutes alone with you." He could see the beginning of anger in her eyes, and retreated a little. "Okay! I understand! Up to a
point,
I do. But it isn't only
your
friends and
your
family's friends and
your
relatives who are gone.
My
mother and dad.

Sis.
Everbody else
I
care for, too! I mean to say, we're all even, in that way. So we're all in shock, call it, and we're all in mourning. The good old U.S.A. is gone, and the enemy, too, and everybody else who wasn't lucky enough to be somewhere below the old equator at the time. Still, life has to go on!"

He stopped, realized he'd begun to flounder, and made a more careful effort, raking his crew-cut, pale hair and letting a faint smile show. A smile he was aware of, one which, he hoped, had a look of empathy about it and was--again, hopefully--a bit cryptic, too. A brave and somewhat unreadable smile; the look of a man tried, torn, compassionate, courageous, and yet one who had an undecipherable question in his good-tempered expression, too.