Piers Anthony - Rings of Ice

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.