Piers Anthony - Rings of Ice

“Anywhere,” Floy said. “It’s the thought that counts. He knows I love him.”

Love. What a void this child spoke of!

Zena put her foot to the shovel and dug into the mud. The thought stayed with her, naggingly: Floy could speak of dismemberment and love at the same time, and mean it. Mean both. Zena could not comprehend either concept, herself. What was she made of?

“Sugar and spice,” she muttered, scooping out the muck. How could they bury anything here?

“I don’t know what I’ll do without him,” Floy said. “He was teaching me to dance.”

Zena continued excavating. Who was she to give advice?

It seemed to take a long time, because the mud kept washing back into the hole. Thatch appeared, carrying a stone. “I tried to carve his name,” he said. “Gordon Black. But it’s all scratches.”

“It will do,” Floy said.

“I can’t get it any deeper,” Zena said, panting from her exertion. She tired easily, with the baby in her. “The water—”

“It will do.” Slowly Floy unwrapped the package. Now, oddly, her hands were sure. In a moment Gordon’s face was open to view, the eyes still open.

Solemnly Floy kissed it.

Then she re-wrapped it and set the bundle into the pool of dirty water in the hole. Now, at last, she stumbled, and had to catch her balance by dunking the head under the murky liquid. “Goodbye, Gordon,” she said.

Thatch bowed his head, and Zena followed his example. “Rest in peace,” he said. “We thought a lot of you.”

“Amen,” Zena said. Then she scraped mud in to cover it.

When the hole was full, Thatch set his scratched rock on top. It sank somewhat but stayed in place.

Floy turned to Zena. There was such childish woe in her face that Zena dropped the shovel and put her arms about the girl. Wordlessly they stood there, both crying.

Mindel beat upon their backs, seeming now to be an extension of their tears.

Thatch somehow managed to fashion a tepee out of canvas, with a flap on top designed to let smoke out while shielding the interior from rain. This was not entirely successful—nothing could really balk Mindel—but sufficed for the purpose. He made a fire inside. Karen went there, and in due course there was the aroma of roasting meat. It went on a long time, for there were five carcasses to process.

Zena was nauseated, but the two animals were stimulated by the fumes. Dust Devil stopped at the door, not liking the rain; Foundling hesitated, then went on out. In a moment the cat followed. They did not return immediately, so Zena knew they had been fed… something.

The human party had meat for supper. No one was able to take more than a bite, but each person did that much. They had promised, and it had to be. Zena knew the same word was going through all their minds, though it was unvoiced: cannibal.

Next morning Thatch strapped on a pistol—they had plenty of firearms now, because of the spoils of the battle—and took Foundling along for a survey of the region. “Be careful,” Zena told him needlessly.

He was back in an hour. “They’re gone,” he said. “I found their camp, deserted.”

The days went by. They scorched as much meat as possible so that it would not spoil, but mold quickly sprouted on it. In fact, mold grew everywhere. It seemed to have gotten its start during the Gunz rain, and bided its time until Mindel gave it the solidly wet atmosphere it needed. Karen wiped it off the furniture every day.

Thatch’s wound healed. He never made anything of it, though Zena was sure it hurt him. This silent suffering was not a thing she understood. Most people would have used such an injury as a pretext to rest a few days, at least, but Thatch neither expected nor desired such treatment.

One person was always assigned to guard duty, which meant marching around the palisade, getting wet. No raincoat or poncho sufficed in that downpour, and soon they changed tactics. Anyone going outside went naked. The rain was warm, not cold; the hothouse effect had heated it. Zena was not eager to doff her clothes, particularly since her abdomen was beginning to round out, but she was spared that. The others were afraid her baby would suffer if she went out or stood on her feet too long. That cut it down to three: Thatch, Floy and Karen.

On the fifth day of rain, Karen took a hand. “Your turn to go out,” she said to Gus.

“What?” Gus seemed not to understand.

“What if something happened to Thatch? We all have to know our way around,” Karen said persuasively.

“I can’t go out! It’s raining!”

“Why so it is,” Karen said as if surprised. “You had better take off your clothes so they won’t get wet.”

“No!” Gus said, sounding shocked.

Karen stripped, ready for the rain. “I will not return until you fetch me,” she said, and stepped out.

Gus stared after her. “This is ridiculous,” he said. It was all Zena could do to keep from laughing, for he was now using her own phrase. “Thatch, bring her back!”

Thatch headed for the door, but Zena stopped him. “This is between the two of them,” she said.

The door opened. Gus whirled around—but it was Floy, not Karen. “Something up?” she asked as she shook the water off her bare torso. “It’s not Karen’s turn to walk out, but she told me—”

Zena brought a towel and dried her off. The girl did have a good young figure, and getting better as she grew, but she still was almost intolerably clumsy. It was better to help her than to let her bash about doing things for herself. “She says its Gus’s turn,” Zena murmured.

“Oh.” Floy glanced at Gus, comprehending. “Good for her.” Then her eyes fell upon the blonde wig Gordon had used, and something went out of her. She picked it up, crossed to the driver’s seat, and sat down.

For an hour Gus paced about the bus, muttering. No one else spoke. Zena could tell by his reactions the hold Karen had over him. There was a lot of woman out there in the rain!

Thatch took Gordon’s old shirt over to Floy. Karen had laundered the blood out of it and dried it as well as possible. He put it over the girl’s still shoulders, then took the adjacent seat. The members of the group were closer now, drawn together by the common tragedy of Gordon’s death. In the same fashion the others took care of Zena, they now took care of Floy. Yet it would have been infinitely better had Gordon lived.

At last Gus launched himself out into the rain. “Karen! Karen!” he called. “Come back!”

As though she had just left.

Floy looked back, the wig on her head: incongruous, because Zena was so used to the features of Gloria, the statuesque blonde, not this pinched child’s face, prematurely aged by grief. “It won’t work,” she said, and returned to her private reflections.

Floy had had nobody, until Gordon. What would she do, what would she be, when she came out of her sorrow? Was there hope for her now?

Fifteen minutes later Karen showed up. “I need help,” she said.

Now Thatch went out When they returned, they were supporting Gus, who was blubbering with fear. They got him inside and put him on the back couch, soaking clothes and all.

“I thought he could do it,” Karen said, shaking her head sadly. “But the moment the rain hit him, he collapsed. He’s terrified of falling water. He never got beyond the wall of the bus.”

Zena shook her head. It was hard to believe that a man could be such a coward, but it made things fall into place. Gus did not boss Thatch because he was stronger, but because he was weak. “At least he tried,” Zena said.

Time passed. Their deck of cards became worn, and the books were read and reread. Zena went through every page of the Whole Earth Catalog, knowing that it was largely an exercise in futility. The Earth was no longer whole, and none of these intriguing things could now be ordered. She was morbidly fascinated by the section on childbirth… followed by the one on death.