Larry Niven - Footfall

“It’s wet everywhere, isn’t it?” Fox asked.

“Pretty much so,” Roger told him. “We were never able to out except for a couple of days in Utah. You must get more here than I’d have thought.”

Fox snorted. “Heck, Bellingham wasn’t noted for its sunshine before that snout asteroid hit. Not like Death Valley,” and sudden fury surged into his face before he could hide it. “What made you think we get sunlight now?”

“Hot water,” Roger said. “That was heated in those roof collectors, wasn’t it?”

“Sure, but it was warm, not hot,” Fox said.

“It collects diffuse sunlight,” Miranda Shakes said. “We hot water when there’s real sunshine. Three days so far this ye I’d kill for a hot bath.”

When dinner ended, almost everyone left.

“Chores,” Fox said. “Nice to have seen you again, Roger.’

Bill Shakes and George Tate-Evans helped carry dinner dish out, then came back. “We’ll offer you brandy, but it’s getting dark out,” Bill Shakes said. “Maybe you’d rather go make camp where there’s light?”—

“It’s no problem for us,” Roger said.

“We’ve made camp in the dark before,” Harry added.

“Okay. The best place will be up the lane. It runs into the woods. Go up about half a mile, cross the creek, and there’s a clearing. Be careful how much wood you burn, and don’t cut any.”

“Okay.”

Isadore brought in two bottles of California brandy. “Two more cases,” he said to nobody in particular. He took thin glass snifters from a cabinet and brought them around. George Tate-Evans went to help, but poured his own glass half full first. The doses that Isadore poured for guests were considerably smaller.

Bill Shakes waited until they were all seated with their glasses. “Harry, you said you have a gasoline ration card.”

“Yep.” Harry grinned. “Hero’s reward, you know. I captured a snout.”

George Tate-Evans started to say something, but Shakes’ quiet voice was insistent. “We’ve located some fertilizer. A dairy farmer about thirty miles from here will sell us some, but we have to go get it. We’ve got trucks but no gas. What are the chances of buying some gasoline from you?”

“Zero,” Harry said. “The card’s personal.” He took a plastic encased card from an inner pocket. “See, my driving license on one side, gas card on the other, picture on both. Nobody can use it. Unless you want to grow a beard and dye it to look like me.”

“Most amusing,” Shakes said without a smile. His head might have come level to Harry’s shoulder.

“Maybe we can exchange favors,” Roger said. “We go get your fertilizer. You let us use a truck for a couple of days.”

Harry frowned at him. “Why do we need a truck? Especially need one that bad?”

“I’d like to look around, and my tail-bone is tired,” Roger said.

“I’ll buy that one. Okay, Bill. We’ll haul your cow shit.”

“Thank you.”

Harry lifted his glass. “You’ve done pretty well.”

“Not too bad.” It was hard to read Shakes’ smile. “Do you know anything about Los Angeles?”

“They’re coping,” Harry said.

“You didn’t go through there?” George asked. He brought over a bottle of California brandy and poured a generous second drink.

“No,” Harry said. “But they’re coping.”—

“Eh?”

“Just about everywhere,” Harry said. “Things are tough. Tougher than here, mostly. But people are managing, one way or another. Greenhouses. Vegetable gardens. Chicken coops on rooftops.”

“Surprising,” Bill Shakes said.

“Yes, considering there’s not much the government can do Roger said. “Colorado Springs can’t even find out what people are doing, much less help them.”

“That’s why things are working,” George said. He knocking back his brandy and poured more. “Get the goddamn government out of the way and people can cope. You watch, if things get little better, good enough for the government to get active, ever thing will get worse again. Look at us! We’ve got government Boy, do we have government! Government people out the arse.

George was wrong, of course. Roger had seen it: what made it all work was just enough government. Government wasn’t powerful enough to meddle any more, but it could tell those who would listen how to help themselves: how to build greenhouse keep the plumbing working, deal with untrustworthy water supplies, eat all of a steer carcass: the things once printed in its survival manuals. George Tate-Evans must have expected his survivalists to be the government by now. Instead of decently dying away, the government had taken over his territory!

If Roger could say that just right, he’d get himself and Han kicked back into the Street. Instead he said, “Clara said there are lots of new people here. Why?”

Bill Shakes booked edgily at George, but George didn’t notice “Big government project in the harbor,” George said. “New people coming in. Navy people. Computer programmers. Ship fitting plumbers-we have to do all our own plumbing now. Every plumber for a hundred miles seems to work down there at Ui harbor.”

“They don’t moonlight?” Harry asked.

“They don’t even come out for a visit.”

“Hoo-hah.” Harry was on his second brandy. “And you guy came up here to get away from the crowds!” Harry chortled and poured himself another drink without asking.

“There is an amusing aspect to it.” Bill Shakes still wore his enigmatic smile. “I remember a story. There was a guy who knew the Second World War was coming. The news said it all. So he looked around for a quiet spot to sit it out, and he moved his whole life there. He picked an island out in the middle of the Pacific, way the hell away from everything. Called Iwo Jima.”

“We haven’t done that bad,” George said.

“No, but it isn’t the quiet little backwater with the silted-up harbor any more,” Isadore said. “The roads are crowded, the prices have gone up, there are MPs minding everybody’s business—”

“Screw them,” George muttered.

“But what are they doing down there?” Roger asked. “Who knows?” Isadore said. “They say they’ve built greenhouses and they’re growing wheat. You can believe as much of that as you want to.”

“And if I believe none of it?”

“Miranda’s Deputy Sheriff heard rumors that it’s a prison,” Isadore said. “Political prisoners from Kansas. Collaborators. They’ve built greenhouses, all right, but they’re working them with prisoners. Slave camp.”

“Serve the snout lovers right,” Harry said.

“They may not have had much choice,” Roger said.

“They could fight—”

“You captured one, Harry,” Roger said carefully. “But he was alone. I saw what happened to people who tried to fight them all. It wasn’t pretty.”

Bill Shakes leaned forward. “You were in alien occupied country? Tell us about it.”

Roger’s digital watch said 3:00 A.M. Both brandy bottles were empty, and they were better than halfway through a third.

Somewhere during the evening Miranda had brought down Kevin’s guitar for Harry to play, and nearly everybody came to listen while Harry sang his songs, but then the others had gone away, leaving George and Isadore and Bill.

Kevin Shakes was working on the government project-and hadn’t come home since he went down to the harbor. They got letters from him, and word through Miranda’s boyfriend.

Roger felt the tightness in his guts. I shouldn’t have had so much brandy. It’s hard to stay in control.

Something big in the harbor. Big.

George knows something he hasn’t said. What?

“About time to turn in,” Bill Shakes said.