Larry Niven - Footfall

Then he mounted the Kawasaki and rode away, groaning. Harry was a firm believer in natural selection.

Jeri woke at dawn. Melissa was awake, but huddled in her sleeping bag. “I never knew deserts could be cold,” she said.

“I told you,” Jeri said. “Now watch.” The sleeping bags were head to head, with the Sierra stove between. Jeri made two cups of cocoa without poking more than her head and shoulders out of her bag. In the half-hour they spent drinking cocoa and eating oatmeal, the world warmed. Jeri put her hat on and made Melissa don hers. They left their sleeping bags and rolled them with one eye each on the highway below.

They had moved uphill, away from the car, into a clump of bushes at the crest. With heads above the bushes, using binoculars, they could see clearly for miles. The highway ran straight as a bullet’s flight, broken by a dish-shaped crater nine miles to the west. The precision of that crater grew scarier the more Jeri thought about it. It sat precisely on the intersection of two highways.

They watched for traffic. Jeri’s hand kept brushing the hard lump in her purse, the .380 Walther automatic. If she saw a safe-looking ride, she and Melissa could get down to the highway in time to stick out their thumbs. She hadn’t seen much yet. Traffic was nearly nonexistent. A clump of four motorcycles had passed, slowed to examine the stalled car, argue, then move on west. She stayed hidden.

“What will we do?” Melissa asked.

“We’ll think of something,” Jeri told her. I may have to pay for a lift. Hopefully with money. She prayed for a policeman, but there weren’t any. Someone ought to come look at the crater. Is it radioactive? And why here? What could aliens possibly care about, this far from anywhere?

From the west came a motorcycle. It slowed as it approached the crater. Jeri wondered if it would turn back. It moved out into the desert and circled the lip of the crater. Big cycle, big rider. He had some trouble lifting it back onto the road. He rested afterward, smoking, then started up again. They watched him come.

Ten minutes later Melissa lowered the binoculars and said, “It’s Harry.”

Jeri snorted.

“It’s Hairy Red, Mom. Let’s go down.”

“Unlikely,” Jeri said wearily, but she took the glasses. The lone biker’s head was a wind-whipped froth of red hair and beard; that was true enough. He kept the bike slow. He couldn’t be a young man, not with the trouble he’d had lifting the bike. The bike: it sure looked like Harry’s bike. Hell’s bells, that was Harry Reddington!

“Go,” Jeri said, “run!” She sprinted downhill. Melissa surged past her, laughing. They reached the bottom well ahead of the biker. Jeri puffed and got her wind back and screamed, “Harry! Harreee!”

It didn’t look like he would stop.

Harry saw the four bikers coming from a long way off. They were on the wrong side, his side, of the dirt divider. He was seeing trouble as he neared them … but they veered across the divider and, laughing, doffed their helmets to him as he passed. Harry would have liked to return the gesture, but he had one hand on the handlebars and one on the gun Carlotta hadn’t taken … because Hairy Red sure wasn’t in shape to defend himself with his fists. His belly band was tightened to the last notch, and Harry felt like he was leaking out from under it.

Beyond the bikers was a station wagon, presumed DOA. Beyond the wagon, two figures running downhill. Harry made out a woman and a little girl.

He didn’t have time for emergencies or room for passengers,

They reached the road. They were yelling at him. The adult was a good-looking woman, and it was with some regret that he twisted the accelerator.

— “Harreee!”

Oh, shit. Harry’s hands clamped the brakes. Jeri and Melissa Wilson, standing in the road. Just what he needed.

Your word of honor on record, he thought. Dead or captured by God knows what, Wes Dawson had left his life on Earth’s surface in Harry Reddington’s care. Carlotta Dawson wasn’t the type to survive without help. Stuck out here with a dead station wagon, what were the chances that Jeri Wilson and her daughter would ever tell anyone that Hairy Red had driven past them? He twisted harder, and stopped precisely alongside Melissa, and smiled at the little girl. Shit.

Harry Reddington climbed from the bike as if afraid he’d break, and straightened up slowly. “Jeri. Melissa. Why aren’t you at the Enclave?”

“I have to find my husband. Oh, Harry, thank God! Where are you going?”

Harry answered slowly; he seemed to be doing everything slowly. “I was staying at Congressman Dawson’s house. Now his wife is in Dighton, Kansas, and he sure can’t do anything to take care of her, so it’s up to me.”

“Well. Want some cocoa?”

“Sure, but — You’ve got a Sierra stove?”

“Up the hill.”

“What’s wrong with the car?”

“Out of gas.”

“Let’s get that cocoa.” Harry accepted Jeri’s hospitality knowing full well what it implied, knowing that it was too late. Three passengers on a motorcycle was going to kill his shock absorbers. “Those bushes at the top? I’d better ride the bike up. I’d hate to lose it.”

Harry let the bike coast to a stop. It was hot as soon as they stopped moving. Harry poured a little water onto his bandana and mopped his face. Getting sunburn to go with the windburn. Bloody hell.

“We’re almost there,” Jeri said. “Why are you stopping?”

“Got to,” Harry said. “Everybody off.”

Melissa leaped off from her perch on the gas tank in front of Harry. Jeri climbed off the back. Every muscle complaining. Harry slowly got off and set the stand. Then be tried to bend over.

“Back-rub time?” Jeri asked.

“Can’t hurt,” Harry said. He pointed to a stream that ran beside the road. “Melissa, how about you go fill the canteens.”

“Doesn’t look very clean—”

“Clean enough,” Harry said.

“Pour all the water we have into one canteen and just fill the other from the stream,” Jeri said. “Harry, you look like a letter S. Here, bend over the bike and I’ll work on that.”

Harry waited until Melissa was gone. “I don’t quite know how to say this. Hate to be the one to do it, but somebody’s got to. We’re almost there. Another ten, twelve miles—”

“Yes. Thank you. I know it was out of your way, and it can’t be comfortable, riding three on a bike—”

“It’s not, but that isn’t the problem,” Harry said. “You got across the Colorado River the day before the aliens came, didn’t you?”

“Yes—”

“And all you’ve seen since is a few towns, and that crater.”

“Harry, what are you trying to say?”

“I looked on the map. That town you’re headed for — there’s a dam just above it.” He didn’t say anything for a moment, to let that sink in. “Jeri, I goddam near didn’t get across the Colorado River. There’s nothing left of the town of Needles. Or Bullhead City. Or anything along the Colorado. They hit Hoover Dam with something big. When Lake Mead let go, it scoured out everything for two hundred miles. I mean everything. Dams, bridges, houses, boats — all gone. I had to get a National Guard helicopter to take me and the motorcycle across.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. So I don’t know what we’re going to find up ahead. You got any idea of where Dave lived in that town?”

“No,” Jeri said. “He never told me anything about it. Harry — Harry, it’s got to be all right.”

“Sure,” Harry said. He couldn’t even try to sound sincere.

One more rise. Over the top of that little ridge—

Jeri sat uncomfortably among the gear tied to the bike. She couldn’t stop crying. Wind-whipped, the tears ran tickling across her temples and into her hair. Damn it, I don’t know anything yet, why am I crying? At least Melissa can’t see.