Stephen Baxter - Moonseed

But still, in here she was away from people for a time, the car horns and shouts of the exit areas were receding to a background wash of noise, and the loudest sound was the click of her heels on the polished floor.

She could feel herself starting to unwind, just a little. Was that wrong?

The doors to the wards were closed. When she looked along the corridors she could see pillows propped up against each of the doors, their fat cotton bellies protruding from the door frames. The pillows were a mark that the rooms had been cleared. It was standard procedure. You couldn’t go back into one of these rooms without knocking over the pillow, and you couldn’t prop it up again from inside the room. Fail-safe, supposedly.

She heard something from inside one “cleared” ward. A low mumbling.

She kicked the pillow out of the way, opened the door and went inside.

Bright sunlight streamed into the room, dazzling off the polished floor. There was a row of beds, roughly abandoned, sheets and blankets pulled aside and crumpled. She searched, quickly. Medical charts, clothes lockers, a trolley with medication.

The whimpering was coming from under one of the beds.

Morag went over and looked under the bed. There was an old woman huddled there, in a thick flannel nightdress. Bright, rheumy eyes stared out of the dark at Morag. “Who are you?”

“It’s all right, dear. You need to come out now.”

The woman clutched bird-like arms to her chest.

Morag straightened up and checked the name on the medical card fixed to the bed. “Mrs Docherty, is it? I’m the police. It’s safe to come out now.”

Those rheumy eyes turned again, distrustful. “The police?”

“Yes.” She showed Mrs Docherty her warrant card.

“I didn’t hear the all-clear.”

Morag made herself smile. “How’s your hearing, Mrs Docherty?”

“Not what it was…” Mrs Docherty reached out a thin hand.

It took some time and care to get Mrs Docherty out and on her feet.

Together they began to shuffle to the door. Mrs Docherty wouldn’t go anywhere without her handbag.

“That’s what we had to do in the war. Stay under the bed.”

“I know. You did the right thing.”

Mrs Docherty’s hair was a tangle of white, her body a sagging sack, pulled down by gravity; she could barely walk. But, Morag noted absently, she had good, high cheekbones. A beauty, in her day.

She thought of the people she’d walked past in the street, before coming here, in the end, to assist this old lady. Which of those others might have been a better choice to spend her time on? Which a better investment, for the human race? Was there some lost Einstein, someone who might have figured out the truth of this disaster? Or even somebody who might have been able to go on and help someone else in turn?

Someone, in short, she admitted to herself, who was of more use than this old dear…

But even if that was so, who was she, Morag, to choose? What did useful mean? To a husband or daughter or grandchild, this old lady might be the most valuable person in the world.

So she held Mrs Docherty’s arm as they made their slow, difficult way along the corridors.

“…I rather enjoyed the war,” Mrs Docherty was saying. “Old Winnie. Bit of a lad, we always thought. One of us. Of course I was only a girl…”

They reached the exit, and Morag handed her over to a nurse.

The traffic lights were either out altogether, or scrambled. The pain in Ted’s chest, as he tried to control the car at speeds of no more than a few miles an hour, was blinding.

Jack sat in the front seat beside him, belted in, clutching his box of books and toys. The boy was silent, Jack thought. Too silent. But there was nothing he could do about that for now; the lad was going to see a lot more nasty stuff before they were done with all this.

If, he thought through his pain, they ever were.

Ted called by a camping gear shop, but it was as empty as if it had been looted. Same with an Army surplus store.

He queued at a petrol station. Fifteen minutes; not as bad as he’d feared, and there was still some supply. He got Jack to fill the tank while he limped inside. He tried to pay with a credit card. The tills were working but the operator wouldn’t take his card; there was no line to the card operators. No phone lines either; it sounded as if a telephone exchange had gone down.

Christ, he thought. Lose a telephone exchange and suddenly you can’t buy petrol. Everything has got too complex. Too interlinked. We’re too fragile.

He paid in cash, and through the nose too, the sharks.

The traffic moved a little more easily once they reached the A1 past Duddingston, heading east. But at the roundabout at Bingham they ran into a queue of traffic, all of it heading east. It was like holiday traffic, cars crammed with kids and grandparents and pets and luggage.

The westbound carriageway was kept empty, save for fuel trucks and emergency vehicles which raced into the city. The traffic inched forward, so slowly he wasn’t sure if it was really moving, or just compressing.

A couple of cars ahead, he saw a driver, a fat middle-aged man in a suit, get out to look up the road for the obstruction. He slammed his fist into the roof of his car with frustration, and yelled at somebody in the car. His wife, maybe.

The day was getting hotter.

The western horizon, in the rear view mirror, was turned orange by a smudge of smoke and dust, underlit here and there by the crimson glow of fires.

Ted tried the radio, looking for some guidance from the police. But there was only a stream of lurid on-the-spot reports from the trouble spots in the city, which didn’t do either of them a damn bit of good, so he pressed buttons until he found what sounded to his antique ears like a modern pop station, and left the radio there.

It took an hour to move the half-mile or so to the next roundabout. There were police in yellow ponchos, he saw, walking into the traffic stream and directing it; all the exits from the roundabout save one had been blocked off by police cars, their lights flashing.

A tall black policeman — just a kid — reached the car.

“What’s going on, officer?”

“When you get to the front of the queue, follow the diversion signs, sir—”

“What diversion?”

“To the college at Brunstane, the Jewel. That’s designated as the Evacuation Assembly Point.”

“What?”

“You can park your car in the side streets there. You have to register with the Police Casualty Bureau, and transport will be laid on to take you to the Rest Centres.”

“Transport laid on?” He slapped the steering wheel. “What do you call this?”

The copper looked strained and tired. He’d clearly been through this spiel a hundred times already, and no doubt had the same reaction from every driver.

Ted said, “Let me talk to your commander.”

“The super? I don’t think that’s necessary, sir. If you’ll just—”

From his chest pocket Ted dug out his old warrant card, now — melodramatically — stained by blood. “I can help, son. I won’t cause you grief.”

The copper hesitated. “Come with me.”

Ted beckoned to Jack, and then clambered out of the car.

So they walked through the traffic, Ted leaning on the copper’s arm, clutching Jack’s hand, all three moving at the stately pace enforced by Ted’s weakness. There were coppers everywhere, trying to get irate drivers to cool down and be patient.

…You’re telling me I’ve got to leave my car up there? What gash is this? I’ve got three kids here. How am I going to carry this luggage? Are you going to help me?…

…Why do I have to go to the Rest Centre? I have a sister in Prestonpans. If I can get to her house…