Gordon Dickson - Time Storm

“Where did all the kids come from?” I asked.

“Some of the people coming in had them,” Bill said, braking the jeep to a halt before one large Quonset hut. “And we’ve had several babies born here during the past year. Of course, those are too young to play yet. Still, the proportion of children to adults isn’t that large. I don’t think we’ve got more than twenty of them.”

I shaded my eyes and tried to make out a familiar figure among the darting young bodies.

“Is that Wendy out there?” I said.

“I don’t think so,” said Bill without turning around. “She’s probably out with the dogs somewhere. She handles them now most of the time, instead of Marie; and they’ve gotten so that they follow her wherever she goes. Generally, Marie thinks it’s a good thing; and I agree. The dogs are good protection for her. This is our government building here. Come on in.”

He got out of the jeep. I followed him and we went up three wooden steps and in the front door of the Quonset. It was like stepping into any busy office. Behind a low barrier of wooden fencing, there were five desks at which three men and two women were sitting, typing or engaged in other paperwork. File cabinets occupied one wall and there was a large copying machine in a corner.

“Where are you getting the power to run all this?” I asked Bill. For the typewriters were all electric, and the copier looked as if it had to require at least a 220 volt line.

“We put in a much larger gas generator,” said Bill, leading me through a gate in the wooden fence. “Before fall, we ought to finish a dam on the river and have a waterpowered generator that’ll take care of all our needs for the next five years.”

He led me into a corridor with two doors on each side and opened the first one on the right briefly.

“Supplies,” he said.

I looked in. It was, as he had said, a supply room. Most of the supplies were clerical; but I saw some stacks of blankets and other material for household living. A chained and locked gunrack against the far wall of the room held rifles, and there was a rack of handguns below it, also chained and locked. I shut the door again and turned open the door across the way.

“Communications,” he said briefly, and led me into a radio room containing two women, one young and one middle-aged. It was filled with radio equipment that even to my amateur eye seemed impressive.

“Bebe, Jill,” Bill said, “this is Marc Despard.”

The two looked up from their panels, smiled and nodded to me. Bill led me out of the room again.

“Now,” said Bill, moving down to knock on the second door on the left, “this is-”

“Come in,” said Marie’s voice.

Bill smiled at me and led me in. Marie was seated behind a large desk in a very businesslike office, with papers in front of her. She was looking over the papers at a lean, big-boned man who must have stood about six feet six when he was on his feet. Right now he was sitting down, dressed in a white shirt and what seemed to be white duck pants.

“I’ll be right with you, Marc,” she said, and picked up what was apparently an interrupted conversation with the man in white.

“What you’ve got to make them understand, Abe, is that if they want to draw supplies and cook their own meals, they have to do it according to our rules. At our convenience, not theirs. I’m not going to put up with anyone either wasting food or not eating adequately—any more than I’d put up with their breaking any of the other laws. That means they submit their menu for the week in advance to you, you approve it, and then—only then—you authorize one of your own people to give them supplies for just exactly what they’ve planned to serve. You understand?”

“Sure,” said Abe, in a deep slow voice. He had a touch of some Eastern European accent.

Marie looked away from him over to me again.

“Marc,” she said, “this is Abe Budner, our Director of Food Services and chef for the community kitchen. I’m hoping we can train people to take the chef’s job off his hands before long.”

Abe Budner got up as slowly and solemnly as he had spoken, shook hands with me and sat down again.

“We’re just looking around,” Bill said.

“Good,” said Marie briskly. “Because I really don’t have time to stop and talk now. I can tell you all about this work this evening, Marc.”

We were dismissed. Bill and I left.

“And this,” said Bill, knocking on the remaining door in the corridor, “is Ellen’s.”

We waited, but there was no answer to his knock.

The door at the far end of the corridor opened behind us.

“Something?” said a voice. We turned and I saw what looked like a boy of about eighteen, wearing dark pants and a khaki shirt with two brass buttons pinned on the left side of his shirt collar.

“Ellen’s out checking the Ryan boundary,” this individual said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

He looked questioningly at me.

“This is Marc Despard, Doc,” said Bill.

“Marc Despard? I’m really glad to meet you, sir,” said Doc flusteredly and energetically, shaking my hand. “I’ve looked forward to meeting you.”

“Well, now you have,” I said. I was not exactly taken with him.

“Doc is Ellen’s second in command,” said Bill. “His full name’s Kurt Dockwiler, but we all call him Doc. His militia rank is captain.”

“Oh?” I said.

“I was just going to show Marc Ellen’s office,” Bill added.

“You bet. Come in,” said Doc, stepping past us, throwing open the door and leading us in. I followed him and Bill brought up the rear.

I don’t know what I had expected; but Ellen’s office was simply a tidy, utilitarian place with the usual filing cabinets, a perfectly clean desk and a few extra chairs facing the desk as if she had been holding a conference recently.

“If you’d like to wait,” said Doc, “she ought to be back in about twenty minutes. I can send over to the kitchen for coffee—or anything else.”

“No, I’m just looking around,” I said. “I’ll see her tonight.”

“Of course!” Doc followed Bill and myself back down the corridor and out through the outer office. “If I can ever be useful in any way, Mr. Despard, the message center can reach me at any time.”

“I’ll remember that,” I said getting in the jeep.

Bill started up and we drove off.

“How old is he, anyway?” I said.

“I don’t know exactly,” answered Bill. “Twenty or twenty-one, I think.”

“He looks more like Ellen’s age.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Bill said.

I looked at him. But his face was perfectly innocent of any particular expression.

“I’m just surprised there aren’t any older men around to hold down a job like that,” I told him. “That’s all.”

“We’ve got older men, of course,” said Bill. He was heading the jeep back up into the trees in the direction of the summer palace. “Most of them have families, or at least somebody, who make them a bad choice for a high risk occupation. Then again, none of them have Doc’s qualifications.”

“Qualifications?”

“His father was career army,” Bill said. “He absorbed a lot of the military art, just by growing up in various bases. That and other things. He’s a black belt in judo and he’s taught survival classes. Also he’s a mountain climber.”

There was not much to say to that. I sat quiet during most of the ride back up to the summer palace, and in that time I came around to feeling that I might have been a little unfair to Doc.

“We’ll go see Porniarsk now,” Bill said, stopping the jeep once more at the palace. “I didn’t take you to him right away because I thought either Marie or Ellen might have things they’d want to show you in their areas; and their schedule is pretty well tied in with other things. Porniarsk, you can see any time.”