David Gerrold - A Matter for Men

I was afraid that we would never be able to come down from the mountain-but we did, eventually. In April, Dad and I took the station wagon and ventured slowly down the hill and across the stream. If anyone was watching us, we didn't see them. We paused once to wave a white flag, but there was no answering "Halloooh."

It was as if we'd been traveling to another star for a hundred years and had only just returned. We felt like alien explorerswe felt as if we didn't belong here anymore. Everything was both familiar and different. The world looked deserted and empty. And it was uncannily quiet. But there were burned-out buildings everywhere-scorched monuments to the dead. Each one was testimony-a body had been found here.

We had to wend our way carefully around abandoned vehicles and fallen trees. I began to get uneasy. We saw nothing for miles until we came to a pack of dogs trotting down the highway. They started barking when they saw us. They chased the car for almost a kilometer. My unease gave way to fear.

Later we saw cattle wandering free; they looked thin and sickly. We saw a dazed young woman walking up the road. We tried to stop her, warn her about the dogs, but she just kept on walking past us as if we weren't there. After that we saw a naked boy hiding in the trees, but he turned and ran when we called to him. "Too soon?" I asked.

Dad shook his head. "Not soon enough. There's work to be done, Jim." And his face tightened in pain.

We stopped to fill our gas tank-there was an official-looking sign on the station, proclaiming that it had been nationalized for the duration of the emergency and whatever fuel and supplies still remained were freely available to all registered survivors.

"But aren't they afraid someone will steal it?"

"Why bother?" Dad said. "There's more than enough for everyone now."

I thought about that. The plagues had been fast. A thousand frightened people had scrambled aboard a super-jumbo in New York, and by the time the plane was over St. Louis, half of them were dead and the other half were dying. Only the flight crew, in their locked cabin, survived-but they were dead too, because there was no airport in the country that would let them land. And even if they could have landed, there was no way to get that flight crew out of the plane except through the passenger cabin. That happened three times. The one plane that did land was burned immediately as it rolled to a stop. The other two flight crews took the faster way out. After that all the airports were shut down.

Dad was saying, "It's all still here, Jim-almost everything. There wasn't time for a panic. That's how fast it happened." He shook his head sadly. "It's as if the human race has gone away and isn't coming back. There isn't any reason to steal anymore, no need to hoard-only to preserve. " He smiled sourly. "For the first time in the history of the human race, there's more than enough of everything for everybody. We've all been made suddenly wealthy." He sounded very sad.

Eventually, we came to a town. Two men with rifles met us at a roadblock. They were very polite about it, but we would not be allowed to pass until we had been cleared through decontamination. Their guns were very convincing.

It was an uncomfortable fifteen minutes. We stood by the car, our hands held away from our sides, until the decontamination team arrived. They pulled up in a white van with a large red cross on each side. We stripped naked and two helmeted figures in white safety-suits sprayed us with foam-our station wagon too, inside and out. I was glad it was a warm day. They took blood samples from each of us and disappeared back into their truck; they were gone for a long time. I began to shiver, even in the afternoon sun.

Finally the door opened and they came out again, still masked. Dad and I looked at each other worriedly. They came up to us, each one carrying a pressure injector. The shorter one grabbed my arm and held the nozzle against the skin. Something went sssst and my arm felt suddenly cold and wet. I flexed my fingers experimentally.

"Relax, you'll be all right," she said, pulling off her hood-they were women! And they were grinning.

"They're clean!" shouted the gray-haired one; she turned to Dad. "Congratulations." Dad handled it with remarkable aplomb. He bowed.

I was already reaching for my jeans. The guards laid their guns aside and ran up to shake our hands. "Welcome to Redfield. Is either one of you a teacher? Or a sewage engineer? Do you know anything about fusion systems? We're trying to get the northwest power-net up again. Can you handle a stereo cam?"

I rubbed my arm; it was starting to sting. "Hey-what's this mark?"

"Coded tattoo," said the one who had vaccinated me. She was very pretty. "Proves you're clean-and immune. Stay away from anyone who doesn't have one. You might pick up spores and not know it."

"But we've got family!"

"How many? I'll give you extra vac-pacs to take with you-and coveralls. And foam! Oh, damn! I don't have enough! You'll have to stop at the med-station. Listen to me-you can't come in direct contact with your own people again until they've been vaccinated too. Even though you're immune, you can still carry spores-you could be very dangerous to anyone who isn't inoculated. Do you understand?"

I nodded. Dad looked worried, but he nodded too. "Good."

We went first to the med-station, formerly a drugstore across the street from the two-story city hall. The teenager in charge gave us complete decontamination and vaccination kits, and very thorough instructions on how to use them. She gave us extra vac-pacs for our neighbors on the mountain too.

Then she sent us to the Reclamation Office to register. "First floor, city hall," she pointed. "It's not exactly mandatory," she said, "but it'll be better for you if you do."

I asked Dad about that as we crossed the street. He shook his head. "Later, Jim-right now, we play by the rules."

The "office" was a desk with a terminal on it. It asked you questions, you answered. When you were through, it spat out a registration card at you. Dad thought for a moment, then registered only himself and me. No mention of Mom or Maggie or the boys. "There'll be time enough later, if it's necessary," he said. "Let's see if we can pick up some supplies. I really miscalculated on the toilet paper."

That was the strangest shopping trip I'd ever been on. Money wasn't any good anymore. Neither was barter. There was a wizened little old man at the checkout counter of the mall, a few other people moving in and out of the shops. He was shaking his head in slow rhythmic beats, and he couldn't focus his eyes on anything for long. He told us that the mall was under the authority of the local Reclamation Office-Dad and I exchanged a look -and we were free to claim what we needed. "When you leave, stop by here and show me your card. I punch it in. That's all."

"But how do we pay for it?"

"If you're lucky, you won't have to." He giggled.

Dad pulled me away. "Come on, Jim. Get a cart. I think I understand."

"Well, I don't! It sounds like legalized looting!"

"Shh, keep your voice down. Now, think about it. What good is money if you can walk into any empty house or store and walk out with handfuls of it--0r whatever else you find? A year ago, there were enough goods in this country for three hundred and fifty million Americans-not to mention goods produced for export. Look around, Jim-how many people are left? Do you want to take a guess at the percentage that survived? I don't-I don't want to scare myself. But it's fairly obvious, isn't it, that in circumstances like this even barter is unnecessary. These people here have worked out an answer to the immediate problem of survival. The goods are here. The people need them. We can worry about the bookkeeping later. If there is a later. For many of them there may not be-at least not without this kind of help. It all makes sense-sort of."