Joe Haldeman - Earthbound

Namir was watching them go. “Seem to be nice people. But you never know. They might be back, with others.”

“Maybe we should start moving,” Dustin said.

“We don’t want to travel in daylight. Especially not loaded down with food and water. There will be plenty of people out there with neither, but with guns.”

“So let’s get some rest while we can,” Elza said. “Those of us with weapons stand guard, what, two hours at a time?” We made sure all the doors were locked. The windows were silvered for insulation, so nobody could see us if it was dark inside.

I found a cot in a back room but couldn’t sleep, my mind spinning. What if we made the two-week-long trek without incident, and Dustin’s family welcomed us into the fold? What about the other seven billion people in the equation?

There wouldn’t be seven billion after two weeks. Maybe not half that. I could hardly imagine what the crowded cities would be like. Even if the governments tried to provide food, water, and shelter for everyone, how could they do it without communication and transportation?

When I was in school, we were told that the world had only three or four months’ worth of food in reserve. I suppose that in America most of that was in grain silos, thousands of miles from the population centers on the coasts.

In an abstract sense, I supposed the very poor had the best chance of survival, used to living close to the bottom of the food chain. As if the rich would politely stay away, when the shelves were bare.

I wondered whether Dustin’s family had guns. If they were pacifist vegetarians, we might only find their bones.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, Meryl was shaking my shoulder, whispering, “We’ve got company.”

Namir and Elza and Dustin had their guns at the ready. Through the window you could see a ragtag crowd, maybe twenty, and someone was pounding on the door with something heavy and metallic.

None of the people in the crowd had guns visible, but we couldn’t see the ones who were pounding on the door.

No police or military uniforms. Most of them wore white name-tags.

“I think they’re newsies,” Card whispered. “And VIPs, from those bleachers where they put me first.”

After a minute, most of them moved on, by ones and twos. The one guy kept pounding on the door, rattling the lock. Then he left, too, carrying a metal pipe.

Paul returned from watching out the back windows. “Couple of guys tried to start vehicles. They’re gone now.”

“How could they start them without keys?”

“Like metal keys?” Card said. “They just have a code you punch into the dash. Those are all N-A-S-A, Wilbur told me.”

“What’s the firearms law like now, Card?” Namir asked. “Do people have guns at home?”

“California, you can have guns but you can’t carry one without a permit, and permits aren’t easy to get. That’s academic now, I guess.”

“Maybe. We’ll see how it shakes down. I wonder whether cops will report for duty, and try to enforce the law.”

“Where we’re headed,” Dustin said, “I don’t think there’ll be much law. Maybe in small towns and some big cities, where cops can work on foot.”

“Some people have really big gun collections,” Card said. “Dozens of working weapons. Most of them are electric pellet guns, though. Gunpowder and smokeless weapons are expensive, and ammunition is taxed like a hundred bucks a round. Plenty of military and police ammo around now, I guess.”

Namir looked at his clip. “I’ve got a double magazine, forty rounds, and Dustin, you’ve got a single one?” He nodded.

Elza held up the pistol. “Nine here.”

“So we’re not getting into any gunfights. We have to assume that any group we encounter with weapons will have more ammunition.”

“It’s not a war,” I said. “We shouldn’t even be thinking in those terms. It’s more like a natural disaster.”

“Unnatural,” Dustin said. “I wouldn’t wait around for the Red Cross to show up.”

“I have a radical thought,” Meryl said. “Instead of heading for the hills with guns, why don’t we try to find something like the Red Cross, and volunteer. Try to do something constructive.” That was so like Meryl, social worker to the core.

“It’s a good thought,” Paul said. “But where would you go; what would you do?”

“It would have to be a city of some size,” I said. “Where they might already have charitable organizations in place, with a substantial number of volunteers. With resources for emergency work.”

“Like a computer network and ambulances. Helicopters.” Namir shook his head. “More useful, they might have first-aid kits. I wouldn’t like to be the guy in charge of guarding them, though.”

“You think too much like a soldier.” Meryl sat down at the table across from him. “That may save our lives some day. But it’s not everything. If there’s going to be an alternative to chaos, to anarchy, we have to pursue it right away.”

“You do that. I’ll keep you covered, from behind something solid.”

“It’s not always about guns!”

“May I say something.” Snowbird had all four arms folded, a posture communicating thoughtfulness. “I do not have a dog in this fight, as I once heard a person say. My destiny will not be affected by your decision.

“Namir, your supply of ammunition is small. You have four seconds’ worth, and Dustin has two. When it’s gone, your weapons are dead weight.”

“You can shoot single-shot. And we can find ammunition.”

“But there will be people guarding it, who will kill to keep you from it. And how much can you carry? They won’t be making any more of it.”

“There’s probably a lot of it around. But I concede your point.”

“If you plan to survive more than weeks or months, violence is the wrong direction. When you run out of ammunition, what will you do?”

Elza did not surprise me: “My husband unarmed is more dangerous than any two men with guns.”

“A nice sentiment,” he said, “but I want to choose the two men.

“But Snowbird is right, in the long run. Card, walking north, what would be the nearest city?”

“Depends on what you would call a city. Custer City, technically. But don’t try to get a good meal there.”

“How far?”

“Twenty-five miles, I guess.”

“That’s about as far as we’re going to get on this amount of water.”

Card smiled. “Have you tried a tap?”

“What?”

“This isn’t a spaceship. You turn on a faucet anywhere, and water comes out.”

That caught me, too. Live on recycled pee for years, and you start to feel real personal about water.

A shed outside had armloads of empty plastic gallon jugs. We didn’t take the ones that smelled of solvent, and rinsed the others well—just by turning a tap and letting gravity do the work. How long that would last, of course, we had no way of telling. You could see the water tank a couple of blocks away. One stray bullet could empty it. Or an aimed one.

The sun would be up for a few more hours. Paul and Namir took binoculars up on the roof and didn’t see any gatherings of people: just a few individuals and pairs. Paul came down with a suggestion.

“We ought to go find out whether our celebrity is worth anything. Go back to that headquarters building and find out what’s happening, anyhow.” A reasonable suggestion that made my knees weak.

“I’ll come along as a guard,” Namir said.

“No; no guns. We’ll probably be safer without.” He looked at Meryl, who smiled and nodded.

I wasn’t so sure. We didn’t have a magic wand that would make other people’s guns disappear.