29
Family
"Misery only likes company. It prefers loneliness."
-SOLOMON SHORT
I should have headed north. To San Francisco. I turned south.
I didn't know where the place was exactly-I wasn't even sure why I was going there-but it was someplace to go and I knew I could find it.
Highway 101 was a long straightaway of tall trees and burned out buildings. The people of San Francisco had fled south along this road, spreading the dreadful plagues they were fleeing. Every burned-out building or abandoned automobile was a monument to someone's death.
The highway was empty now.
The abandoned cars had been pulled off. Many of the burned buildings had been bulldozed flat. Some new greenery was beginning to creep into the war zone, but still the highway seemed carved down the center of a bleak scar of rubble.
All the roads in America were like this.
There had been no escape from the dying, but people had fled anyway. The very act of fleeing had only hastened the spread. The National Science Center at Denver-had still not identified all of the different diseases. Not all of them had attacked human beings. Animals and plant species had suffered too.
At San Jose, I turned west across the mountains. There had been fires here. There were blackened tree stumps dotting the hillsides. The new growth would take a long time to cover the wounds.
I noticed that some of the new growth was pink. Not a good sign.
The Chtorran plants were more aggressive than Earth ones. If the native plants were already established, that was enough advantage for them to survive; but given an area where they had to compete on equal terms, the Chtorran plants would take hold every time. Burning out the Chtorran growth wouldn't work. It would just come back over and over. That was another problem that would have to be addressed.
I came out on the coast road. The Pacific Ocean was bright with reflected sun. The highway looped across green fields and along the shore. I stopped the Jeep and stood up to look over the windshield. The wind came stiff and cold across the grass, carrying the smell of raw salt air. High above, a seagull wheeled and hawked across the sky, spreading seagull screams as it went. I could smell seaweed on the beach.
For a moment, I almost forgot there was a war. For a moment, I almost forgot the confusion in my head. Jason. . .
He wasn't going to give up.
He'd keep his word. I could depend on that. He'd find me and he'd kill me.
If he was still alive.
Maybe I'd gotten him first. And maybe not. There was no way to know.
No.
I had to put him behind me. Logically -I had to be logical about this-there was no way for him to find me. Logically, I wasn't worth the trouble.
Forget him. It's over.
Go somewhere quiet and figure out what to do next.
I released the brake and let the Jeep ease forward. South.
A few kilometers down the road there was a sign that read, "New Peninsula Turnoff. Next Right." I took it.
Twenty-three years ago, a development company had sunk five gigantic turbines into the ocean current off the coast of California. They had been supplying most of Santa Cruz's power ever since. But during the off-use hours of midnight to six A.M., their power was diverted into an underwater shoal of metal and junk. The reaction of electricity and seawater produced an accretion around the metaclass="underline" a growth like coral, but with the strength of concrete.
Over a period of years, an entire peninsula was grown. Tons of landfill were deposited on the concrete shoal. Solid waste from all over the state was transported to the site. A landscape had been constructed along the length of it, and a private little vacation village had been constructed at the tip.
The village had been built to be a model of technology. It had free electricity from the ocean turbines. That power was also used to distill fresh water. The extra heat was used to heat every building on the peninsula and provide hot water as well. There was an underground-underwater network of service tubes and access bays.
I knew all this from the articles I'd read in the Sunday Features. I came around a curve and I could see it in the distance. It was almost an island. A mountain had been constructed where the peninsula touched the shore.
The peninsula was a southward-pointing loop. A long concrete bridge curved around a huge recreation lagoon and touched the peninsula on the westward side. This was the only access to the village.
As I turned onto the bridge, I realized just how effectively this whole thing had been designed. I wondered if the Disney people had been involved. For just a moment, I had the impression that I was driving straight into the ocean, then the bridge began to curve and I was coming across the water toward a glimmering seaside fantasy. The village shone in the midday sun. There were domes and towers and clustered places of arches and arcades, all flashing shades of pink and gold and white. The effect was dazzling. I knew how it had been done; they were made of a kind of foamed glass concrete; it hardened to a shiny stucco-like surface with the albedo of tile; even if you could chip it, all that you would do would be to reveal more of the same shimmering surface, but even knowing how the effect was done did not diminish its magic.
The drawbridge was down and I rolled across it slowly.
The gateway to the village was a simple arch; I suspected that it was also a frame for security devices, but it was so elegantly designed it looked more like a friendly welcome.
I rolled past wide lawns. Three robot gardeners were trimming hedges. Two more were trimming the grass with laser-mowers. You could land airplanes on this field.
Directly ahead of me was a forest, and all the plants were green joyously, verdantly green. There were tall palm trees with green fronds waving in the air, gnarly Monterey pines curling like dragon claws, and sparkling yellow aspen with leaves glittering like golden petals in the bright noonday sun. Slender eucalyptus trees stretched against the crisp blue sky. There were graceful elms and thick-trunked oaks and sheltering willows lining the streets. Every building seemed to be nestled within a garden or a pool or a shady nook. Huge ferns cascaded over walls. There wasn't a red or pink plant in sight. The Chtorran infestation hadn't touched here yet. If you had the power, you could do anything.
I felt as if I'd found Paradise, a tiny piece of it at least. Even the air smelled green.
Except-the streets were deserted. It couldn't be Paradise without people. But I didn't see any other vehicles. I eased the Jeep forward.
The roadway turned. It formed a loop around the entire peninsula. The center of the loop was a lush green wilderness, a kilometer wide and seven kilometers long: the village had been constructed around, and probably under as well, a deep sheltering park. A shallow stream fed down from the mountains, filling the park with a network of freshwater ponds. Here and there, I could see ornate Japanese bridges arching high over the brook. Each area of the park seemed to have its own separate personality. Here was a wide field, there a sheltered copse, here a rocky outcrop. It beckoned the onlooker; it invited you to explore.
The south end of the loop led past what had once been a mall of restaurants and theatres and community buildings. As it turned back north, these gave way to hotels, condominiums, and apartments, two or three blocks of them. These gave way to clustered houses and finally estates.
The north end of the loop paused at the base of the man-made mountain, the hiking ridge, and then turned south again, through another residential district to a hospital, a courthouse, and a sheriff's office. Here the road turned back out onto the bridge. Traffic here was intended to be all one way. It took less than ten minutes to circle the entire village.