Beyond the queuing crowd they reached a kind of shantytown, which was set out in rough squares, each about the area of an old city block. Each zone had drains cut into the ground, trenches leading to sewers that ran down the sides of the highway. There were few tents, but here and there stood the remnants of buildings, and the eye-dees had constructed shacks and lean-tos of sods and whatever debris they could get hold of. It was still only mid-morning. Fires burned and smoke rose up, and pots had been set out to catch rainwater from an increasingly cloudy sky. Babies cried, a multitude of tiny voices. There were even children playing, with battered toys or deflated soccer balls, but none of them ran about, and in faded rags they were stick-thin, the skulls prominent under their faces. Some had the swollen bellies of malnutrition.
Mel saw agents from the Alma protectorate, identifiable in relatively bright AxysCorp durable coveralls and accompanied by armed troops, working through the camp. Some wore medics’ armbands. They spoke patiently to the eye-dees and handed out leaflets.
The leaflets surprised Mel the most. “Where do they get the paper from?”
Don dug into his pocket, produced a folded scrap, and handed it to Mel. It was densely printed on both sides, and the only color was a tiny red, white, and blue Stars and Stripes in one corner. It turned out to be a kind of primer on how to construct a plow, meant to be drawn by humans. Don said, “Feel the paper, that glossy sheen? It’s made from sea-shells.”
“I didn’t know the government was still supporting eye-dee camps so far out.”
“It’s not. Supervising, maybe. Advising. But not supporting. Look around. The drainage ditches, the shanties-all constructed by the eye-dees themselves, using whatever tools and resources they could find, their bare hands if they have to. These leaflets we give them-hints on farming, on hunting-all to be achieved without material support from the center. Even the doctors give out more advice than medicine. We just don’t have the resources for any more.” He glanced around, making sure they weren’t overheard by any eye-dees. “We don’t even police out here. We encourage them to set up their own security structure, under the nominal authority of Alma. We give out paper badges-that doesn’t cost much. Usually it devolves pretty fast into the dominance of some warlord, but we don’t care about that so long as there’s order. Oh, and we always shut down the brothels. Gordo says we’re fighting against human nature with that one, but the commanders have made it a priority, and we try.”
“It’s all a kind of illusion,” Mel blurted. “They think they’re under the government’s protection. In fact-”
“It keeps people quiet. Sedated. It works because people want to believe they’re safe, that somebody is thinking about their welfare, just as it has been all their lives, at least for the older folk who remember how it was before the flood. Things are relatively stable here.” He pointed further out, to the north, where the highway arced away through stripped hillsides. “There are more out there, thousands. We mount punitive raids, we mine the roads, trying to keep them out. But they would have to get through this zone of settlement first, before they can get to us. There are camps like this all around Alma, in a ring.”
Mel saw it. “You’re using all these people as a screen. A human shield.”
Don eyed him. “Look-the flood just keeps on coming, the water pushes on up the valleys, the Platte and the Blue river and the rest, warm, frothy, salty water all poisoned with the mess from the drowned towns, and the corpses floating like corks. I’ve seen it. We’re losing places like Leadville and Hartsel and Grant now. And it drives people on ahead, like cattle.
“Everybody knows there’s an enclave at Alma. So they come in search of sanctuary, wave after wave. We don’t know how many there are out there, in the hills around Alma. Some think it might be as many as a million. We just can’t cater for them all, not for one percent of that number. And we can’t run away, like when we evacuated Denver. All we can do is keep them at bay, until the job at Mission Control is done. To do that we’ve had to figure out how to use every resource we have left against the eye-dee flow. And the most significant of those resources is the eye-dees themselves.”
Mel glanced at Don’s face, expressionless behind the mask of his scar, the sunglasses, the layer of stubble over his dirty face. Mel thought he saw nothing left of the boy he had met in the Academy. “We’re going to win, aren’t we?”
“If you want the truth, I ain’t sure,” Don said bleakly. He glanced at the cloudy sky. “This stunt of timing the warp launch to coincide with the lunar eclipse-I don’t know whose dumb idea that was. My guess is that when the moon goes red all the crazies out here will start howling, even if they haven’t heard any specific rumors about the Ark. Well, we only need to hold the line for twenty-four more hours. So do you think it’s worth it-all that you’ve seen today-worth it if it gives the Ark the best chance of getting away to the stars?”
“Holle and Kelly are aboard. Relying on us. Yes, it’s worth it.”
“OK, kid. I think you’re ready to see the rest of it.”
“What ‘rest’?”
For answer, Don led him back through the shantytown to the security gate, and the patient line of applicants.
54
With Don, Mel shadowed an old couple, maybe late sixties, as they were interviewed by a sympathetic woman at the processing terminal.
They were called Phyllis and Joe Couperstein. They had children, and they believed there was a grandchild, but they’d heard nothing from their kids for years. They both had bloodied, swollen feet. They had started walking in Omaha, years ago. They weren’t sure, in fact, where they were now; they had just followed the crowds from one scrap of high ground to the next, working wherever they could, at whatever they could. The woman had once been a civil engineer, the man a chef, highly qualified, but there wasn’t much call for either now. Even up to a couple of years ago they had been able to work in the fields, but now arthritis, and a mild heart attack for the man, had put paid to that.
The Alma official was sympathetic. Alma had all the cooks and engineers it needed. Besides, she said gently, their skills were most likely out of date. But they might be reconsidered if they’d like to wait a while-meaning days, a few weeks-in a holding area?
Don murmured, “Which is just another corner of the shantytown. They never get called back, but they wait patiently.”
The Coupersteins didn’t even seem disappointed. But they were very tired, just from standing in this line for hours. They didn’t ask for anything specific. They lingered a moment before the smiling woman.
The official seemed to relent. She handed them a slip of paper. They looked as if they were in need of respite, she said. A break, somewhere to sit, a place to bathe and clean your clothes and get a good meal, a quiet place to sleep for a night. The city had the resources to offer that, on a strictly discretionary basis. How did that sound?
The Coupersteins looked at the ticket, and at each other, and at the long line behind them. They smiled. It sounded wonderful.
“That’s our cue,” Don murmured. He stepped forward. “Mr. and Mrs. Couperstein, was it? Come this way.” Don escorted them through the security barrier. “Yes, you need to give me the paper.” He handed it to Mel. It was grubby, well fingered, much used. “No, you don’t need to show me any more ID… This way. Come on, Mel.”
Mel passed the paper slip back to the woman at the desk, who glanced at him cursorily, and stuffed the slip in a drawer. She was already busy with the next applicant.
Mel hurried after Don and the old couple. They were heading up the lane of barbed wire that led to the Respite Center. From this vantage the building’s ugly concrete bulk and that industrial plant were hidden, and the doorway looked attractive, welcoming, with some kind of plastic veneer over the door, and the sign and the flowers. Even the path under their feet had gravel laid down, Mel saw. It was like walking in a park, the Coupersteins said to each other, and they walked slowly as they approached the doorway, hand in hand, as if relishing these few seconds.