«And a normal-looking one might have some unnoticeable quirk, or a characteristic that won’t show up for years. Or even a normal one might be carrying recessives, and pass them on—God!» The exclamation was half blasphemy, half prayer. «But how’d it happen? People weren’t all near atom-hit areas.»
«Maybe not, though a lot of survivors escaped from the outskirts. But there was that first year, with everybody on the move. One could pass near enough to a blasted region to be affected, without knowing it. And that damnable radiodust, blowing on the wind. It’s got a long half-life. It’ll be active for decades. Then, as in any collapsing culture, promiscuity was common. Still is. Oh, it’d spread itself, all right.»
«I still don’t see why it spread itself so much. Even here—»
«Well, I don’t know why it shows up here. I suppose a lot of the local flora and fauna came in from elsewhere. This place is safe. The nearest dusted region is three hundred miles off, with mountains between. There must be many such islands of comparatively normal conditions. We have to find them too. But elsewhere—»
«Soup’s on,» announced Elaine, and went from the kitchen to the dining room with a loaded tray.
The men rose; Grayly, Drummond looked at Robinson and said tonelessly: «O.K. I’ll get your information for you. We’ll map mutation areas and safe areas, we’ll check on our population and resources, we’ll eventually get all the facts you want. But—what are you going to do then?»
«I wish I knew,» said Robinson haggardly. «I wish I knew.»
Winter lay heavily on the north, a vast gray sky seeming frozen solid over the rolling white plains. The last three winters had come early and stayed long. Dust, colloidal dust of the bombs, suspended in the atmosphere and cutting down the solar constant by a deadly percent or two. There had even been a few earthquakes, set off in geologically unstable parts of the world by bombs planted right. Half of California had been ruined when a sabotage bomb started the San Andreas Fault on a major slip. And that kicked up still more dust.
Fimbulwinter, thought Drummond bleakly. The doom of the prophecy. But no, we’re surviving. Though maybe not as men—
Most people had gone south, and there overcrowding had made starvation and disease and internecine struggle the normal aspects of life. Those who’d stuck it out up here, and had luck with their pest-ridden crops, were better off.
Drummond’s jet slid above the cratered black ruin of the Twin Cities. There was still enough radioactivity to melt the snow, and the pit was like a skull’s empty eye socket. The man sighed, but he was becoming calloused to the sight of death. There was so much of it. Only the struggling agony of life mattered anymore.
He strained through the sinister twilight, swooping low over the unending fields. Burned-out hulks of farmhouses, bones of ghost towns, sere deadness of dusted land—but he’d heard travelers speak of a fairly powerful community up near the Canadian border, and it was up to him to find it.
A lot of things had been up to him in the last six months. He’d had to work out a means of search, and organize his few, overworked assistants into an efficient staff, and go out on the long hunt.
They hadn’t covered the country. That was impossible. Their few planes had gone to areas chosen more or less at random, trying to get a cross section of conditions. They’d penetrated wildernesses of hill and plain and forest, establishing contact with scattered, still demoralized out-dwellers. On the whole, it was more laborious than anything else. Most were pathetically glad to see any symbol of law and order and the paradisical-seeming «old days.» Now and then there was danger and trouble, when they encountered wary or sullen or outright hostile groups suspicious of a government they associated with disaster, and once there had even been a pitched battle with roving outlaws. But the work had gone ahead, and now the preliminaries were about over.
Preliminaries—It was a bigger job to find out exactly how matters stood than the entire country was capable of undertaking right now. But Drummond had enough facts for reliable extrapolation. He and his staff had collected most of the essential data and begun correlating it. By questioning, by observation, by seeking and finding, by any means that came to hand they’d filled their notebooks. And in the sketchy outlines of a Chinese drawing, and with the same stark realism, the truth was there.
Just this one more place, and I’ll go home, thought Drummond for the—thousandth?—time. His brain was getting into a rut, treading the same terrible circle and finding no way out. Robinson won’t like what I tell him, but there it is. And darkly, slowly: Barbara, maybe it was best you and the kids went as you did. Quickly, cleanly, not even knowing it. This isn’t much of a world. It’ll never be our world again.
He saw the place he sought, a huddle of buildings near the frozen shores of the Lake of the Woods, and his jet murmured toward the white ground. The stories he’d heard of this town weren’t overly encouraging, but he supposed he’d get out all right. The others had his data anyway, so it didn’t matter.
By the time he’d landed in the clearing just outside the village, using the jet’s skis, most of the inhabitants were there waiting. In the gathering dusk they were a ragged and wild-looking bunch, clumsily dressed in whatever scraps of cloth and leather they had. The bearded, hard-eyed men were armed with clubs and knives and a few guns. As Drummond got out, he was careful to keep his hands away from his own automatics.
«Hello,» he said. «I’m friendly.»
«Y’ better be,» growled the big leader. «Who are you, where from, an’ why?»
«First,» lied Drummond smoothly, «I want to tell you I have another man with a plane who knows where I am. If I’m not back in a certain time, he’ll come with bombs. But we don’t intend any harm or interference. This is just a sort of social call. I’m Hugh Drummond of the United States Army.»
They digested that slowly. Clearly, they weren’t friendly to the government, but they stood in too much awe of aircraft and armament to be openly hostile. The leader spat. «How long you staying?»
«Just overnight, if you’ll put me up. I’ll pay for it.» He held up a small pouch. «Tobacco.»
Their eyes gleamed, and the leader said, «You’ll stay with me. Come on.»
Drummond gave him the bribe and went with the group. He didn’t like to spend such priceless luxuries this freely, but the job was more important. And the boss seemed thawed a little by the fragrant brown flakes. He was sniffing them greedily.
«Been smoking bark an’ grass,» he confided. «Terrible.»
«Worse than that,» agreed Drummond. He turned up his jacket collar and shivered. The wind starting to blow was bitterly cold.
«Just what y’ here for?» demanded someone else.
«Well, just to see how things stand. We’ve got the government started again, and are patching things up. But we have to know where folks are, what they need, and so on.»
«Don’t want nothing t’ do with the gov’ment,» muttered a woman. «They brung all this on us.»
«Oh, come now. We didn’t ask to be attacked.» Mentally, Drummond crossed his fingers. He neither knew nor cared who was to blame. Both sides, letting mutual fear and friction mount to hysteria—In fact, he wasn’t sure the United States hadn’t sent out the first rockets on orders of some panicky or aggressive officials. Nobody was alive who admitted knowing.