"Yes," Henderson said. And it was also true that she couldn't have hoped to reach a Burrow alone. She would need a car and. a man with a gun. "I understand, Kay," he said softly, hating her.
"If I gave them to you, you'd take Laura," she said. "Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? Oh, I know you, Tom, I know you so well. You'd never gotten free of her or those two sniveling brats of yours-"
He struck her sharply across the face, surprised at the rage that shook him.
"Don't do that again," she said, glaring hatred at him. "I need you right now but you need me more. You don't know where the Burrow is. I do."
It was true, of course. The entrances to the Burrows would have to be secret, known only to those chosen to survive. Mobs would storm them otherwise. And Kay had found out from the man-that man who had paid with his life for forgetting that there were only potential survivors now and animals.
"All right, Kay," Henderson said. "Ill make a bargain with you."
"What?" she asked suspiciously.
"I'll tell you in the car. Get ready. Take light things." He went into the bedroom and took his Luger from the bedside table drawer. Kay was busy stuffing her jewelry into a handbag. "Come on," he said. "That's enough. Plenty. There isn't much time."
They went down into the garage and got into the car, "Roll up the windows," he said. "And lock the doors,"
"All right."
He started the engine and backed onto the street,
"What's the bargain?" Kay asked.
"Later," he said.
He put the car in gear and started down out of the residential district, going through the winding, wooded drives. There were dark shapes running in the shadows. A man appeared in the headlights' beam and Henderson swerved swiftly by him. He heard shots behind. "Keep down," he said.
"Where are we going? This isn't the way."
"I'm taking the girls with me," he said. "With us."
"They won't let them in."
"We can try."
"You fool, Tom! They won't let them in, I say!"
He stopped the car and twisted around to look at her. "Would you rather try to make it on foot?"
Her face grew ugly with a renaissance of fear. She could see her escape misting away. "All right. But I tell you they won't let them in. No one gets into a Burrow without a disk."
"We can try." He started the car again, driving fast along the littered streets toward Laura's apartment.
At several points the street was blocked with burning debris, and once a gang of men and women almost surrounded them, throwing rocks and bits of wreckage at the car as he backed it around.
"You'll get us both killed for nothing," Kay said wildly.
Tom Henderson looked at his wife and felt sick for the wasted years. "We'll be all right," he said.
He stopped the car in front of Laura's. There were two overturned cars on the sidewalk. He unlocked the door and got out, taking the keys with him. "I won't be long," he said.
"Say good-by to Laura for me," Kay said, her eyes glittering.
"Yes," he said. "I will."
A shadow moved menacingly out of the dark doorway.
Without hesitation, Tom Henderson lifted the Luger and fired. The man fell and did not move. I've just killed a man, Henderson thought. And then: But what does it matter on the last night of summer?
He shot away the lock and walked swiftly up the dark hallway, up the two flights of stairs he remembered so well.
At Laura's door he knocked. There was movement within. The door opened slowly.
"I've come for the girls," he said. Laura stepped back. "Come in," she said.
The scent she wore began to prod memories. His eyes felt unaccountably hot and wet. "There's very little time," he said.
Laura's hand was on his in the dark. "You can get them into a Burrow?" she asked. And then faintly. "I put them to bed. I didn't know what else to do."
He couldn't see her, but he knew how she would look: the close-cropped sandy hair; the eyes the color of rich chocolates; her so familiar body supple and warm under the wrapper; the smell and taste of her. It didn't matter now, nothing mattered on this last crazy night of the world.
"Get them," he said, "Quickly,"
She did as was told. Pam and Lorrie-he could hear them complaining softly about being awakened in the middle of the night-soft little bodies, with the musty-childish odor of sleep and safety. Then Laura was kneeling, holding them against her, each in turn. And he knew the tears must be wet on her cheeks. He thought: say good-by and make it quick. Kiss your children good-by and watch them go out while you remain alone in the dark that isn't ever going to end. Ah, Laura. Laura-
"Take them quickly, Tom," Laura said. And then she pressed herself against him just for an instant. "I love you, Tom. I never stopped."
He lifted Pam into his arms and took Lome's hand. He didn't trust himself to speak.
"Good-by, Tom," Laura said, and closed the door behind him.
"Isn't Mommy coming?" Pam asked sleepily.
"Another time, baby," Tom said softly.
He took them out to the waiting car and Kay.
"They won't take them," she said. "You'll see."
"Where is it, Kay?"
She remained sullenly silent and Henderson felt his nerves cracking. "Kay-"
"All right." She gave him directions grudgingly, as though she hated to share her survival with him. She wouldn't look at the girls, already asleep in the back of the car.
They drove through the city, the looted, tortured city that burned and echoed to the shrill gaiety of Star Parties and already stank of death.
Twice, they were almost struck by careening cars, filled with drunken, naked, insane people, all with the desperate desire to make this last night more vivid than all the others' back to the very beginning of time.
The headlights illuminated tableaus from some wild inferno as the car swung around through the concrete cemetery the city had become:
A woman hung by the ankles, her skirt shrouding her face and upper body, her legs and buttocks flayed…
Psalm singers kneeling in the street, not moving as a truck cut a swath through their midst. And the hymn, thin and weak, heard over the moans of the dying: Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee…
Sudden sun-worshippers and troglodytes dancing round a fire of burning books…
The death throes of a world, Henderson thought. What survives the fire and flood will have to be better.
And then they had reached the silent hill that was the entrance to the Burrow, the miles-deep warren clothed in refrigerator pipes and cooling earth. "There," Kay said. "Where you see the light. There'll be a guard."
Behind them, the fires burned in the city. The night was growing lighter, lit by a rising moon, a moon too red, too large. Four hours left, perhaps, Tom thought. Or less.
"You can't take them," Kay was whispering harshly. "If you try they might not let us in. It's kinder to let them stay here-asleep. They'll never know."
"That's right," Tom said.
Kay got out of the car and started up the grassy slope. "Then come on!"
Halfway up the hill, Henderson could make out the pacing figure of the guard: death watch on a world. "Wait a minute," he said.
"What is it?"
"Are you sure we can get in?"
"Of course."
"No questions asked?"
"A11 we need are the disks. They can't know everybody who belongs."
"No," Tom said quietly. "Of course not." He stood looking at Kay under the light of the red moon,
"Tom-"
He took Kay's hand. "We weren't worth much, were we, Kay?"
Her eyes were bright, wide, staring.
"You didn't really expect anything else, did you?"
"Tom-Tom!"
The pistol felt light in his hand.
"I'm your wife-" she said hoarsely,