"No point in worrying about whether it's possible. Suppose it was Central America. What would you watch for?"
"Let me see. Might be cougars. Snakes certainly. Tarantulas and scorpions. Malaria mosquitoes. You mentioned bears."
"I meant bears as a symbol. We're going to have to watch everything, every minute, until we know what we're up against."
Joe came out, carrying a rifle. He kept quiet and looked around. Duke said, "We won't starve. Off to the left down by the stream."
Hugh looked. A dappled fawn, hardly waist high, was staring at them, apparently unafraid. Duke said, "Shall I drop it?" He raised his rifle.
"No. Unless you are dead set on fresh meat."
"All right. Pretty thing, isn't it?"
"Very. But it's no North American deer I ever saw. Duke? Where are we? And how did we get here?"
Duke gave a lopsided grin. "Dad, you appointed yourself Fuehrer. I'm not supposed to think."
"Oh, rats!"
"Anyhow, I don't know. Maybe the Russkis developed a hallucination bomb."
"But would we all see the same thing?"
"No opinion. But if I had shot that deer, Ill bet we could have eaten it."
"I think so, too. Joe? Ideas, opinions, suggestions?"
Joe scratched his head. "Mighty pretty country. But I'm a city boy."
"One thing you can do, Hugh."
"What, Duke?"
"Your little radio. Try it."
"Good idea." Hugh crawled inside, caught Karen about to climb down, sent her back for it. While he waited, he wondered what he had that was suitable for a ladder? Chinning themselves in a six-foot manhole was tedious.
The radio picked up static but nothing else. Hugh switched it off. "We'll try it tonight. I've gotten Mexico with it at night, even Canada." He frowned. "Something ought to be on the air. Unless they smeared us completely."
"Dad, you aren't thinking straight."
"How, Duke?"
"This area did not get smeared."
"That's why I can't understand a radio silence."
"Yet Mountain Springs really caught it. Ergo, we aren't in Mountain Springs."
"Who said we were?" Karen answered. "There's nothing like this in Mountain Springs. Nor the whole state."
Hugh frowned. "I guess that's obvious." He looked at the shelter-gross, huge, massive. "But where are we?"
"Don't you read comic books, Daddy? We're on another planet."
"Don't joke, baby girl. I'm worried."
"I wasn't joking. There is nothing like this within a thousand miles of home-yet here we are. Might as well be another planet. The one we had was getting used up."
"Hugh," Joe said, "it sounds silly. But I agree with Karen."
"Why, Joe?"
"Well, we're someplace. What happens when an H-bomb explodes dead on you?"
"You're vaporized."
"I don't feel vaporized. And I can't see that big hunk of concrete sailing a thousand miles or so, and crashing down with nothing to show for it but cracked ribs and a hurt shoulder. But Karen's idea-" He shrugged. "Call it the fourth dimension. That last big one nudged us through the fourth dimension."
"Just what I said, Daddy. We're on a strange planet! Let's explore!"
"Slow down, honey. As for another planet- Well, there isn't any rule saying we have to know where we are when we don't. The problem is to cope."
Barbara said, "Karen, I don't see how this can be anything but Earth."
"Why? Spoilsport."
"Well-" Barbara chucked a pebble at a tree. "That's a eucalyptus, and an acacia beyond it. Not at all like Mountain Springs but a normal grouping of tropical and subtropical flora. Unless your 'new planet' evolved plants just like Earth, this has to be Earth."
"Spoilsport," Karen repeated. "Why shouldn't plants evolve the same way on another planet?"
"Well, that would be as remarkable as finding the same-"
"Hubert! Hubert! Where are you? I can't find you!" Grace Farnham's voice echoed out the tunnel.
Hugh ducked into the tunnel. "Coming!"
They ate lunch under a tree a little distance from the shelter. Hugh decided that the tunnel had been buried so deeply that the chance of its mouth being more radioactive than the interior was negligible. As for the roof, he was not certain. So he placed a dosimeter (the only sort of radiation instrument that had come through the pummeling) on top of the shelter to compare it later with one inside. He was relieved to see that the dosimeters agreed that they had suffered less than lethal dosage-although large-and that they checked each other.
The only other precaution he took was for them to keep guns by them-all but his wife. Grace Farnham "couldn't stand guns," and resented having to eat with guns in sight.
But she ate with good appetite. Duke had built a fire and they were blessed with hot coffee, hot canned beef, hot peas, hot canned sweet potatoes, and canned fruit salad-and cigarettes with no worry about air or fire.
"That was lovely," Grace admitted. "Hubert dear? Do you know what it would take to make it just perfect? You don't approve of drinking in the middle of the day but these are special circumstances and my nerves are still a teensy bit on edge-so, Joseph, if you will just run back inside and fetch a bottle of that Spanish brandy-"
"Grace."
"What, dear? -then all of us could celebrate our miraculous escape. You were saying?"
"I'm not sure there is any."
"What? Why, we stored two cases of it!"
"Most of the liquor was broken. That brings up something else. Duke, you are out of a job as water boss. I'd like you to take over as bartender. There are at least two unbroken fifths. Whatever you find, split it six ways and make it share and share alike, whether it's several bottles each, or just a part of a bottle."
Mrs. Farnham looked blank, Duke looked uneasy. Karen said hastily, "Daddy, you know what I said."
"Oh, yes. Duke, your sister is on the wagon. So hold her share as a medicinal reserve. Unless she changes her mind."
"I don't want the job," said Duke.
"We have to divide up the chores, Duke. Oh yes, do the same with cigarettes. When they are gone, they're gone, whereas I have hopes that we can distill liquor later." He turned to his wife. "Why not have a Miltown, dear?"
"Drugs! Hubert Farnham, are you telling me that I can't have a drink?"
"Not at all. At least two fifths came through. Your share would be about a half pint. If you want a drink, go ahead."
"Well! Joseph, run inside and fetch me a bottle of brandy."
"No!" her husband countermanded. "If you want it, Grace, fetch it yourself."
"Oh, shucks, Hugh, I don't mind."
"I do. Grace, Joe's ribs are cracked. It hurts him to climb. You can manage the climb with those boxes as steps-and you're the only one who wasn't hurt."
"That's not true!"
"Not a scratch. Everybody else was bruised or worse. Now about jobs- I want you to take over as cook. Karen will be your assistant. Okay, Karen?"
"Certainly, Daddy."
"It will keep you both busy. We'll build a grill and Dutch oven, but it will be cook over a campfire and wash dishes in the creek for a while."
"So? And will you please tell me, Mr. Farnham, what Joseph is going to do in the meantime? To earn his wages?"
"Will you please tell me how we'll pay wages? Dear, dear- can't you see that things have changed?"
"Don't be preposterous! Joseph will get every cent coming to him and he knows it-just as soon as this mess is straightened out. After all, we've saved his life. And we've always been good to him, he won't mind waiting. Will you, Joseph?"
"Grace! Quiet down and listen. Joe is no longer our servant. He is our partner in adversity. We'll never pay him wages again. Quit acting like a child and face the facts. We're broke. We're never going to have any money again. Our house is gone. My business is gone. The Mountain Exchange Bank is gone. We're wiped out... save for what we stored in the shelter. But we are lucky. We're alive and by some miracle have a chance of scratching a living out of the ground. Lucky. Do you understand?"