Dan's face lit up. "Is it near Disney World?" he asked, nose pressed against the cab window.
The guardsman gave a wry grin through the faceplate. "Hell, son, it is Disney World. But you won't find any rides or amusements anymore." He spoke to Chase. "They've set up the transit camp there, with accommodations for ten thousand people. That's your best bet within fifty miles of here." He stepped back to survey the door panel with its green symbol on a white ground.
"What is this, a survey for Earth Foundation?" he asked with interest.
It would take too long to explain, so Chase merely nodded. "That's right."
"I saw the guy who wrote that Midnight book on TV, you know? The ecologist? I thought he was right. I agree with a lot of it, your aims and everything. In fact I was gonna join but it ain't permitted for service personnel." The black shroud waggled derisively. "Damn Defense Department rules!"
"I know," Chase said. "But we appreciate your support all the
same."
The guardsman waved them off. "Keep up the good work," he called out as they pulled away.
"Another convert," Cheryl said and glanced impishly across the cab. "You should have asked him for a donation, famous TV ecologist."
"So famous he didn't even recognize me."
"Maybe you didn't have this then." Cheryl leaned across and tugged at his beard. "I bet you grew it so you wouldn't be recognized by your fans," she taunted him. "My wonderful self-effacing hero."
Chase laughed, grateful that he had someone who could unfailingly prick the bubble of his own pomposity. It was a trait he'd never admired in himself, yet couldn't shake. Cheryl was the perfect antidote. Cynical and yet tolerant, she possessed an incisive mind coupled with plain common sense. Six years together hadn't dulled the edge of their relationship, and he prayed it would endure come what may.
It was sad to see what had befallen Disney World.
The pronged dome of Space Mountain (he'd ridden that alone, when Angie had chickened out) housed the reception center, and the other buildings on the sprawling site had been converted into dining halls, dormitories, and general living quarters. Remembering what it had been like when the huge entertainment complex catered to thousands of visitors every single day and seeing it now, pressed into such cheerless, austere service, depressed him intensely.
The International Hotel, connected by monorail to the Magic Kingdom, billeted a division of the National Guard. In past days the monorail had transported millions of visitors to and from the parking lots, and it was still in working order. The EPCOT Center nearby, "city of the future," was now the National Guard headquarters for southern Florida.
The air-conditioning plant had been adapted to make each building a sealed enclosure, filtering the outside air and supplying an enriched oxygen mixture up to the required 20 percent by volume.
"You must have been about nine or ten when they shut it down," Chase told Dan. "That's about the perfect age to experience something like this. I'm sorry now I didn't bring you. The Haunted Mansion, Starflight to Saturn, Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain, the Rocky Mountain Railroad."
"I used to go to the one in Los Angeles/' Cheryl said. "The sky over Disneyland always looked different from everywhere else, a kind of deeper blue. The sun was always shining. When I was a kid it was a make-believe world at the other end of the rainbow."
"Knowing what I've missed makes me feel a lot better," Dan said lugubriously. "I always thought I'd been born twenty years too late."
Confronted by the bleakly functional reality, these golden memories seemed to mock them, figments of a lost age. The picture-book colors on the towers and turrets had faded, the once sparkling gilt on the carrousels peeling and dull. There was now a tragic sadness about the place, like a ghost town still echoing dimly with long-ago music and fireworks and children's laughter.
They lined up at the steel counter in one of the crowded dining rooms, which Chase recognized as having housed the circular cinema-- a 360-degree screen enclosing the audience. Torn strips hung from the metal framework. Many of the people, he noted, looked haggard and pale. There were the unmistakable signs of cardiovascular and respiratory illness. The survival of the fittest wasn't just a textbook phrase anymore.
He looked at Dan, mopping up gravy with a piece of bread. Thank God he was healthy. His skin was tanned and his hair black and glossy. Skin and hair usually showed the symptoms of anoxia first, when the body's tissues were receiving an insufficient supply of oxygen.
"How long are we staying?" Dan wanted to know.
"Overnight, that's all," Cheryl said. "Tomorrow we'll start the drive up into Georgia, to a place called Griffin, south of Atlanta."
"Is it breathable up there?"
"Oh, sure," Cheryl smiled. "It's outside the Official Devastated Area. There's an Earth Foundation group in Griffin, so we can leave the half-track and carry on to Washington by train."
"We'll probably stay a couple of days in Griffin," Chase said. "They've started a small community farm and they want to get as many foundation volunteers as possible."
Dan made a face. "I suppose that means speeches and handshaking again."
Chase nodded and Dan rolled his eyes. Like most offspring of well-known public figures he saw the ordinary man with feet of clay--not, as in this case, a leader in the ecology movement worldwide. He still couldn't accept his father in the role of symbolic crusader. To tell the truth, Chase couldn't accept it either.
As they chatted, Chase was aware of being watched from a nearby table. This was always happening nowadays--beard or no beard. So when the man called out, he was prepared for it.
"I got you right--that fella Chase, ain't it?"
Several heads turned as Chase nodded. He looked across at Cheryl, their eyes exchanged a coded message. She knew how much he hated being recognized, but he was stuck with it.
The man raised his voice. "I seen you on TV and read that book you wrote." He had a broad red face, in fiery contrast to his white hair cut so close that the pinkness of his scalp showed through. Next to him sat a frail hollow-cheeked woman of about fifty with lank mousy hair trailing to thin shoulders.
"Want to know something?" The man leaned forward, hairy forearms flat on the table, face thrust out like a challenge. "I'll tell you what I think, fella. I think what you wrote was a load of bullshit. Bull. Shit. You dreamed up the whole goddam thing--every last word."
"Harry, please." The woman spoke down to the table. "Leave the man alone. So it ain't true, so what?"
Her plaintive whine seemed to incense her husband. He blurted out, "All that crap about the United States planning to dump poison in the oceans and the Russkies trying to drown us all." He jabbed a blunt forefinger. "What the hell do you know, you bankrupt Limey?"
Chase said, "You're entitled to your opinion, sir. But not a word of it was invented, I assure you."
"I assure you, I assure you," the man mimicked prissily. The finger stabbed again. "Let me tell you something, smart ass. You--you're the guy who started this whole fuckin' mess in the first place. There wasn't no eco-logi-cal or whatever you call it crisis until that goddamn book came out and you started spouting all over TV and the newspapers. We was getting along swell till you started everybody panicking and running around in circles and up each other's assholes. And for what? For big bucks is all. That's the bottom line."
His reasoning was crazy. Too illogical to argue reasonably and sensibly. Chase shrugged and picked up his fork and carried on eating.
"See her--see my wife?" the man suddenly yelled. The circle of quiet had spread along the trestle tables. Heads were inclined like rows of obedient marionettes. "She's forty-four years old and she's dying! Her lungs is rotted and the doctor says she can't take it no more." His face was pulsing redly and his eyes were moist. "You sure as hell started something with that goddamn trash you're peddling."