“It’s not the nukes and radiation anymore,” Jim said. “It’s just that I’ve decided this war is all wrong, no matter—”
“What about your country?” Frank interrupted, not looking at his son.
“I just think… I don’t know… I want to sail south with you, dad. Help Lisa and Jeanne and—”
“What about your country?” Frank repeated stonily.
“I know. I know,” Jim said, a flicker of anguish on his face unseen by his father. “I owe my country a lot. I know that. But the war seems so insane, the kind of killing so wrong… I don’t see how…”
“Jim can’t save the country,” Jeanne said as Jim trailed off.
“But he’s goddamn well going to try!” Frank spat out angrily, banging his fist on the table and tipping over the mostly empty bottle of brandy. As Tony righted it, old Captain Olly’s body jerked upright, and his eyes blinked open. “Huh?” he said. “What say?”
Frank swung his head around to look at Neil.
“Are you going to report for duty?” he asked.
“What I do isn’t relevant,” Neil answered. “With my naval experience in theory I can be of service, but untrained teenagers would only be cannon fodder. If Jim thinks the war is all wrong, he shouldn’t go. And I may not go either.”
Frank felt a strange sinking feeling and glared at Neil.
“I should have known,” he said. “You’ve taken wishy-washy positions so long you’ve forgotten a man’s duty to his country.”
“I know my duty to my country,” Neil snapped back. “I just happen to believe that my country is now located primarily on this boat.”
“That’s inconvenient,” said Frank, “because in that case I’m kicking you out of your country.” He felt both a senseless rage and an urge to cry. “In other words you’re fired.” The words seemed hollow even as he spoke them.
“Are you going to force Jim to be in this war?” Jeanne asked.
“He’s in it whether he likes it or not.”
“I’m not going to report, Dad,” Jim said, now more steadily. “I’d like to help sail everyone south.”
“You need Jim,” Jeanne said softly to Frank. “In this world if we’re lucky enough to have any children still with us, the last thing we should do is let them go.”
Frank stared at the cushion between Jeanne and Neil and unseeingly added more brandy to his empty teacup, his eyes wet. A siren wailing off in the city a half-mile away underlined the silence in the cabin. Captain Olly again awakened.
“Don’t recommend telling grown kids what to do,” he said.
“No one asked you,” Frank muttered.
“’S okay,” Olly replied. “I don’t mind volunteering good advice. People who ask for advice generally made up their minds anyhow.”
Jeanne rose from her seat. “I’m going to get more sleep,” she said. “Good night, Captain Olly, Tony. Good night, Neil.” She paused. “Good night, Frank.” She leaned down and held his head in her arms and pressed her face against his hair for several seconds. “You’re a good man, Frank, a… but you’re absolutely wrong about Jim.” And she left.
“That’s one sweet lady, that is,” Captain Olly said. “Ain’t met a woman like her since my last wife. She married?”
The ship’s clock on the forward wall of the cabin struck six bells, and Neil glanced at it.
“We should set a watch this morning, Frank,” he said. “We haven’t seen the last of the pirates. I’ll take the first two-hour watch and wake Jim for the second. We can all get up at ten.”
Frank looked up dully.
“You still trying to run things?” he said, then let his head fall forward.
Vagabond was back on land.
Morehead City, over one hundred and fifty miles distant from the nearest nuclear explosion, a small town in the middle of a rich farming and fishing region, had, in a way, like most of the rest of the country, ceased to exist. Its restaurants, bars, drugstores, service stations, movie theaters, supermarkets, grocery stores, gift shops, banks, and most retail stores were closed. The only traditional commercial enterprises open for a few hours each day were the clothing and hardware stores, and one bar: all had become unofficial bartering centers.
The town had electricity, at least in theory, but the military authorities were systematically disconnecting electric service to all except businesses or institutions they considered necessary. The town had food, at least in theory, since a few fishermen still brought in their catches and neighboring farmers still had chickens, pigs, cows and a few early summer crops. But fuel was unavailable for either the fishing trawlers or farm machinery, and harvests from both sea and land were diminishing,. No food arrived from outside the county and all food inside it was being requisitioned for distribution and rationing by the Army; much of it was being shifted to areas where the need was greater. More than half the arable land was planted in tobacco.
Since no private vehicles were permitted on the road without authorization, most normal social life had ended. Local draft-age adults had disappeared either into one of the services or into the faceless masses of refugees fleeing even farther south. Those remaining consisted mainly of men over forty, the sick and the maimed, and women and children. Few people other than farmers and fishermen were still able to practice the same occupation they’d been in a week before.
All newspapers and television stations had ceased operating. Only one radio station went on the air on a limited schedule, its sole function being to transmit official information and instructions from the national government or local military authorities. There was no music. The national networks had ceased to exist, but the government was able to use satellites to transmit messages to all stations at once.
All manufacturing not directly related to military needs had ceased. All large department stores had sold out of basic items in the first three days of the war—flashlights, generators, batteries, coolers, knives, hatchets, tools, guns, fishing equipment, camping gear, cooking fuels, and so on, and now, filled with useless nonessentials— television sets, phonographs, cosmetics, fashionable clothing—they remained closed, unguarded, and unlooted.
The churches alone were booming. Most held services of one sort or another every day, and streetcorner end-of-the-world preachers gathered small crowds around them immediately, people who listened apathetically and then wandered away.
The little town had received an influx of refugees from the areas around Washington and Norfolk, the first wave arriving by car and truck, those in the last few days by foot, bicycle, horse and cart, and by boat down the Intracoastal Waterway. Many were suffering from burns, blindness, and radiation sickness.
When the survivors on Vagabond were awakened by Jim at ten o’clock, they saw that boats were jammed into every available space, rafted two and three deep in places. Neil eased Vagabond in against an apparently unoccupied luxury yacht, the only space large enough to take the fifty-foot trimaran alongside.
After a reconnaissance ashore in the gusty wind and rain, it was clear that most of the boats had either been deserted for want of fuel or crew or were owned by people determined to get farther south. Some hoped to continue down the Intracoastal Waterway, and a few were planning to go out the inlet. Whether the latter would be carrying passengers who had been officially called to duty and forbidden to leave was unclear: most people were tight-lipped about their plans and personnel.
Posted prominently on several dockside telephone poles were posters, printed by hand and Xeroxed, warning mariners that no ships were permitted to leave the inlet with any male of military age aboard without written authorization from the district military commander.