“What?”
“When Mohammed began he had five followers. In four months he controlled Arabia. In a couple of years he controlled half the world. And the New Brotherhood has the same kind of growth incentive.”
Mayor Seitz shook his head. “Senator… I just don’t know. Can we stop that outfit? Maybe we ought to head for the High Sierra while we’ve got the chance.”
There was a long silence.
The Magician
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Dan Forrester dozed in front of the woodburning kitchen stove. His feet had been washed and bandaged. He’d taken a shot of insulin, hoping that it was still good, fearing that it wasn’t. It was very hard to stay awake.
Maureen Jellison and Mrs. Cox fussed over him, bringing him clean clothes — dry clothes! — and pouring him hot tea. It was very pleasant to sit and feel safe. He could hear voices from the other room. Dan tried to follow the conversation, but he kept falling asleep, then jerking himself awake.
Dan Forrester had spent his life working out the rules of the universe. He had never tried to personalize it. Yet when the Hammer fell, a small bright core of anger had burned in Dan Forrester.
He had forgotten that anger, the anger he felt when he first learned what it meant to be a diabetic. The rules of the universe had never favored diabetics. Dan had long since accepted that. Methodically he set out to survive anyway.
Every day he was still alive. Tired to death, hiding from cannibals, hungrier every day, fully aware of what was happening to his insulin and to his feet, he had kept moving. The steady warmth of anger had never relaxed… but something within him had relaxed now. Physical comfort and the comfort of friendship let him remember that he was tired, and ill, and his feet had turned to broken wood. He fought it because of what he could hear from the next room:
Cannibals. New Brotherhood Army. An ultimatum for the Senator. Thousand men… they’ve taken Bakersfield, could double their numbers… Dan Forrester sighed deeply. He looked up at Maureen. “It sounds like a war is coming. Is there a paint store here?”
She frowned down at him. Others had gone mad after less than Dan Forrester had faced. “Paint store?”
“Yes.”
“I think so. There was a Standard Brands at the edge of Porterville. It was flooded, I think.”
Dan tried to discipline his thoughts. “Perhaps they kept things in plastic bags. What about fertilizer? You have that? Ammonia, for instance. They use it for—”
“I know what they use it for,” Maureen said. “Yes, we have some. Not enough for the crops.”
Forrester sighed again. “It may not get to the crops. Or maybe we can use it where we’ll be able to grow crops later. Were there many swimming pools? A swimming-pool supply store?”
“Yes, there was one of those. It’s underwater now—”
“How deep?”
She looked at him sharply. He looked terrible, but his eyes were quite sane. He knew what he was asking. “I don’t know. It will be on Al Hardy’s maps. Is it important?”
“I think so — ” He stopped abruptly. He was listening. In the other room they were talking about a nuclear power plant. Forrester stood up. He had to hold onto the chair. “Would you help me go in there, please?” His voice was apologetic, but somehow there was no way to refuse him. “Oh — one more thing. A filling station. I’ll need some drums of grease solvent.”
Maureen, mystified, helped Forrester down the hall toward the living room. “I don’t know. We have a filling station here, but it was very small. There were bigger ones in Porterville, of course, but they were under the dam and were flooded pretty badly. Why? What can you make with all that?”
Forrester had reached the living room and went in hanging on Maureen’s arm. Johnny Baker stopped talking and stared at him. So did the others. “Sorry to interrupt,” Forrester said. He looked around helplessly for a chair.
Mayor Seitz was nearest to him and got up from the couch. He went back to the library for a folding chair while Forrester took the Mayor’s place on the couch. Forrester blinked rapidly at the others. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “Did someone ask where the San Joaquin Nuclear Plant is?”
“Yes,” Al Hardy said. “I know it was out there somewhere, but hell, it has to be underwater. It was right in the middle of the valley. It can’t be working—”
“It was on Buttonwillow Ridge,” Forrester said. “I looked on a map, and that’s about forty feet higher than the land around it. But I thought it would be flooded too, and I wasn’t able to get down to the edge of the San Joaquin Sea because of the cannibals.”
Hardy looked thoughtful. Eileen Hamner hurried out and came back with a map. She spread it out on the floor in front of the Senator and he and Hardy stared at it.
Maureen Jellison went across the room and sat on the floor near Johnny Baker. Their hands sought each other and clasped involuntarily.
“We have that area about fifty feet underwater,” Al Hardy announced. “Hugo, are you sure the plant’s operating?”
“The Angels think so. As I said, it set them wild.”
“Why?” Christopher asked.
“It’s a Holy War,” Hugo Beck said. “The Angels of the Lord exist only to destroy the forbidden works of man. What’s left of industry. I watched them tear into what was left of a coal-powered station. They didn’t use guns or dynamite. They swarmed over it with axes and clubs and hands. It was already wrecked, you understand. It had been flooded. But when they got through, you couldn’t tell what it had been. And all the time Armitage was shouting at them to do the work of the Lord!
“He preaches every night, same theme. Destroy the works of man. Then three days ago — I think it was three days…” Hugo counted on his fingers. “Yeah. Three days ago they heard that nuclear plant was still going. I thought Armitage would burst a blood vessel! From that moment on it was constant: Destroy that Citadel of Satan. Look, nuclear power! Kind of the epitome of everything the Angels hate, you know? It even had Jerry Owen excited. He used to talk about how they might save a few things. Hydroelectric plants, maybe, if they could be rebuilt without hurting the Earth. But he hated nuclear power plants before Hammerfall.”
“Do they destroy all technology?” Al Hardy asked.
Hugo Beck shook his head. “Sergeant Hooker and his people kept anything they think they can use, anything that might have military value. But they were all agreed, they didn’t want that nuclear plant in the valley. Jerry Owen talked about how he knew ways to wreck it.”
“We can’t let them do that,” Dan Forrester said. He leaned forward and spoke intently. He had forgotten where he was, the long tramp northward, possibly even Hammerfall itself. “We have to save the power plant. We can rebuild a civilization if we have electricity.”
“He’s right,” Rick Delanty said. “It’s important—”
“It’s important that we stay alive, too,” Senator Jellison said. “But we have heard that the New Brotherhood has over a thousand troops, possibly many more. We can put five hundred in the field, and many of them will not be well armed. Few have any training. We will be lucky to save this valley.”
“Dad,” Maureen said. “I think Dr. Forrester has some ideas about that. He asked me about… Dan, why did you want to know about grease solvents and swimming-pool supply shops? What were you thinking about?”
Dan Forrester sighed again. “Maybe I shouldn’t suggest it. I had an idea, but you may not like it.”
“For God’s sake, man,” Al Hardy said. “If you know something that can help us, say it! What?”
“Well, you’ve probably already thought of it,” Forrester said.
“Goddamm — ” Christopher began.
Senator Jellison held up his hand. “Dr. Forrester, believe me, you won’t offend us. Please, what did you have in mind?”