Falling silent, still the people had pressed closer, and in the forefront Garth had felt their excitement almost as a tangible force at his back.
“The very best, yes!” Fielding had nodded his head vigorously. “For while I’m the so-called ‘head’ technician, my colleagues are no less worthy and all have worked at least as hard, if not harder, than I myself. And now I’m talking about Earl Jones and Glenn Garrison—my radio men!”
On hearing that last the hush that had fallen was suddenly utter: a total silence from a gathering that might only be described as hypnotized. For surely the small tech’s final revelation could have meant only one thing?
And in corroboration: “It seems a very long time,” Fielding had continued, his voice suddenly tremulous, “since last we had communication with anyone outside the clan or beyond the Southern Refuge. But this morning when I was out and about, Earl and Glenn achieved precisely that! It was one of those old radios—fallen apart and scrapped—salvaged and fitted with makeshift parts that were never intended for such use—written off time and time again only to be revamped, reassembled, reconstituted. And finally this morning when an all-too-frequent hiss of meaningless static suddenly went away, finally there were voices—real human voices…and…and a message!”
But that had been all from the head tech. Emotionally overcome, trembling in all his limbs, Fielding had been helped down from the iron flank of Big Jon’s vehicle and a path cleared for him through the assembled clan folk.
Then before the stunned crowd could react again, the leader had reached down, offering his hand to a man years younger than Fielding—Earl Jones, who for all those years might have reckoned himself a radio operator, if only the radios had operated!—and hoisted him aboard the rauper. For it was tech Jones who had heard and recorded the all-important message, and head tech Fielding had left it to him to tell the rest of the story:
How while searching pensively, almost idly through the wave bands, as he had done on a hundred previous occasions, suddenly he had picked up a repetitive signal, and a voice so very faint it might have been coming down from the stars! Scarcely daring to touch or interfere with the radio’s unlikely jumble of wires, tubes, and fuses, he had finally managed to adjust the gain and make a scribbled record of the message; which was a tired, even forlorn-sounding request, almost as pensive as Jones’ own mood: that if anyone was “out there” listening, he should try to make contact on the more viable wavelength which had then been specified.
Feeling he needed help and someone to corroborate, validate what was happening, Jones had called out for Garrison to attend him. Sleeping close by in a trundle where much of the technical equipment was stored, Garrison had started awake, quickly joining Jones where he had already tuned in to the other wavelength and was even then talking to some fantastic, incredible other!
At this point in the story Glenn Garrison had been eager to join Jones and the leader on the rauper’s deck, and between the two techs the details of the unique, exciting event had quickly been filled in:
They had indeed been in communication with a more northerly band of nuclear survivors—a group that for years had searched the airwaves for others, hopefully to expand a small population depleted by fly-by-night depredation and so freshen and fortify diminishing gene pools; not only theirs but also those of their surviving animal species… And yes, while certain technicians and craft specialists continued a semi-subterranean existence—primarily for the maintenance of “the sanctuary,” as a precaution against any possible future disaster—the majority of “the kindred” were now living their lives above ground, in farms and a small village they had gradually been rebuilding and renovating for close on a decade!… As for the fly-by-nights: following the massed attack that decimated the population of the sanctuary, the survivors had begun a campaign, venturing out during daylight hours en masse into the nearby village and countryside around to seek out and destroy the vampires where they hid from the sun… The ruined village, with its cellars and other dark places, served as the swarm’s main roosts; the vengeful kindred had hunted them down, burned them out, cleared off the area all around while setting booby-traps and installing advance warning systems… All of this made possible by the fact that the ozone layer in their more northerly latitude had slowly settled down, replenished itself, until now the region was totally safe above ground—from the sun at least—and comparatively free of the monsters; though there was still the occasional, however ineffective raid, always from the south: the very region into which the clan’s convoy was now about to venture…
Then, as the two techs approached the end of the story, Big Jon Lamon had cut in on them. Determined to have the last word, he had begun to bring the meeting to a close with the following statement:
“Now hear this:
“I’m aware that there have always been those among you who had doubts—who believed there was small chance that we would make it even this far—but I also know that all of you, each and every one of you, has put his or her heart, body, and soul into our great adventure. Moreover you should know that I have not been without doubts of my own, but that I now feel as if a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders. And since it is my fervent desire to witness this relief that I feel reflected in you—to actually see it written in your faces, the weight lifted from your shoulders—I have kept the very best of the news to the last so that I might report it to you personally.
“So then, what is this wonderful news I’ve been holding in reserve? Simply this: that these sanctuary people, the kindred, are a clever lot who have either developed or retained from the olden days a means of radio triangulation; by which I mean that they have located us, this very convoy, at a point no more than a hundred miles due south of their refuge! Moreover, if we keep in regular touch and as we draw ever closer, it’s their intention to send out a strong party to meet and guide us in! People, my friends, we’re almost at the end of our trek!”
At which, after a brief pause to let that sink in, someone in the crowd had cheered, thrown his hat in the air, and done a little dance; which in turn had set the rest of them off: laughing, shouting and back-slapping.
Big Jon had let it go on for a moment or two before bellowing: “Now listen! Go and prepare. We have rested up here—most of us—but now it’s time we moved on. I was thinking: perhaps we should stay on here another night. Ah, but I learned a valuable lesson in that damned town back there! Namely, that if we stay in any one place too long, the fly-by-nights are bound to smell us out! So now, with all this good news buoying us up, I reckon it’s time we got underway again; and we will within the hour. Why, there are people waiting for us, and even coming to meet us! And it seems only right that in our turn we should do our best to make that meeting happen as quickly as possible.
“So, we’ll ride the rest of the day and coming night, then sleep tomorrow from dawn till dusk. But with any luck tomorrow will be the last time we rest up in daylight, and if the ozone layer will only quit its wobbling for good we may even be able to dispose of some of the lead that’s weighed us down all this terrible time! Now, what do you say to that?”
The clan folk had been with Big Jon all the way; but thinking to remind him of something, the chief mechanic, Ian Clement—a man with grease-smudged features, calloused hands and ragged oily coveralls: the hallmarks of his trade—had called out, “Big Jon! As you are aware, all that bad sludgy fuel we’ve been using has knocked out a couple of motors, making them irreparable. Now every trundle—and indeed every vehicle—will have to he packed to the gills with people and gear; which will put an even greater strain on the motors and slow us down more yet. Moreover and even worse, the one thing we can rely upon is that there’s bound to be at least a few more breakdowns!