Matt arrived at the hospital boardroom unshaven and somewhat lightheaded, five minutes late. He had skipped dinner. Maybe lunch, too; he couldn’t recall. He missed a lot of meals these days. Time seemed to slip past; his attention often wandered.
He had hoped to chair a fairly sedate meeting and introduce the storm-warning during New Business. At this point, the best and simplest strategy was to secure a shelter—maybe the basement of the hospital—and stock it with water, food, Coleman lanterns. It was an important job, but not a difficult or costly one.
But the news had arrived before him. Chuck Makepeace had heard it, and so had Bob Ganish and Abby Cushman. All three had been urged by Contactee friends or family to talk to the Helper. All three had done so. And all three had received the same warning: strange and powerful weather moving eastward from the far Pacific.
The news had spread by telephone the day before the meeting, had spread even farther in the crowd around the coffee machine before the Emergency Planning Committee was gaveled to order. Matt arrived in time to hear Tom Kindle wonder whether he was the only human being in Buchanan who wasn’t having long conversations with that damn robot up at the City Hall Turnaround.
“By no means,” Paul Jacopetti said. “I haven’t talked to it either. Wouldn’t. Not on a bet. I’m with you there, Mr. Kindle.”
“That’s a consolation,” Kindle said.
Matt called the meeting to order. Nine people took seats and gazed at him. There was no use postponing this; he upturned the agenda and asked for debate or resolutions on the subject of the weather emergency.
Abby Cushman expressed her astonishment: “The Travellers are going to a lot of trouble to help us—as Mr. Makepeace mentioned, they’re keeping our water and electricity on line—so why would they create a storm that might kill us? I don’t understand!”
“I don’t think it’ll kill us,” Kindle said. “Not if we’re careful. As for the logic of it—Abby, by any calculation, they’re a superior species. More powerful than us, at least. I knew a guy in Florida one time, ran a hospital for injured birds. He had a wild heron with a broken beak, and he worked real hard on it, taped the injury, fed the bird by hand until it was strong enough to go free. Finally he released it with a metal tab on its leg for some kind of wildlife census. Three months later, he gets back the banged-up tab with a nasty letter from the FAA: Apparently the bird got sucked into the intake of an Alitalia 747.”
Abby looked dismal. “I still don’t understand.”
“Well—the heron got some nice treatment. But that bird shouldn’t have jumped to any conclusions about how safe it is to deal with another species. The fact that we’re getting free electricity doesn’t mean the jets aren’t rolling out onto the tarmac all the same.”
“That’s macabre and terrible,” Miriam Flett announced.
Kindle regarded her mildly. “Do you disagree, ma’am?”
She thought about it. “No.”
Matt proposed a shelter to be provided in the hospital basement and asked for volunteers for a Storm Precautions Subcommittee, then suggested the whole subject be tabled until there was more substantial information: “We have other business pending, after all.”
Agreed, with random grumbling. Matt consulted the minutes. “Okay… is there a weekly report from the Radio Subcommittee?”
Joey Commoner stood up.
“Radio report,” Joey said.
He cleared his throat. If Mart’s memory served, this was the first time Joey had spoken at a Committee meeting. Joey had dressed up for the occasion: there was nothing on his T-shirt more offensive than a tennis-shoe ad.
“This week we logged thirteen calls. Most of those were Mr. Avery Price from the Boston group or Mr. Gardner Deutsch of Toronto. Plus a few from Colonel John Tyler and some one-time contacts like a woman in Ohio and someone in Costa Rica who I didn’t understand.
“Mr. Price says Boston is leaving town in a convoy, and Toronto is also going to leave tomorrow morning according to plan so the two groups can meet in Pennsylvania and travel together. He says—”
Matt banged the gavel. “Joey, what are you talking about? Boston is leaving Boston?” Damn it, this might be important.
Joey glared at him. “Its all written down. I’d like to just read it.”
“Well—carry on. I suppose we can reserve questions until later.”
Joey cleared his throat again. “The Boston and Toronto people are going to an area along the fortieth parallel, probably in Ohio, which their Helpers say will be safe from storms and where they can establish a town and a radio beacon for people to follow. They say this will attract survivors from all over the continent and they’d like us to join them as soon as we can, because there are about enough people in North America to make one good-sized town. They’re carrying mobile radio equipment and they want us to let them know as soon as possible when we’re going to join them.
“Also, Colonel Tyler is travelling toward the northwest looking for survivors and he’ll be passing through Buchanan in a couple of months, or he can rendezvous with us on the road if we decide to join the Boston-Toronto convoy.
“End of report.”
Pandemonium.
Several people wanted to pack up and leave immediately. Bob Ganish, the ex-car dealer, spoke for the group: “We can beat the damn storm, get across the mountains before it finds us. No offense, people, but I like the idea of seeing some new faces.”
Abby raised her hand. “There are things here we’d all hate to leave… but maybe it’s better if we do. Should we put this to a vote?”
Matt argued that they should stay in Buchanan at least for the time being—wait until the Boston group had a more solid plan, have somebody besides Joey talk to them. Weather the storm, then think about moving. It wasn’t the kind of decision that could be made impulsively.
Privately, the idea terrified him. He didn’t want to abandon Buchanan. Christ, not yet!
It was too soon to give up Buchanan. Everything was still intact, still functional, only a little tattered.
There’s hope, he wanted to say. We can salvage something. It’s not over yet.
Kindle moved to postpone debate until more facts came in—“This is the first I’ve heard of it, and I’m half the damn Radio Subcommittee.” With a long sideways look at Joey Commoner.
The motion passed five to two.
Matt listened numbly through three more subcommittee reports and adjourned the meeting at midnight.
He wanted only to go to bed, to sleep, to table for a few hours all his own private debates.
But Annie Gates was waiting when he pulled into his driveway.
She must have walked here, Matt thought; her own car was nowhere in sight. None of these people seemed to drive anymore. He saw them walking sometimes, a curious light stride, not quite human, as Rachel might have admitted.
The sight of Annie filled him with fear.
He had avoided her for months, avoided her because she was one more component in a problem he couldn’t solve… and because he had slept with her when she was human, loved her when she was human, an equation he didn’t care to balance.
But now she scared him, because she was waiting on his doorstep under the hospitality light, dressed too lightly for the cold night air, looking at him with a terrible sympathy, terrible because it was authentic, because she was waiting to speak.