"I'm sorry for your mother's house," she whispered. "Sorry I fainted on you, too. But—"
"Hey—I understand it. I'm just a kid—at least I was. But—well, since the Night of The War, I seen a lot, ya know, ma'am."
"Yes—I know. I have too," Sarah told him. "Your resistance people were just like the cavalry—just in the nick of time," and she forced a laugh.
"Here," he said, sounding awkward to her. He handed her a gun—it was shiny. A ., small like the ones her husband carried, but different somehow. "This was my Dad's—that's why Mom's crying. Not 'cause of the house, ya see—Dad—he didn't make it during the last raid on the Russians in Nashville."
She turned the gun over in her hands. As she looked at it, young Bill Mulliner continued talking to her. "Dad was a friend of this guy named Trapper—gunsmith up in Michigan before the Night of The War. Trapper made the gun up for him special. Started out a Colt Combat Commander—the one with the steel frame.
Them's Smith & Wesson K-frame rear sights—gun's real short in the barrel and slide and the grip—a round shorter. Makes it nice to carry. And that's a Colt ambidextrous thumb safety on her—no grip safety—pinned in. That's a special nickel plating Trapper used."
"But this was your father's gun—you can't give it—"
"Ma'am—see, I got plenty a guns—and—well—if it weren't for you, my mom'd be dead too. Figure with this on ya, and a regular .—you can use the same clips—"
"Magazines I think they're called," she smiled, feeling self-conscious at correcting a man about a gun.
"Yes'm—but you'll always have six extra rounds when ya need 'em. She's a smoothie of a shooter, ya know— and—well—so here," and he handed her a spare loaded magazine for the pistol.
She looked at the pistol in the firelight. The right side of the slide read "Trapper Gun" and there was a scorpion etched there in the metal, like there was on the flat black grips, barely visible in the flickering of the flames. "Thank you, Bill—I don't know what to say—I, ahh—"
"You just stay alive with it, ma'am—that's thanks enough and more."
"We can't stay here anymore, can we?" she said, still holding the gun, wrapping the blanket more tightly around her.
"No, ma'am—there's a big refugee camp not too far from here—should be safe from them brigand vermin. You and Mom and the children are gonna be okay there. Least ways ya should be."
She leaned across to the boy, still holding his dead
father's gun. She kissed the boy on the cheek.
"Mrs. Rourke," he drawled.
She leaned back against the side of the log that was being fed slowly into the fire, feeling the pleasant warmth. She closed her eyes. But she didn't let go of the pistol.
Chapter 24
Colonel Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy picked up one of the rifles at random. There were dozens ranked along the wall, more still in crates. He personally liked the M-—not as well as the Kalashnikov pattern rifles, but liked it nonetheless.
And for the coming situation, American-made arms would be the best choice. He turned to the junior officer beside him—a Captain Revnik. "Captain—you must see to it that each of these rifles is thoroughly inspected. There is no use in storing arms which are defective. Any rifles which prove defective must be detail stripped and the defective part found, discarded or repaired and the rest of the parts binned according to type for use as spares."
"Yes, Comrade colonel," Revnik beamed. Rozhdestvenskiy disliked too much enthusiasm. "And the same with the pistols, Comrade colonel?"
' 'Yes—but only the . automatics—the Smith & Wesson revolvers will not be inventoried since there is no need to house . Special ammunition as well as .. One standard pistol will suit our needs more than adequately. And of course each officer will have his own individual weapon." He patted the Colt Single Action Army under his uniform tunic.
"There must be adequate supplies for all needs, but most especially for the weapons—the individual weapons. For the five thousand M-s we will need there must be
five million rounds of .mm military ball ammo—loaded in the eight hundred round steel containers will be best. These can then be sealed with wax as I've outlined in the master plans for the Womb. One million rounds of the . ACP
ammunition for the one thousand pistols-This can be packed in greater bulk and likewise sealed. I'd suggest metal oil drums perhaps and the original boxes—again, all military ball ammunition,"
"Yes, Comrade colonel."
Rozhdestvenskiy nodded, stepping away from the wall where the rifles leaned and towara the catwalk. He looked below him—men moving equipment—portable generators, arc lights. More men—crates being unloaded from large trucks onto smaller trucks which could be rolled directly aboard the waiting C-s on the airfield two miles away.
"Work goes apace," he commented, leaning on the catwalk railing, swinging his body weight back and forth, feeling what he saw, feeling the power surging up in his blood. "But the pace must be quickened. If all the items are not secured in the Womb in a very, very short period of time, captain—all will have been for naught."
"Yes, Comrade colonel—Comrade?"
"Yes, captain?"
"May I ask, Comrade colonel—why is this being—"
Rozhdestvenskiy felt his smile fade. "The survival of the race, Comrade—the survival of the race."
Rozhdestvenskiy said no more.
Chapter 25
Rourke, Paul Rubenstein and Natalia sat, their eyes transfixed as were the eyes of the submarine's complement not on duty—to the television monitors in the crew mess. It had been the same with San Francisco when they had passed the ruins—watching a city where once people lived now an underwater tomb. With this city it was doubly difficult—a young seaman first class had been born there, lived there—his mother, father, two sisters and wife and son had died there.
But he had insisted on watching—and now he wept.
Not one of the men touched him; Rourke, feeling perhaps like the rest of them, not knowing what to say, to do.
Natalia—wearing a robe borrowed from the captain, moving slowly, her left hand holding at her abdomen where Rourke had made the incisions—stood. Rourke started up after her, but she shook her head, murmuring, "No, John," then walked. She supported herself against the long, spotlessly clean tables, moving to alongside the weeping man.
"I am sorry—for your family—and for you," she whispered, Rourke watching her, watching all the others watching her.
The young man looked up. "Why'd you and your people wanna kill us—we coulda talked it out—or somethin'?"
"I don't know, sailor—I don't know," she whispered.
He looked at her, just shaking his head.
She moved her hands, touching them lightly to his shoulders. He looked down, his neck bent, his shoulders slumping. Natalia took a step toward him, leaning against him to help herself stand, her arms folding around his neck, his head coming to rest against her abdomen.
She closed her eyes as he wept.
Rourke breathed.
Chapter 26
Rourke stood in the sail, the snowflakes thick and large, the temperature barely cold enough for them, he thought. They melted as they reached the backs of his hands on the rail, the knit cuffs of his brown leather bomber jacket, occasionally one of the larger flakes landing on his eyelashes—he would close his eyes for an instant and they would melt.