“Thank you,” I said, rougher than I meant, me, but she didn’t seem to mind.
The morning was cold and clear, with that kind of pink and gold sunrise that turns clean snow to glory. There wasn’t no wind, thank God. Wind would of bit deep. We tramped, us, along the gravrail track to Coganville. Nobody talked much, them. Once Jim Swikehardt said, “Pretty,” about the sunrise, but nobody answered.
At first the snow wasn’t too deep because the woods crowding the tracks on either side held the snow from blowing. Later it did get deep. Stan Mendoza and Bob Gleason carried Y-energy units, them, that they’d ripped out of some building, and they aimed them at the worst places and melted the snow. The units were heavy, them, and the men puffed hard. It was slow going, part uphill, but we did it. I walked last, me.
After two miles my heart pounded and my knees ached. I didn’t say nothing, me, to the others. I was doing this for Lizzie.
About noon clouds blew in and a wind started. I lost track, me, of how far we might of come. The wind blew straight at our faces. Stan and Bob turned the heating units around, them, whenever they could, and then we walked in warmer air that the wind whipped away as fast as it could.
I got to thinking, me, stumbling through the snow. “Why couldn’t. . . couldn’t. . .”
“You need to rest, Billy?” Jack said. I could see tiny ice crystals on his nose hairs. “This too much for you?”
“No, I’m fine,” I said, never mind that it was a lie. But I had to say, me, what I started. “Why couldn’t. . . the donkeys make lots of… lots of little heat units for us all to … c-carry—”
“Easy, Billy.”
“—c-carry around in our gloves and b-boots and jackets … in the winter? If Y-energy is really so … cheap?”
Nobody answered, them. We came to a big drift, and they turned the heat units on it. It melted real slow. Finally we just slogged, us, through what was left, snow to the waist, wetter and more sticky than it would of been if we hadn’t tried to melt it. Jack stumbled, him. Stan pulled him up. Judy Farrell turned her back to the wind to get a moment’s rest, and her cheeks were the red-white that is going to hurt like hell when it finally warms up.
Finally Jim Swikehardt said, real low, “Because we never asked, us, for lots of tiny heaters, and they only give us enough of what we ask for to keep our votes.” After that nobody said nothing.
I don’t know, me, what time it was when we got to Coganville. The sun was completely hid behind clouds. It wasn’t twilight yet. The town was quiet and peaceful, it, with nobody in the streets. Lights blazed in all the windows. We walked, us, up the main street to the Congressman Joseph Nicholls Capiello Cafe, and we could hear music. A holosign flashed blue and purple on the roof: THANK YOU FOR ELECTING DISTRICT SUPERVISOR HELEN ROSE TOWNS-END1. It was like the world here was still normal, and only us was wrong.
But I didn’t believe that no more, me.
We went in to the cafe. It must of been too late for lunch, too early for dinner, but the cafe was full of people. They were hanging plastisynth banners and bows, them, for a scooter race betting night. Tables were pushed around to make booths and a dance floor. The smell of food from the belt hit us all the same time the warmth did, and I swear I saw tears, me, in Stan Mendoza’s eyes.
Everybody got real quiet, them, when we came in.
Jack said, “Who’s the mayor here?”
“I am,” a woman said. “Jeanette Harloff.” She was about fifty, her, skinny, with silver hair and big blue eyes. The kind of Liver who gets kidded about having secret genemods, even though you know she don’t. It’s just something people say, them. People can be damn stupid. But maybe that’s why this woman was mayor, her. Nobody wouldn’t just let her be one thing or the other.
Jack explained, him, who we were and what we wanted. Everybody in the cafe listened. Somebody had turned the holoterminal off. You could of heard a mouse walk.
Jeanette Harloff studied us, her, real careful. The big blue eyes looked cold. But finally she said, “The main gravrail’s busted, it, but we got a spur and it works. There’s another kitchen shipment coming in tomorrow. And our congressman can really be trusted, him. We’ll always have food, us. Take what you need.”
And Jack Sawicki looked down at the ground, him, like he was ashamed. We all were, us. I don’t know of what. We were Liver citizens, after all.
The mayor and two men helped, them, to load the two travoises with everything we could from the food line. Jeanette Harloff wanted us to stay the night in the hotel, but we all said no, us. The same thing was in all our minds. Folks were sitting home hungry, them, in East Oleanta: kids and wives and mothers and brothers and friends, with their bellies rumbling and hurting and that pinched look around their eyes. We’d rather walk back now, us, even after it got dark, than hear those bellies and look at them faces in our minds. We stuffed food off the belt into our mouths while we loaded the travoises, stuffed it into our jackets and hats and gloves. We bulged like pregnant women, us. The Coganville people watched in silence. A few left the cafe, them, their eyes on the floor.
I wanted to say: We trusted our congresswoman, too, us. Once.
There was only so much food prepared for the line. The travoises would hold more. When it ran out, we had to stop, us, and wait for the kitchen ’bots to make more. And all that whole time nobody except Jeanette Harloff spoke to us. Nobody.
When we left, us, we carried huge amounts of food. Looking at it, I knew it wouldn’t be huge when there was all the hungry people of East Oleanta to feed. We’d be back tomorrow, or somebody else would. Nobody said that to Jeanette Harloff. I couldn’t tell, me, if she knew.
The sky had that feel that says the most part of the day is over. Stan Mendoza and Scotty Flye, the youngest and strongest, dragged the travoises first, them. The runners were curved plasti-foam, smoother than any wood could be. They slid easily over the snow. This time, at least, we had the wind at our backs.
After half an hour Judy Farrell said, “We can’t even talk, us, to the next town, with the terminal. We can talk to Albany, us, or to any donkey politician, and we can get information easy, but we can’t talk to the next town to tell them we’re out of food.”
Jim Swikehardt said, “We never asked to, us. More fun to just hop the gravrail. Gives you something to do.”
“And keeps people separate, us,” Ben Radisson said, but not angry, just like he never thought of it before. “We should have asked, us.” After that, nobody said nothing.
After dark, the cold got sharp as pain. I could feel, me, the hollow place in my chest where the wind whistled through. It made a noise inside me that I could hear in my ears. The Y-lights made the tracks bright as day, but the cold was a dark thing, it, circling us like something rabid. My bones felt, them, like icicles, and just as like to snap.
But we were almost there. No more than a mile left to go. And then there was the crack of a rifle, and young Scotty Flye fell over dead.
In another minute they were on us, them. I recognized most of them, me, although I only had names to go with two of them: Clete Andrews and Ned Zalewski. Stomps. Ten or twelve of them, from East Oleanta and Pilotburg and Carter’s Falls, come in before the gravrail busted, and then stuck here. They whooped and hollered, them, like this was a game. They jumped Jack and Stan and Bob and I saw all three go down, even though Stan was a big man and Bob was a fighter, him. The stomps didn’t waste no more bullets, them. They had knives.
I pushed the little black box on my belt.
The tingle was there, it, and the shimmer. A stomp jumped me and I heard him hit solid metal. That’s what it sounded like. I could hear everything, me. Judy Farrell screamed and Jack Sawicki moaned. The stomp’s eyes under his ski mask got wide.