But at least Parker’s eyes focused on Grayson, and not on his shoes or on some hazy movie in his forehead, and he asked some questions that indicated he’d been listening. I guess every outfit has a top guy, Grayson thought.
Walking back, he walked fast; people in his path stepped aside. I know thousands of real soldiers, but I don’t know one I could look in the eye and ask for what I’m asking for.
A voice in the shadowy street, close to him, asked him for something—money, probably, or a drink—and he lashed out, but his fist found only air and darkness.
8 DAYS LATER. SAVANNAH, GEORGIA. 9 AM EST. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2025.
The captain of Martin Fierro, a quiet Norwegian with excellent English, was sometimes talkative. Gradually they had learned that he had been trying to find some ship going to Norway to search for his family. They had heard the story of his jury-rigging sails when the engines died on his Polish freighter, and how he had limped into Buenos Aires just a week before the failed nuclear attack. Almost every conversation with him ended with his saying that he took ships where they were supposed to go, trained his officers, and hoped for some strong reason to live.
“The thing I always liked about Savannah,” he said, “was the no-nonsense. They were a great port city but not just because they were sitting in the right place like Buenos Aires or New York. The most modern freight-handling system on this continent and always upgrading, eh?”
“Used to move a lot of freight real fast,” the pilot said, never taking his eyes from the channel.
“But you see they built it all downriver from the city, because it’s faster to unload to rail as soon as you can, so the piers and the docks up in the city, they were for smaller ships and museum pieces and pleasure boats, you see? They kept those in good shape too. And when Daybreak came and everything stopped and rotted where it was, the big modern ships at the big modern facilities just stayed there along the south bank—but they had an open channel up to decent docks in the old city. This will be a big city before Manbrookstat is one again. This and Morgan City, they’re your new America, you know.”
“If the country even looks outward at all,” Larry said.
“I’m a seaman; a country is its ports.”
“How was Daybreak down here?” Jason asked.
The pilot shrugged. “Bad—but we lived. Things were a lot worse, other places. Down here, people coped. ’f they’ad friends or relatives to walk to, they did. Some rioting and shooting from people who I guess didn’ave nothin’ better to do. Lotta rationing, people boarding up their houses and moving to shelters, the Army and Guard ran the place till’bout July. Lost a lotta old people and everyone who depended on modern medicine, and there’s people calling this the Year of No Babies, so many things carried off the little ones. But between us and the military and the Lord, we got through and it’s looking better. Maybe three-quarters of the people that were here on Daybreak day ain’t back yet, ’cause they need hands out on the farms.”
Around the bend, the old city spread out before them. The pilot asked if they’d ever been to Savannah before; only Chris had. “But only as a cameraman for the news, so I never saw anything.”
“Well, people from elsewhere tell me it’s real pretty,” the pilot said. “I’ve never been anywhere else, really, so to me it all looks kind of regular.”
The walk through a functioning city made them all feel like hapless hicks. Savannah had been a rich and beautiful town for 150 years and more before Daybreak, and it had reverted, painfully but effectively, to a real human place. “Like Put-in-Bay,” Jason said, after a while.
“Yeah,” Chris said. “Or Pale Bluff, or Grant’s Pass. One of those places that’s just managed to hang on as a good place. I guess that’s what it’s all about.”
Larry nodded. “Good, then it’s worth it.” He seemed distant; when he spotted the telegraph office, he all but ran to it. Shrugging, Chris and Jason sat down on a park bench to wait for him.
Twice in the half hour while they waited, men in a tan uniform asked them what they were doing, and having established that they weren’t local, took down their names and the fact that they would be leaving town soon. The second time, the man said, apropos of nothing, “You’re not in Olympia, here, you know.”
When he was completely out of earshot, Jason said, “I don’t think I like local law enforcement.”
“I’m not even sure those are cops,” Chris said. “But I’m pretty sure they’re not the Welcome Wagon.”
Larry came back looking grim. “I’m sure you both guessed,” he said, looking down at the ground and speaking very softly, “that there was a secret part of this mission that might or might not be activated?”
They nodded slightly, in unison.
“It’s activated. I’ve been advised to tell you nothing more than to follow me if things suddenly go off plan. They don’t want you to know too much. Your lives could depend on that, if things go wrong. Just stay loose and ready to jump.”
“Right on,” Jason said.
“You bet,” Chris added.
“Okay, now the public, non-coded telegram I have here apparently is our pass onto the train, if we just present it to the FedRail desk in the railroad station. Let’s see how that part goes.”
Finding it was easy. Just south of downtown, Savannah had had a railroad museum before Daybreak, and like the one in Golden, Colorado, having so much old steam-train gear in one place had made this area a center of development. “You must rate,” the clerk said, smiling at them. “First class all the way with all the extras. The train leaves at 3 p.m., none too sharp, but it’ll help us if you’re here waiting, and when it goes it goes, so be here at three unless you want your packs to go to Athens without you. Got your ration cards and chapel passes?”
“A ration card sounds like a good idea,” Larry said, “if we can write you a purchase order on the RRC’s account. How’s the food in the mess halls?”
The clerk had obviously heard that question before. “We don’t have public mess halls here anymore. We got over socialism quick. The thing is if you don’t have a ration card, no one can sell you any food in any form, restaurant or grocery or anything. You don’t legally need a chapel pass if you stay less than twenty-four hours, but it helps to have one if a militiaman stops you on the street, and you have to have one to buy printed matter like newspapers or books. And yeah, I’ll take a draft on Pueblo; it’s easier to process than the farmers that come in and give me okra.”
“Well, then, whatever number of ration coupons we need for our meals today, and three chapel passes.”
“You going to eat on the train? Honestly it’s better’n anything local, so you should make that your supper.”
“Thanks, yes, we’ll do that.”
The clerk scribbled on a carbon pad, speaking quickly and without expression, going through a well-rehearsed routine. “Ration coupons coming up. You show it to the waiter or clerk going in, and then they take it from you at the end. Don’t let them grab it before you’ve got your food and paid for it. A lot of them lie and threaten to turn you in for not giving them one. If they do trick you that way, the going price to let you go is four times the price of a ration coupon.