Mark was stunned. “Just what is so extra special about corn dodgers?”
Horrie got his mouth clear. “They aren’t fish, that’s what! Look, for all of me the whole world is starving except us. We aren’t starving. For a couple of months we were, then all of a sudden there was fish everywhere, but only two kinds. Catfish and goldfish. The only problem is cooking them. We—”
“Hold up!” That was Mark. “You didn’t really say goldfish, did you?”
“They look like goldfish, but big. That’s what you’re eating now. Gary Fisher says goldfish can grow to any size. The catfish were always there, in the streams. You want me to shut up? Pass me that bag of corn dodgers.”
They passed Horrie the bag. Tim ate with enthusiasm. He hadn’t tasted fish in a long time, and it was good, even dried. He wondered why there were suddenly so many fish, then considered how their food supply had exploded. All those dead things floating in the water. It only bothered him for a moment.
“But why goldfish?” Mark Czescu wondered.
Gillcuddy laughed at him. “Easy to picture. Here’s a rising freshwater sea, and here’s a living room with a goldfish bowl in it. The water rises, breaks through the picture window, and suddenly the most docile of household pets is whirled out of his cage into the great wide world. ‘Free at last!’ he cries.” Gillcuddy bit into a filet of goldfish and added, “Freedom has its price, of course.”
Horrie ate corn dodgers in single-minded silence.
Mark rummaged through his pockets and came up with a tiny scrap of cigar. He popped it into his mouth and chewed. “I would kill for a Lucky Strike,” he said.
“You may well have the opportunity,” Jason Gillcuddy said.
Mark grinned in the dark. “I can hope. That’s why I volunteered.”
“Really?” said Tim.
“Not really. Anything beats breaking rocks.”
Jason Gillcuddy laughed at a private thought. “Let’s see,” he said. “You’d kill for a Lucky Strike. I suppose you’d maim for a Tareyton?”
“Right!” Mark roared approval.
“And shout insults for a Carlton,” Hugo Beck said. They all laughed, but it died quickly; they were still nervous around Hugo Beck.
“Now you know why I’m here,” Mark said. “But why you, Tim?”
Tim shook his head. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. No, forget I said that. It feels like I owe somebody something…” The people he’d driven past. The cops working to unearth a hospital while a tidal wave marched toward them. “…and Eileen’s pregnant.”
When he didn’t go on, Horrie Jackson called without looking back. “So?”
“So I’ll have children. Don’t you see?”
“I’m here,” Hugo Beck said without being asked, “because nobody at the Stronghold would look at me.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Tim said. “If anyone wants to surrender, you tell ’em what it means.”
Beck chewed that. “They don’t have to know about me, do they?”
A look passed among them. “Not till they have to,” Tim said quickly, and he turned to Jason. “You’re the one I don’t understand. You’re Harry’s friend. They couldn’t possibly make you volunteer.”
Jason chuckled. “No, I’m a genuine volunteer, all right. Had to. You ever read my books?” He went on before any of them could answer. “Full of the marvels of civilization, what great things science does for us. Now how could I not volunteer for this crazy mission?” Gillcuddy looked out at the dark night and darker water. “But there’s places I’d rather be.”
“Sure,” Tim said. “The Savoy Hotel in London. With Eileen. That’s what I want.”
“And Hugo wants the Shire back,” Mark said.
“No.” Hugo Beck’s voice was firm. “No, I want civilization.” When nobody stopped him he went on, eagerly. “I want a hot car and some practice talking a cop out of giving me a ticket. I want Gone With The Wind on a noncommercial channel, no interruptions. I want dinner at Mon Grenier restaurant with a woman who can’t spell ‘ecology’ but she’s read the Kama Sutra.”
“And spotted the mistakes,” Mark said.
“You knew Mon Grenier?” Gillcuddy demanded.
“Sure. I lived in Tarzana. You’ve been there?”
“Mushroom salad.” said Gillcuddy.
“Bouillabaisse. With a chilled Moselle,” Tim said. They talked of meals they’d never eaten and now never would.
“And I missed most of my chances,” Hugo Beck said. “I had to start a goddam commune. Fellows, let me tell you, it doesn’t work.”
“I’d never have guessed,” Jason said. Hugo Beck retreated from the irony in Gillcuddy’s voice, and the writer said quickly, “Anyway, we carry miracles. I think.” He kicked a large sack that lay in the bottom of the boat. “Will this stuff work?”
“Forrester says it will,” Mark said, “especially if you give it a good kick. But we don’t have much with us. Hardy bargains hard.”
Horrie Jackson looked back from his place at the wheel “Jesus, I’ll say he does. I’m here.”
The drizzle turned gray and lighter gray. Ninety-three million miles eastward, the Sun must be placidly unaffected by the greatest disaster in written history. The boats floated on an endless sea dotted with debris. The corpses of men and animals were gone now. Horrie Jackson increased speed, but not by a lot. There were logs and bits of houses, inflated tires, the jetsam of civilization. Treetops showed like rectangular arrays of puffy bushes; but there were single trees, and some were just submerged. Any of that could tear the bottom out of their boat.
Hugo Beck called across the boat, “Hey, Mark. What would you do for a Silva Thin?”
“Get your hand off my knee and I’ll tell you.”
Jackson steered by compass through the gloomy dawn. There was no one else on the lake, only the small flotilla. Cindy Lu labored in the rear, a big motor with a tiny boat molded around her, roaring her frustration at the weight she must pull. Horrie bellowed above the sound of his own motor, “I’ll come back with a boatload of fish, enough to feed everyone in that power plant. What I want in return is enough of those corn things to fill that gunnysack the fish was in. Now, it’s not that big a sack…”
Tim Hamner peered ahead into the rain. Something ahead? At first he saw an island with rectangular shapes jutting upward. Not unusual… but as they got closer he saw that some of the shapes were cylinders, and big. He looked for motion, human shapes. They had to have heard Cindy Lu’s roar.
Alim Nassor found Hooker and Jerry Owen in the command post. Maps were spread across the table, and Hooker was moving small cardboard units on them. A voice cut through the fabric wall to thunder in Alim’s ear.
“For their pride is the pride of the magicians of old, who thought to force all Nature to their bidding. But ours is the pride of those who trust in the Lord. Our need is not for the magicians’ weapons, but only for the Lord’s favor…”
Hooker looked up in disgust. “Crazy bastard.”
Alim shrugged.
They needed Armitage, and despite the cynical talk they used when Armitage wasn’t around, most of them at least partly believed in the preacher’s message. “Well, I got nothing against wrecking the damn power plant,” Hooker said. “It’s got to go, I can see that. But it’s—”
“Sure! It takes a lot of industry to support something like that.” Jerry Owen spoke with no idea that he was interrupting. “If we have that plant, we’ll want to use the electricity. First because it’s convenient, then because we need it, and then it’s too later Then we’ll need all the other industry to keep the nuclear plant running. Industrial society all over again, and that’s the end of freedom and brotherhood, because we’ll need wage slavery to—”