The children had adjusted quickly to the new conditions.
One elderly adult as teacher, a dozen or more children, two working dogs and a herd of swine school and work. A different sort of school with different lessons. Reading and arithmetic, certainly, but also other knowledge: to lead the pigs to dog droppings (the dogs in turn ate part of the human sewage); and always to carry a bucket to collect the pig manure, which must be brought back at night. Other lessons: how to trap rats and squirrels. Rats were important to the new ecology. They had to be kept out of the Stronghold’s barns (cats did most of that), but the rats were themselves usefuclass="underline" They found their own food, they could be eaten, their fur made clothing and shoes, and their small bones made needles. There were prizes for the children who caught the most rats.
Closer to town was the sewage works, where the animal and human wastes were shoveled into boilers with wood chips and sawdust. The heat of fermentation sterilized everything, and the hot gases were led out through pipes that ran under City Hall and the hospital to form part of the heating system, then condensed. The resulting methanol, wood alcohol, ran the trucks that collected the wastes, with some left over for other work. The system wasn’t complete — they needed more boilers, and more pipes and condensers, and the work absorbed too much skilled labor — but Hardy could be deservedly proud of the start they had made. By spring they’d have a lot of high-nitrogen fertilizer from the residue in the boilers, all sterilized and ready for the crops they’d plant — and there should be enough methanol to run tractors for the initial heavy work of plowing.
We’ve done well, she thought. There’s a lot more to do, all kinds of work. Windmills to build. Waterwheels. Crops to plant. A forge to set up. Hardy had found an old book on working bronze and methods of casting it in sand, but they hadn’t had time to do much about it yet. Now they’d have the time, now that there was no threat of war hanging over them. Harvey Randall had been singing when he came into the ranch house after the battle. “Ain’t gonna study war no more!”
It wasn’t going to be easy. She looked up at the clouds; they were turning dark. She wished the sunlight would break through, not because she wanted to see the sun again, although she certainly did, but because it would be so appropriate: a symbol of their eventual success. Instead there were only the darkening clouds, but she refused to let them depress her. It would be so easy to fall back into her black mood of despair.
Harvey Randall had been right about that: It was worth almost anything to spare people that feeling of helplessness and doom. But first you had to conquer it in yourself. You had to look squarely at this new and terrible world, know what it could and would do to you — and shout defiance. Then you could get to work.
The thought of Harvey reminded her of Johnny Baker, and she wondered what had happened to the expedition to the power plant. They should be all right now. With the New Brotherhood defeated, the power plant should be all right, now that they’d repelled that first, tentative attack. But…
Their last message had come three days ago.
Maybe there had been a second attack. Certainly the radio was out. Maureen shivered. Maybe a damn transistor had given up the ghost, or maybe everybody was dead. There was just no way to tell. Johnny would have been in the thick of things … he was too damn visible…
So let it be a transistor, she told herself, and keep busy. She turned downhill toward the hospital.
Alim Nassor gasped for breath and couldn’t find it. He sat propped up in the truck bed; if he lay down, he would drown. His lungs were filling anyway, and it wouldn’t be long. They had failed. The Brotherhood was defeated, and Alim Nassor was a dead man.
Swan was dead. Jackie was dead. Most of his band, dead in the valley of the Tule River, killed by choking clouds of yellow gas that stung like fire. He felt Erika’s hands moving a cloth over his face, but he couldn’t focus his eyes on her. She was a good woman. White woman, but she stayed with Alim, got him out when the others ran away. He wanted to tell her so. If he could speak…
He felt the truck slow, and heard someone call a challenge. They had reached the new camp, and somebody had organized sentries. Hooker? Alim thought the Hook had lived. He hadn’t crossed the river; he was directing the mortars, and that should have been safe unless he was caught by the pursuit. Alim wondered if he wanted Hooker to have lived. Nothing really mattered anymore. The Hammer had killed Alim Nassor.
The truck stopped near a campfire, and he felt himself being lifted out. They put him near the fire, and that felt good.
Erika stayed by him, and someone brought him a cup of hot soup. It was too much trouble to tell them they were wasting good broth; that he wouldn’t live past the next time he fell asleep. He’d drown in his own phlegm. He coughed, hard, to try to clear his lungs so he could talk, but that hurt too bad, and he stopped.
Gradually he heard a voice.
“And ye have defied the Lord God of Hosts! Ye placed your faith in armies, ye Angels of the Lord. Strategy! What do the Angels need of strategy! Place your trust in the Lord God Jehovah! Do His work! Work His will, o my people. Destroy the Citadel of Satan as God wills it, and then can ye conquer!”
The voice of the prophet lashed over him. “Weep not for the fallen, for they have fallen in the service of the Lord! Great shall be their reward. O ye Angels and Archangels, hear me! This is no time for sorrow! This is a time to go forth in the Name of the Lord!”
“No,” Alim gasped, but no one heard.
“We can do it,” a voice said nearby. It took Alim a moment to recognize it. Jerry Owen. “They don’t have any poison gas in the power plant. Even if they do, it won’t matter. We take all the mortars and recoilless rifles out on the barge and blow up the turbines. That’ll end that power plant.”
“Strike in the Name of God!” Armitage was shouting. There were some answers now. “Hallelujah!” someone called. “Amen!” another said. Tentative at first, but as Armitage continued, the responses became more enthusiastic.
“Shee-it.” That had to be Sergeant Hooker. Alim couldn’t turn his head to look at him. “Alim, you hear me?”
Alim nodded slightly.
“He says he hears,” Erika said. “Leave him alone. He’s got to rest. I wish he’d get some sleep.”
Sleep! That would kill him for sure. Every breath was a fight, something to struggle for, an effort of will. If he relaxed for a moment he’d stop breathing.
“What the hell do I do now?” Hooker was asking. “You the only brother left I can rap with.”
Words formed on Alim’s lips. Erika translated. “He asks how many brothers are left.”
“Ten,” Hooker said.
Ten blacks. Were they the last blacks in the world? Of course not. Africa was still there. Wasn’t it? They hadn’t seen any black faces among their enemies, though. Maybe there weren’t any more in California. He whispered again. “He says ten is not enough,” Erika said.
“Yeah.” Hooker bent low, to speak into Alim’s ear. No one else could hear. “I got to stay with this preacher,” he said. “Alim, is he crazy? Is he right? I can’t think no more.”
Alim shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about that. Armitage was speaking again, of the paradise that waited for the fallen. The words blended into the vague, slow thoughts that crept into Alim’s consciousness. Paradise. Maybe it was true. Maybe that crazy preacher was right. It was better to think so. “He knows the truth,” Alim gasped.