Michael was shouting, “That’s pretty good, Dad-“
Rourke wheeled, firing the fifth and last round into the remaining stump of the tree, the distance fifteen feet, the stump cracking, a chunk of pine wood perhaps two inches in diameter sailing skyward. Rourke pulled off his shooter’s earmuffs; Mi-chael, approaching, did the same. Rourke, his voice almost a whisper, said, “I like a .45 better, or a double action. But if you’re wedded to these, maybe that’s more important. They’re good guns.”
Annie—nearly twelve, shouted from the en-trance to the Retreat. “I cracked open the last jar of peanut butter—anybody want a -cornbread and peanut butter sandwich?”
Rourke looked at Michael—Michael looked at him.
Annie was turning into a good cook for a girl of her years. “Come on—peanut butter sandwiches with fresh strawberries and tomatoes and a green pea and asparagus salad. Come on!”
A fine cook, if somewhat bizarre.
Chapter Six
Rourke sipped at a glass of the corn whiskey. The first batch had been too strong, but this was palatable enough. He still had a more than ample supply of civilized Seagram’s Seven but almost three years ago had started the still. Michael was planning to produce beer eventually. Rourke had never worshipped beer that terribly much, but if he were nearly fourteen, he supposed that he might— in anticipation.
They sat in the kitchen, Annie talking. “I wish we could find some surviving dairy animals—
anything. Even a goat. I’ve got some great recipes for cheese, for yogurt, and you’ve got the starters I need. Remember that yogurt I tried with the dehydrated milk?” “It was good, sweetheart,” Rourke told his daughter. She reminded him of her mother, except for the hair color. She had not cut her hair either, not since the Awakening. He mentally corrected himself—occasionally she trimmed “split ends,” as she called them. He imagined she had picked up the term from a book or from a videotape. But her hair, when it was unbound as it was now, reached past her waist, still the same dark honey blond color it had always been. She was becoming a woman—but he would miss the little girl she so rarely was nowadays. He had told her what to expect—when she actually became a woman. For there would be no woman there, no adult.
He had explained to both children what they would feel in their bodies, and explained to both of them the obvious limitations their environment would impose.
But he had planned for that as well…
They sat in the great room, Rourke on the couch, Michael on the reclining chair, but the chair not reclined, the back up straight. Annie sat cross-legged, Indian fashion, on the floor. Behind them—Rourke suddenly noticing it—was the soft hum of the cryogenic chambers. “We six are the future—it’s important that all six of us survive to make that future. I haven’t really taught you anything, either of you, except the means to improve your skills, to acquire real knowledge. Sixteen years will pass after tonight before I see either of you again, yet daily each of you will see me, see your mother—she is unchanging. SeePau] and Natalia. I’m not leaving you—either of you— an easy task. Not at all. If something comes up for which I wasn’t able to prepare you, you’ll have to solve it. If it cannot be solved, then awaken me from the sleep and hope that I can solve it. If either of you is so seriously injured that the medical techniques I’ve taught you and the reference material available cannot alleviate the situation, then awaken me from the sleep. If there is a problem with the/ Retreat systems which you cannot solve, th£n awaken me. At even the slightest intimafion that the cryogenic systems are failing or thepower is failing, awaken the four of us instantly. Instantly.”
He looked at Annie. “I want you to pursue your interest in things creative—creativity is vital to survival, mentally as well as physically. Don’t redecorate the Retreat—I kind of !ike it the way it is. But exercise your mind, practice the fighting techniques I’ve taught you—but don’t break your brother in half.”
“Dad,” Michael laughed.
Annie only smiled.
“Move up from those .38s out of my Python— start into .357 Magnums. Don’t get hooked on single action revolvers like your brother.” “I like that Detonics Scoremaster you let me try once—it’s pretty and it’s accurate.”
“Fine—but wait a few years before you get into
it, and the gun is yours.”
“All right.” She smiled, the corners of her mouth dimpling. He looked at Michael. “I’m not sounding chauvinistic—at least I hope not. But you’re two years older, and you’re a man. Fourteen is a rough age to start being a man, but you started when you were younger than that and saved your mother’s life with those Brigands, helped your mother and Annie out of that swollen lake when the dam burst. You’ve got an ego I haven’t seen the like of since my own. That can be a positive feature if you can control it. A negative feature if you can’t. But you’ll be in charge. I think Annie accepts that,” and Rourke looked at his daughter. She smiled, laughing a little, but nodded. He looked back to Michael. “If I didn’t think you could handle it, I wouldn’t say you were in charge. You’re the one responsible for yourself, your sister and, while we sleep, for the four of us. And when you work with that smokeless powder you’re experimenting with, don’t blow yourself up.” He looked at his son and laughed. Michael stood up, stabbing his hands into the side pockets of his Levi’s, the cuffs turned up because they were Levi’s Rourke had put in the Retreat to wear for himself and Michael was not yet his height. “I won’t let Annie down—I won’t let you, or Mom, or Paul or Natalia down. I don’t know how smooth it’s gonna go for the next sixteen years, but it’ll be all right.” John Rourke stood, Michael Rourke walking toward him. John Rourke outstretched his right hand to his son. His son took it. Annie stood up, embracing them both. In a few hours, John Rourke would sleep again.
Chapter Seven
The scoped Stalker slung diagonally across his back, Michael Rourke started down from the rocks, into the valley, the Retreat—his father had told him once that^Jatalia Tiemerovna referred to it as “Rourke’s Mountain”—in the distance. He had begun ranging the mountains surrounding the Retreat when he was twenty and in nearly ten years, he had seen no sign of animal life, but the vegetation—where it grew at all—was thicker and lusher with each spring. He quickened his pace— Annie, who had turned into a superb cook, was fixing meat. It was a special-occasion delicacy usually—for his birthday or her own, but this was not January, the month of both their birthdays. Annie, that morning, had simply said, “I’m tired of being a vegetarian—I’m taking some meat out of one of the freezers. Make sure you’re not late for dinner.” Michael Rourke hadn’t argued.
A rabbit or a squirrel—had he seen one, he would not have shot it, but attempted to follow it.
^ He would have brought such an animal food from their gardens. But no such animal existed.
No birds flew in the sky. No insect buzzed.
Some type of beetle to attack the vegetables in the gardens would have been welcome, but there were none.
Perhaps in other parts of the world, or at lower a altitudes—perhaps. He had taken one of the three Harley Davidson Low Riders once, taken it far from the Retreat. That had been five years ago. He had ranged for more than a hundred miles in the four cardinal directions. He had found the rusted, gutted remains of an automobile. He had found the ruins of what had once been a city—skeletons of buildings now. Not even a human bone survived. But the strategic fuel supplies were intact—it had been the announced reason for the trip. He had checked two of the reserves and they still held their precious gasoline.