"Well, no..."
"Guns bother people because the people don't understand them. People are generally afraid of something they don't understand. Try showing a seismograph to an Australian bushman and the stylus moving along the graph paper making strange lines will scare him to death— just like you and this." Rourke balanced the little Colt in his right hand, then slipped it under his jacket in the small of his back.
"Maybe you're right," the girl said. "But— weapons, all of that— it caused this," she said as she stared toward the orange-red horizon.
"No," Rourke whispered. "Just like my analogy with the Brigands. Nuclear power could have been used for good, and in a lot of ways it was— maybe it still will be. It's the same thing with people not understanding something, being afraid of it. The Russians never really understood us; we never really understood them. The few on both sides who did understand didn't start the war. It was the people who never took the time to understand, or the ones who didn't want to. That's why you're trying to alert what's left of Army Intelligence to an impending disaster, that's why I'm searching for my wife and children. Not enough people understood or cared to. That's why we're here now."
"It's all over, really— isn't it?" the girl whispered hoarsely, her words choked and halting.
"I think so— I'm not sure. I don't know if anybody is. But you can't just lie down and die. As long as you're breathing there's a chance."
"But the sunsets, the sunrises, the weather— all of it—" the woman began.
"We've done something that may never have been done before, or maybe the world reached a level of sophistication like ours eons ago— I don't know," he whispered slowly.
"Maybe history does repeat itself. All the crap we belted into the atmosphere— it hasn't been like that since there was mass vulcanism millions of years ago. What kind of effect it's going to have, I don't know. I'm a doctor— you're a scientist. Do you know?"
"No, but..."
"Maybe you're lucky— maybe we're both lucky."
Rourke looked up at the sky again. The sun had finally winked below the horizon and stars were visible, though the sky seemed purple more than black or deep blue.
"Do you think there's anyone out there?" she asked, her voice soft, little-girl sounding.
"Maybe that's the greatest tragedy of this whole thing," Rourke answered slowly. "Maybe we'll never know. I kind of think there has to be. Maybe if we'd encountered a civilization that had gotten itself over the technological hump and still survived we could have learned how to do it."
"You're a strange man, John— I mean, a doctor who runs around on a motorcycle and carries guns. You don't fit any mold I ever encountered."
"I'll take that as a compliment." Rourke smiled in the darkness. "We'd better get on the way to Savannah— see what we can do to contact what government there is."
"Then you got the gas for your motorcycle?"
"Uh-huh," Rourke answered absently. He stared starward— wondering.
Chapter 8
"I think I'm the last— Jeez! That hurts!"
Sarah Rourke bent over the blond-haired man's left thigh, her face close to it. The wound didn't smell and she surmised that was a good sign. She wished she'd taken her hospital volunteer work more seriously, or watched John more closely the few times she'd seen him work. She remembered once shortly after they'd married they had met a doctor Rourke had worked with during his internship, before he'd essentially abandoned medicine and gone to work for the Central Intelligence Agency. The man—
she tried to remember his name... Feinstein? Feinburg? It was something like that, she'd decided. The man, whatever his name, had told her something while John had stepped away for a few moments. John still smoked cigarettes in those days, and he might have gone to get a fresh pack. It was years ago, she thought. The doctor had told her, though, that John had been the most promising man he'd ever worked with in medicine— with hands skilled enough to make him a top surgeon, had he chosen to become one, and a mind quick enough to make important life-and-death decisions and then act. The latter quality—
the doctor's name had been Feinmann, she finally remembered— was the rare thing, the thing that made greatness in a doctor.
Sarah Rourke looked at the Resistance fighter on the cot beside her. "What's your name?" she remembered to ask.
"Harmon Kleinschmidt," he told her, the voice strained.
"Well, Mr. Klein—" She stopped and started again. "Harmon— my husband, the children's' father, is a doctor. I'm not. I had some first-aid courses, rolled bandages as a volunteer, and watched my husband operate a few times in emergencies. I know what to do to get your wounds cleaned up, maybe I can even take out a bullet if it isn't too close to something vital. But since I'm the best you've got right now and since we've got Russians all around us, why don't you just shut up and bite on a towel or something and let me do what I can. Okay?"
Kleinschmidt fell back against the rolled blanket he used as a pillow. "Can I talk?" he rasped. She didn't look up at him, but it sounded as though he'd spoken through clenched teeth.
"Sure— if it helps," she whispered. She glanced over her shoulder. Michael and Annie were rubbing down the horses, not watching. She was happy for that because the leg wound wasn't pretty, and after that there was still the shoulder wound.
"They got all of us— all but me. Most of the women and kids pulled out after the men all got themselves nailed. Me, I tried making it somewhere, anywhere— I wound up here."
Sarah didn't think the man was making too much sense, "What happened?" she asked, not really caring, but trying to keep his mind occupied. There was a big, deformed chunk of metal very close to the bone in his upper thigh and she knew that removing it would hurt.
"Well... hmmm," he groaned. "Well, they— the Reds— we figured to git 'em. Figured they needed Savannah as a seaport. Rumors seem to be the Ruskies gave Florida over to Castro's army. If they couldn't use Florida, Savannah would have to have been mighty important as a seaport. So, we figured we could screw 'em good— sorry ma'am," he rasped, "if we made their lives miserable. We were doin'
okay 'til we started coordinating everythin' with that U.S. II."
"What's U.S. II?" Sarah asked. She was using a small pair of forceps from the first-aid kit John had made up before the Night of the War and she had carried it from the house. "The house," she groaned under her breath.
"What ma'am?" Kleinschmidt asked.
"Nothing, Harmon. Tell me what U.S. II is? Go on." She started probing with the forceps for the bullet. Any minute now, he'd scream, she told herself.
"Well, I don't completely understand it myself. Seems some fella named Sam Chambers was the last man to survive from the President's cabinet. Makes him the new President. There was a letter goin'