The filly trotted on. The shouts died away behind him, like a bad memory slowly fading. It promised to be fair weather, the first in weeks without clouds. A good day for traveling.
As Gordon rode on, a cool breeze blew through his half open shirtfront. A hundred yards down the road he found his hand drifting to the buttons again, twisting one slowly, back and forth.
The pony sauntered, slowed, and came to a halt. Gordon sat, his shoulders hunched forward.
Who will take responsibility …
The words would not go away, lights pulsing in his mind.
The horse tossed her head and snorted, pawing at the ground.
Who… ?”
Gordon cried out, “Aw, hell!” He wheeled the filly about, sending her cantering southward again.
A babbling, frightened crowd of men and women stepped back in hushed silence as he clattered up to the portico of the House of Cyclops. His spirited mount danced and blew as he stared down at the people for a long, silent moment.
Finally, Gordon threw his poncho back. He rebuttoned his shirt and set the postman’s cap on his head so the bright brass rider shone in the light of the rising sun.
He took a deep breath. Then he began pointing, giving terse commands.
In the name of survival — and in the name of the “Restored United States” — the people of Corvallis and the Servants of Cyclops all hurried to obey.
INTERLUDE
High above gray, foam-flecked wavetops, the jet stream throbbed. Winter had come again, and winds moaned chill recollections over the north Pacific.
Fewer than twenty cycles past, the normal patterns of the air had been perturbed by great, dark funnels — as if armies of angry volcanoes had chosen the same moment to throw earth against sky.
If the episode had not ended quickly, perhaps all life might have vanished, and the ice returned forever. Even as it was, clouds of ash had blanketed the Earth for weeks before the larger grains fell out of the sky like dirty rain. Smaller bits of rock and soot dispersed into the high stratospheric streams, scattering the sunlight.
Years passed before spring came again, at last.
It did come. The Ocean — slow, resilient — surrendered up just enough heat to stop the spiral short of no-return. In time, warm, sea-drenched clouds again swept over the continent. The tall trees grew, and weeds sprouted earnestly, unmolested, through cracks in broken pavement.
Still, there remained plenty of dust, riding the high winds. Now and then the cold air ventured south again, carrying reminders of the Long Chill. Vapor crystalized around the grains, forming complex, fractal hexahedrons. Snowflakes grew and fell.
Obstinate, Winter arrived one more time to claim a dark country.
III. CINCINNATUS
1
Gusts sculpted whirling devil shapes in the blowing snow — flurries that seemed to rise, ghostlike, from the gray drifts, fluttering and darting windblown under the frosted trees.
A heavily laden branch cracked, unable to bear the weight of one more dingy snowflake. The report echoed like a muffled gunshot down the narrow forest lanes.
Snow delicately covered the death-glazed eyes of a starved deer, filling the channels between its starkly outlined ribs. Flakes soon hid faint grooves in the icy ground where the animal had last pawed, only hours ago, in its fruitless search for food.
Taking no sides, the dancing flurries went on to cloak other victims as well, settling soft white layers over crimson stains in the crushed, older snow.
All the corpses soon lay blanketed, peaceful, as if asleep.
The new storm had erased most signs of the struggle by the time Gordon found Tracy’s body under the dark shadow of a winter-whitened cedar. By then a frozen crust had stanched the bleeding. Nothing more flowed from the unlucky young woman’s slashed throat.
Gordon pushed away thoughts of Tracy as he had briefly known her in life — ever cheerful and brave, with a slightly mad enthusiasm for the hopeless job she had taken on. His lips pressed together grimly as he tore open her woolen shirt and reached in to feel under her armpit.
The body was still warm. This had not happened long ago.
Gordon squinted to the southwest, where tracks — already fading under the blowing snow — led off into the painful ice-brightness. In a flat, almost silent movement, a white-clad shape appeared beside him.
“Damn!” he heard Philip Bokuto whisper. “Tracy was good! I could have sworn those pricks wouldn’t have been able to—”
“Well, they did” Gordon cut him off sharply. “And it wasn’t more than ten minutes ago.”
Taking the girl’s belt buckle, he heaved her over to show the other man. The dark brown face under the white parka nodded silently, understanding. Tracy had not been molested, or even mutilated with Holnist symbols. This small band of hyper-survivalists had been in too much of a hurry even to stop and take their customary, grisly trophies.
“We can catch ‘em,” Bokuto whispered. Anger burned in his eyes. “I can fetch the rest of the patrol and be back here in three minutes.”
Gordon shook his head. “No, Phil. We’ve already chased them too far beyond our defense perimeter. They’ll have an ambush set by the time we get close. We’d better just collect Tracy’s body and go home now.”
Bokuto’s jaw clenched, a bunching of tendons. For the first time his voice rose above a whisper. “We can catch the bastards!”
Gordon felt a wave of irritation. What right does Philip have to do this to me? Bokuto had once been a sergeant in the Marines, before the world fell to ruin nearly two decades ago. It should have been his job, not Gordon’s, to make the practical, unsatisfying decisions… to be the one responsible.
He shook his head. “No, we will not. And that’s final.” He looked down at the girl — until this afternoon the second best scout in the Army of the Willamette… but apparently not quite good enough. “We need living fighters, Phil. We need fierce men, not more corpses.”
For a silent moment neither looked at the other. Then Bokuto pushed Gordon to one side and stepped over the still form on the snow.
“Give me five minutes before you bring up the rest of the patrol,” he told Gordon as he dragged Tracy’s body into the leeward shadow of the cedar and drew his knife. “You’re right, sir. We need angry men. Tracy and I’ll see to it that’s what you get.”
Gordon blinked. “Phil.” He reached forward. “Don’t.”
Bokuto ignored Gordon’s hand as he grimaced and tore Tracy’s shirt open wider. He did not look up, but his voice was broken. “I said you’re right! We have to make our cow-eyed farmers mad enough to fight! And this is one of the ways Dena and Tracy told us to use, if we had to…”
Gordon could hardly believe this. “Dena’s crazy, Phil! Haven’t you realized that by now? Please, don’t do this!” He grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him around, but then had to step back from the threatening glitter of Bokuto’s knife. His friend’s eyes were hot and agonized as he waved Gordon away.
“Don’t make this harder for me, Gordon! You’re my commander, and I’ll serve you so long as it’s the best way to kill as many of those Holnist bastards as possible.
“But Gordon, you get so frigging civilized at the worst of times! That’s when I draw the line. Do you hear me? I won’t let you betray Tracy, or Dena, or me with your fits of Twentieth-Century sappiness!
“Now, get outta here, Mr. Inspector… sir.” Bokuto’s voice was thick with emotion, “And remember to give me five minutes before you bring up the others.”
He glowered until Gordon had backed away. Then he spat on the ground, wiped one eye, and bent back to the grisly task awaiting him.