“Arthur waited long to see you. He hoped you would come early, that he might see you again.”
“I would have liked — Didn’t anyone know?”
“No.”
“But why not? That gyroscope was tracking me.”
“No one knew your arrival date; no one would guess. The gyroscope device could not measure your progress after the power failed here. We knew only the date of failure, when the TDV suddenly stopped transmitting signals to the computer there. You were wholly lost to us, Brian.”
“Sheeg! Those goddam infallible engineers and their goddam infallible inventions!” He caught himself and was embarrassed at the outburst. “Excuse me, Katrina,” Chaney reached across the table and closed his hands over hers. “I found the Commander’s grave outside — I wish I had been on time. And I had already decided not to tell you about that grave when I went back, when I turned in my report.” He peered at her. “I didn’t tell anyone, did I?”
“No, you reported nothing.”
A satisfied nod. “Good for me — I’m still keeping my mouth shut. The Commander made me promise not to tell you about your future marriage, a week or so ago when we returned from the Joliet trials. But you tried to pry the secret out of me, remember?”
She smiled at his words. “A week or so ago.”
Chaney mentally kicked himself. “I have this bad habit of putting my foot in my mouth.”
A little movement of her head to placate him. “But I guessed at your secret, Brian. Between your manner and Arthur’s deportment, I guessed it. You put yourself away from me.”
“I think you had already made up your mind. The little signs were beginning to show, Katrina.” He had a vivid memory of the victory party the night of their return.
She said: “I had almost decided at that time, and I did decide a short while afterward; I did decide when he came back hurt from his survey. He was so helpless, so near death when you and the doctor took him from the vehicle I decided on the spot.” She glanced at his enfolding hands and then raised her eyes. “But I was aware of your own intentions. I knew you would be hurt.”
He squeezed her fingers with encouragement. “Long ago and far away, Katrina. I’m getting over it.”
She made no reply, knowing it to be a half-truth.
“I met the children—” He stopped, aware of the awkwardness. “Children they are not — they’re older than I am! I met Arthur and Kathryn out there but they were afraid of me.”
Katrina nodded and again her gaze slid away from him to rest on his enveloping hands.
“Arthur is ten years older than you, I think, but Kathryn should be about the same age. I am sorry I can’t be more precise than that; I am sorry I can’t tell you how long my husband has been dead. We no longer know time here, Brian; we only live from one summer to the next. It is not the happiest existence.” After a while her hands moved inside his, and she glanced up again. “They were afraid of you because they’ve known no other man since the station was overrun, since the military personnel left here and we stayed within the fence for safety. For a year or two we dared not even leave this building.”
Bitterly: “The people out there were afraid of me, too. They ran away from me.”
She was quickly astonished, and betrayed alarm.
“Which people? Where?”
“The family I found outside the fence — down there by the railroad tracks.”
“There is no one alive out there.”
“Katrina, there is — I saw them, called to them, begged them to come back, but they ran away in fear.”
“How many? Were there many of them?”
“Three. A family of three: father, mother, and a little boy. I found them walking along the railroad track out there beyond the northwest corner. The little fellow was picking up something — pieces of coal, perhaps — and putting them in a bag his mother carried; they seemed to be making a game of it. They were walking in peace, in contentment until I called to them.”
Tersely: “Why did you do that? Why did you call attention to yourself?”
“Because I was lonely! Because I was sick and hurt at sight of an empty world! I yelled out because those people were the only living things I’d found here, other than a frightened rabbit. I wanted their company, I wanted their news! I would have given them everything I owned for only an hour of their time. Katrina, I wanted to know if people were still living in this world.” He stopped and took tighter rein on his emotions. More quietly: “I wanted to talk to them, to ask questions, but they were afraid of me — scared witless, shocked by sight of me. They ran like that frightened rabbit and I never saw them again. I can’t tell you how much that hurt me.”
She pulled her hands from his and dropped them into her lap.
“Katrina—”
She wouldn’t look up at once, but steadfastly kept her gaze on the tabletop. The movement of her hands had left small trails in the dust. He thought the tiny bundle of her seemed more wilted and withdrawn than before: the taut skin on her face appeared to have aged in the last few minutes — or perhaps that age had been claiming her all the while they talked.
“Katrina, please.”
After a long while she said: “I am sorry, Brian. I will apologize for my children, and for that family. They dared not trust you, none of them, and the poor family felt they had good reason to fear you.” Her head came up and he felt shock. “Everyone fears you; no one will trust you since the rebellion. I am the only one here who does not fear a black man.”
He was hurt again, not by her words but because she was crying. It was painful to watch her cry.
Brian Chaney came into the briefing room a second time. He was carrying another lantern, two plastic cups, and a container of water from the stores. He would have brought along a bottle of whiskey if that had been available, but it was likely that the Commander had long ago consumed the whiskey on his successive birthdays.
The old woman had wiped her eyes dry.
Chaney filled both cups and set the first one on the table before her. “Drink up — we’ll drink a toast.”
“To what, Brian?”
“To what? Do we need an excuse?” He swung his arm in an expansive gesture which took in the room. “To that damned clock up there: knocking off sixty-one seconds while my ears suffered. To that red telephone: I never used it to call the President and tell him he was a dunce. To us: a demographer from the Indiana Corporation, and a research supervisor from the Bureau of Standards — the last two misfits sitting at the end of the world. We’re out of place and out of time, Katrina: they don’t need demographers and researchers here — they don’t have corporations and bureaus here. Drink to us.”
“Brian, you are a clown.”
“Oh, yes.” He sat down and looked at her closely in the lantern light. “Yes, I am that. And I think you are almost smiling again. Please smile for me.”
Katrina smiled: pale shadow of an old smile.
Chaney said: “Now that is why I still love you!” He lifted his cup. “To the most beautiful researcher in the world — and you may drink to the most frustrated demographer in the world. Bottoms up!” Chaney emptied the cup, and thought the water tasted flat — stale.
She nodded over the rim of her cup and sipped.
Chaney stared at the long table, the darkened lights overhead, the stopped clock, the dead telephones. “I’m supposed to be working — making a survey.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Have to keep Seabrooke happy. I can report a family out there: at least one family alive and living in peace. I suppose there are more — there has to be more. Do you know of anyone else? Anyone at all?”