Footfall

“You’re still connected to that world you left. As long as you let civilization worry you, it’s one more way the desert can kill you. Relax. Go with the punches. There’s nothing they can do to us. We’ve already given up everything they control. Now it’s us.”

“Yeah, sure.” Marty tuned the set carefully. “You think you’ve quit, huh?” He’d thrown a wire for an antenna across the top of the tall pole somebody had set up as a flagpole years ago. It worked pretty well.

Four hours after dawn Shoshone would normally have been a furnace. This morning some strange clouds, wispy and very high, had begun to form quite early. They weren’t thick enough to block off the sun, but they must have had some effect. It was still hot enough to bring sweat.

Fox said, “I’m just taking a break. I’ll save the world when it wants saving again.”

“Okay, so nobody’s worried about the snail darter when the sky is full of bug-eyed monsters. But I’ve listened to you, John and you’d still like to make Washington—”

“Not Washington anymore.”

“Yeah. Atom bombs in Kansas don’t ruffle your feathers?… I think I got it tuned.”

“Ruffled feathers be damned.” Fox had his self-inflating mattress stretched out on a flat rock. He didn’t seem to notice the heat. Sprawled out with his coffee mug sitting on a flat stone, he looked indecently comfortable. “The question is, who’s going to listen?”

“Shh.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.”

“Hey, John, we got the President on.”

“Yeah?” But Fox moved his mattress closer.

“My fellow Americans, this morning the alien invaders struck at Earth with a large artificial meteor, which landed in the Southern Hemisphere, in the Indian Ocean. The effect was that of a tremendous bomb. My advisors inform me that we can expect some severe weather effects.”

“Meteor,” Fox muttered. He looked up, and Marty did too. There were more clouds now… and they were swirling, changing, growing dense and dark, streaming east like foam on a breaking wave. Marty remembered how fast clouds moved in a Kansas tornado. These were moving faster.

“…Global weather will definitely be affected. This makes Project Greenhouse even more important. I call upon every one of you to raise food. In small pots, indoors, outdoors, wherever you can. If you can build greenhouses, do so. County agents and other Department of Agriculture experts will show you how.

“America must feed herself.”

Marty thought, Not here, we won’t. But the grin wouldn’t come.

“Global weather,” Fox said again. “Christ, have they thrown us a dinosaur killer? Indian Ocean. How long will that take? Marty?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“How much gas do we have?”

“About five gallons.”

“Better gas up the truck. I think I want to use it.”

By noon the clouds covered the sky. The sun that had blazed like a deadly enemy since Marty’s arrival two days ago was hidden now. Marty watched Fox with some concern; for Fox watched the sky as if he feared a corrosive rain. The rain started at one. The first huge drops drummed on the truck cab, and Marty lifted his face to taste it. It was only plain water… not plain, not at all, and Marty felt a thrill of fear when he tasted silt and salt. Fox shouted, “Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“Come on, damn it!”

Marty jumped in after him. He had just time to whistle up the dogs and let them jump into the truck bed. He was a little worried about Darth, who was young enough to try jumping out when the truck was moving.

“Damn dogs, can’t even stay and watch the camp.”

“Sure they can, if that’s what you want,” Marty said. “Are we coming back?”

“Huh? Yeah, we’re coming back.”

“Then stop long enough for me to tell them what to do!”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

Fox stopped the truck. Marty posted the dogs, except for the pup, who’d have to come with them. “Guard.”

Chaka looked up mournfully, but obeyed.

The rain was falling hard now. Rain in July? in Shoshone above Death Valley? Sea-bed silt, when the meteor struck in the Indian Ocean? I don’t believe this. “Where are we going?”

“Place I know. Come on.” Fox drove down the dirt track to the main road.

A big gasoline tanker was parked at the diner. Marty felt a twinge. That tanker held enough gas to get them both to the Enclave in Bellingham a hundred times over. I wonder where he’s taking it?

They drove up the paved road, then turned left onto a gravel road. Fox drove as he always did, faster than Marty would, but carefully. He ground his lean jaw as he drove.

What’s got to him?

They rounded a peak and drove onto a wide ledge.

Fox got out slowly. Marty followed. Darth came with him, huddling against his leg.

Death Valley was spread out below them, barren as the Moon.

More like Mercury, Marty thought, remembering the terrible heat. But he could see very little. Rain obscured the view, and a fog was rising too. The rain would evaporate as it struck.

Fox gestured, like Satan offering Christ the world. “This is what trapped them, the first ones here. Look how gently it slopes down. It’s just barely steep enough to stop a horse-drawn wagon from getting back up.”