Footfall (11 page)

“Yeah. And Mrs. Wilson says it’s been hiding for a long time. Claims she was out at some lab when-when something happened. But nobody knew it was the aliens, then. Why would they hide out that long?’

“I don’t know.” She opened the glove compartment. “At least it’s pretty here,” Miranda pushed a tape into the player, and the stereo crashed out with the sounds of a new group. “Glad we have the tapes,” she shouted.

“Yeah.” There sure wasn’t anything on radio up here. William Shakes and Max Rohrs walked back toward the house, across the concrete apron Rohrs had poured last week. It felt dry and solid beneath their feet. Rohrs was a tall, broad-shouldered, muscular man. William Shakes felt like a dwarf beside him, though there wasn’t that much difference. Rohrs said, “Looks like we’re finished. If it gives you any trouble, you know my number.”

“Yeah. Thanks. I guess I’ll be seeing you.”

“I hope so. You’re good for business,” Rohrs said. “The way you’ve been planting pipe, I wonder if you’re planning to open up a hotel.” When Shakes didn’t react he said, “Just kidding.”

“Well, I’m not laughing. It’s going to feel like a hotel. We’ve got three more families coming up. I expect we’ve finally got enough septic tanks to keep everyone happy, and I know we’ve got enough beds.”

“That’s still a lot of elbows to be taking up your elbow room.”

Shakes nodded. A secretive smile lived just underneath his blank expression. Rohrs had built the septic tank last April. He’d been told that the second septic tank on the other side of the house was too old, too small. It was neither. Rohrs had just finished pouring this concrete apron; but he had no way of knowing that there was a second concrete apron under it, covered with rock and dirt. And under that, a roomy bomb shelter that nobody knew about.

William Shakes’ smile showed in Max Rohrs’ rearview mirror as Rohrs drove away.

Jack and Harriet McCauley had invited them into the Enclave six years ago. The Shakes had known pretty well what they were getting into. Jack and Harriet, and several others, were survivalists, perpetually prepared for the end of civilization. They collected news clippings on Soviet encroachments and economic failures and the national collapse of law and church and patriotism. They were bores on the subject.

Why had they picked on Bill and Gwen Shakes? Was it only because they lived in the neighborhood, or because they could afford the expense? Or because they were good listeners and never called the McCauleys fools? In fact neither Bill nor Gwen thought that any man was a fool to prepare for disaster. But disasters couldn’t be predicted. The Enclave was preparing for something far too specific. Reality would fool them when it came.

So the Shakes had not jumped at the chance. They had talked around the subject… until Bill realized what the Enclave group had in mind.

They joined. They paid their dues, a moderately hefty fee. They bought and maintained equipment as they were told to. Guns and spare food were good to have around anyway. They stored the pamphlets and books and even read some of them, and taught the kids firearms safety. At the Thursday meetings they argued strongly for buying a place of refuge in some near-wilderness area, preferably near some small agricultural village. Ultimately they found such a place, and when the rest of the Enclave agreed, the Shakes had paid 20 percent of the costs.

Bill enjoyed such games. It wasn’t as if he were cheating anyone. The Enclave was getting exactly what it had paid for. But Bill and Gwen Shakes now owned a vacation site for a fifth of what it would normally have cost them.

In dollars and cents-and Bill Shakes always thought in dollars and cents-it was more like 30 percent. The place wasn’t just being repaired, it was being turned into a refuge, and that cost in time and effort and money. But Bill and Gwen both liked working with their hands, and so did the boys. When they had the leisure they would drive the truck up to Bellingham-Miranda and Kevin were old enough to spell Bill at the wheel-and make order out of chaos, and play at turning the huge, roomy old house into a fortress. It backed onto a woods, with enough grounds for a garden. There was work to do, but also plenty of time out for goofing off and sailing their twenty-five footer in the San Juan Islands, some of the greatest sailing water in the world. By all odds the end of civilization would never come, or would come in some form the Enclave could never predict. Meanwhile the Shakes used the place more often than the rest of the Enclave families put together.

But this vacation hadn’t been planned.

When Bill got home two evenings ago, Gwen and the kids could talk about nothing but the approaching alien spacecraft. The eleven o’clock news featured fanciful sketches of what an interstellar craft might look like, reminding Bill of equally fanciful cartoons of the late forties: varying designs for a nuclear-powered airplane. That one had certainly come to nothing. But this…

When the telephone woke him at one in the morning, he had felt no surprise whatever. Gwen had said nothing, only turned on her side to listen while George Tate-Evans ordered the Shakes family to Bellingham.

I don’t take orders worth a damn. Bill thought, but he didn’t say it. He was already thinking, muzzily, of how his boss would react to Bill’s taking a sudden week or two off. Because George was right, and this was what the Enclave was for.

It was still a game, but they were playing for points now. Bill wasn’t sure how the kids were taking it. Miranda and Kevin were into the social scene; Carl and Owen were having trouble adjusting to a new school. They should never have been shifted this close to the end of the school year. But they all did their stints working in the vegetable garden and shopping for masses of groceries.

Bill tried not to resent the expense, the disruption. He couldn’t take this Star Wars stuff as seriously as the kids… or George and Vicki for that matter. Neither did Gwen, although she wasn’t so sure. “Vicki is really worried,” Gwen had said.

“Think of it as a fire drill,” he’d answered. “Get the bugs out of the system. If something real ever happens, we’ll know how to do it right.”

At that level it made sense.

What Max Rohrs told his wife that night was, “I think I make Shakes nervous.”

They were in bed, and Evelyn was reading. It wasn’t a book that took concentration. She said, “You said he was little?”

“Yeah.” Max Rohrs was a tall, broad-shouldered, muscular man, blond and hairy. He liked the occasional fight, and some men could see that. “Bill doesn’t quite reach my shoulder. His wife’s just his height, and a little wider, and his sons tower over him. Even so, he’s hiding something.”

“Bodies?”

She wasn’t all that interested, she was just being polite. Max, recognizing this, laughed. “No, not bodies-but there’s too many pipes. Too much plumbing. They keep adding to the septic tanks, and it doesn’t look like they’d have to. I think they’re survivalists. That house” — he rolled over onto his elbow — “it’s twice as big as it looks. Any angle you see it, it looks L-shaped. but it’s an X. Count on it, they’ve got guns and food stores and a bomb

shelter, too. I bet it’s under that tennis court I poured them. In some of the big cities there are bookstores just for survivalists.” He frowned. “They’ve sure been frantic the past week or so.”

“I heard from Linda today,” Evelyn said.

“Linda? And why are you changing the subject?”

“Gillespie. She’s back in Washington. The President sent Ed and Wes Dawson to Houston. They’ll train together. Wes Dawson finally gets to space—”

Max felt a twinge of envy. “That’ll be nice.”

“Linda’s at Flintridge. Her kid sister — you remember Jenny? — had something to do with discovering the alien ship.”

“Oh. Hey, that’s what set Shakes off! Sure, those guys are survivalists.” He knew his wife was smarter than he was, and by a lot, It didn’t bother him. What was amazing was that she was so obviously in love with him, and had been since the night they met in Washington. He’d been a sailor on liberty with no place to go, and somebody suggested a social club in a church up near the National Cathedral. There’d been girls there, lots of them, and all pretty snooty. All except Evelyn and her friends Linda and Carlotta. They were college girls, but they weren’t ashamed to be seen with a petty officer. Maybe it would have been better if she had been snooty, Max thought. But not for me.

Three weeks after they met, Evelyn was pregnant. There’d never been any discussion of an abortion. They were married in the church they’d met in, with a wedding reception at Flintridge. It was a nice wedding with a lot of Evelyn’s family, and Linda’s and Carlotta’s families too, important people who talked about Max’s future, and jobs he could get. It looked like he’d lucked into a great future,

And when he got out of the Navy he had to come back to Bellingham to look after his mother. Evelyn’s father helped a little, enough so that Max could open his own boiler shop, but there was never enough business.

That was almost twenty years ago. He glanced over at his wife. She was reading again. Her fancy nightgown looked a little ratty. Jeer, I gave her that four years ago! Where does the time go?

The kids were raising some moderate hell on the other side of the wall, not enough to bother them. Evelyn adjusted her position. The bed sagged on his side. Sometimes that would roll her toward him in the night, before she had quite made up her mind, and that was nice; but it made reading difficult.

She set the book aside and turned off her bed lamp. “A lot of people say this is survivalist country,” she said. “But nobody we know talks about it.”

“Yeah. Hey, I’m telling you, but that’s as far as it goes. They wouldn’t give me any more business if they knew I was shooting my mouth off.”

“All right, dear.”

“The shipyard’s been phased out for years, and there’s not much work there for steamfitters. The Shakes pay on time—” But Evelyn was asleep.

The bedroom was more than neat; it was spotless. Jack Clybourne’s entire apartment was that way-except for the second bedroom, which he used as a den. That one wasn’t precisely messy, but he did permit books to remain unshelved for days at a time.

The first time Jenny had visited Jack in his apartment, she’d remarked on its nearness.

He’d laughed. “Yeah, we get that way in the Service. We have to travel a lot, and stay in hotels, and we never know when the President’s schedule will change, so we stay packed. I remember once the maid saw all my stuff packed and the suitcases in the middle of the room, and the manager checked us out and rented the room to someone else.”

Despite the neatness, his bedroom wasn’t sterile. There were photographs, of his mother and sister, and of the President. Pictures of the Kremlin, and The Great Wall of China, and other places he’d been. Book club selections filled a tidy shelf along one wall. The shelves were full now, so when new selections came in, old ones went to the used book stores. The residue gave some clues to Clybourne’s reading habits: voracious, partial to history, but interested in spy thrillers.

Jenny got up carefully. She didn’t think she’d awakened Jack, although it was hard to tell. He slept lightly, and when he woke, he didn’t even open his eyes. She teased him about it once, and he laughed, and it wasn’t until later that she realized that kind of sleeping habit might be an advantage in his job. The Secret Service did other things besides protect the President.

She retrieved her uniform from the closet. The first time she’d come there, her clothes ended on the floor, but Jack’s apartment invited neatness… She took her Class A’s into the bathroom.

The bed was empty when she came out. She could hear the shower in the other bathroom. He’s certainly the most considerate lover I’ve ever had.

She didn’t much care for the word “lover,” but nothing else fit. He wasn’t a fiancé; there’d been no talk at all about marriage. No lieutenants should marry, but male captains could, and by the time they became majors most male officers were married; but marriage would be the end to a woman officer’s career.

He was certainly something more than a boyfriend. They didn’t live together, partly because both the Army and the Secret Service tended to be a little prudish even if they pretended not to be, and even more because Jenny wasn’t ready for all the explanations Aunt Rhonda would demand if she moved out of Flintridge. Even so, she spent a lot of time at Jack’s apartment. They both traveled a lot and worked odd hours, but it was definitely understood that when they were both in Washington and had free time, they’d spend it together.

While on trips she’d twice dated other men, but it wasn’t the same. Something was missing. Magic, she thought, and didn’t care to put another name to it. That it existed was enough, and it was wonderful.

“Ready for dinner?” His tie was perfectly knotted, but he’d left his jacket off.

“Sure. Want me to cook?”

“You don’t have to—”

“Jack, I like to cook. I don’t get a chance very often.”

“All right. We’ll have to shop, though. There’s nothing here.”

“Sure. I’ll get started, and you can go get—”

She stopped because he was shaking his head. “Let’s go together. We can figure out what we want on the way.”

“Sure.” She waited while he put on his jacket. As he always did before going out, he took his revolver out of the holster concealed inside his trousers and looked into the barrel, then checked the loads.

She’d never seen Jack angry, or threaten anyone, but Jenny never worried when she went out with him. The Post might be full of stories about Washington street crime, but no one ever bothered Jack Clybourne. Jenny wondered if it could be telepathy.

He lived in the newly rebuilt area off New Jersey Avenue,

where there were lots of apartments. It was on the other side of the White House from Flintridge.

She giggled. “Drive me home, he said. It’s on my way, he said,”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

She took his hand. “Yes, and I’m glad.”

“Me, too.”

They went toward Constitution Avenue and the Federal Triangle until they reached the wide park like Mall between Independence and Constitution Avenues. When they were in the middle of the Mall, he stopped. “Jenny, what in hell is going on?”

“With what?”

“This alien ship-look, being around the President, I hear a lot of things. I never talk about them. Not even with you, except it’s your job too-the President’s scared, Jenny. If you don’t know that, you’d better.”

“Scared? Jack-Oh, hell, darling. Let’s walk.” She led him along the path toward the great granite shape of the National Museum.

He wouldn’t talk about this in his apartment. Out here we ought to be safe if we keep our voices down and talk directly to each other. That’s silly. No one’s listening to us. Still, I shouldn’t talk to him about this, but he knows already — “Jack, what do you mean, scared? I’ve briefed him a dozen times, and he doesn’t act scared with me.”

“Not with you, not with the Admiral,” Jack said. “But with Mrs. Coffey. He’s worried because they don’t answer.”

“Well, we all wonder—”

“It’s no wonder; he’s scared! And I think he thinks the Russians are too.”

“Yeah,” Jenny said. “Of course we can only guess what they really think.”

“It’s true, though, isn’t it? Every nut with a transmitter has tried to send them messages, and they don’t answer…”

“Not just every nut,” Jenny said. “The National Security Agency, with our biggest transmitters. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Deep Space Net, with the big Goldstone antenna. The Russians are doing the same thing.”

“And nothing.” Jack shivered slightly, despite the warm June night. “Heck, maybe I’m scared too!”

She hesitated, then laughed.

“What?”

“Just thinking. If there’s anybody with a higher clearance than a man who’ll put his butt between the President and a bullet, I don’t know what it is.” There was no one around, but she lowered her voice anyway. “The Admiral’s getting worried too.”

“I guess the Soviets decided to mobilize.”

Jenny chuckled. “No. That’s like an Australian’s first reaction to anything is to go on strike.”

“Wha-at?”

“Or like the Watergate trials. The lawyers asked one of them, ‘Who ordered the cover’up?’ And he said, ‘Actually, nobody ever suggested there would not be a cover-up.’ Unless somebody actually says stop, the Soviets will mobilize.”

“Get enough of those weapons, and somebody’s likely to use them—”

“Yes. But things look reasonably stable over there. Their theoreticians are saying that any race advanced enough to have star travel would have to be economically evolved, meaning the aliens will all be good communists.”

“I wouldn’t think that follows.”

“Neither do I. We know for a fact it hasn’t helped the Russians communicate with the aliens. That ship isn’t talking to anyone.”

“Maybe it’s a robot ship.”

She shrugged. “We don’t even have any good theories, and the Admiral wants some.”

“Who has he asked?”

“Who haven’t we asked?” Jenny laughed again. “Anybody we didn’t ask has tried to tell us anyway. Out at the Air Force Academy we’ve got the damnedest collection of anthropologists, historians, political scientists, and other denizens of academia you ever saw. There’s even a psychic. But next week we go even further. The Admiral’s rounded up a collection of science-fiction writers.”

Jack didn’t laugh. “Actually that might not be such a bad idea.”

“That’s what I thought. Anyway, he’s done it. Most of them are at the Air Academy, but he’s taking a smaller group into Cheyenne Mountain. Guess what? I’m supposed to go out next week and help get them settled in. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“Oh. Okay. But I’ll miss you.”

She squeezed his hand, then glanced around. It was dark, and nobody was going to see her behaving in an undignified manner while in uniform, and if they did, the hell with them. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. He was startled at first; then he held her close and they kissed again.

’We still haven’t got dinner,” she said finally. “No, What do you want?”

“Something we can cook fast.”

He laughed, “Yeah. There are better things to do than eat.”

“The Church has always considered the possibility of intelligence other than human,” Cardinal Manelli said. “Angels are one obvious example.”

“Ah. And of course C. S. Lewis played with aliens,” the Episcopalian bishop added. “Certainly the Christian churches are interested in this alien ship, but I can’t agree that the existence of the aliens refutes Christian revelation.”

Jeri Wilson looked thoughtful. She’d turned on the TV, something she almost never did on Sunday afternoons, and this program had been on. The Roman Catholic cardinal, the Episcopal bishop of California, two Protestant ministers whose faces she recognized, and a history professor from the University of California. Professor Boyd seemed to be acting as moderator, and also as a gadfly intent on irritating the others.

“Lewis points out that the existence of intelligent aliens impacts Christianity only if we assume they are in need of redemption, that redemption must come in the same manner as it was delivered to humanity, and that it has been denied them,” the Episcopal bishop continued. “I doubt we know any of that just yet.”

“What if they’ve never heard of Christianity?” Professor Boyd asked. “If they have no legends of gods, no notion of sin, no thought of redemption?”

“It wouldn’t change the facts of our revelation,” Cardinal Manelli said. “The Resurrection took place in our history, and no alien ship will change that. We’ll know soon enough. Why speculate? If you want to ask ‘what if?’ then what if they have both the Old and New Testaments, or documents recognizably related to them?”

That would be interesting, Jeri thought.

“I predict that what we’ll find will be ambiguous,” one of the ministers said. “God doesn’t seem to speak unequivocally.”

“Not to you,” Cardinal Manelli said. The others laughed, but Jeri thought some of the laughter was strained.

The doorbell rang. She went to answer it, a little unhappy at missing the program, which was interesting. Melissa raced down the hall and got to the door first.

The man at the door had red hair and beard fading to white. His gut spilled out over the top of his blue jeans. He’d never be able to button his denim jacket. Melissa stepped back involuntarily for a moment. Then she smiled. “Hi, Harry!”

Jeri didn’t encourage Melissa to call adults by their first names, but Harry was an exception. How could you call him Mr. Reddington? “Hello,” Jeri said. “What brings you here?” She stepped back to let him in and led him toward the kitchen. “Beer?”

“Thanks, yes,” Harry said. He took the can eagerly. “Actually. I was just over to see Ken Dutton, and thought I’d stop by.”

Melissa had gone back to her room. “Horse crap, Harry,” Jeri said.

He shrugged. “Okay, I have ulterior motives. Look, they’re throwing me out of my apartment—”

“Great God, Harry, you don’t expect me to put you up!”

He looked slightly hurt. “You don’t have to be so vigorous about the way you say that.” Then he grinned. “Naw, I just thought, well, maybe you could put in a word with the Enclave people. I could go up to Washington state any time.”

“Harry, they don’t want you.” That hurt him. She could see it. Even so, it had to be said. Harry had done odd jobs for the Tate-Evanses, as well as for the Wilsons, and although he’d never been invited to join the Enclave, he knew about it because David had talked about it with him.

Harry shrugged. “They don’t want Dutton, either. But they do want you.”

“Possibly. I’m not so sure I want them.”

Harry looked puzzled.

“I’ve been thinking of going east. To join David.” Not yet, he said. But it wasn’t no!

Melissa came in to get a Coke from the refrigerator. “Is that your motorcycle out there?” she asked.

“Sure,” Harry said.

“Will you take me for a ride?’

“Melissa, you shouldn’t bother—”

“Sure,” Harry said.

Jeri frowned. She wasn’t worried about Melissa’s going with Harry, but — “Is it safe?”

Harry grinned. “Safe as houses.” He patted his ample gut. “If we fall off, I’ll see she lands on me.”

He just might do that, Jeri thought. “Look, Harry, not too fast—”

“Speed limit, and no freeway,” Harry said.

Melissa was dancing around. “I’ll get my jacket,” she said. She dashed out of the kitchen.

“Oh, all right,” Jeri said. “Harry, do be careful.”

An hour later, Melissa came in the front door.

“Have a good time?” Jeri asked.

“Yeah, until his motorcycle blew up.”

“Blew up!”

“Well, that’s what he said. It just died. We were a long way off.”

“How did you get home?”

“Harry asked if you let me take the bus by myself, and when I said sure, he waited at the bus stop with me.” Melissa giggled. “He had to borrow bus fare from me so he could get home, too.”

Linda Gillespie drained her margarita and set the empty glass down too hard. When she spoke, her voice was too loud for the dimly lit Mayflower cocktail lounge. “Dammit, it just isn’t fair!”

Carlotta Dawson shrugged. “Lots of things aren’t. At least you had fair warning! You knew you were marrying an astronaut. I thought I’d married a nice lawyer.”

“They could let us go to Houston with them.”

“Speak for yourself,” Carlotta said. “I’ve got work to do. Someone has to think about his career, and it’s for sure Wes won’t now that he’s got a chance to go to space. If you’re looking for something to do, come help me with the constituent mail.”

“Yeah, sure—”

“I mean it,” Carlotta said. “Sure, it gives you something to distract you, but seriously, I need the help. It’s hard to find intelligent people who know California and live in Washington.”