Friday

XII

Georges said, "There you have it, my dears. Pick one. A theocracy ruled by witchburners. Or a fascist socialism designed by retarded schoolboys. Or a crowd of hard-boiled pragmatists who favor shooting the horse that misses the hurdle. Step right up! Only one to a customer."

"Stop it, Georges," Ian told him. "It's no joking matter."

"Brother, I am not joking; I am weeping. One gang plans to shoot me on sight, another merely outlaws my art and profession, while the third by threatening without specifying is, so it seems to me, even more to be dreaded. Meanwhile, lest I find comfort simply in physical sanctuary, this beneficent government, my lifetime alma mater, declares me enemy alien fit only to be penned. What shall I do? Joke? Or drip tears on your neck?"

"You can stop being so goddam Gallic, that's what you can do. The world is going crazy right in our lap. We had better start thinking about what we can do about it."

"Stop it, both of you," Janet said firmly but gently. "One thing every woman knows but few men ever learn is that there are times when the only wise action is not to act but to wait. I know you two. Both of you would like to run down to the recruiting office, enlist for the duration, and thereby turn your consciences over to the sergeants. This served your fathers and grandfathers and I am truly sorry that it can't serve you. Our country is in danger and with it our way of life, that's clear. But if anyone knows of anything better to do than to sit tight and wait, let him speak up. If not... let's not run in circles. It is approaching what should be lunchtime. Can anyone think of anything better to do?"

"We had a very late breakfast."

"And we'll have a late lunch. Once you see it on the table, you'll eat, and so will Georges. One thing we can do: Just in case things get rougher than they are now, Marj should know where to go for bomb protection."

"Or whatever."

"Or whatever. Yes, Ian. Such as police looking for enemy aliens. Have you two big brave men considered what to do in case they come a-knocking at our door?"

"I had thought of that," Georges answered. "First you surrender Marj to the Cossacks. That will distract them and thereby give me time to get far, far away. That's one plan."

"So it is," agreed Janet. "But you imply that you have another?"

"Not with the simple elegance of that one. But, for what it is, here is a second plan. I surrender myself to the Gestapo, a test case to determine whether or not I, a distinguished guest and reliable taxpayer who has never failed to contribute to the police welfare fund and to the firemen's ball, can in fact be locked up for no reason whatever. While I am sacrificing myself for a principle, Marj can duck into the hidey-hole and lie doggo. They don't know that she is here. Regrettably they do know that I am here. 'It is a far, far better thing-'

"Don't be noble, dear; it doesn't suit you. We'll combine the two plans. If- No, when- When they come looking for either one or both of you, you both duck into the shelter and stay there as long as necessary. Days. Weeks. Whatever."

Georges shook his head. "Not me. Damp. Unhealthy."

"And besides," Ian added, "I promised Marj that I would protect her from Georges. What's the point in saving her life if you turn her over to a sex-crazed Canuck?"

"Don't believe him, dear one. Liquor is my weakness."

"Luv, do you want to be protected from Georges?"

I answered truthfully that Georges might need protection from me. I did not elaborate.

"As for your complaints about damp, Georges, the Hole has precisely the humidity of the rest of the house, a benign RH of fortyfive; I planned it that way. If necessary, we'll stuff you into the Hole but we are not going to surrender you to the police." Janet turned to me. "Come with me, dear; we'll do a dry run. A wet one, rather."

She took me to the room assigned to me, picked up my jumpbag. "What do you have in this?"

"Nothing much. A change of panties and some socks. My passport. A useless credit card. Some money. IDs. A little notebook. My real luggage is in bond at the port."

"Just as well. Because any trace of you is going to be left in my room. If it's clothing, you and I are near enough of a size." She dug into a drawer and got out a plastic envelope on a belt-an ordinary female-style money belt. I recognized it although I've never owned one-useless in my profession. Too obvious. "Put anything into this that you can't afford to lose, and we'll put it on you. And seal it. Because you are going to get wet all over. Mind getting your hair wet?"

"Goodness, no. I just rub it with a towel and shake it. Or ignore it."

"Good. Fill the pouch and take off your clothes. No point in getting them wet. Although, if the gendarmes do show up, you just go ahead and get them wet, then dry them in the Hole."

Moments later we were in her big bath, me dressed in that waterproof money belt, Janet only in a smile. "Dear," she said, pointing at that hot-tub-or-plunge, "look under the seat on the far side there."

I moved a little. "I can't see very well."

"I planned it that way. The water is clear and you can see down into it all over. But from the only spot where you should be able to see under that seat the overhead light reflects on the water back into your eyes. There is a tunnel under that seat. You can't see it no matter where you stand, but if you get facedown in the water you can feel for it. It is a bit less than a meter wide, about half a meter high, and about six meters long. How are you in enclosed places? Does claustrophobia bother you?"

"That's good. Because the only way to get into the Hole is to take a deep breath, go under, and through that passage. Easy enough to pull yourself along because I built ridges into the bottom for that purpose. But you have to believe that it is not too long, that you can reach a place where it opens out in one breath, and that simply standing up will bring you up into the air again. You'll be in the dark but the light comes on fairly quickly; it's a thermal radiation switch. This time I'll go ahead of you. Ready to follow me?"

"I guess so. Yes."

"Here goes." Janet stepped down onto the near seat, on down onto the floor of the tank. The waterline was at her waist or above. "Deep breath!" She did so, smiled, and went underwater and under that seat.

I stepped down into the water, hyperventilated, and followed her. I could not see the tunnel but it was easy to find it by touch, easy to pull myself along by finger-thick ridges in the bottom. But it did seem to me that the passage was several times six meters long.

Suddenly a light came on just ahead of me. I reached it, stood up, and Janet reached a hand down to me, helped me out of the water. I found myself in a very small room, with a ceiling not more than two meters above the concrete floor. It seemed pleasanter than a grave but not much.

"Turn around, dear. Through here."

"Through here" was a heavy steel door, high above the floor, low down from the ceiling; we got through it by sitting on the doorsill and swinging our feet over. Janet pulled it closed behind us and it whuffed like a vault door. "Overpressure door," she explained. "If a bomb hit near here, the concussion wave would push the water right through the little tunnel. This stops it. Of course, for a direct hit- Well, we wouldn't notice it so I didn't plan for it." She added, "Look around, make yourself at home. I'll find a towel."

We were in a long, narrow room with an arched ceiling. There were bunk beds along the right wall, a table with chairs and a terminal beyond, and, at the far end, a petite galley on the right and a door that evidently led to a 'fresher or bath, as Janet went in there, came out at once with a big towel.

"Hold still and let Mama dry you," she said. "No blowdry here.

Everything is as simple and unautomated as I could make it and still have things work."

She rubbed me to a glow, then I took the towel from her and worked her over-a pleasure, as Janet is a lavish stack of beauty. Finally she said, "Enough, luv. Now let me give you the five-dollar tour in a hurry as you are not likely to be in here again unless you have to use it as a refuge... and you might be alone-oh, yes, that could happen-and your life might depend on knowing all about the place.

"First, see that book chained to the wall above the table? That's the instruction book and inventory and the chain is no joke. With that book you don't need the five-dollar tour; everything is in that book. Aspirin, ammo, or apple sauce, it's all listed there."

But she did give me, quickly, at least a three-ninety-five tour: food supplies, freezer, reserve air, hand pump for water if pressure fails, clothing, medicines, etc. "I planned it," she said, "for three people for three months."

"How do you resupply it?" "How would you do it?"

I thought about it. "I would pump the water out of the plunge."

"Yes, exactly. There is a holding tank, concealed and not on the house plans-none of this is. Of course many items can take getting wet or can be fetched through in waterproof coverings. By the bye, did your money pouch come through all right?"

"I think so. I pressed all of the air out of it before I sealed it. Jan, this place is not just a bomb shelter or you would not have gone to so much trouble and expense to conceal its very existence."

Her face clouded. "Dear, you are very perceptive. No, I would never have bothered to build this were it just a bomb shelter. If we ever get H-bombed, I am not especially eager to live through it. I designed primarily to protect us from what is so quaintly called 'civil disorder.'

She went on, "My grandparents used to tell me about a time when people were polite and nobody hesitated to be outdoors at night and people often didn't even lock their doors-much less surround their homes with fences and walls and barbed wire and lasers. Maybe so; I'm not old enough to remember it. It seems to me that, all my life, things have grown worse and worse. My first job, right out of school, was designing concealed defenses into older buildings being remodeled. But the dodges used then-and that wasn't so many years ago!-are obsolete. Then the idea was to stop him and frighten him off. Now it's a two-layer defense. If the first layer doesn't stop him, the second layer is designed to kill him. Strictly illegal and anyone who can afford it does it that way. Marj, what haven't I shown you? Don't look in the book; you would spot it. Look inside your head. What major feature of the Hole did I not show you?"

(Did she really want me to tell her?) "Looks complete to me, once you showed me the main and auxiliary Shipstones of your power supply."

"Think, dear. The house above us is blasted down around our ears. Or perhaps it is occupied by invaders. Or even our own police, looking for you and Georges. What else is needed?"

"Well... anything that lives underground-foxes, rabbits, gophers-has a back door."

"Good girl! Where is it?"

I pretended to look around and try to find it. But in fact an itchy feeling dating clear back to intermediate training ("Don't relax until you have spotted your escape route") had caused me to search earlier. "If it's feasible to tunnel in that direction, I think the back door would be inside that clothes cupboard."

"I don't know whether to congratulate you or to study how I should have concealed it better. Yes, through that wardrobe and turn left. The lights come on from thirty-seven-degree radiation just as they did when we came out of the pool tunnel. Those lights are powered by their own Shipstones, and they should last forever, practically, but I think it is smart to take along a fresh torch and you know where they are. The tunnel is quite long, because it comes out well outside our walls in a clump of thornbush. There is a camouflaged door, rather heavy, but you just push it aside, then it swings back."

"Sounds awfully well planned. But, Jan? What if somebody found it and came in that way? Or I did? After all, I'm practically a stranger."

"You're not a stranger; you're an old friend we haven't known very long. Yes, it is just barely possible that someone might find our back door despite its location and the way it is hidden. First, a horrid alarm would sound all through the house. Then we would look down the tunnel by remote, with the picture showing on one of the house terminals. Then steps would be taken, the gentlest being tear gas. But if we weren't home when our back door was breached, I would feel very sorry for Ian or Georges or both."

"Why do you put it that way?"

"Because it would not be necessary to be sorry for me. I would have a sudden attack of swooning feminine weakness. I do not dispose of dead bodies, especially ones that have had several days in which to get ripe."

"Mmm... yes."

"Although that body would not be dead if its owner were smart enough to pour pee out of a boot. Remember, I'm a professional designer of defenses, Marj, and note the current two-layer policy. Suppose somebody does claw his way up a steep bank, spots our door, and breaks his nails getting it open-he's not dead at that point. If it's one of us-conceivable but unlikely-we open a switch concealed a short distance inside, I would have to show you where. If it is indeed an intruder, he would see at once a sign: PRIVATE PROPERTY-KEEP OUT. He ignores this and comes on in and a few meters farther along a voice gives the same warning and adds that the property has active defense. The idiot keeps coming. Sirens and red lights-and still he persists... and then poor Ian or Georges has to drag this stinking garbage out of the tunnel. Not outdoors, though, or back into the house. If someone kills himself persisting in trying to break through our defenses, his body will not be found; he will stay missing. Do you feel any need to know how?"

"I feel quite sure that I have no 'need to know.' "(A camouflaged side tunnel, Janet, and a lime pit-and I wonder what bodies are already in it? Janet looks as gentle as rosy-fingered dawn... and if anyone lives through these crazy years, she will be one of them. She is about as tender-minded as a Medici.)

"I think so, too. Anything more you want to see?"

"I don't think so, Jan. Especially as I am not likely ever to use

your wonderful hideaway. Go back now?"

"Before long." She closed the interval between us, placed her hands on my shoulders. "What did you whisper to me?"

"I think you heard it."

"Yes, I did." She pulled me to her.

The terminal at the table lighted. "Lunch is ready!"

Jan looked disgusted. "Spoilsport!"