Читать книгу We Who Survived - Sterling Noel - Страница 13

ON FRIDAY, September 20th, the sun came out for two hours and set in a blaze of orange and dusty red over the Missouri plains. It was the first time any of us had seen the sun for some five months, and we stood on the porch of the Harrow farm at Fallon and watched it sink to rest. There was a large gathering of us at that memorable sundown. There were Elaine and Gabe Harrow, who had flown in from Mt. Hood, bringing with them Professor Osborne and Bob and Libby Jordan. Steve Engles and his mother Cora came from York Area Two, Rance Goodrich from Jersey Complex, Florence Donner from Colorado Center, and Dr. Rufus Howard and Bill and Martha Wernecke and their two children, Alice and George, from Missouri Center. There were Marge and myself, of course, and the two Lawrence boys, Fred and Sam Houston from the next farm.

Gabe Harrow, Bob Jordan and Jack Osborne brought with them further disquieting news that seemed oddly improbable with the sun shining and the temperature rising to the 30’s. They said that the abatement of the snow and the sunshine were very temporary—that the earth had been passing through a rift, or hiatus in the cosmic cloud, and that they had been able to measure its extent three days before and could predict that at 2:13 the next morning the snow and wind would begin again with redoubled violence.

Later in the evening Gabe, Osborne, Jordan, Engles, who was a former Navy commander and reactor engineer, Wernecke and I gathered in the library for the first meeting of the directors of the Harrow Group. Gabe presided, since it was his idea and his house, and he briefly outlined the agenda.

“Our problem now is simply ways and means of survival,” he said.

“Vic Savage has filled this house with enough food concentrates to last us a couple of years, so food will not be the problem. Also, he had the foresight to obtain one of the new Kincadium reactors and additional fuel for our present Fornium reactor, so our problem will not fall into the areas of heat, light, and power.

“What we face are two immediate problems, mainly. There was a third—that of ventilation in the event our oxygen generator failed, but Colonel Savage has already solved it for us with his design of a vent tube that will reach to the surface of the snow when it covers us over. What remain are a safe passageway from the house to the East barn, where all of our vital materials and our workshop and tools will be, and secondly the shoring up of our house and the barn so that they will not cave in on us with the weight of the snow.

“Bill Wernecke is applying his engineering skill to both of these situations, and I have no doubt they will be solved while we are still mobile.

“There is one more vital aspect of our condition, our escape from this place. Some time within the next twelve months the violence of the storm will subside and the precipitation will form into a more or less regular pattern for areas. Our expectation is that the heaviest precipitation will concentrate around the polar regions and that as we approach the Equator it will lessen and warmer weather will be found. In the polar regions we think a minimum of eighty degrees below zero Fahrenheit will prevail.

“At our latitude we expect the minimum temperature to hover around zero or ten below, Fahrenheit. What we expect and hope for is that at the Equator, when the storm levels off, we may find temperatures as high as plus forty degrees Fahrenheit. If we are right about that, only rain will be found at sea level in the Equatorial belt. The higher altitudes, of course, will be correspondingly colder.

“I am taking a tremendous gamble with all of our lives by installing us at Fallon, which is about one thousand miles from the sea as the Rings fly. I tell you all now, if you do not have faith in the plan I shall present, then by all means install yourselves closer to the Atlantic, your only highway South when the time comes to move. But in the meantime I think that the dangers of living near the sea are far greater than those we will encounter inland. I believe that the oceans will overrun a great deal of the Coastal lands and that destruction and loss of life will be uncountable.

“It was with this in view that I chose Fallon. We are in the center of the continent and safe from the waters of the oceans and the Gulf. We are in the flattest part of the continent, where the winds may pass freely without the tremendous pressure build-ups and resulting wild gusts found near the mountains. Also, we are surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges, which should reduce the wind force somewhat at low altitudes.

“It is also possible and quite likely that the winds in this area may reduce the snow buildup by many hundreds of feet, piling up the highest drifts in the mountainous terrain. So it is my plan to try to ride out the worst of it here, then try to get out of our own trap and get to the ocean when the time comes.

“Flying will be out of the question. The time to move will come years before the high winds subside. We can expect the hurricane winds to last some fourteen years. We will have to travel on top of the snow, and with that in view I have ordered constructed, according to the design of Rance Goodrich, a snow vehicle that should support us all in safety, if not comfort. The parts of this machine should arrive at Fallon by chartered Ring Express some time before midnight. We will have at least two hours to store the parts of our precious machine before the storm resumes.

“I was much interested to learn, upon my return home, that Colonel Savage had been working on designs of a similar machine. Here is proof that our minds are in accord and that our thinking is alike.

“Our first decision, then, should be on the question of whether we follow the Fallon plan, as outlined, or split up to seek our individual safety.”

Steve Engles got to his feet and faced Gabe. Steve was several inches taller than I, but twenty pounds lighter. He had been an outstanding athlete at the Academy and I had got to know him well there, though he was two years ahead of me. He had often been a fourth at our Bridge soirees and was a powerful, aggressive contestant. He was, to my mind, a doubtful choice for a group such as ours, however, for he had an uncertain temper and no sense of humor.

“I want to know something else before we get down to voting on anything,” he said. “I want to know who’s number one man here?”

Gabe looked embarrassed. He didn’t want to name himself, although he was the logical choice since he had assumed the leadership and responsibility from the beginning. I got up and faced Steve.

“Gabe Harrow is the boss,” I said. “There are six of us on this board of directors, and in the event of a tie vote on any question his is the vote that counts, all alone. . . . I’m not laying down any rules, Steve. I’m just making a motion. Let’s vote on it.”

Gabe called for the vote and the ayes were loud and clear. There was one no and it came from Steve, who had remained on his feet. I got up again. “You want to say anything about our decision?” I asked him.

“Yes, I have an opinion to express,” he said.

“We’ll listen to Steve,” said Gabe. I sat down.

“I’ll take only a moment,” Steve replied calmly. “I don’t know whether I want to entrust my mother’s life and my own to other persons if I am not going to have any greater say in the decisions, and if she is going to have none. I don’t mean to say that I have no confidence in Dr. Harrow and the rest of you, but too often in crises such as we will face, the majority opinion will result from fear and panic. Who of this group, with the possible exception of Vic Savage and, of course, myself, has been faced with the responsibility of the lives of others in a fight for survival? If Dr. Harrow’s black picture of the future is correct, then we would encounter here in Fallon a grim fight indeed.

“Personally I would prefer high ground nearer the sea and close to a modern city where there would be available to us the manpower and the machines that would give us a more equal chance. It is my judgment that my mother and I should leave here and go to Richmond Complex. The California terrain of mountains adjacent to the sea is much more practicable for the conditions that Dr. Harrow foresees. I invite any or all of you to join my mother and myself.”

He sat down. There was heavy silence for a couple of minutes. Here was the first doubt cast upon the Fallon Plan and the first real challenge of Gabe’s judgment. I know that I had a momentary impulse to swing over to Steve’s side and announce that I would go West with him. I am certain that others felt the same way, to greater or lesser degrees. What’s more, he had confidence, and in the state all of us were in, then, confidence counted for a great deal.

Gabe said, “I would strongly advise against it, Steve. The winds, which will be generally from West to East, will generate wild velocities in their sweep across the Pacific and they will hit the West Coast with full force. I believe you would do much better on the Atlantic Coast if you can find high enough ground, or even on the Gulf of Mexico, flat as it is down there. Some fifty miles inland might be safe enough. You and your mother have my most sincere best wishes.”

Jack Osborne said, “I don’t know you, Mr. Engles, but I’ve heard Gabe speak of you and I know he has great respect for your abilities in the field of fusion and reactors. I want to add my own small warning about the West Coast. The snows will be deeper there and the wind velocities higher than in any other section of the continent. In addition, we expect the Pacific to freeze over first. Now this may take several years—or it may occur within a year. However, I do not believe that the Pacific will be a dependable highway South.”

Steve Engles said, “Well, in that case, my mother and I may revise our plans and go back East . . . I should like to remain for the rest of the meeting, if I may.”

“By all means,” said Gabe. He turned to me and said, “Vic, will you put a motion on the general question of acceptance of the Fallon Plan?”

I framed the motion, rather clumsily I thought, and all of us voted aye. Steve remained silent. Then at Gabe’s request I put a second motion on the question of whether we should follow Gabe’s proposal to seek to escape South by surface transportation when the time came. I realized, of course, as Gabe must have, that the proposal was at this junction a wildly optimistic notion and that first we must devise means of living through the violence immediately ahead. But anything optimistic was a sound idea on this Friday.

Both Bob Jordan and Bill Wernecke spoke on the problems of surface movement under the conditions we anticipated, then Gabe called in Rance Goodrich to explain the design of his machine, which had been dubbed a “snowmobile” after the custom of the Twentieth Century.