Читать книгу We Who Survived - Sterling Noel - Страница 20

ON FRIDAY just before noon Gabe got a call on the DW-three from Luke Hobson, Secretary for Internal Affairs who explained that he had called at the request of the President who wished to try once more to enlist Gabe’s assistance in the great crisis that was engulfing “our nation” and the world.

Gabe, dressed in slacks and a sweater, his face unshaven, smiled engagingly at the Secretary’s round face.

“I’m afraid it’s too late for any assistance from me,” he said. “I told Mr. Gamberelli several months ago, and again as late as the first of September, that all of the sea-coast Complexes and Centers on the East and West coasts and the Western Gulf should be evacuated . . . I was called a variety of names for my trouble. What exactly did you have in mind, Luke?”

“The President wants you to go on the VM and VK and reassure the people,” he said. “He believes an encouraging statement from you will do more good at this time than anything any other person could say.”

“Encouraging statement,” exclaimed Gabe with disgust. Don’t you know that the whole world is freezing up—that there won’t be a hundred people left to vote for Alderman unless you organize what’s left of the population to survive? And what have you done, beyond declaring a State of Emergency?”

“That’s a treasonable attitude at this time of national peril!” exclaimed the Secretary angrily.

“Who’s going to get to Fallon to arrest me?”

“This storm will be over soon enough,” spluttered Luke Hobson. “We won’t forget you, Harrow.”

“You won’t live to see the day the snow stops,” said Gabe quietly. “Don’t be an ass, Luke. Tell Mr. Gamberelli—”

The DW-three clicked off suddenly and Gabe was left looking at a blank screen. He turned to me and to Florence and shrugged. He said, “Maybe it’s just as well the world will freeze up, with fools like that in it.”

On that Friday night around midnight we got a call on the FX Local from the adjoining Lawrence farm. Their house was a 200-year old wood structure, and although it had been renovated several times and expanded to a spacious and attractive farm home, the basic construction had not been strengthened appreciably and certainly not sufficiently to support the tons of snow now weighing down upon their roof. The entire West wing had collapsed, Perry Lawrence told Florence, and he feared the rest of the house would go within hours. Nobody was hurt—fortunately they had all been in bed in the central portion of the house, which was the most sturdy.

Florence told him he would hear from us within a quarter of an hour. She called Gabe on the FX extension in his room, and within five minutes the directors were in the library and considering the Lawrence situation.

Rufe Howard, who had replaced Steve Engles on the board, declared as soon as the situation had been made known that we should organize a rescue team immediately and go get the five Lawrences.

Gabe said, “I’m in favor of that, of course, Rufe, but all of our planning has been for twenty persons. Counting our Arabs, Ali and Sarah, there are now nineteen of us. We could still handle one more without upsetting our balance—but there are five Lawrences. We don’t have beds for that many, for one thing.”

“Hell, Gabe, you won’t know what a bed looks like once we get to the hard part,” said Jack Osborne. “The point is only this: we can’t abandon them some hundreds of yards away.”

“Oh, I agree!” said Gabe. “I just wanted you to know what these five extra ones will mean to us. . . . As a matter of fact, I had intended long before this to propose that we invite the Lawrences to join us. Those two boys Fred and Sam Houston can do ten times the work of us old fogies, and I’ve always considered Perry and Sylvia my friends.”

“Isn’t there a girl, too?” I asked. “Seems to me I’ve heard mention of a Georgia.”

“That’s the daughter,” said Gabe. “We don’t talk much about Georgia. You’ll see her soon enough and you’ll know why.”