Expatriates by James Wesley Rawles Page A

Jeffords’ car and what they had in cans. They were able to negotiate two gallons of diesel in trade for each gallon of gas, since gas was already more scarce, and because it was common knowledge that coconut oil could be substituted in diesel engine cars, trucks, or boats.
    Tatang’s standard practice was to start the engine with “dino diesel” before switching to draw from the tank of coconut oil. Then, just before shutting down, he would switch back to the petroleum-based diesel tank.
    The most disappointing transactions occurred when Tatang traded his truck for 110 gallons of coconut oil, and the Jeffords exchanged their Mitsubishi L300 Versa Van minivan for 130 gallons of coconut oil and 40 gallons of palm oil. The car was only three years old, but in the new post-Crunch economy, cars with gasoline engines were not highly valued. If the Mitsubishi had been a diesel, they might have been able to trade it for enough coconut oil for their entire trip. The rest of the fuel was bought with Philippine pesos of rapidly diminishing value and by bartering Rhiannon’s laptop and some silver pesos that Joseph had inherited from his maternal grandmother.
    Their arsenal for the voyage consisted of Tatang’s well-worn but serviceable M1 Garand semiautomatic .30-06 rifle, Joseph’s takedown .22 rimfire Ruger 10/22 rifle, and Tatang’s 26.5 mm Geco flare pistol. The latter was designed just for signaling, but Tatang had a 12 gauge flare insert sleeve for the gun. Inside of this insert, he could use a second insert—a chamber adapter for .38 Special revolver cartridges. This made the flare gun into a crude single-shot pistol. Lacking both a rifled barrel and sights, the pistol could not be fired accurately beyond a few yards, but it was better than nothing.
    Peter’s main concern was their most potent weapon, the M1 Garand. “Is it zeroed?” he asked Tatang.
    â€œOh, yeah, on a paper target it shoots right where you are aiming it at one hundred steps.”
    Peter had once fired an uncle’s M1, but he didn’t know how to field-strip it or clean it. Tatang showed him how, though he had some difficulty in relating the rifle parts nomenclature in English.
    Most of Tatang’s ammunition was black-tipped armor-piercing (AP) ammunition. It was all stored in 8-round en bloc
clips. Tatang had only eleven loaded clips left—seven of AP, and four of plain “ball” full metal jacket ammunition. With such a small supply, they realized they would have to make each shot count.
    With just one solid battle rifle in hand, Peter did not feel comfortably well armed for the voyage. When he mentioned this to Rhiannon, she retorted, “What did you want? A 20-millimeter deck gun? We have what we have, and we’ll be vigilant. The rest is up to God.”

14
IN FULL FLIGHT
    â€œWe have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things.”
    â€”John Wesley Powell
The ANU Campus, Canberra, Australia—October, the First Year
    T he campus was near chaos. Many students felt stranded by the economic turmoil. News outlets were exaggerating the scope of the crisis by focusing on the severe insulin shortage and deaths from ketoacidodis and diabetic comas. Australia had
no
domestic insulin manufacturing capability. Up until the late 1970s, Australia had been a major producer of animal-sourced insulin, but in recent years they had become entirely dependent on foreign supply.
    Several hysterical students in Ava’s dormitory were sobbing. The ATMs were shut down. Many students lacked any transportation to get home. The major department stores like Coles and Woolworths were having huge runs on merchandise, and reports of looting were becoming more frequent. Imported goods were the most sought after since it