Worlds Apart by Joe Haldeman Page A

table were not too appetizing. Two had to be fed: one because of phocomelus, seallike flippers instead of arms; one who was microcephalic and totally passive. One who ate quite normally was a girl with beautiful golden curls and a single median eye. The girl with the two-headed baby took a bowl out to Marsha, Tad’s sister, who was guarding the road.
    All through dinner, Tad quizzed the “grownups”—the oldest might have been seventeen—about animal husbandry and plant propagation. His parents had accumulated a large library of books on farming and other aspects of survival, but as he’d told Jeff, most of the grownups didn’t read too well, and didn’t much want to learn.
    After dinner Jeff vaccinated them, and then found out why they were so clean. On the porch beyond the kitchen, they had a shower room and a family-sized tub. They scrubbed down with soap that smelled slightly of bacon, then rinsed, and the adults slipped into the deliciously hot water while the children played.
    “We fill the tank on the roof every morning,” Tad said, pointing to a pump contraption like a bicycle without wheels. “It takes a half-hour of pedaling but it’s worth it. This time of year we wait till noon, or it gets so hot you can hardly stand it.”
    Marsha came in and Jeff watched with languid appreciation as she showered. Not beautiful, but she was adult, a rare sight. Solid with muscle, no baby fat, stretch marks from several pregnancies.
    She stepped in next to Jeff and put her arm around him, and began talking to Tad. After a while they got out of the bath, letting the children have their turn. Jeff and Marsha dried each other off. Without a spoken word, they gathered up their clothes and weapons and led each other upstairs.
    The first time, predictably, was over before it started, but Jeff had good powers of recuperation, and five yearsof catching up to do. Eventually they did talk.
    “I bet you’re like Tad,” she said, playing with his beard. “You don’t believe.”
    “I grew up in Taoism,” Jeff said cautiously, “American Taoism. A much more gentle way of looking at things.”
    “Oh, Charlie’s way is gentle.” She stretched her body against his side and lay an arm partway across his broad chest. “Men have a hard time understanding, I think. Women are closer to life, so they aren’t so afraid of death.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
    “’Course not. You’re a man.”
    “Charlie was a man.”
    “So was Jesus. But they were strange men.”
    Jeff smiled in the dark. “At least we can agree on—” He was on the floor and rolling toward his weapons before his brain quite registered what he had heard: through the open window, the unmistakable
raow
sound of an Uzi meatgrinder, scream, manic submachinegun chatter, the Uzi twice more, a fusillade of rifle and pistol fire, and then silence. Then a solitary pop, one shot from a small-caliber pistol.
    From the other side of the room, greased-metal sounds of Marsha putting a cassette in her rifle and cocking it. “Guess they got Larry. Charlie’s will.”
    Jeff automatically reached up to cross himself and then checked it. Calf holster in place, he stepped into his pants. He shrugged into the shoulder holster but didn’t bother with a shirt. He found his boots and knife and scattergun and followed her down the stairs. A gong was ringing.
    They were the first ones behind the sandbags. He scanned the road and the overgrown pasture, pretty well lit by the moon. Three days till full; in three days he might be talking to Marianne. That was worth fighting for. “You ought to keep the weeds clear’around the perimeter,” he said. “You could have a hundred people crawl up andyou wouldn’t see one of them until they started climbing the fence.”
    “Then we just watch them fry.” Her voice was calm and happy. His own voice was tight and hoarse. His heart pounded adrenaline, his knees trembled. Palms wet and sphincters twitching. He sat down