Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [187]
"Good," said Eileen. She sat bolt upright at the steering wheel, and the motor was going. Tim didn't urge her. He knew better than to volunteer for the job, and he knew what it would cost her.
She shifted into gear.
"Hold it," Tim said, and he put a hand on her shoulder and pointed. She nodded and put the car back in neutral.
A wave came toward them in a long thread of silver-gray. It wasn't high. When it reached the car it was no more than two feet tall. But the sea had risen in the night until it stood around the tires. The wave slapped against the car and lifted them and carried them and set them down almost immediately with the motor still going.
Eileen sounded exhausted. "What was that, another earthquake?"
"I'd say a dam collapsed somewhere."
"I see. Only that." She tried to laugh. "The dam has broken! Run for your lives!"
"The Cherokees is escaped from Fort Mudge!"
"What?"
"Pogo. Skip it," Tim said. "All that water out there … this won't be the first dam that went. All of them, probably. Maybe here and there the engineers got spillways open in time. Maybe. But most of the dams are gone." Which, he thought, means most of the electric power everywhere. Not even local pockets of electricity. He wondered if the power houses and generators had survived. Dams could be built again.
Eileen put the Blazer into gear and started forward, slowly.
The Southern Pacific tracks took them most of the way to Porterville. The tracks and embankment rose gradually until what surrounded them was no longer sea, but land that looked as if it had recently risen from the depths: Atlantis returned. Still Eileen kept to the tracks, though her shoulders were shivering with the strain.
"No people on the tracks, and no stalled cars," she said. "We're avoiding those, aren't we?" They hadn't, completely; sometimes forlorn groups of refugees, usually in families, trudged along the right-of-way.
"I hate to leave them," Eileen said. "But—which ones should we take? The first ones we see? Be selective? No matter what we do, we'd have the car filled and people on top and there'd still be more—"
"It's all right," Tim said. "We don't have anyplace to go either." But he sat brooding, feeling her mood. What right did they have to expect anyone to help them? They weren't helping anyone themselves …
South and east of Porterville they rolled down a wet embankment to resume their trek on the 190. Tim took over the driving, and Eileen lay in the reclined passenger seat, exhausted but unable to sleep.
The land looked recently drowned. Studying the broken buildings and fences and uprooted trees, Tim became certain that a flood had come from the direction they were traveling. There was mud everywhere, and Tim had many occasions to feel proud of his judgment. He didn't think any other car in the world could have got them over some places they passed.
"Lake Success," Eileen said. "There was a big lake up there, and the dam must have gone. The road goes right past it … "
"Yeah?"
"I'm wondering if there's any road there," she said. They went on, until they reached the junction that should have taken them up into the hills.
The land was mud everywhere, studded with cars in every possible attitude. There were bodies, but no living human beings. They were glad for the rain. It kept them from seeing very far into the muddy ditch to their left. The road became worse, washed out in places, covered with mud in others.
Eileen took over driving again, guessing where the road had been and hoping it was still there under the mud. The Blazer kept moving, but more slowly …
Then they saw the campfire. A half-dozen cars,