Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [202]
Harvey felt it clutch him, the memory lying across his soul, the pathetic bundle in the electric blanket. "Raiders," Harvey said. "Looters killed your mother."
"Oh." Andy moved away from his father. A girl came out of the thicket. She held a shotgun. Andy went to her and they stood together. Together.
The boy's grown up in two weeks, Harvey thought. He saw the way he stood with the girl. Protectively, and very naturally, and it reminded him of the words in the marriage ceremony: "One flesh." They stood that way, two halves of one person, but so very young. There were wisps of thin hair on Andy's chin. Not a real beard, just the stubble that Loretta had made him shave because it looked bad, although it was nearly invisible …
"Is Mr. Vance here?" Harvey asked.
"Sure. Come on this way," Andy said. He turned, and the girl went back to her thicket. She hadn't said a word. Harvey wondered who she was. His son's … woman. And he didn't even know her name, and the boy hadn't told him. And there was something terribly wrong, but Harvey didn't know what to do about it.
Gordie Vance was glad to see him. Harvey was even happier to see Gordie. Gordie had built a large shelter, logs and thatched roof that shed rain, and he had dry wood, and there were fish and birds hanging under the shelter. A pot of stew bubbled on the fire.
"Harv! I knew you'd get here. Been waiting," Gordie said.
Harvey looked puzzled. "How did you expect me to find you?"
"Hell, this is the jump-off place, isn't it? Where we always parked."
There wasn't enough light to be sure, but the place didn't look any different from any other clearing near the road, and Harvey knew he'd never have recognized it. "I'd have gone right past—"
"You'd have come back when you got to the lodge," Gordie said. "What's left of the lodge."
There were a dozen under the shelter. They were mostly in pairs, sleeping bags zipped together.
Boys and girls. One of each, in pairs. Boy Scouts and …
"Girl Scouts?" Harvey asked.
Gordie nodded. "I'll tell you about it later. We had some trouble up here last week. It's okay now. You … you met Janie, didn't you?"
"The girl with Andy?" Harvey looked around. Andy wasn't there any longer. He'd led Harvey and Mark to the shelter, and he'd left without saying a word.
"Sure. Janie Somers. She and Andy … " Gordie shrugged.
"I see," Harvey said, but he didn't see. Andy was a boy, a child …
At fourteen a Roman boy was given a sword and shield and enrolled in a legion, and could legally become head of a household, a property owner. But that was Rome and this is …
This is the world after Hammerfall. And Andy has a family and he's an adult.
The other children—weren't children. They were watching Harvey very closely. Not the way children watch an adult. Suspicion, maybe. But neither anger nor respect nor … They were children who'd grown up a lot.
And there was a girl in Gordie's sleeping bag. She couldn't have been more than sixteen.
It was dry and warm. Harvey's clothes hung near the fire, and he sat in Gordie's sleeping bag, the bag's luxurious dryness wrapped around him, his feet and legs dry for the first time in days.
The tea was bark, not real tea, but it tasted good, and so had the bowl of stew Gordie served earlier. Mark slept, a smile on his face, very near to the campfire. The others were asleep too, or acted as if they were. Andy and Janie, clinging to each other in their sleeping bag, nestled together; others, Gordie's boy Bert with another girl. And Stacey, the girl Gordie slept with, was curled against Gordie's knees, dozing a little.
Old home week in the deep woods.
"Yeah, it got rough at first," Gordie was saying. "I took the crew back to Soda Springs after we saw the Hammer fall. We rode out the rain and the hurricanes there. Fourth day we started back this way. Hiked four days. When we got here, there were some bikers. They'd found the girls camping up here. Took over."
"Took over. You mean—"
"Christ, Harvey, you know what I mean. They'd raped one of the kids to death, and the lady who'd brought the kids up got herself