Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [271]
He left the store and surfaced. He was a long way from the boat. He waved until he had their attention, and let them come to him. He was exhausted when they hauled him aboard.
"Did you find any food?" Horrie Jackson wanted to know. "We found some food with that scuba stuff before we ran out of air. We get back to Porterville I can show you lots of places where there's food. You dive for it and we'll split."
Tim shook his head. He felt an infinite sadness. "That was a general store," he said.
"Can you find it again?"
"I think so. It's right under us." Probably he could, and there would be much to salvage; but in his exhaustion he could not feel any excitement over his find. He felt only a terrible sense of loss. He turned to Jason Gillcuddy as probably the only man who could understand—if anyone could.
"Anyone could walk in there and buy," Tim said. "Razor blades, Kleenex, calculators. Books. Anyone could afford to buy those; and if we all work very hard for a long time, maybe a few of us will have them again."
"What did you bring up?" Horrie Jackson demanded.
"General store," Adolf Weigley said. "Did you get any of that stuff on Forrester's list? Solvent? Ammonia? Any of that?"
"No." Tim held up the bag. When they opened it they found a bottle of liquid soap and a Kalliroscope. They all looked at him strangely—all but Jason Gillcuddy, who put his hand on Tim's shoulders. "You're not in shape to dive again today," he said.
"Give me half an hour. I'll go down again," Tim said.
Horrie Jackson dug further into Tim's goody bag. Fishhooks and fishing line. A vacuum tin of pipe tobacco. The peanuts: Horrie opened the tin, passed it around. Tim took a handful. They tasted like … a cocktail party in progress.
"Diving can do funny things to your head," he said, and knew at once that that wasn't the explanation. All the world that he had lost was down there under the water, turning to garbage.
Gillcuddy said, "Here. One sip left." He handed Tim a bottle of Heublein Whiskey Sour that Tim didn't even remember stowing. One sip, a blast of nostalgia on the palate, and he threw the bottle far over the water. And there, sinister specks on the eastern horizon, were the boats of the New Brotherhood.
"Start the motor. Horrie, start the motor quick. They'll cut us off," he said. He strained forward for details, catching his balance when the motor started up, but all he could see was a lot of little boats and one much larger … a barge, with things on it. "They've got a gun platform, I think."
Expendables
It was not their fault that no one had told them that the real function of an army is to fight and that a soldier's destiny—which few escape—is to suffer, and if need be, to die.
T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War
Dan Forrester looked exhausted. He sat in the wheelchair Mayor Seitz had brought up from the valley convalescent home, and he was plainly fighting off sleep. He was padded against the cold: a blanket, a windbreaker with hood, flannel shirt and two sweaters, one of which was three sizes too big; that one he wore backward. A .22 bullet would not have reached his skin.
The dairy barn was unheated. Outside, the wind howled at twenty-five miles an hour, with gusts at twice that. It blew thin flurries of snow and sleet. The swaying gasoline lantern threw out a bright ring of light, leaving shadows of lunar blackness in the contours of the concrete barn.
Three men and two women took turns rotating the cement mixer by hand, while others shoveled powders into it. Two of red, one of aluminum powder, while the dry cement mixer turned. When the powders were well mixed, others took them out and put them in cans and jars, then cast plaster of paris around them.
Maureen Jellison came in and shook the snow from her hair. She watched from the door for a moment, then went to Forrester's wheelchair. He didn't see her, and she shook his shoulder. "Dan. Dr. Forrester."
He looked up with glazed eyes.