Sixty days and counting - Kim Stanley Robinson [164]
The next morning they saw that a little snow had fallen. They were just settling in for the day, Charlie planning to roast some green firewood over the flames of drier wood, when the power came back on with its characteristic click and hum. It had been eleven hours. On the news they found out that electricity for essential services had been provided to Baltimore by the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, and that this had helped the power company to get back online faster.
The day was already disarranged, so Charlie took Nick to school, then returned home, where he and Anna and Joe tried to settle in. None of them seemed to be enjoying this situation, Anna and Charlie trying to work in quick shifts while the other occupied Joe, who was curious to know why he wasn’t at daycare; and after a couple hours’ struggle, Charlie suggested he take Joe out for a walk while Anna continued to work.
It was a crisp, clear day. According to the little backpacking thermometer hanging from the bottom of the baby backpack (Anna’s idea, more data) the temperature outside was very near zero. It would have been perfect conditions for the baby backpack, because with Joe on his back they kept each other warm. But Joe refused to get in it. “I wanna walk,” he said. “I’m too big for that now, Dad.”
This was not literally true. “Well, but we could keep each other warm,” he said.
“No.”
“Okay then.”
It occurred to Charlie that it had been quite a while since Joe had been willing to get in the thing and take a ride. And it was looking a little small. Possibly Joe had gotten into it for the last time, and the final usage of it had passed without Charlie noticing. With a pang Charlie put it into the depths of the vestibule closet. How he had loved carrying Nick and then Joe around like that. He had done a lot of backpacking in his life, but no load on his back had ever felt so good to him as his boys. Instead of weighing him down they had lifted him up. Now that was over.
Oh well. They set out together on a walk through the hilly neighborhoods east of Wisconsin Avenue.
ON A BRIGHT CHILL SATURDAY MORNING not long after that, Charlie once again joined Drepung and Frank down on the Potomac, this time at a put-in just downstream from Great Falls, on the Maryland side.
Mornings on the river were filled with a blue glassy light unusual elsewhere in the city at that time of year. The deciduous trees were bare, the evergreens dusted with snow.
Frank generally paddled ahead of the other two, silent as he so often was, absorbed in the scene. Charlie and Drepung followed at a distance, talking over the events of the week and sharing their news.
“Did Frank tell you that he visited the original Shambhala?” Drepung asked Charlie.
“No, what do you mean?”
Drepung explained.
“It seems a funny place for Shambhala to have begun,” Charlie said. “Out there in the middle of nowhere.”
“Yes, doesn’t it? But in the eighth century it was different, and, well, howsoever it came about, that’s where it happened.”
“But eventually it ended up in Khembalung.”
“Yes. That is simply the Sherpa word for Shambhala. It came into use when the city was in a hidden valley east of Everest.”
“But then the Chinese came.”
“Yes. Then the inhabitants moved to the island.”
“Now under the Bay of Bengal.”
“Yes.”
“And so what becomes of Khembalung now?”
Drepung smiled and waggled his paddles. “Always here and now, right? Or at the farm in Maryland, in any case.”
“Okay, if you say so. And what about this original site, is it going to be drowned too, you said? Won’t that make three for three?”
“No, Frank said it will be close to the shore of the new lake, but they are going to build a dike that will keep it dry.”
“Another dike?”
Drepung laughed. “Yes, it does sound a bit too familiar, but I’ve looked at the