Footfall

Tarzana didn’t have electricity. Ken Dutton and his guests stayed outdoors. Light came from the bellies of the clouds, reflected from wherever the Los Angeles and San Fernando Valleys still had electricity. Occasionally a guest would go inside, feeling his way through the darkness toward the flickering light from the bathroom. At the next Stone Soup Party there would probably be no candles at all.

He’d boiled a few eggs to decorate the Russian salad. That looked like it would hold up until the party was over.

Some of the guests were cleaning out the pots. It had been settled without much discussion: better to get most of the cleaning done before Ken served coffee. The suspicion existed that anyone who conspicuously shirked cleanup duties might not be invited back. For some it was true.

Sarge poured a torrent of dirty water into a patio drain. “At least we kicked them out of Kansas,” he said.

Graves, who had seemed half as’eep in his beach chair, said, “Did we? I’m told they spent much of their efforts raiding libraries and collecting… well, memorabilia, items that might tell them something of our nature.”

“Sure. Wouldn’t you?”

“It was a reco

“The what?”

The old man laughed. “I don’t blame you. Nineteen thirty-nine to summer of 1940. Germany and France were officially at war, you see. But nothing was happening. They stared at each other across the Maginot Line, between two lines of trenches, and did nothing. The papers called it the Phony War. I expect they didn’t like not having a story. For the rest of us, it was a calm and nervous time.”

“Like now. Nothing happening,”

“Precisely. Then the Nazis came rolling across and took France, and nobody said Phony War any more.”

Patsy followed through. “Suddenly they’ll bomb all the cities at once’?”

“They might give us a chance to surrender first. The trouble is, they’ve never answered any of our broadcasts. This may be that chance, by their lights, and we’re obliged to work out how to surrender. Well, how?”

“If we spend all our time thinking about how to surrender, thea they’ve got us beaten,” Patsy said heatedly. “I’d rather be trying to flatten them. Even if we lose a few cities.”

Ken nodded, though the thought brought a chill. Los Angeles? Behind him Marty said, “Ken, could I have a word with you?”

They stepped inside, found chairs by feel. It was too dark to read expressions. Faint sounds from somewhere in the house might indicate that a couple had felt their way to a couch or a bedroom. Life goes on.

Marty asked, “Were you serious about getting out?”

“Sure, Marty, but there are problems. I don’t own a piece of the Enclave.”

“Yeah. Well, I do, as long as the law holds up. Heh. After the law stops mattering is when a man needs something like the Enclave, and I’m short in my dues”

“Well, they might—”

“No, what I was thinking was John Fox. He’s in-this isn’t to get around-he’s in Shoshone, just outside of Death Valley, camping out till this is all over. He knows what he’s doing, Ken.”

“1 never knew you were much of a camper.”

“No. But Fox is, and he might be glad to see us if we showed up with food. Would you like to go with me?”

Ken glanced through the picture window, automatically, before he answered. No fights going, nobody looked particularly unhappy; the Russian salad hadn’t disappeared yet, though Bess Church’s wheel of Cheddar cheese had gone like snow in a furnace. The host wasn’t needed: good. He said, “Food and camp gear, sure. I don’t have camp gear, and I bet it’s in short supply. Anyway, suppose John isn’t glad to see us? No way we could phone ahead.”

“Shoshone’s still a good bett Why in God’s name would even snouts bomb Shoshone? And John doesn’t own those caves. We camp out nearby—”

“No.”

“Then where?”

“I mean no, I’m not leaving.” Ken Dutton had made his decision before he understood the reasons. Now they were coming to him, in the sight and sounds of his crowded and happy territory. “Maybe I’m crazy. I’m going to stick it out here.”

“Yup, you’re crazy. Thanks for di

Marty’d go, Ken realized. He hadn’t done any of the cleaning up. He wasn’t pla

Je

“Hello, sailor. New in town?”—

He gri

She extracted her arm to look at her watch. “Time we got to work.”

“We still have an hour.” He moved closer to her. “Not that I can—”

“It’s all right. But I can’t sleep.”

“So?”

She sat up. “Let’s watch the weirdos. We’ve got pickups in the Snout Room.”

“Sounds good.”

He stayed in bed, with the sheet over him. Fastidious. Likes to see me nekkid, but not to be seen. I’d say it was cowardice, but how can you say that about a guy who’ll put his ass in from of a bullet for the President? Maybe his scars are classified…

“Is this legal?” Jack asked.

“Sure. I’m Intelligence. I can do anything!”

“Yeh, as long as they don’t replace the Supreme Court. Je

“It’s all right. The writers know they’re being watched. And Harpanet’s a prisoner. No rights. Satisfied?”

“Yeah—”

“And there’s nothing else to watch on my TV, I guarantee you that.” She switched on the set.

The picture swam into focus. An empty box of a room: no rugs, no furniture, no occupants; nothing but a movie screen and projector, and a broad doorway with edges of freshly cut concrete. “Wrong room,” she said, and fiddled again. “We’ve already assigned three rooms in the complex, and God knows what they’ll think they need next. Hem.”

The alien lolled at his ease in a sea of steaming mud. The humans around him were in beach chairs and swimsuits. Mud had splashed Sherry and Joe and Nat, who were crowded close to the edge. Wade Curtis stayed farther back, wearing an African safari bush jacket and seated in a fold-up chair with a beer can in his hand. Just above him was a huge globe of the Earth. A bar on wheels showed in one corner.

“See? They took our swimming pool! We move the furniture out when nobody’s using it. The alien likes his floor room,” Je

Jack eyed the mud with distaste. “No, thanks. Have you got all the rooms bugged?’

“No. Hell, no! Half these hard-SF people are ex-military, and they’d spot that, and the other half are liberals! We’ve got pickups in the mudroom and the Snout Room and the refuge, that’s the room they use to write up their notes and talk and get drunk, but it’s right next to the Snout Room. The mud’s new. He seems to like it, doesn’t he?”

“Can you get us sound too?”

“Sure.” Je

Wade Curtis’ unmistakable voice boomed from the speaker. “We’ve pretty well driven the Traveler Fithp out of Kansas. We’re picking through the debris now. We’d like to know where the fithp will attack next.”

“I wasn’t told,” Harpanet said. His pronunciation was good, yet something blurred the words: loose air escaped through the nose and lips, and there was an echo-chamber effect, perhaps due to his huge lung capacity.

Jack said, “He learns fast. I’ve talked to French diplomats with thicker accents.” But Je

Curtis was saying, “Your officers don’t seem to tell you much of what you’re doing.”

“No. A fi’ learns little because he might be taken into the enemy herd. That has happened with me. I have told you this.” The alien might have been affronted.

“It is a new way of thinking, and hard for us,” Sherry Atkinson said. “We must learn what we can.” She slipped into the mud, quite unselfconsciously, and rubbed behind the alien’s ear with both hands. She was already the muddiest of the lot, Je