Blind Lake

He scrambled away from Courtney to the driver’s-side door. The door was crumpled and didn’t want to open; the latch-handle came off in his hand. He braced himself against the steering wheel and the seatback and kicked outward, and though it hurt his feet hellishly, the door did at last creak and groan a little way open on its damaged hinges. Bob forced it wider and then tumbled out, gasping at the cold air. He rose to his knees. Then, shaking, he stood upright.

This time he saw quite clearly the device that popped out of the tall grass at the verge of the road. He happened to be looking in the right direction, happened to catch sight of it in a moment of frozen hyperclarity, this small, incongruous object that was in all likelihood the last thing he would ever see. It was round and camouflage-brown and it flew on buzzing pinwheel wings. It hovered at a height of about six feet — level with Bob’s head. He looked at it, eyeball to eyeball, assuming some of those small dents or divots were equivalent to eyes. He recognized it as a piece of military equipment, though it was like nothing he had ever encountered in his weekends with the Reserves. He didn’t even think about ru

This final act of bloody interdiction was more than enough for the crowd. They watched the dead man, if you could call that headless bundle of exposed body parts a man, crumple to the ground. There was an absolute silence. Then screams, then sobs; then car doors slamming and kids wheeling their bikes around for a panicked trip back through the snowy dusk toward the lights of Blind Lake.

Once the spectators had cleared out, it was easier for Shulgin to organize his security people. They weren’t trained for anything like this. They were bonded nightwatchmen, mostly, hired to keep drunks and juveniles out of delicate places. Some were retired veterans; most had no military experience. And to be honest, Ray thought, there was nothing much for them to do here, only establish a mobile cordon around the slowly-moving truck and prevent the few remaining civilians from getting in the way. But they did a presentable job of it.

Within fifteen minutes of the events beyond the gate the black transport truck came to a stop inside the perimeter of Blind Lake.

“It’s a delivery vehicle,” Elaine said to Chris. “It was designed to drop cargo and go home. See? The cab’s disengaging from the flat.”

Chris watched almost indifferently. It was as if the attack on the fleeing automobile had been burned into his eyes. Out in the darkness the fire had already been reduced to smoldering embers in the wet snow. A couple of people had died here, and they had died, it seemed to Chris, in order to communicate a message to Blind Lake in the bluntest possible way. You may not pass. Your community has become a cage.

The truck cab reversed direction, pulling itself and its sheath of armor away from the conventional aluminum cargo container shielded within. The cab kept moving, more quickly than it had arrived, back through the open gate along the road to Constance. When it reached the smoldering ruins of the automobile it pushed them out of its way, shoveled them onto the verge of the road like idle garbage.

The gate began to swing closed.

Smooth as silk, Chris thought. Except for the deaths.

The cargo container remained behind. The overworked security detail hurried to surround it… not that anyone seemed anxious to get close.

Chris and Elaine circled back for a better view. The rear of the container was held closed by a simple lever. There was some dialogue between Ray Scutter and the man Elaine had identified as the Lake’s security chief. At last the security man stepped through the cordon and pulled down the lever decisively. The container’s door swung open.

A half-dozen of his men played flashlight over the contents. The container was stacked high with cardboard boxes. Chris was able to read some of the printing on the boxes.

Kellogg’s. Seabury Farm. Lombardi Produce.

“Groceries!” Elaine said.

We’re going to be here awhile, Chris thought.

PART TWO

Polished Mirrors Of Floating Mercury

Having an intelligence of a vastly different order than that of Man, the decapods were unable to conceive the fact that an Earth-man was a thinking entity. Possibly to them Man was no more than a new type of animal; his buildings and industry having impressed them no more than the community life of an ant impresses the average man — aside from his wonder at the analogy of that life to his own.

Ten

“Chris Carmody? What’d you do, walk here? Brush off that snow and come in. I’m Charlie Grogan.”

Charlie Grogan, chief engineer at Eyeball Alley, was a big man, more robust than fat, and he put out a beefy hand for Chris to shake. Full head of hair, gone white at the temples. Confident but not aggressive. “Actually,” Chris said, “yeah, I did walk here.”

“No car?”

No car, and he had arrived in Blind Lake without winter clothes. Even this unlined jacket was borrowed. The snow tended to get down the collar.

“When you work in a building without windows,” Grogan said, “you learn to pick up clues about the weather outside. Are we still this side of a blizzard?”

“It’s coming down pretty good.”

“Uh-huh. Well, you know, December, you have to expect a little snow, this part of the country. We were lucky to get through Thanksgiving with only a couple of inches. Hang your coat over there. Take off those shoes, too. We got these little rubber slippers, grab a pair off the shelf. That thing you’re wearing, is that a voice recorder?”

“Yes, it is.”

“So the interview’s already started?”

“Unless you tell me to turn it off.”

“No, I guess that’s what we’re here for. I was afraid you wanted to talk about the quarantine — I don’t know any more about it than anyone else. But Ari Weingart tells me you’re working on a book.”

“A long magazine article. Maybe a book. Depending.”

“Depending on whether we’re ever allowed outside again?”

“That, and whether there’s still an audience to read it.”

“It’s like playing let’s-pretend, isn’t it? Pretend we still live in a sane world. Pretend we have useful jobs to do.”

“Call it an act of faith,” Chris said.

“What I’m prepared to do — my act of faith, I guess — is show you around the Alley and talk about its history. That’s what you want?”

“That’s what I want, Mr. Grogan.”

“Call me Charlie. You already wrote a book, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Yeah, I heard about that. Book about Ted Galliano, that biologist. Some people say it was character assassination.”

“Have you read it?”

“No, and no offense, but I don’t want to. I was introduced to Galliano at a conference on bioquantum computing. Maybe he was a genius with antivirals, but he was an asshole, too. Sometimes when people get famous they also get a little celebrity-happy. He wasn’t content unless he was talking to media or big investors.”

“I think he needed to feel like a hero, whether he deserved it or not. But I didn’t come here to talk about Galliano.”

“Just wanted to clear the air. I don’t hold your book against you. If Galliano decided to drive his motorcycle over that cliff, it surely wasn’t your fault.”

“Thank you. How about that tour?”