The Chronoliths

A dire thought occurred to me, and I reached for the handle of the door.

“Scotty?” Hitch inquired.

“I need to drain the radiator,” I said. “If that water freezes, we lose our transportation.”

We had been wise enough to carry our drinking water in flexible bags which would expand as necessary. We had also dumped antifreeze into the van’s radiator. But we hadn’t anticipated being this close to the arrival. A serious flash-freeze would probably demolish the engine’s coolant system and strand us here.

“May not be time.”

“So wish me luck. And hand me the tool box.”

I let myself out into the gale. Wind slammed the door behind me. The wind came up the arroyo from the south, feeding the steep thermoclines of the arriving Chronolith. The air was choked with dust and sand. I had to shield my eyes with my hand in order to open them even a slit. I navigated to the front of the van by touch.

The vehicle had come down at a steep angle into a sandy ridge, and the front of it was entrenched up to the bumper. There was a burst of auroral light overhead as I scooped out a space with my hands. The thermal jacket was keeping my core temperature up — at least so far — but my breath turned to frost with every exhalation and my fingers were clumsy and fiery-numb. Too late to go back for gloves. I managed to open the tool box and fumble out a wrench.

The radiator system was designed to be drained from beneath by loosening a valve nut. I clasped the nut with the wrench but it refused to turn.

Leverage, I thought, bracing my feet against the tire, leaning into the angle of the wrench like a sculler leaning into an oar. The noise of the wind was overpowering, but under it there was another sound, the thunderclap of the arrival, then the shockwave through the ground, a hard mule-kick from below.

The valve nut popped, and I sprawled into the sand.

A trickle of water ran out and instantly froze against the ground — enough to relieve the pressure inside the radiator, though stray ice could still crack any number of vital systems, if we were unlucky.

I tried to stand and found that I couldn’t.

Instead I rolled into the meager shelter created by the angle of the van against the earth. My head was suddenly too heavy to hold erect, and I put my numbed hands between my thighs and curled into the meager warmth of my thermal jacket and promptly lost consciousness.

When I opened my eyes again the air was still and I was back inside the van.

Sunlight burned on the scrim of ice that had formed on the windshield. The heater was pumping out steamy warm air.

I sat up, shivering. Ashlee was already awake, chafing Kaitlin’s hands between her own, and that sight worried me; but Ashlee said at once, “She’s all right. She’s breathing.”

Hitch Paley had dragged me inside after the worst of the thermal shock had passed. Currently he was outside replacing the valve nut I had loosened. He stood, peered in through the fogged window, and gave me a thumbs-up when he saw that I was awake.

“I think we’ll be okay,” Ashlee said. Her voice was raw, and I realized that my own throat was sore when I swallowed, no doubt from the briefly supercooled air we had all inhaled. Lungs a little achy, too, and fingers and toes still bereft, at their tips, of sensation. Some crusted blood on the palm of my right hand where the freezing wrench had taken away a layer of skin. But Ashlee was right. We had survived.

Kait moaned again. “We’ll keep her covered up,” Ash said. “But she’s already sick, Scott. We need to worry about pneumonia.”

“We need to get her back to civilization.” And up that embankment again, to begin with. Not a sure thing.

When I felt able, I opened the driver’s-side door and climbed out. The air was relatively warm again, and surprisingly fresh, save for a haze of dust that was settling everywhere like fine snow. Prevailing winds had carried the ice fog off to the east.

Frost steamed off the rocks and sand of the creek bed. I climbed to the top of the embankment and looked back at the town — what remained of it.

The Kuin of Portillo was still shrouded in ice, but it was clearly a large monument. The figure of Kuin was standing, one arm upraised in a beckoning gesture.

The town of Portillo lay at his immense feet, dim in the mist but obviously devastated.

The radius of the thermal shock was enormous. All but a few of the hajists must have died, it seemed to me, though I did see some vehicles moving at the perimeter of the town, probably Red Cross mobile stations.

Ashlee came up the slope behind me, panting. Her breath halted briefly when she saw the scope of the destruction. Her lips trembled. Her face was brown with dust, rivered with tears.

“But he might have got away,” she whispered: meaning, of course, Adam.

I said that was possible.

Privately, I doubted it.

Seventeen

By means of a co

The dead — no doubt massive numbers of them — remained in town, but we passed clusters of refugees along the highway. Many were limping, crippled by frostbite. Some had been blinded by ice crystals. Some had sustained injuries from falling masonry or other shockwave events. All sense of threat had vanished from them, and Ashlee twice insisted on stopping to distribute our few blankets and a little food, and to ask about Adam.

But none of these young people had heard of him, and they had more pressing concerns. They begged us to relay messages, call parents or spouses or family in L.A., in Dallas, in Seattle… The parade of misery was overwhelming, and at length even Ashlee had to turn away from it, though she continued to scan the refugees for any sign of Adam until we were farther north than even a healthy hajist could had walked. The sight of relief trucks and military ambulances streaming toward Portillo eased her conscience but not her fears. She lapsed into her seat, stirring only to tend to Kaitlin now and then.

My fears for Kait deepened during the drive. She was sicker than I had realized, and her exposure to the thermal shock had made matters worse. Ashlee took Kait’s temperature with the thermometer from the first-aid kit, then frowned and fed her a couple of antipyretic capsules and a long drink of water. We were forced to stop several times for Kaitlin to lope away from the van and relieve her bowels, and each time she stumbled back she was visibly weaker and unspeakably humiliated.

We needed to get her into a reputable hospital. Hitch placed a call to Sue Chopra and reassured her that we had survived, though Kait was ill. Sue recommended crossing the border, if possible, before admitting Kait for medical care, since young Americans in-country without papers were currently being jailed. The No-gales border crossing was swamped — there had been a rumor, this one false, of an impending arrival in that city — but Sue said she would arrange for someone from the consulate to escort us through. A hospital room would be waiting in Tucson.

Ashlee administered a broad-spectrum antibiotic from our medical kit and Kait slept fitfully through the hot afternoon. Hitch and I exchanged driving duties.

I thought about Ashlee. Ashlee had just lost her son, or believed she had. It was remarkable that she was able to care for Kaitlin at all — moving under the weight of her grief with great deliberation. And Kait responded to this kindness instinctively. She was at ease with her head in Ashlee’s lap.

It occurred to me that I loved them both.

I obeyed Ashlee’s injunction: I did not, then or later, ask Kaitlin what had happened to her during the haj.