Footfall

That was at the tail end of the seventies, when the end of civilization was a serious matter. There were double-digit inflation and a rising crime rate. Iran was holding fifty-odd kidnapped ambassadors and getting away with it. OPEC’s banditry regarding oil prices seemed equally safe. What nation would be next to see the obvious? The United States couldn’t defend itself. The value of her money was falling to its limit: a penny and a half in 1980 money, the cost of printing a dollar bill. U.S. military forces were in shreds, and the Soviets kept building missiles long after they caught up, then passed, the United States’ strategic forces.

If the economy didn’t collapse, nuclear war would kill you. Either way, there were long odds against survival of the unprepared. The Enclave was born of equal parts desperation and play-acting. Which was more important depended on the morning headlines.

Things looked better after Reagan was elected. The hostages were returned minutes after the old cowboy took office… but the Enclave continued to meet. The dollar ceased to fall, then grew strong. The economy was turning around, the stock market was showing signs of health; but there was no money for the military, and the Soviet Union kept building rockets. The Enclave made lists of what a survivalist ought to own, and checked each other’s stocks. A year’s supply of food, just like the Mormons. Guns. Gold coins. And they dreamed of a place to run, just in case.

The late eighties: Welfare had not increased to match inflation, and unemployment was down. There might have been a connection. Inflation had slowed too. General Motors had won its lawsuit against the unions, for damages done by a strike, and collected from the union funds; strikes ought to be less common in the future. The weapons of war had moved into a science-fictional realm, difficult for the avenge citizen to assess. But the Soviet space program had been moving steadily outward until they virtually owned the sky from Near Earth Orbit to beyond the Moon.

The Enclave continued to meet. They had grown older, and generally wealthier. Four years ago they had bought a piece of land outside Bellingham, a decaying city north of Seattle that had been a port and shipyard before the silt moved in and the trade moved south. It was as far from any likely targets of war as anyplace that seemed able to support itself. There had once been a navy shipyard, but that was long ago.

They all made money, but they weren’t rich. Their jobs kept them in Los Angeles. Over the years one or another had found wealth or peace or even both in small towns. The dropouts were replaced, and the Enclave endured, an aging group of middleclass survivalists unwilling to break away from Los Angeles and their not inconsiderable incomes.

All this time they had been meeting, every Thursday night after the dinner hour, like clockwork. Tonight was Monday; they had left work early, and Isadore was getting hungry; the dinner hour should have been just beginning. But the terrible strangeness of this night did not derive from that. Isadore Leiber sought for what it was that was bothering him, and it came, not in strangeness but in familiarity, as he reached for a cigarette.

Four years ago he’d given up smoking for the last time. He’d given it up, but he borrowed from his friends at every opportunity. Giving up smoking became his lifestyle. It got to where his friends couldn’t stand him: the sight of a familiar face triggered his urge to smoke; he would roll pipe tobacco in toilet paper if he had to. But he was giving up smoking, yes indeed. And he was getting ready for the end of civilization, yes indeed. But he’d been doing it for well over a decade, and that had become his lifestyle. Tonight was weird. No laughter, no complaining about fools in Congress.

Tonight they meant it.

“I hate the timing,” George said. “Corliss is about to graduate, and the rest of the kids won’t like missing the tail end of the school year, and if they do, I don’t.”

There were echoes of agreement. “I can’t go,” Isadore said.

The noise stopped. Jack McCauley said, “What do you mean, can’t?”

“I can’t quit my job. I can’t take leave, either. George said it, it’s timing. Travel agencies get hectic with summer coming on.”

Jack made a sound of disgust. George asked, “Sick leave?”

“Mmm … a couple of weeks.”

“Wait till, oh, the tenth of June. Jack, this makes sense.” George jumped the gun on an automatic protest. “We’re bound to forget something. We’ll keep Ia posted. Ia, you take your two weeks sick leave just before the ETI’s reach Earth. You come up then. Two weeks later you’ll damn well know whether you want to go back to the city.”

“It’s still costing us a pair of strong arms,” Jack groused.

Isadore decided he liked the idea. “I’ll ask Clara if she wants to take the kids up early. Maybe we’ll want to keep them in school as long as we can.”