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From: "Al Steiner" <steiner_al@hotmail.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} NEW: Aftermath by Al Steiner - Ch 13 (FMF) 1/1
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 22:10:04 -0500
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Finally, here is the next installment.  I thank all of you for your patience
and your gentle encouragement during the extended break between chapters.
Hopefully I won't have to keep everyone waiting as long again.  One other
note: I'm tired of posting this in multiple parts and not having parts of it
show up.  This time I'm going to try posting it in a single section.  For
those of you on AOL that are reading it through the newsgroups, the entire
thing probably won't come through.  AOL cuts them off at a certain point for
some reason.  If this happens, please find the complete text at
storiesonline or on ASSTR.  Please do not ask me to email you the chapter.
I do not do that.




AFTERMATH
By Al Steiner
Previous chapters can be found at www.storiesonline.net
Send all comments to steiner_al@hotmail.com




CHAPTER 13




It was thirty minutes before dark when Bracken reentered Barnes' office.
The discovery of the death of Kelly and the apparent escape by Jean and Anna
had taken place twelve hours before and Bracken had spent the day with a
full platoon of soldiers trying to track his traitorous wives down so they
could be hanged.

"No sign at all huh?" Barnes asked as he looked at his wet and muddy and now
wifeless subordinate.  He had been following the results of the search on a
radio set on his desk.

"Nothing," Bracken confirmed.  "We went all the way to the first mudfall to
the east and saw nothing at all.  Fourth platoon went all the way to the
edge of the valley on the west and they saw nothing either.  First and
second platoons checked to the north and south, even though those are the
least likely directions they might have gone, and again, nothing."

"There's no way they could have made it more than a mile outside of town in
the dark," Barnes said confidently.  "Even if they DID manage to get out
somehow, they would have been forced to camp just outside the range of the
guards' visual zone until sunrise.  It would've been impossible for them to
navigate or move in the darkness."

"I agree sir," Bracken said.  "If they were out there, we would have seen
them or picked up some sign of them.  We have no evidence whatsoever that
they even made it outside the perimeter.  How could they even have made
their way through any of our defenses in the dark?  It's impossible."

"So that leaves us with the conclusion that they are still in town
somewhere," Barnes said.

"That's right," Bracken told him.  "They're probably hiding in one of the
abandoned houses or in the industrial area.  With your permission, I'll
start a building to building search of the entire town at first light."

"Permission granted.  We'll probably find them by noon tomorrow at the
latest.  We'll hang them before dinner if that's the case."

"Yes sir."

"Don't blame yourself for this Bracken," Barnes told him reassuringly.  "No
one can tell when their bitches are going to do something stupid like this.
They're secretive little cunts, the bitches, and they plot against us
without our even knowing about it."

"There must be some way to prevent that," Bracken said.  "After all, we've
got to maintain order in town."

"We'll have to come down a little harder on them it would seem.  I think
that, starting with this escape, we should punish all of them for the
offense."

"Punish all of them?"

"Yes," Barnes said, nodding as the thought grew more detailed in his mind.
"We'll punish them all and try to make them realize that their actions
effect more than just themselves.  I will order tonight that every woman in
town be beaten by their husbands for the offense committed by your wives.
In addition to that, I will pull three names of women at random and order
that they be hanged."

Bracken raised his eyebrows a bit.  "Hang three other bitches at random
because of what my bitches did?  I don't think the guys will like that too
much if it's their bitch that gets picked."

"I'm sorry the guys won't like it, but they'll just have to put up with it.
We'll set the precedent right here and right now to all of the bitches just
what the consequences are for trying to escape.  It's harsh, but I think
it's the only way we'll get these bitches to see that they are effecting
more than themselves."

"I understand sir," Bracken said.


+++++


Contrary to Barnes and Bracken's assumptions, Jean and Anna had made it well
past the mudfall by the time the light returned to the sky.  Well aware of
the dragnet that would be pursuing them, they had recovered as much food as
they could find from the landfill - more than 27 cans - and had then moved
at as quick of a pace down the Interstate as they could physically maintain.
Of course both of these operations - food recovery and escape run - were
aided greatly by the use of the nightvision on the camera.  With three
long-life batteries to burn, there had been more than enough power to last
them until morning.  They had reached the mudfall by 5:00 AM that morning
and, continuing on without pausing, had been nearly two miles into the woods
on the trek around it when their escape was finally discovered.

They had not stopped for anything but bathroom breaks and a simple breakfast
at sunrise (such as it was with the sun still hidden behind thick clouds).
They had simply stashed the video camera and its one remaining battery back
in their packs and continued on, their pace somewhat faster as they trudged
over logs and up hills and through gullies.  By the time the pursuing troops
made it to the mudfall at around 1:30 that afternoon, Anna and Jean were
back on the Interstate on the other side of it starting to feel, for the
first time, that they had safely gotten away.

"I don't think we left any tracks that they could follow or any other sign
that we were even out here," Anna said as they began walking east on the
paved surface once again.  "Chances are that they'll conclude we never left
town in the first place.  They'll probably waste at least two days searching
for us there before it occurs to them to look this way again.  By then we'll
be far too far in front of them for there to be any hope of catching up with
us."

"So you think we're safe?" Jean, who had been obsessively looking over her
shoulder the entire time, asked hopefully.

"Safe from the Auburn men," Anna corrected.  "However, there's still the
great unknown out here to deal with; and we still only have 26 cans of food
to last us all the way to Garden Hill."

"We'll make it," Jean said.  "I just know we will.  The hard part is over
now."

All afternoon they had marched onward, coming to the second of the major
mudfalls at about 4:30, just as the light started to fade towards darkness.
They pushed another quarter mile into the woods and then, at long last,
decided to make camp for the night.  Here Anna gave up her unspoken
leadership and passed it on to Jean, who had done a fair share of camping
and hunting with her father and brothers before the comet.  Jean was able to
quickly build a lean-to against the side of a group of fallen trees.  It was
a lean-to that was both larger and better constructed than those that Brett
and company had made on their initial trips through the woods.

"Let's get some sleep," Jean told her fellow conspirator once the makeshift
structure was complete.

"I'm up for that," Anna agreed.  "I can't believe you were able to build
something that's DRY inside."

"Mostly dry anyway," Jean said.  She opened up the plastic bag that she had
been using as her pack, pulling out the dry blankets inside.  "Put the
plastic bags down first," she said, demonstrating what she meant.  "That
will keep the water on the ground from getting us.  Then, if we take off our
clothes, our blankets will stay somewhat dry for tomorrow."

"Pretty smart Jean," Anna said, repeating her motions with her own bag.
"Are you sure you haven't been to college?"

Within minutes their wet clothes were stripped off and stored and their
naked bodies were cuddled up together under the thick blankets.

"We're free," Jean whispered, pulling Anna closer to her.

"Yes," Anna said, soaking up the warmth of her friend's body.  "We're free
at last."

Exhausted, both were sound asleep in less than five minutes.



+++++



January 1 dawned just like any other day.  The coming of the new year marked
the 80th day since the impact of Comet Fenwell.  Though there was still no
sign of the sun through the thick cloud cover and though the moderate but
depressingly steady rainfall continued to drop without let-up from those
clouds, the spirits in Garden Hill were at perhaps an all-time high since
that fateful day.  They were now quite safe from the specter of starvation.
More than six tons of rice and wheat, as well as more than 6000 cans of
chicken noodle soup and more than 4000 cans of spinach, had been recovered
from the abandoned train and stored.  Mealtimes were starting to get a bit
boring despite the best efforts of Tina, Stacy, and the other kitchen staff
to dress up the new staples of their diet, but at least there WERE mealtimes
every day.

In addition, the social climate of Garden Hill was undergoing a rapid
metamorphosis.  Though Brett and Jason and their various wives had been the
ones to pioneer the concept of polygamous marriage, the concept had not
received widespread acceptance in town until Paul, Janet, and Sherrie took
the plunge.  Though Brett was respected greatly in town for all that he had
done, his reputation would always be associated with rebellion and
radicalism.  And though Jason was rapidly gaining the respect due him as an
adult, many of the townspeople associated him with the burnings of youth.
Paul, on the other hand, was considered about as straight-laced and normal
as a person could get.  Since Paul made it publicly known that he was
participating in such a marriage, it was concluded almost unanimously that
such a thing MUST be the wave of the future.  As of the morning of January
1, four more polygamous marriages had been declared and two more seemed
inevitable.

"So I was thinking," said Matt that afternoon as he sat in the cramped cargo
area of the helicopter next to Paul.

"A dangerous thing," said Brett from the pilot's seat, producing a dutiful
laugh from all on board.

They were two hours into a recon mission to examine the contents of all of
the trucks that had been abandoned on the Interstate between Garden Hill and
the snowline.  So far they had dropped Matt and Paul down five times next to
vehicles and five times they had drawn blanks as far as anything useful
being in the trucks.  The first one had been empty.  The second had
contained 16 thousand heads of lettuce that had long since spoiled.  The
third had been full of bags of steer manure - which might be somewhat useful
once the sun came back out.  The fourth had been empty.  The fifth had
contained 2000 cases of Sprite soda.

"What were you thinking Matt?" Jason, the designated lookout and student
pilot, asked.

"Well, we're going around calling today January 1, right?"

"Are you saying that it isn't January 1?" Paul asked him.  "We've kept
pretty good track of all the days since impact and I'm pretty sure that our
date is correct."

"Also," Brett said, "I've got the same watch that I was wearing before the
comet."  He held up his hand to show it to them.  "It takes a lickin' and
keeps on tickin'.  I never did set it back an hour when we went back to
standard time in October, but it says that it's the 1st of January too.  We
haven't forgot to count any days, I'm quite sure of it."

"No," Matt said, "that's not exactly what I'm saying.  I still have the same
watch as well and I have been marking off days on the calendar in my house
in addition to that.  It is in fact January 1 under the OLD calendar."

"The old calendar?" Jason asked.

"Correct," Matt said.  "It is my thought that we should not be using that
calendar any longer.  It is outdated, counting down days and years from the
alleged birth of Jesus Christ more than two thousand years ago.  A
significant event for those who believe in Him, I will agree, but it does
not have a lot of bearing on mankind's current situation."

"I'm sure there are a lot of religious people out there who will disagree
with you," Paul said.

"I'm sure you're right," Matt said.  "But fanatics not withstanding, I
believe that the NEW significant event we should be concerned with is the
impact of the comet that nearly destroyed us all.  It is that event that
marks the major change in mankind and it is that event that those in the
future generations should be able to mark as the new beginning of society -
whatever it turns out to be."

"That does make a certain amount of sense," Brett said, banking slightly to
the right as the Interstate two thousand feet below curved.  "So what date
would it be on your new calendar?"

"Today would be March 21, year 1," Matt replied.  "Exactly eighty days, or
two and two-thirds months from the day of impact.  On January 1, year 2,
we'll be exactly one year from the day of impact."

"March 21?" Jason asked.  "But that's the first day of spring.  Right now
we're in the middle of winter, or at least we would be if these clouds
weren't screwing everything up.  You can't just go changing around the
months and the seasons, can you?"

"Why not?" Matt wanted to know.  "It will probably be a long time before we
go back to any sort of normal weather patterns anyway.  I mean, once the
rain stops and the clouds break up a little, we're still going to have
vastly different weather than we're used to.  All of the snow in the
mountains will make new glaciers, which is going to affect winds and
temperatures globally.  According to Maggie - who's the closest thing to a
scientist that we have - we're probably going to be starting a new ice age
that will last for a few thousand years.  What possible difference will it
make to our descendants is the winter solstice is in February instead of
December?  What difference will it make if the summer solstice is in
September instead of June?"

"But what about Christmas and Easter and all of the religious holidays?"
Paul asked.  "What will you do about those?"

Matt shrugged.  "If Christianity somehow manages to survive all of this
intact, its followers can just continue to worship on the previous dates if
they want.  December 25 can still represent the birth of Jesus under this
new calendar.  That date was pretty much picked at random at some point in
history anyway.  Nobody really knows what day or even what year Jesus was
actually born.  And as for Easter, which represents The Resurrection, they
can still use the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring
equinox, just like they always did.  Only now, that will be in June or July
instead of March or April."

"Wow," Brett said after everyone had a moment to consider all of that.  "And
they call ME a radical."

The timekeeping discussion was put on hold for the moment when Jason spotted
more trucks down on the highway below.  There were two of them this time,
sitting next to each other near the edge of a massive washout of the
roadway.  It appeared that the two drivers had stopped there and never moved
since.

Brett circled around over the top of them for several minutes, visually
checking the area for any signs of humanity while Jason utilized the FLIR to
check for the telltale signs of body heat glowing from beneath bushes or
near trees.  Neither method of search turned up any likely humans so Matt
and Paul picked up their weapons, flipped off the safeties, and prepared to
exit the aircraft.  At least this time there was sufficient room to land on
the freeway and they wouldn't have to rappel downward and then be carried
along underneath to get back up.

Brett touched down lightly about a hundred yards from the two trailers.
Matt and Paul, in a well-practiced maneuver, went out either side and lay on
the ground, weapons trained outward.  Brett lifted back into the air and
flew off to the south, where he circled around awaiting a radio call to pick
them back up.  The two outside team members then got up and carefully
approached their targets.

They spent about ten minutes checking the area just to be absolutely sure
that they were all alone.  They saw no signs of anyone or anything in the
woods to the side of the freeway so they finally approached the cab of the
first truck.  While Matt covered him with the rifle, Paul tried the handle
on passenger side door, finding it unlocked.  The inside was empty so he
climbed up and dug around inside, looking for the shipment papers that every
big-rig was supposed to carry.  He found them in the usual place and took a
moment to look them over.

"What do we got?" Matt asked from behind him, his weapon now pointed at the
ground.

"Laundry soap," Paul replied.  "He's carrying six thousand boxes of Tide
from Gary, Indiana to Oakland."

"Christ," Matt said, somewhat dejected.  "I guess we can haul some of it
back later on.  We ARE getting rather short on it."

"Yeah," Paul agreed, tossing the papers back down.  "It is a rather
low-priority item though."

Utilizing their breaking and entering gear - in this case a pair of bolt
cutters - they opened up the trailer just to make sure that the manifest
matched the cargo.  You could never tell.  Maybe the truck driver had been a
smuggler of some sort and had been transporting automatic weapons and
ammunition for some radical anti-government group.  It was possible wasn't
it?

Perhaps, but it was not the case in this instance.  In the back were the
orange and white boxes so familiar to housewives the world over.

"Okay, let's check the other one," Matt said.

Again, they approached carefully and checked the cab first.  This time the
manifest papers were missing, as were most of the loose contents of the cab.
Where had they gone?  Had the driver taken them with him - wherever it was
that he went - for some bizarre reason?  They didn't know, nor did they
waste time speculating about it.  Instead they simply walked to the back of
the rig and prepared to open the door.

In this case they didn't have to force entry.  Someone had already done it
for them.  The lock was lying opened on the bumper of the trailer and the
latching handle was in the up position.  They both looked at this for a
moment, both having the thought that there must be something useful inside
or the driver of the truck would not have bothered taking some of it out.
Paul grabbed the handle and, with a grunt of effort, pulled open the door.

"Well now," Matt said, seeing the contents.

"Well, well," said Paul.

Inside of the trailer were hundreds of boxes stacked on pallets.  Each box,
according to the labeling on the side, contained sixty jars of Gerber baby
food.

"It's food," Matt said, reading the sides of the boxes to see what kind it
was.  All of the boxes that he could see proclaimed they contained broccoli
and cheese variety.  "It should come in handy in another month or so when
Stacy has her baby."

"And it'll come in REAL handy in about seven months when everyone ELSE
starts to pop," Paul added, referring to the recent epidemic of pregnancy
that had struck the women of Garden Hill.  As of that morning, and not
including Stacy and the other women who were carrying pre-comet children in
their wombs, there were nineteen confirmed pregnancies, including
Chrissie's, and more than twenty suspected ones.  Janet, who had run out of
birth control pills at impact+20 days, was among them, her period now more
than a week late.

"Amen to that," Matt agreed.  His wife Maureen was one of the confirmed
ones.  He pulled the portable radio from his pocket and keyed it up.
"Brett, Jason, you there?"

"We're here Matt," Jason's voice replied.  "Got anything in that bunch?"

"Laundry soap and a shitload of baby food," he replied.  "We're gonna close
it up now.  We're ready for pickup."

"Copy that, we're coming back in."

Since the fuel in the chopper's tank had dwindled to less than three hundred
pounds, Brett elected to call an end to that day's mission and head back to
town.  He pointed the chopper's nose to the west and brought them up to 2500
feet, accelerating to ninety knots.  Jason, at the controls of the FLIR,
watched the landscape in front of them hoping to spot a deer as he had on
one of the return flights from the grain detail.  Then, there had been no
scoped rifle or time to pursue the animal.  Now, Brett's own pre-comet rifle
was stashed under the passenger seat, just waiting for the oppurtunity to
take down some fresh meat.  Alas, nothing was seen but trees and ground.  In
the back, Matt and Paul were leaning against the sides of the cabin on
opposite sides, their headsets on their heads, their legs stretched out as
far as was possible (which wasn't very far at all).  They had both
long-since gotten over the worst of their fears of flying, so often had then
done it in the past two weeks.  Especially since Brett had put the
helicopter through a complete maintenance routine with the supplies taken
from the airport and the thing still flew.

"You given any more thought to El Dorado Hills mission?" Matt asked Paul.
Ever since the discovery of the neighboring town's occupied status, Matt and
several others had been quietly pushing for an attempt to make contact with
them.  Paul, still the only remaining member of the ruling committee, was
very much in favor of attempting contact but had so far been reluctant to
bring the matter to a community vote, mostly because of pressure by Brett
and a few others who thought such a thing was a bad idea.

"I've been giving it a lot of thought," he said with a sigh.  "Like I told
you before, I think its something that should be done, but I have to listen
to the other points of view about it.  It's my responsibility as leader."

"This isolationism school of thought," Matt said.  "No offense Brett, I know
how you feel about all of this, but I think that you're reasoning is flawed.

"Yeah, yeah," Brett said, unoffended.   "Call me paranoid if you will.  It's
just that we know nothing about the people there except for what we saw on a
few blurry infrared pictures.  Just because they allow women to carry guns
there, doesn't mean that they are like us.  So far, they have no idea we
even exist.  Why should we alert them to a potential target for attack?"

"I'm not saying that we land there and reveal everything about ourselves to
them," Matt said.  "And I agree with your reasoning in regard to Auburn -
those people give me the creeps as much as they do you.  But we know there
was a gun store in El Dorado Hills.  Maybe they have ammunition that they'll
be willing to trade for food."

"The initiation of trade IS the first step in rebuilding society," Paul felt
compelled to point out.

"And the initiation of war to take what you need is also one of the staples
of the beginnings of society as well," Brett countered.  "Why invite
trouble?"

"Sooner or later, we're going to have contact with them," Matt said.  "If we
survive here, which we certainly hope to do, it's inevitable that us,
Auburn, El Dorado Hills, and any other groups of people are going to meet
up, for better or for worse.  I think it would be in our best interests to
control the manner in which it is done.  Right now, they are pretty much
isolated there and we have an aircraft.  Even if they DID decide to attack
us, we're talking about a fifteen to twenty day march even assuming that
they can somehow get across one of the canyon bridges."

"I think that that is the most compelling argument in favor of making
contact," Paul added helpfully.  "Right now it is we that are in the
position of strength.  We have food and we have control of the sky.
Negotiating from the position of strength is always the best way to do it,
isn't it?"

"I suppose," Brett said reluctantly.

"I've hesitated bringing the issue to a vote at a community meeting so far
because of all the fervor," Paul said.  "I thought I'd give it a chance to
die down so that people would make their decisions rationally instead of
emotionally."

"I understand," Brett said, knowing what was coming next.

"I think we've reached that point," Paul said next.  "Unless there are any
stern objections," he gave Brett a sharp look, "then I'm going to bring it
up tonight and call a vote."

Brett sighed a little.  "You'll get no objections from me," he said at last.
"I don't agree that this is the time to do this but I will agree that its
time to decide one way or the other."


+++++


Dinner that night was of course very heavy on rice, chicken noodles, and
fresh baked bread made from flour that had been ground from the wheat.  The
mechanics of eating were over and done with fairly quickly.  The community
meeting that followed went on for quite some time.

Paul, to give him credit, explained fairly dispassionately and in a
non-partisan matter, just what it was that was being proposed.  He explained
the potential risks as well as the potential benefits of attempting to
establish contact, covering every single point that had been brought up to
him since the idea was first suggested.

For the first time since the initiation of the decision by community vote
concept, opinion was sharply divided on a subject.  This division followed
no clear lines and was almost completely even - with half the townspeople
being strongly in favor of making the attempt and about half strongly
opposed.  The first hour of the discussion did not even touch the subject of
whether or not they should do it but as to how the votes were going to
counted.  Representatives of both points of view pushed for a two-thirds
majority being required - in opposition to their respective choices of
course.  Some of the arguments became quite inflamed and, for the first time
since Jessica's ouster as chairwoman of the meeting, Paul found himself
wishing that he had a gavel to bang.

Finally Paul declared that, for the purposes of the decision-making,
majority would rule.  This then brought another extensive round of
discussion as person after person asked to be recognized so they could speak
their piece.  Most of the statements made were impassioned cries to try to
convert others to their side and the same points on both sides of the issue
were brought up over and over again.

"It's too dangerous to expose ourselves," cried the opposed group in thirty
or forty different ways.

"The benefits of establishing trade from a position of strength make the
risk worthwhile," cried those in favor in just as many different manners.

Eventually, at nearly 8:00 that night, everyone had had his or her say and
Paul called the vote.  It was very close, requiring that those people
manning the guard positions (they had listened to the entire debate through
a radio-link that Paul had set up) needed to be polled in order to make the
final determination.  The decision was made - by a margin of only two
votes - to make the attempt to establish contact.


+++++


Jessica was having a little trouble getting a deep breath.  As she sat in
the bleachers of the high school's football stadium that afternoon along
with every last one of the other 2200 some-odd women in town, her nose was
swollen shut and caked with blood and there was sharp pain in her right side
whenever she inhaled or exhaled.  Nor was she the only one.  Every woman
around her was sporting similar beating injuries of varying color and
severity.  Some, the women of Stu's clan, had had to be carried to the
mandatory meeting by their companion wives.

The beatings had occurred immediately after breakfast that morning.  Colonel
Barnes had ordered that every person return immediately to their assigned
homes and that every man soundly beat his wives as punishment for the "AWOL
status" of Anna and Jean Bracken.  "This is YOUR responsibility to do this
correctly," Barnes told the men of the town just before dismissing them to
take care of this.  "If I see a bitch walking around in this town without
bruises on her, I swear by god that I'm going have her husband hanged.  You
will beat them and beat them well for this!  Every last one of them!"

And the men of town had taken his words to heart.  The rumor mill among the
women was a weak one - there was too much fear and mistrust, too many
informers trying to gain favor for there to be a truly free exchange of
information and stories - but their WAS a rumor mill nonetheless.  Jessica,
who had been perhaps one of the all-time best at ferreting out gossip in her
previous circles, was starting to become tuned in to this network.   The
word was that three women had actually been beaten to death.  And now, with
less than a half-hour until dinner, Barnes had ordered again that every
person in town assemble.  The women had been put on the bleachers and in
front of it while the men were formed up at attention on the muddy field.
Most of the women were tittering nervously as they waited to find out what
this was all about.  The only time the women were forced to gather like this
was when one of them was to be hanged.  Had they caught Jean and Anna?  Was
that what this was all about?  The hanging scaffold was standing in its
accustomed spot in the center of the field - a large wooden structure that
had been constructed from scrap wood only days after the comet impact.

Somehow Jessica didn't seem to think that the two fugitives had been
captured.  Though she had never witnessed one of the town's hangings before,
she had heard that in every other case the women in question had been
chained to the outside of the scaffold when the meeting convened.

"I have a bad feeling about this," said Cathy, her co-wife, who was sitting
next to her.

"There's nothing to worry about," Linda, who was on the other side of Cathy,
replied nervously.  "He probably just wants to warn us again about trying to
get away.  Imagine the nerve of those two sluts, running away and subjecting
us to all this."

Jessica said nothing to them.  Their relationship was still not the best,
especially the relationship with Linda, who seemed to delight in reporting
every word, every action that Jessica said or did to Stinson.  As much as
she hated to admit it to herself, there was no denying that Linda's
personality was very much like her own.  Would she - Jessica - have been
like this if she had been in Auburn since the start, if she had not known
how different things could be?  She tried to tell herself that she wouldn't
have been but she had had much time to do some soul searching since that
shocking day she had first been beaten and raped, and she had a hard time
convincing herself of the truth of this notion.

"There's Barnes," Cathy said softly, a tinge of fear in her voice as he
walked to the covered podium that had been set up for him.

"Yes," Linda agreed, her eyes looking at him with adoration.  "Isn't he just
the most?"

Nobody answered her.  As one, the entire congregation of women stood up - as
Auburn law demanded they do when their leader was addressing them.  Barnes
mounted the podium and clicked on a loudspeaker system.  He tapped the
microphone a few times and then began to speak.

"This gathering," he said, "is for the bitches of town.  By now, all of you
have been beaten by your husbands as part of a group punishment for the
elopement of Anna and Jean Bracken.  These beatings were not something that
I ordered lightly - as I've told you time and time again, I am firmly
opposed to needless violence against the fairer sex - but they are something
that I thought necessary to prevent further elopements by others.  I want
you all to know that you are all going to be responsible for the actions of
each other and that your actions will impact what happens to everyone.  Now
the beatings are only the first step in this punishment process.  Now, we
will address part two of this punishment."

There was a low murmur from the women, almost inaudible over the sound of
the rain and the hissing of the public address system.  Part TWO of the
punishment?  A bad feeling began to infect everyone, becoming almost
palatable.

"I have put the names of every bitch in town into a box," Barnes told them
next, holding up a small, wooden container about the size of a toaster.
"This includes even my own bitches, as they are no better than any of you
others.  I will now draw three names from this box and those women will come
up and stand before the town where they will then be hanged for the offense
committed by Anna and Jean Bracken."

This time the gasp was clearly heard as his words sank into everyone.

"Silence!" Barnes barked angrily.  "If I hear another peep out of anyone, if
I have any sort of problems with this group, I will order ANOTHER round of
beatings tonight and add one more woman to the hanging list!  Now if you're
name is called, you will proceed immediately down here!  If I have to send
someone up to get you, I will change the punishment from a simple, painless
hanging to being burned at a fucking stake!"

He began to draw the names a moment later.  Jessica watched and listened
numbly as three women, none of whom she knew or had heard of, wordlessly
marched from their places in the bleachers and down to the scaffold.
Members of Bracken's company, assisted by Bracken himself, handcuffed their
arms behind their backs and then led them, one by one, up the rickety steps
to the platform.  A noose was put around their necks and a lever was pulled,
dropping them five feet downward.  The snapping of their necks could be
heard plainly each time.

"Now remember what you've seen here today," Barnes told the remaining women
after the last one fell.  "Remember that your actions effect more than just
yourself.  For this elopement I ordered one beating and three hangings.  For
the next one, I will order two days of beatings and six hangings.  Remember
and learn.  You are now dismissed."

Slowly, most expressions shocked and haunted, the women stood and began
filing down the nearest set of steps.  Jessica maintained her position next
to her two co-bitches.  "He's mad," she said softly to them, unable to help
herself, unable to keep from articulating that any longer.  "We're being
ruled by a madman."

"You'd better watch what you say about our leader," Linda warned her, though
her words seemed to be reflexive instead of having any real menace to them.

"He's absolutely insane," Jessica repeated.  "How can you not see that?"

Linda opened her mouth to say further but Cathy beat her to the punch.
"She's right you know," she said.  "He's not just harsh, he's not just a
sadist, he's insane."


+++++


 At 10:00 the next morning, Brett, Paul, Matt, and Jason climbed into the
helicopter.  With them, in addition to the usual assortment of weapons and
packs that they carried, was a very special package that had been
constructed the night before.  Brett went through the pre-flight check and
then got the rotor turning.  He applied power and the machine left the
ground.

Twenty minutes of flight time brought them to the familiar landmark of
Cameron Park, the former home of the helicopter.  Using Highway 50 as a
reference, Brett turned to a heading that was nearly due west.  As the land
became lower in altitude below him, Brett did not drop down with it.
Instead, he kept his altimeter at a steady 5500 feet, which would put them a
little more than 4200 feet above ground level when they finally reached
their destination.

"You're sure that this is out of gun range?" Paul asked nervously from his
spot in the cargo compartment.

"Unless they have heavy caliber weapons," Brett told him, "they won't be
able to scratch us even if they DO somehow manage to get a shot on target.
Four thousand feet straight up will eat up all the velocity."

"And if they DO have heavy caliber weapons?"

"Then that would be one on us, wouldn't it?"

It was only a five-minute flight time from Cameron Park before the roofs and
streets of El Dorado Hills came into sight ahead of them.

"Two minutes," Brett said, his eyes straining to spot any sort of movement
in the town.  How fast would their lookouts spot the helicopter?  How fast
could the people get under cover after that?

Apparently it was pretty fast.  When they flew over the hills that guarded
the east side of town, Jason was able to spot a faint hint of the guards on
duty with the FLIR.  In the township itself, there was nothing visible,
either with the naked eye or in infrared.  Just as it had the first time
they'd spotted it, El Dorado Hills looked just like an abandoned, dead town.

Brett slowed up and brought the helicopter into a high hover directly over
the center of the town.  "We're ready for the drop," he said.  "Jason, Matt,
keep your eyes peeled for any ground fire."

Paul picked up the package he had and removed a large rubber band from
around it.  The package was a shoebox wrapped tightly in a heavy-duty
plastic garbage bag.  Attached to it was an improvised parachute that had
been made out of another garbage bag and some string.  "Let's hope this
parachute works," he said, opening the door.  "It would seem kind of strange
to them if we just hovered and dropped a shoebox to shatter on the ground,
wouldn't it?"

"It worked in the test from the community center," Matt said.  "It'll work
now.  Drop it out."

"Right," Paul replied, pushing the door open a little further.  "Here goes
nothing."

He pushed the package out the door and watched as it fell.  The chute had
been deliberately twisted up into a tight ball to keep it from opening too
soon and being torn to shreds by the downdraft from the rotor.  It was a
plan that worked well.  Nearly five seconds passed, during which the package
dropped more than three hundred feet, before it popped open in a flash of
industrial green and began to drift slowly downward.

"We have a deployment," Paul announced.

"Confirm that," Matt said.

"Very good," Brett said, using the anti-torque pedals to spin the nose back
to the east.  "Now let's get the hell out of here."

"My thoughts exactly," Paul said.  "I hope we haven't stirred up TOO much
shit down there."


+++++


It took more than a minute for the package to drift down to earth.  It swung
gently back and forth on the end of its tether, the arcs growing smaller and
smaller with each cycle, until finally it was hanging almost motionless in
the air.  Thanks to the absence of wind, it came almost straight down,
landing in the middle of the elementary school soccer field, almost exactly
where its droppers had intended.  By the time it touched down in a puddle of
standing water, the helicopter that had dropped it had disappeared into the
distance.

Nothing moved in the town for more than five minutes after the landing - the
package simply sat there amid the raindrops.  Finally, from the row of
classroom buildings two hundred feet away, a door opened.  Three people, two
women and one man, stepped out.  All three were dressed in rain jackets and
carrying assault weapons in their hands.  Two of them had portable radios on
their person.  The male raised the radio to his lips and keyed it.  "East
perimeter, this is Rowley," he said into.  "Still no sign of the chopper?"

"It flew straight off to the east along the highway and disappeared," came
the reply.  "We're keeping a sharp eye out for it."

"Okay," he said into the radio.  "Good job spotting it back there.  I don't
think they saw anyone."  He put the radio away.

"If they didn't see anyone," the woman closest to him asked, "why did they
drop a package on the ground?  What the hell is going on here?"

"I don't know," he told her.  "I guess there's only one way to find out."

"What if it's a bomb?" the other woman said.  "You're not just going to go
open it up, are you?"

"Why would someone go to all the trouble of dropping a package bomb on us
from a helicopter?" he asked her.

"Because they're crazy?" she countered.  "Pat, we don't have any idea what
kind of people we're dealing with here."

"No," he agreed, "but maybe we will have some sort of idea once we open that
thing.  You two stay back here.  I'll go check it out."

Neither of the two women seemed to like the idea, but neither voiced any
more protest.  Around them, other people began to stir and heads began to
poke out from doorways and other hiding places despite the fact that the
all-clear signal had not been sounded yet.  Pat handed his weapon to one of
his companions and then began to ease across the ground towards the
mysterious gift.  He walked gingerly, almost on tiptoes for a moment until
he realized just how ridiculous this was.  Shaking his head at himself, he
then walked normally, strolling up through the soggy mudpit that the grass
had become until he was less than five feet away.

Despite his confident assurances to the others that it wasn't a bomb, he was
still very reluctant to touch the thing.  Finally, squatting down next to
it, he gathered his courage and reached out, wincing as his fingers touched
the plastic.  Nothing happened, so he picked it up gently, testing its
weight.  It was four or five pounds and nothing inside rattled or shifted or
exploded.  Feeling a little bit better, he pulled out a pocketknife and
unfolded it.

He cut the parachute loose first of all and then began cutting through the
duct tape that held on the outside layer of plastic.  Slowly he pulled a
cardboard shoe box free.  It was a box that had once contained a pair of
Nikes.  Now, it was taped shut with more duct tape and a white envelope was
fastened to the top of it with clear tape.  The envelope read: TO THE
CITIZENS OF EL DORADO HILLS.

He pulled this envelope free and stuffed it inside of his rain jacket.
Then, with a quick, reassuring glance back towards the anxious crowd that
had gathered, he gave a thumbs-up sign and turned his attention to the box.
Using his knife, he slit through the duct tape centimeter by centimeter,
suspecting that if this package was indeed a bomb that this would be the
detonation mechanism, but doing it anyway.  Curiosity killed the cat after
all.

Nothing blew up when the first section was cut so he cut the second section
a little quicker.  Once the knife sliced through the silver layer, the lid
was free.  With a deep breath of anticipation, he lifted it, peering inside.
What he saw at first was nothing but old newspapers and magazine pages all
crumpled, apparently for shock resistance to whatever the contents were.  He
lifted several layers free and found himself looking at a portable radio.
It was not a cheap walkie-talkie such as the ones they used to communicate
between guard posts and the main building but an actual public safety issued
radio.  On the front of it, in big green letters, was stenciled: CDF, which
he knew meant California Department of Forestry.  It was a fire department
radio.  What the hell?

He examined the rest of the box and found nothing but more packaging
material.  He then took another look at the radio itself to make sure that
it was not in fact an explosive device of some sort before he carried it
back.  Though he was far from an expert on explosives, he was able to
reasonably ascertain that there was no C4 or TNT attached or hidden in the
parts.  Finally, more than five minutes after he first kneeled down, he
stood back up and walked over to the crowd.

"It's a portable radio," he announced, carrying it inside the box from which
it had come.  "And there was an envelope attached to the front of the box."

"What's in the envelope?  What does it say?" asked nearly twenty different
people in nearly twenty different ways.

"Let's go inside the cafeteria," he said to them.  "Pass the word.  I'm
calling an emergency community meeting right away and I'll read it aloud."


+++++


It took almost twenty minutes before everyone gathered inside the school's
cafeteria (with the exception of the guard force of course).  Though the
room was the largest in the school, indeed in the remaining township, there
was not nearly enough seating for everyone.  Well over half of the room was
standing, many of them with small children in tow.

"Listen up everyone," Pat said from a podium near the front of the room, his
words amplified via a PA system powered by a generator.  "I'm sure that by
now all of you know that a package was dropped from a helicopter onto our
town a little over an hour ago.  We are reasonably certain that this was the
same helicopter - a former California Highway Patrol aircraft - that flew by
and probed us not too terribly long ago.  Inside of the package they dropped
was packing material, a fire department portable radio that used to belong
to the California Department of Forestry, and an envelope addressed to "the
citizens of El Dorado Hills."

There was a considerable babble that rose up in the room at his words as he
confirmed what most of them had already heard via the rumor mill.

"Now," he continued, "without any further ado, I will open up the envelope
and read what is inside to you all.  From there, we will then have an open
discussion on what the meaning of it all is."

While the babbling rose back up, Pat utilized a pocketknife, the same one
he'd used to open the package, to slit open the seal on the legal sized
envelope.  He peeled back the flap and removed a single piece of paper upon
which rows of neat, typewritten text were printed.  He unfolded it and set
it down before him, his eyes taking in the first sentence: To the citizens
of El Dorado Hills.

He put a pair of reading glasses upon his face and began to speak:

"To the citizens of El Dorado Hills," he read, "Greetings to you from your
neighbors and fellow comet survivors in the town of Garden Hill.  Before we
go any further in this correspondence, let us reassure you first and
foremost that we attempt this contact with you in the name of peace.  We
have no wishes of harm or conquest towards you and if you do not wish
contact with us, we will respect that decision and leave you alone.  Our
purpose in this endeavor is nothing more than the wish to touch bases with
others in the same predicament as ourselves, namely those that have managed
to stay alive after the disaster that has stricken our planet and our
civilization.  We understand that talk is cheap and that, throughout
history, many hostile undertakings by one group of people towards another
have begun with peace overtures such as this one and that we have no way to
convince you that we are sincere.  But it is our hope that others out there
our like ourselves and realize that the first step towards rebuilding after
this calamity is communication with others.  Trust has to begin somewhere so
we hope that it can begin right here and it is our decision that we will
start this process by being truthful and open with you.

"You are probably wondering just how we know about your existence in the
first place.  As you are aware, we are in possession of an aircraft that
used to belong to the California Highway Patrol.  You are also undoubtedly
aware that this aircraft flew by your town a few weeks before during
daylight hours.  At that time we saw no hint of habitation in your town,
most likely because your defensive strategy is to hide when faced with a
potential threat.  This is understandable given the current climate in the
world.  However, this helicopter is also equipped with a forward-looking
infrared pod, or FLIR, and a reconnaissance mission at night did reveal the
fact that your town is populated.  Please forgive us for this spy-like
activity.  We are not proud of it, but we did feel it necessary to look at
the surrounding terrain under all conditions just to see what, if anything,
is out there.  Do be advised that we have learned much with this aircraft
and that we would be happy to share this knowledge with you if a
relationship is established between our communities."

There was quite a bit of uproar from the floor of the cafeteria as they
heard this.  Some of the voices were angry, some fearful, some excited.
Everyone, it seemed, had something to say however.

"Folks," Pat said, raising his voice a little, "please, let's keep nice and
calm, okay?  Let me finish reading the letter and then we'll have a nice,
orderly talk about what it says."

Slowly the voices died down and the attention of the people was returned to
him.  "Okay," he said.  "Continuing..."

"In the package we have dropped to you, you have found a VHF portable radio
with a fully-charged battery.  This radio is capable of talking to our
helicopter up to a distance of ten miles or so, as long as there is a direct
line-of-sight.  The setting to place the radio on is channel 7 on the
selector switch if you wish to do this.  We will return to the vicinity of
your town tomorrow at 12:00 PM (Pacific Daylight time - we have not made the
adjustment in light of other considerations - this will be 11:00 AM if you
HAVE made the adjustment).  We will hover nearby and attempt to contact you
on this radio.  If you do not wish to have contact with us at this time you
can either ignore us completely or tell us on the above-mentioned frequency
that you do not wish to contact us.  If you do either of these things, we
will leave you in peace and not bother you any further.  If you DO wish to
make contact with us however, please reply when you hear our hails and we
will take things from there.

"Please be advised as you decide on this matter that we, in Garden Hill, are
just as scared and alone as you in El Dorado Hills and that we will be
taking as much of a chance by attempting contact.  We are a small community
that has barely managed to hang on through the recent events and we suspect
that you are the same.  Maybe together, we can help each other.  Please
remember that the first step is to establish trust between one another.

"Hoping that we will hear from you tomorrow, Garden Hill."

With that, Pat put down the letter.

"There you have it folks," he said into the microphone.  "Let's start
hearing your thoughts on what this all means and what we should do about
it."

The discussion that would follow would last until well after the dinner
hour.



++++++


Matt had been left behind for the return mission to El Dorado Hills,
replaced by Michelle.  Jason, as always, was in the observer's chair while
Michelle and Paul crammed themselves into the back.  The flight was almost
completely silent as everyone was lost in his or her own thoughts.  Jason
simply stared ahead of them, not watching the ground with the FLIR as he
usually did.  Michelle nervously wrung her hands together, occasionally
chewing on her lip as if in deep concentration.  Paul, perhaps the most
nervous of all since he had helped push this idea through, only looked down
at his lap, his hands twisting a small scrap of paper into an unrecognizable
shred.

"Five minutes," Brett announced when the passed over the Cameron Park
airport.  "We should be in radio range in less than three."

"Copy," Paul said automatically.

"I'm gonna cut to the south a little bit," Brett told them all.  "I want to
approach from an unexpected direction just on the off chance that they've
laid a little trap for us."

"That's a comforting thought," Michelle said with a frown.

"Hey," Brett said lightly, "it's my job to try to anticipate every
eventuality.  I like to think that they wouldn't do something like that,
whether they want to talk to us or not, but I certainly can't say it's
impossible."

Relying mostly on his own instincts to navigate by, Brett brought them
around in a broad circle, passing over some low hills and a large debris
field that had once been the south part of the developed area.  He slowed
his airspeed but increased his altitude and soon the main part of El Dorado
Hills became visible in the distance.

"There it is," he told his back seat passengers.

Paul, not bothering to crane his head to peer out the front, checked his
watch.  "Right on time," he said.

"Are you ready to talk to them?" Brett asked.

"I'm ready."

"Okay," Brett replied.  "Jason, if you would be so kind?"

"Right," Jason answered, reaching down and fiddling with the VHF radio for a
moment.  "Okay Paul," he told him when he was finished, "your headset is
patched in.  Just key up that transmit button and you'll be live."

"And be sure to unkey it if you want to talk privately to us," Brett warned
as he pulled into a high hover.

Paul nodded, putting his fingers on the button, which was located on the
side of his earpiece.  "Here goes nothing," he muttered and then keyed it
up.  "El Dorado Hills," he said.  "This is Paul Terra onboard the helicopter
from Garden Hill.  Is anyone out there?"

Everyone was quiet as they listened for a reply in their headsets.  They
waited ten seconds, hearing nothing.

"El Dorado Hills," Paul repeated, "this is Paul Terra, representative of
Garden Hill speaking to you from the helicopter.  Is anyone out there?
Please reply."

"Good afternoon Mr. Terra," a male voice answered a few seconds later.
"This is Patrick Rowley, representative of El Dorado Hills, speaking to you
on the radio you dropped to us."

A sigh of relief was breathed in the aircraft as everyone let out the breath
that they had been holding.  Careful smiles were exchanged.

"Mr. Rowley," Paul said, speaking formally. "I'm glad you decided to
communicate with us.  You probably have us on visual hovering just to your
south.  Are you reading my transmissions all right?"

"I'm reading you just fine," was the reply.  "Please state for us exactly
what your intentions are today."

Paul was somewhat taken aback by the curtness of the tone.  "Our
intentions," he answered, "are nothing more than establishing contact with
another group of survivors.  As we stated in the letter we delivered to you,
we come in peace and we mean no harm to you or those in your town.  We just
want to talk, maybe find some common ground.  As we also stated in our
letter, if you do not wish to talk to us or communicate with us, we will go
away and leave you alone."

"Well," Rowley answered back, "we decided that we would leave that option
open for the time being.  Suffice it to say that your appearance and the
drop you made has created quite the turmoil among us down here.  We finally
decided to hear what it is you have to say before we elect whether or not to
maintain any kind of contact with you."

"Understandable," Paul said.  "And let me assure you that the decision
whether or not to attempt this contact has created quite the turmoil in our
town as well.  Eventually the decision was made to give it a whirl, so here
we are."

"Here you are," Rowley replied.  "How are things up the hill where you came
from?  Are you the only group of survivors in the area?"

Paul took a few breaths before replying, a part of him very reluctant to
share information with strangers.  Was this really a good idea?  Good or bad
though, it had been decided that they would be truthful with these people as
much as practical.  "Things are going fairly well for us up there," he said.
"Many of our houses are still intact and livable and we have recently
secured enough of a food supply to carry us through, hopefully, until the
sun comes back out.  Armed men at one point attacked us but we were able to
fight them off before they did too much damage.  As for other groups, we've
done recon of the Interstate 80 corridor from the snowline at six thousand
feet all the way to the valley and along the Highway 50 corridor from the
valley to Placerville.  There are a lot of dead people out there but not
many living ones.  The only other group that we've taken note of is in
Auburn."

There was a long silence on the airways, probably while this Patrick Rowley
person was discussing what had been revealed with others.  Finally, after
about a minute, he came back on the air.  "Forgive the pause in
conversation," he told them, offering no explanation for it.  "Have you made
contact with Auburn as you are doing with us?"

"We have not," Paul told him.  "We don't know what the exact population of
Auburn is at this point but it is obvious from our observations that it is
considerably more than what we have.  There were also certain things about
the town that made us a little uncomfortable with it.  We elected to avoid
contact with them for the time being."

Another long pause occurred.  "Please clarify," Rowley said when he came
back on, "what you mean by "certain things".  Do you believe you have
something to fear from Auburn?  Do WE have something to fear from them?"

"We don't really know if anyone has anything to fear from them," Paul said.
"We're just being careful at this point.  There is really no single thing
that made this decision for us; it's more a combination of many things -
their larger population being one of them.  They also have a lot of guns.
After some discussion among ourselves, we just thought it best to leave well
enough alone."

"I see," came the reply, again after several moments of silence.  "And where
did you get the helicopter?"

"We got if from the airport at Cameron Park," Paul told him.  "One of our
townspeople is a pilot and we had an expedition out that way a few weeks
ago.  We've airlifted the fuel from the airport and returned it to our town.
We should warn you that there is evidence of a group of people that are
armed and practicing cannibalism out here on your side of the canyon."

"Cannibalism?" he returned, his voice showing strong emotion for the first
time.

"Yes," Paul said.  He explained about the bodies that Brett and company had
found that had literally been butchered.

"I must say," Rowley said slowly, "you've managed to shock us here."

"I'm sorry," Paul said, "we just thought that maybe you should know."

"I understand and agree," he told them.  "Thank you for sharing that with
us."  There was another pause, this time with the microphone open.  They
heard Rowley take a deep breath, as if deciding something.  After a moment
he asked, "can you stand by on the air for just a minute?  There's something
I wish to discuss with my companions here."

A look was passed around the chopper.  "Uh... sure," Paul finally answered.
"We'll be standing by.  Just start talking again when you're ready."

"Thank you, I'll be back with you in a moment."  With that, there was a
click as the connection was closed.

"What was that about?" Michelle asked.

"I think Paul gave him some food for thought," Brett answered.

"It would seem so," said Paul.  He turned to Brett.  "Brett, what's your
take on this?  You're good at listening to people and hearing deceit and all
that.  What do you think so far?"

Brett thought about that for a moment.  "I'm not sure," he said.  "It's hard
to read people over a scratchy radio link.  You have to be able to see their
body language.  He seems sincere enough based on what I've heard, but we
don't know what's going on down there."

"What do you think they're doing right now?  Why the pause for discussion?"

"I couldn't even begin to guess," Brett said.  "Jason, how we looking on the
FLIR?"

Jason, who had been scanning the area since they'd first pulled into a
hover, looked up.  "Nothing down there," he said.  "No people, no animals,
nothing.  Just trees and mud."

"Well, they're not setting up an attack on us," Brett said.  "At least
there's that."

"I'm just glad they answered us," Michelle said.  "It would've been
depressing to waste all of this fuel and sacrifice one of our radios just
for nothing.  I think they're a lot like us."

"Why do you think that?" Paul wanted to know.

"I don't know," she said.  "Woman's instinct?  Psychic flash?  Something
just tells me that they're being on the up and up down there."

"Interesting," Paul said thoughtfully.

A full five minutes went by before the click of the transmission being
opened reoccurred.  "Mr. Terra," said Rowley's voice, "are you still there?"

"We're still here," Paul replied.

"Mr. Terra," he said, "I have discussed this with my fellow townspeople here
and we have come to a decision.  We would like to extend an invitation to
your group to meet with us face to face.  It seems that you have much
information that we would be negligent to ignore.  We, in turn, have
information that you might find useful as well.  Is there any way that you
would consent to landing?"

"No," Brett said immediately, before anyone else had a chance to respond.
His words were only transmitted to the helicopter occupants since he had not
keyed up his headset.

"Stand by on that Mr. Rowley," Paul said.  "We need to have a discussion of
our own."

"I understand," Rowley returned.  "Please be advised that if you do not wish
to land in our town, perhaps you could drop someone off outside of it and we
could pick them up.  We would be agreeable to this as well.  I know that
promises do not mean very much in this day and age, but we will promise to
return your people safely whenever they wish to go."

"We'll take that into consideration," Paul said.  "Please stand by, we'll
get back to you."

"Standing by," he told them.  The click of closed transmission came again.

"Absolutely NOT," Brett said firmly.  "We will not land this helicopter down
there."

"Brett," Michelle started.

"No," he repeated.  "It's too risky.  Establishing contact is one thing.
Risking giving those people hostages is quite another.  We have no idea what
their intentions are."

"I think we should do it," Paul said.

"What?" Brett said, taking his eyes off his instruments to look at him.
"Are you crazy?  You want to land right in their town and take the chance
that they'll capture us and the helicopter?"

"Oh, I agree that we shouldn't risk the aircraft," he said.  "But landing
outside of town and having them pick me up, that is an acceptable risk."

"Acceptable?" Brett asked incredulously.  "What if they tell us they'll kill
you if we don't turn over the helicopter to them?  What if they tell us that
they'll cut off pieces of your body one by one until we land the helicopter
there?  We can't give them a hostage!"

"Trust Brett," he said.  "That's what this whole thing is based upon, isn't
it?  Trust has to start somewhere.  They've made what seems a sincere offer,
and I intend to take it.  If they take me hostage, you will leave me down
there no matter what they threaten, no matter what they do.  I'm expendable,
this helicopter is not."

"Michelle," Brett appealed, "tell him that he's crazy!  Tell him!"

"He's crazy," she said slowly, eyeing her husband nervously, "but I'm afraid
that I have to agree with him.  Someone has to take that first step."

"Oh Christ," Brett replied, shaking his head.  "You're both crazy.  Well I'm
not going to do it.  I refuse to drop anyone off down there.  We'll just
have to continue communicating by radio until..."

"Brett," Paul interrupted, "I order you to drop me off down there."

"You... you order me?" he said slowly.

"I know I can't physically force you to do it," he told him, "but I am
giving you an order as the leader of Garden Hill.  I am the government there
and you are the military.  It is the military's job to obey the orders of
the government regardless of whether they agree with those orders or not.
Isn't that the way it works?  Isn't that the only way that it CAN work?  Or
are you staging the first military coup of the new age?"

Brett looked at him stunned as he heard these words.

"I'm afraid he's got you there, babe," Michelle said seriously.

Brett sighed.  "Shit," he muttered.  "All right.  I will follow your fucking
order, but I'm putting in a complaint with the goddamn civil service
commission.  And if you get taken hostage down there, I'm going to kick your
fucking ass."

"And mine," Michelle said softly.

"What?" Brett and Paul both said in unison, turning towards her.

"You can't be serious," Paul said.

"I'm dead serious," Michelle told them firmly, cutting Brett off before he
had a chance to add anything else.  "They should see a woman down there as
well as a man.  That will help assure them that the tales we tell about
Auburn are truthful.  They need a woman's perspective down there as well as
a man's."

"Michelle," Brett said.  "You could be killed down there.  You could be cut
up into pieces one by one.  I can't allow that."

"You're my husband Brett," she said, "not my boss.  This is my decision to
make."

"And mine," Paul put in.  "And I don't like the idea of risking one of our
women to..."

"We have women falling out of our assholes in Garden Hill," Michelle
interrupted angrily.  "Don't try to exclude me because of my sex.  If you
have a legitimate reason, then let's here it Boss Man, but if it's because I
have a pussy instead of a cock, keep your fucking mouth shut."

Paul reeled a bit under the furiousity of her tone.  He looked over at
Brett.  "The ball's in your court bud," he said.  "She's aced me."

Brett looked at her.  "I don't want to risk you Michelle," he said.  "You're
my wife and I love you.  I have no reason other than that one."

"That's sweet Brett," she said, giving him a smile.  "But it's also not good
enough.  I want to go, I need to go.  Besides, it'll get me out of this
flying deathtrap for a while."

Brett kept his eyes on her for far longer than was probably safe considering
that he was in a hover.  "Christ," he muttered.  "Michelle, are you sure?"

"I'm sure," she told him.  "I'm going down."

"Give us three hours," Paul said next.  "Fly back to town and then return at
3:30.  I'll have them let me use the radio to contact you.  If everything is
cool, I'll give you the code word... oh... corporation.  If something is
wrong, if they're trying to use us to bait a trap, we'll use the word
conglomerate."

"Corporation if good, conglomerate if bad," Brett said.  "And what if we
don't hear from you at all?  Or what if they give us hostage demands?"

"We've already been over that," Paul told him.  "We're expendable.  This
helicopter is not.  You are to attempt no rescue mission of any kind for
either one of us.  Is that clear?"

"It's clear," he said, not liking it one bit.

"Good.  Now let's call back our friend, shall we?"

"You're the boss," Brett said.

 Paul let this remark go and contacted his counterpart on the radio once
again now that the decision was made.  "We have decided to drop off two
representatives just outside of town if that is acceptable," he told him.
"We will come down unarmed and we will wait for your pick-up."

"I understand," Rowley replied, his voice with a slight hint of pleasure in
it.  "I will leave the landing area up to you.  Where will you be touching
down?"

Paul, hearing this, looked over at Brett.  "What do you think?" he asked.

Brett, despite his trepidation was impressed by the offer to choose their
own landing zone.  This meant that this Rowley person had anticipated that
they would worry about a trap being set.  "Tell him we'll drop you off on
Highway 50 about a half mile west of their westernmost guard position on the
hill.  It's relatively empty over there and it also lets them know that we
know their defensive arrangements without sounding hostile."

Paul nodded and repeated the words.  If they had any effect on Rowley, he
didn't let it show.  "I understand," he replied.  "I'll meet you there in
ten to fifteen minutes with a truck."

"Ten to fifteen minutes," Paul agreed, closing the connection.  He turned to
Brett again.  "Let's get it done."

Brett turned the helicopter to the south and began to descend even as he
picked up speed.  He circled widely around until he was orbiting 1500 feet
above the spot he had chosen.  Jason checked the surrounding area with the
FLIR as a matter of course.

"It's clear down there as far as I can tell," he said.

"Okay," Brett said.  He looked at the two back seat passengers again.  "Last
chance to back out," he told them.  "Are you two SURE about this?"

"I'm not sure about anything," Paul replied.  "But take us down anyway."

"What he said," Michelle replied.

He turned his attention back to the instruments and the view outside and
quickly brought them down, making a controlled descent until the skids were
resting on the wet pavement of Highway 50's eastbound lanes.  Michelle and
Paul, both of whom had stripped off their sidearms, opened the doors and,
with one last word of farewell, stepped out.  They trotted to the side of
the road, their heads hunched low beneath the spinning rotor.

"They're clear," Jason said once they were.

"Right," Brett replied, giving them one last, doubtful glance.  With nothing
else to do, he applied power and lifted back off, bringing them quickly up
to an altitude of 2000 feet above the ground.  He stood off to the west,
watching as a truck - some sort of yuppie SUV - left the town and drove
slowly down the surface of the highway.

"They'll be fine," Jason said doubtfully as the SUV came closer and closer
to Michelle and Paul, who could be seen as tiny figures standing helpless in
the middle of the roadway.

"Yeah," Brett said, not comforted much.

The SUV came to a stop about twenty feet from them.  Brett and Jason watched
as three people stepped out.  From the air it appeared that two of them were
women.  They did not have any rifles on them but Jason was able to tell by
looking through the FLIR's magnification setting that all had sidearms.
They kept these weapons in their respective holsters.  The two groups
approached each other slowly, seeming to talk as they did this.

"They're putting their hands up!" Jason barked as Michelle and Paul both
raised their hands into the air and turned around.

"Relax," Brett said, watching this development carefully.  "They're just
patting them down.  It's the same thing we would do in those circumstances."

The pat down was quick but seemed thorough.  Once it was complete,
handshakes were exchanged all around.  Michelle and Paul both gave
encouraging waves up at the helicopter and then, of their own free will,
climbed into the back of the SUV.  Their hosts climbed in after them and a
moment later, the vehicle turned around and headed back to town.  Brett and
Jason watched it until it disappeared over the rise.

"Well," Brett said, once it was out of view, "I guess we head back then."

"I guess so," Jason said.

Brett turned the chopper to the south and skirted around the town.  A few
minutes later he was flying at ninety knots towards Cameron Park and home.


+++++


The people of El Dorado Hills were very secretive.  That was the first thing
that Michelle and Paul noticed as they were driven into and then through the
town.  Though they already knew, from the tapes that Brett and Jason had
made, that the town had a population of at least two hundred, no one, not a
single person, was visible on the streets.  They were taken directly to the
elementary school where the SUV was parked in the parking lot outside the
administration building.  Their hosts, who aside from the initial
introductions back at the pickup point had been completely silent, led them
inside and up a hallway to a conference room.  There was a large, simulated
wood grain table with a few generic chairs around it.

"This is where we hold our meetings," said Patrick, or Pat, as he had asked
to be called, as they entered the room.  He was a man in his mid-thirties,
his eyes sharp and intelligent looking.  Though friendly, he gave the
distinct air that he could be dangerous when provoked.  "Why don't you have
a seat in here and we'll have a talk."

"Right," said Paul, hiding his nervousness.  He walked over and grabbed a
seat on the side of the table.  Michelle followed him over and sat next to
him.

"Can I get you folks some tea?" asked Bonnie, the oldest of the escorting
trio.  She was a fit looking woman in her fifties.  She had a thick mane of
auburn hair that was starting to gray.  Large, coke-bottle glasses sat upon
her face.  "We aren't as well set-up in the supply department as we probably
should be, but we do have some nice herbal teas left over from the grocery
store stocks."

Paul opened his mouth to decline the offer but Michelle beat him to the
punch.  "Tea would be nice," she said.  "It's always easier to talk over a
beverage, isn't it?"

"Yes it is," Bonnie said with a smile.  Instead of going out to get the tea
herself, she lifted a portable radio to her lips and keyed it.  "Howard?"
she said into it.  "This is Bonnie.  Can you bring us settings for tea in
the conference room?"

"It'll be there in five minutes," replied a gruff male voice.

"Thank you Howard," she said and replaced the radio.

The other member of the trio was Renee, who was also a little older of a
woman than Paul and Michelle were accustomed to seeing.  She was in her
forties and slightly chubby.  Her thin, blonde hair was cut short.  She too
sported glasses upon her face.  She sat down directly across from Paul and
looked him up and down for a moment in a clinical manner.  "You folks look
fairly healthy from the outside," she told him.

"Uh... thanks," Paul said.  "Our food supply was starting to get a little
short there for a while but we never did go through a period of starvation
or anything like that.  You all look reasonably well-fed as well."

Pat nodded as he took his own seat.  "We're hanging in here for the moment,"
he said.  "As you've probably found out, scavenged food from the grocery
store can only carry you for so far.  We've had to find alternate sources."

"Alternate sources?" Michelle asked carefully, thoughts of cannibalism going
through her head.

Pat, seeming to read her mind, quickly put it at ease.  "We're not eating
our dead," he said lightly.  "Trust me, when I said that we were shocked by
your mentions of cannibalism, I was being entirely truthful.  We've been
subsidizing ourselves a little bit with the venison from the scraggly deer
we've managed to bring down around here, but mostly with fish."

"Fish?" Paul said, feeling a little ill at the thought of eating anything
caught in that sea of floating human bodies that the Sacramento Valley had
become.

"Not from the valley," Pat said, again picking up on his guest's thoughts.
"We've mounted some fishing expeditions across the valley and out to the
Pacific Ocean.  The pickings are rather good out that way."

"You've gone all the way out to the ocean?" Michelle asked.   "How?"

"In boats," Pat told her.  "We've salvaged several large cabin cruisers that
used to belong to the people that lived up here.  We carry extra gasoline in
storage tanks and make our way across the valley and into what used to be
San Francisco Bay.  From there, we go right out through the Golden Gate and
into the open sea. Of course these boats were not meant to be ocean-going
vessels, but you do what you have to do, right?  Since the winds have died
down the ocean surface is pretty calm anyway.  We follow the coastline
either north or south and stay in sight of land until we're out of the
drainage area from the bay.  We use the carp that we catch around here for
bait and we pull up rock cod and occasionally some salmon."

"Each trip takes about a week," Bonnie put in.  "We've done three of them so
far and managed to catch almost a ton of usable meat.  We filet it and smoke
it for short-term usage and dry some for long-term storage."

"It keeps us alive," Renee added, "but it gets a little boring after a
while."

"Amazing," Paul said.  "How are things out that way?  We haven't gone any
further west than the edge of the valley."

A haunted look passed among the three hosts.  "Everything is gone," Pat said
slowly.  "Where San Francisco and Oakland used to be is nothing but some
chunks of concrete and a lot of mud.  All of the buildings, all of the cars,
the freeways, the bay bridge, the Golden Gate bridge..." He shook his head.
"All of it is gone.  There's absolutely no sign that it had ever been there
in the first place.  Most of the hills surrounding the city are gone too.
The trees were all ripped off of them by the tidal wave and the rain just
made them collapse.  There aren't even bodies left, at least none that you
can see.  There are huge mountains of debris up against the coastal
mountains and in the inland valleys.  That's where all the bodies went.  The
stench when we go past these areas is so bad that we have to use gas masks."

"Jesus," Paul said.  Although he had intellectually known that what Pat had
described was what had happened, hearing it confirmed was still a shock.

"It's unbelievable isn't it?" Renee asked them.  "How fast our entire
civilization was just wiped out?  One minute we were there, almost six
billion of us, and the next... pow, nothing but a few groups of scattered
survivors."

"The damage that one little chunk of ice did," Michelle said.

"And it hasn't stopped yet," said Pat.  "We've still got this rain to deal
with.  We have no idea how long it's going to last.  Will it go on for a
year?  For two years?  Will the entire land eventually be covered with snow?
We don't know.  You said on the radio that the snow level starts at 6000
feet?"

"That's right," Paul said.  "Brett - he's our pilot - has flown all the way
up to Blue Canyon.  The accumulations up there are pretty deep.  There are a
lot of avalanches up that way and everything is completely covered."

"What about beyond the Sierras?" Bonnie asked.  "Have you checked out that
area?"

"Not yet," Paul replied.  "We have a finite amount of fuel and we don't want
to waste it.  Reno is below the snow line but more than likely it's flooded
from all the water pouring out of the east side of the mountains.  It's also
a good bet that Lake Tahoe has more than overflowed its pre-comet shoreline.
All of those floodwaters will pour right into the high desert."

"A lot of people lived in the Reno area," Michelle said.  "And as far as we
know, none of them have worked their way over Donner Summit to us."

"How about to the south and the north?" Pat asked next.  "Amador County and
Nevada County?"

"We haven't done any recon out that way ether," Paul said.  "There may be
survivors there or there may not.  Like I said, we've been using most of our
fuel and our flight time for recovery missions instead of for long range
recon.  The discovery of you and of Auburn was just incidental to our normal
operations."

"I see," Pat said, nodding thoughtfully.

They talked of a few incidental things for a few minutes, just getting to
know each other.  There was an undercurrent of suspicion and mistrust
between both groups at first but it started to fade a little as conversation
developed.  Pat explained how El Dorado Hills happened to live through the
comet strike.  Though landslides had buried most of the town when the rain
started, the portion they were now sitting in had managed to remain on solid
ground.  As in Garden Hill, most of the survivors were women.  Pat shared
that the ratio was approximately 4 to 1, although the average age was a
little higher than in Garden Hill because the community was older.  Also,
like in Garden Hill, there was an abundance of pre-school and elementary
school age children but virtually no older children or teenagers since the
junior high school and high school had been down in nearby Folsom, which was
washed away when the dam broke.

"We had a lot of mothers that went rushing down the hill right after the
impact to try and get their kids," Pat explained.  "They probably got down
there just in time to get killed by the floodwaters.  We watched that dam go
from up here.  It was something that I never care to see again.  It's one
thing knowing that hundreds of thousands of people are being drowned like
rats, it's quite another to have to SEE it."

In spite of the age differences in the two towns, the actual history and
evolution of their government was remarkably similar.  In the first few days
after the rains started, El Dorado Hills, like Garden Hill, had been mostly
in a state of shock and denial.  They could not believe that civilization
had REALLY collapsed, that billions of people really were dead, and that
they could really not expect any help to come to their stricken community.
After this period came the power struggles as several different personality
types attempted to put themselves into command of what remained.
Organization was difficult at first since everyone wanted to be a chief and
no one wanted to be an Indian.

"It was Pat and Bonnie that finally pulled everyone together," Renee told
them.  "They basically just took charge and started telling people what to
do.  It took a few days before they started listening to them, but once it
became apparent that everyone was going to starve unless something was done,
common sense seemed to kick in.  We gathered all of the food in town and
stored it, we gathered all of the weapons and ammunition and stored that.
Pat took charge of digging defenses and setting up our perimeter.  He saw
that everyone was trained in how to use their guns."

"You sound like Brett," Michelle said, hearing this part.  "Were you in the
military?"

"I was in the army," Pat replied, "but I wasn't a combat soldier.  I was a
computer nerd in for a standard pre-college stint.  My job was to help
program software for M1A1 tanks.  Still, a lot of that basic training that
they gave us stuck with me.  It's not exactly rocket science constructing
defenses, but it DOES take a little basic knowledge."

"Yeah," Paul said with good nature, "that's what I found out.  We had a
pretty harsh lesson about that back in our town."

"Oh yeah?" Pat asked, interested.

Paul and Michelle took turns describing the history of the Garden Hill
township.  For the most part, as agreed upon beforehand, they told the truth
about the events, leaving out only fine details about their actual
ammunition supply, arsenal, and defensive set-up.  They described the power
struggle that had almost led to the downfall of town under Jessica and Dale.
This seemed to hold particular interest among their hosts.

"We had our own version of Jessica here," Pat told them.  "Only ours was a
male and we didn't allow him to get as far as you did yours."

"Really?" Michelle asked.

"Tom Borden," Pat explained.  "He was actually our State Legislature
representative for this district.  He was a going nowhere politician who had
pipe dreams of one day being the governor of California but who only managed
to hang onto his current office because his name happened to appear first on
the ballet.  The only reason he was home that day was because he had one of
the highest absentee rates in the state.  He had many of the same traits of
your Jessica and he tried real hard to take command of everyone as we were
trying to get things together.  He kept claiming that he was now the
official governor of California since all of the other politicians were dead
down in Sacramento.  We followed him for a few days until it became apparent
that he just wanted people to wait on him and revere him and that he didn't
actually have any idea what he was doing.  Eventually we removed him from
power and, after the turmoil that we told you about, formed the three person
committee that we now have to make the important decisions."

"Did he go quietly?" Paul, thinking of Jessica's departure, wanted to know.

"He didn't," Renee told him.  "He tried to organize an armed rebellion
against us and we had to exile him from town.  We sent him out and our
guards were forced to shoot him after he tried to force his way back
inside."

"That's too bad," Paul said.  "It sounds like he and Jessica would've made a
good couple."

The talk of town histories continued.  Paul and Michelle told about the
attack on the town that had finally killed the voting alliance of Dale and
Jessica and that had ultimately led to Jessica's own exile.  Renee, in
particular, seemed fascinated by Paul's heartfelt outpouring about watching
Dale disintegrate and die from wounds that were probably not lethal.

"That must've been very hard for you," she said sympathetically.

"It was VERY hard," he agreed.  "I've never felt so helpless in my life.  In
my past life, when I was a fireman, I would've just had him flown to the
trauma center.  My contact with him would've been less than twenty minutes.
In this life, I was the doctor and I had to watch him die."

"You did everything that you could for him," Renee told him.  "And the
treatment you gave this other woman, this..."

"Sherrie," he said.

"Sherrie," she said.  "Right.  The treatment you gave Sherrie was
outstanding considering your lack of higher medical training and supplies.
You did everything right with her."

Paul looked at her carefully.  "You seem rather knowledgeable on this
subject," he told her.

"She should be," Pat said.  "She's a doctor."

"A doctor?" Michelle said excitedly.  "You mean a REAL doctor, with a
medical degree and everything?"

Renee laughed a little.  "With a real degree and everything," she agreed.
"I was a family practitioner before the comet.  I graduated from the UC
Davis School of Medicine in 1985.  My practice was the only one in this
town.  I had somewhat of a monopoly.  Still do in fact.  That's how I ended
up as a part of the governing group after the impact.  I was a somewhat
respected member of the town."

"You have a doctor," Michelle said slowly, speaking to no one in particular.
"Your town is truly blessed."

"And your town has a helicopter," Pat said.  "You are blessed as well.
Maybe if we can foment this relationship a little, our respective blessings
can work together."

"That was why we made contact with you," Paul put in.  "We have a lot of
pregnant women in town and very few medical supplies."

"And I'm sure that we could find uses for a community with a helicopter,"
Bonnie said.

"But the problem," Paul said, articulating what everyone was thinking, "is
one of trust now, isn't it?  We're sitting over here wondering if you are
conspiring to steal our helicopter and our pilot.  You are probably sitting
over there wondering if we're conspiring to steal your doctor or other
assets you might have."

"Trust," Pat agreed.  "That is indeed where it all falls apart.  We all know
what human nature is like, don't we?"

"We do," Michelle said.  "The instinct of us humans is to try to take what
we need if it benefits us.  We will lie, cheat, and steal to get it without
much of a second thought.  How do we convince each other that we are not
embarking upon this path?"

"Trust has to be earned and demonstrated," Bonnie said.  "On both sides of
the equation.  We're working towards that now just by talking.  We haven't
got there yet, but maybe we will.  So let's keep talking, shall we?"

"Why don't we?" Paul said.

And they continued talking.  The discussion would go strong right up until
the time that it was time for the visitors to be returned to the landing
zone.



+++++


Brett was very cautious as he approached El Dorado Hills for the scheduled
pick-up.  With Jason in the observer's seat, he flew well to the south of
Highway 50 from Cameron Park before turning to the west, adding more than
fifty nautical miles to the trip.  Once he was over the brown water of the
Sacramento Valley/Sea, he turned to the right, following the shoreline until
he reached the highway.  Only then did he turn back to the east and, from as
high an altitude as he could climb without risking icing problems, approach
the town.

The flight, which had taken nearly forty minutes, had been almost completely
without conversation.  Jason, without the years of life experience as his
mentor, remained very optimistic of the meeting that was taking place.
After all, he figured, why wouldn't El Dorado Hills cooperate with them?  It
only made sense.  He kept quiet however, knowing that Brett, who had a much
more cynical and realistic view of what human beings were capable of,
worried about what he would do if Michelle and Paul failed to materialize at
the pickup spot.

"We're coming up on it," Brett said softly as the hills guarding El Dorado
Hills' western flank came into view.  "Start looking."

"Bringing the FLIR on line," Jason dutifully replied, activating the system.
As Brett slowed up the airspeed, he looked in the viewer, panning left and
right, finally spotting four figures standing in the middle of the westbound
lanes.  "I've got four people ahead," he said.  "Looks like two males and
two females.  I can't tell if two of them are our people or not."

"Any of them armed?" Brett asked.

"Not as far as I can tell," he replied.  "There might be a handgun down
there but there aren't any rifles."

Brett, knowing that Jason was probably looking at Michelle and Paul in the
company of two of the El Dorado Hillians, was not quite comforted just yet.
Why were the other two people there?  "Anything off on the flanks?" he
asked.

"Nothing at all," Jason said after a complete scan was done.  "They're
alone."

"Okay," Brett said, pulling them into a hover.  "Let's see if we can make
contact."

"You're live," Jason replied after a check to make sure the radio was tuned
to the right frequency.

Brett thanked his companion and then keyed the headset up.  "El Dorado Hills
landing party," he said calmly, his voice monotone, "this is the Garden Hill
helicopter.  Anyone down there?"

"One of the males is raising his hand to his face," Jason, still watching
carefully through the FLIR, announced.  "It looks like he has the radio."

This was confirmed a moment later.  "Brett, this is Paul," sounded in their
headsets.  "We have a visual on you.  Everything is okay down here.  I have
two of the El Dorado Hills leadership with me but they are unarmed."

"We have a visual on you as well," Brett answered.  He paused for an
instant, keeping the radio link open, and then asked: "do you have a code
word for me?"

"I do," Paul answered.  "The word is corporate."

Brett sighed in relief as he heard the correct word.  True, it was
technically possible that they had tortured one or both of their visitors to
get that word, but it was very unlikely.  "I copy the correct word," Brett
said.  "We'll be landing for the pick-up in about two minutes."

"I copy two minutes," Paul answered back.

Jason continued to watch the surrounding terrain through the FLIR as Brett
made a cautious descent to the highway surface.  There continued to be no
signs of mammalian life within a one-mile radius of the four people.
Satisfied that there would at least be no overwhelming attack by El Dorado
Hills soldiers, Brett touched down on the asphalt about thirty yards away
from the waiting group.  He idled the engine once the skids were safely in
contact and waited, his hands nervous on the controls, as Paul, Michelle,
and the other two trotted over.

"They look like they're all right," Jason observed.

"It seems so, doesn't it?" Brett answered.

Brett hated to be on the ground in unfamiliar territory.  That was where the
helicopter was most vulnerable.  As such, it was his habit to make pick-ups
and drop-offs as quickly as humanly possible.  He had drilled everyone that
regularly flew in the aircraft on how to get in and out so that his ground
time in such circumstances would be less than 45 seconds at worst.  This
time however, the ground time stretched out much longer than that.  The
doors were opened slowly and introductions were made all around.  Patrick
Rowley and Dr. Renee Sawyer were the visitors that Paul introduced.

"Nice to meet you," Brett said a little testily, some of his nervousness
leaching through into his words, hardly even noticing the salutation of
"doctor" at the beginning of the woman's name.

Jason did though.  "Are you a REAL doctor?" he asked, thoughts of Stacy's
upcoming delivery dancing in his head.

"I'm a real doctor," she assured him with a chuckle.

While Brett fidgeted in his seat, wondering if this delay was some sort of
trap set by the El Dorado Hills people to keep him on the ground long enough
for troops to close in, Paul and Michelle exchanged a few pleasantries with
Patrick and Renee.

"Once again," Paul said, yelling a little over the sound of the engine, "we
thank you for your hospitality."

"Yes," Michelle echoed, "I'm glad you decided to let us land."

Handshakes were exchanged and then Paul handed over the portable radio that
he had used to contact the helicopter.  "We'll be in touch," he said.

Finally, at long last, he climbed inside, followed by Michelle.  The doors
closed and the headsets were donned.  The two people outside both trotted a
safe distance away.  Only then did Brett relax a bit.

"Everyone ready?" he asked.

"Ready," said Michelle.

"Ready," echoed Paul.

With a sigh of relief, Brett applied power and got the rotor blades spinning
up to take-off velocity.  The view in front of them became a blur of
spraying water and they broke contact with the ground, lifting into the sky.
Just before he turned to the west, intending to skirt around the perimeter
of the town again, they were able to see an SUV topping the rise in front of
them, coming to pick up the two townspeople.  By the time it reached them,
Brett was nearly over the Sacramento Valley/Sea once again.

"So how did it go?" he asked, feeling safe for the first time since he'd
dropped his two companions off.

"It went well," Paul replied, settling in against the wall.  "They were a
bit secretive overall, but they did share some pretty interesting
information with us."

"Oh?" Brett asked.

"We talked for almost the entire three hours," Michelle said.  "They have a
population of 500 people.  Like us, men are the minority.  Pat told us that
they have 95 men.  The rest are women and small children.  Pat and Renee,
the doctor that was with him, and one other woman are the ruling council
that makes all of the decisions.  They're kind of like we were with Jessica
and Dale, only without the voting alliance."

"So they seem like they're cool?" Jason asked.

"As far as we can tell," Paul said.  "They didn't tell us how much
ammunition they had or how many guns but they were willing to share most
other information with us after they got to know us a little."

"What kind of information?" Brett wanted to know.

Michelle and Paul took turns narrating the story of how the current-day El
Dorado Hills came to be.  They told of the initial confusion and power
struggles that were so similar to what their own town had gone through.

"They even had the same problems with people trying to cling to pre-comet
morality in regards to relationships," Michelle explained.  "Their first
month after organizing they had constant problems with women fighting among
themselves over men and men giving in to the temptations of other women.
Though they tend to be a little older than we are, most of them are still in
their sexual years and cared enough about that for it to be a problem."

"And how did they solve the problem?" Brett asked.  "The same way we did?"

"That's right," she said.  "They now have an organized system of polygamy in
place there.  They told us that most men in town have at least two wives and
some have as many as four.  They also have a ceremony that they go through
both for adding a new wife to a group and for dissolving a marriage."

"Dissolving a marriage?" Jason asked.

"Yep," Michelle confirmed with a nod.  "Apparently some of the groupings
haven't worked out too well.  Some jumped into the arrangement hastily
without realizing what they were getting into and others just couldn't
handle the concept of sharing.  I expect we'll go through much the same
thing in our town as more and more groups form."

"That's something to look forward to," Brett said.  "How about defenses?
Have they experienced any attacks?"

"They didn't discuss their defensive arrangements with us," Paul said.
"Understandable considering the circumstances.  But they did say that they
have not had any contact with any organized group of survivors until us.
They had stragglers during the first two months, just like we did, but
nothing else."

"They said they were starting to wonder if they were the only group left on
Earth," Michelle added.

"I can see how they would think that," Brett allowed.  "They are somewhat
isolated there.  They have the flooded valley to the west and a huge, nearly
impenetrable mudfall and washout to the east.  The canyon cuts off any sort
of access to the north and to the south, there aren't any towns for miles."

"They also haven't done any sort of recon of the area," Paul said.  "They
told us that except for their fishing trips, no one ever leaves the town."

"Fishing trips?" Brett said, wincing in disgust.  Like Paul and Michelle
when they were first told of this, his first thought was of the Sacramento
Valley/Sea and the millions of dead bodies in it.  His disgust turned to
respect however when the actual situation was explained to him.  He was
particularly impressed by the navigation skills that would be required to
boat across the debris-laden 60 mile width of the valley and then out
through San Francisco Bay to the open water.  Since visibility was only
about five miles or so through the rain, the majority of such a trip would
necessarily need to be done without land-based references.

"Pat said they do it entirely with compasses and charts that they've made,"
Michelle said.  "They have GPS receivers but they still can't get any sort
of signal from them because of the clouds.  So far they've pulled in more
than a ton of fish that they've dried or smoked.  He said they've also
brought back some crabs and lobsters as well.  They eat those as part of a
return feast whenever they come back."

"Crabs and lobster," Brett said slowly, his mouth watering at the very
thought.  He had a vision, almost sexual in nature, of dumping fifty or
sixty live crustaceans into the hot water tank used for bathing and boiling
them until they were bright red.  Of course there wouldn't be any butter to
dip it in, but he thought he could live with that.

"Yes," Paul said, "amazing, isn't it?  We touched on the possibilities of
trade in the future but didn't go into any negotiations.  I can certainly
see us delivering a load of rice and wheat to them in exchange for some fish
and some lobster though."

"Oh yeah," Jason said dreamily.  Like everyone else in town, including his
wives who made the stuff, he was getting quite tired of rice, spinach, and
chicken noodle soup day after day.

"What about the possibility that they're setting us up?" Brett, reluctantly
throwing the image of fresh seafood aside, asked next.

"Anything's possible," Paul allowed.  "But for what it's worth, they seemed
sincere."

"I agree," Michelle said.  "In fact, it seemed that the secrecy that they
displayed was more out of the fear of us than anything else.  I think that
if we keep up a dialogue with them, it will be beneficial to both of us.
Remember that they have a doctor there.  That factor alone makes it
worthwhile to stay on their good side.  Imagine if there was a problem with
one of the pregnant women as they approached delivery.  Suppose there was a
breach presentation or something like that.  Brett could fly that woman to
El Dorado Hills and have her in the presence of a doctor within a
half-hour's time.  No offense to you Paul, you've done a great job so far,
but that doctor could do a C-section and save what would otherwise would be
the death of a mother and child."

"They also had a complete pharmacy in their grocery store," Paul added.
"They have access to antibiotics and other drugs and they have someone who
knows how to give them."

"That is a good point," Brett was forced to allow.

"There are a hundred good reasons to maintain a relationship with these
people," Michelle said, "and only one reason not to: that they might try to
take our helicopter or attack us.  I think that until we have a reason to
mistrust them - something we don't have at this point - we are compelled to
further these meetings.  The potential payback makes the gamble worth it."

"Well put," Paul said, nodding in agreement.

Brett sighed.  "You're right," he said slowly.  "But I would suggest we take
things slowly.  We can't disregard the possibility that they might be just
waiting for a chance to get their hands on me and this aircraft."


+++++


The community meeting that night stretched until nearly eight o'clock.  Paul
and Michelle, who were being hailed as town heroes for their trip, first
explained everything that they had learned that day and then answered
question after question from the townspeople.  It was eerily like a press
conference in pre-comet life - a press conference that went on for hours.
Most of the inquiries were of a nature that simply couldn't be answered for
lack of information but people insisted upon asking anyway.

"Do you think that they might attack us?" was asked again and again in
different phrasing.

"We hope not," Paul or Michelle would reply, "but we simply don't know for
sure."

"Will the doctor help us if we need help?" was another common question.

"Again, we don't know," was the reply.

"What about this fish and lobster thing?  How much do they have?  How much
will they trade?"

"We don't know," would be the answer, "that didn't come up yet."

On and on it went until finally, through sheer exhaustion, the questions
finally died out and Paul was able to declare an end to the meeting.  His
final word was that another trip to El Dorado Hills was planned for the
following week.  Maybe they would be able to entice a visitor to come back
with them for a tour of their own town.

As the people of Garden Hill finally shuffled out of the community center
and back to their homes, the conversation was mostly about what had been
learned that day.  It didn't occur to many of these people that in El Dorado
Hills, a very similar meeting was also just breaking up and that many of the
same questions had been addressed there as well.


+++++


"God, it's been a long day," Brett said as he pulled on a pair of tattered
sweatpants prepatory to climbing into bed.  Shirtless, he walked into the
bathroom and proceeded to relieve himself into the toilet.  He didn't bother
closing the door as he did this.  Everyone, even Chrissie, had gotten over
being seen by their spouses as they urinated.

"I am completely exhausted," Michelle intoned with a yawn as she pulled on a
long T-shirt over her nakedness.  "Flying in that helicopter does something
to sap your strength.  How did you used to do it every day Brett?"

"You get used to it," he said, shaking off and tucking himself back in his
sweats.  He picked up the bucket of water that stood on the rear of the tank
at all times intending to pour it in to facilitate the flushing process.

"Don't flush yet," Chrissie said, walking into the bathroom completely
naked.  Her breasts had gotten noticeably bigger in the past few weeks, as
had the bulge in her stomach.  "I need to pee too.  No sense wasting water."

"Okay," Brett replied, putting the bucket back.  He tried to leave the
bathroom but was delayed when Chrissie reached out and put her hand on his
crotch.  She gave him a playful squeeze.

"I hope you're not TOO tired," she said with a seductive smile.

He gave her a tired look. "Actually," he said apologetically, "I'm about to
drop.  Maybe we can play a little in the morning?"

"Screw the morning," she said sourly, letting go of him and sitting on the
toilet.  "It's been two days since I've had any.  I'm horny now."

"Sorry babe.  It's been a very long day," he told her, feeling guilty about
turning her down.  It HAD been a few days since he had made love to her.
With the honeymoon phase of the relationship nearing its end, all three of
them had slowed down the frequency of their relations a bit.  Instead of
making love twice a day, Brett was now doing it only about once a day and
sometimes even going for a day or two without.  By far Chrissie had the most
voracious sexual appetite of the trio as the hormones of pregnancy assaulted
her body.  She was typically the initiator between her and Brett and would
even ask Michelle to eat her or finger her to orgasm if Brett wasn't in the
mood, although she always felt somewhat guilty about this and, as of yet,
had not been able to bring herself to return the favor.  Michelle, when she
wasn't tired, was usually a good sport about it and actually seemed to be
developing quite a taste for her co-wife's vagina.  And she never complained
about the lack of reciprocation.

"Spoilsport," Chrissie accused Brett with a pout as she unleashed a stream
of urine.

"I'll give you a proper pounding in the morning," he told her.  "I promise."

She didn't reply to him, she only stuck her tongue out in a mock display of
childishness.  Brett returned the gesture and then left the bathroom,
leaving her to pee in peace.  He went into the bedroom and climbed into the
bed.  Michelle was already there, lying on her back on the left side of it.
She seemed almost asleep already.  He put himself in the middle - his
accustomed spot - and, with a yawn, stretched out and got comfortable.

The sound of the toilet flushing came a minute later and then Chrissie
walked in, still naked.  She climbed in on the right side of the bed and
immediately pressed her smooth body against Brett.  Her breasts slid against
his shoulder.

"Chris," he said tiredly, "you didn't blow out the candles."

"I don't plan to go to sleep just yet," she whispered in his ear, her tongue
snaking out to lick at the lobe.  "You didn't think I was going to give up
that easily, did you?"

"Chris, really," he pleaded.  "I'm exhausted.  I don't think I could even
get it up right now."

"And I'm trying to sleep," Michelle said from the other side of him.  "Blow
out the damn candles."

"You guys are prudes," Chrissie said, letting her hand slide across Brett's
stomach.  Before he could stop her, she had reached into his sweats and
grabbed his wilted cock.  She began to softly squeeze it and stroke it.

"Chrissie," he said, trying to roll away from her.  "Really, I'm not in the
mood right now."

"You will be," she whispered, nibbling on his earlobe now, her hand
stubbornly continuing its actions.

Despite the fatigue, which was pulling at him like a drug, Brett felt simple
biology at work as a result of her caressing hand.  Blood began to flow into
his cock and he began to stiffen a little, very much against his will.

"You see?" Chrissie said triumphantly as she felt the first stirrings.  "You
ARE interested."

"No he's not," Michelle groaned impatiently.  "Now put the damn light out
and go to sleep."

"Not until I get what's coming to me," Chrissie said indignantly.  "I've
been neglected lately.  He has his husbandly duties to perform."

"Oh Christ," Michelle said, rolling over and pulling the covers over her
head.

"Chrissie please," Brett said, feeling himself stiffen even further under
her hand.  The first glimmerings of interest began to blossom in his body,
nudging the fatigue to the side.

"Maybe you need a little more convincing," she said, reaching down and
pulling the covers off of him.

"Chrissie!" Brett said, feeling the chilly air upon his skin.

"Chrissie!" echoed Michelle, whose body had also been partially uncovered by
this move.

"Prudes," she said, not making any move to recover them.  Instead, she
yanked the front of Brett's sweats down, revealing his half-erect penis.
She gave it a few more squeezes and then twisted around in the bed so that
her head was down at his crotch.  Before he could protest or do anything
else, she slurped his entire length into her mouth.

"Ohhh," Brett groaned in surprise, feeling the teasing lips and tongue upon
him.  Though Michelle was quite the aficionado of oral sex, it was very rare
that Chrissie actually took his penis into her oral cavity.  The unusual
nature of the event coupled with the pleasurable sensation of it was enough
to drive the last of the fatigue underground and make him stiffen up
completely.

"Mmmmm," Chrissie moaned from around the cock in her mouth as she felt it
harden up, as she sensed Brett's protests coming to an end.  She was
starting to see why Shellie liked doing this so much.  There was such a
feeling of power involved.  She swirled her tongue around the head a few
times and then began to move her mouth up and down upon him.

"Goddammit!" barked Michelle impatiently as she reached up and pulled the
covers back over her.  "Would you guys go do that in the other room?"

Neither Brett nor Chrissie answered her, nor did they make any move to get
up and go to the other room.  Chrissie kept slurping her mouth up and down
on Brett's cock, wetting it with her saliva, teasing it into a rigid
hardness and Brett just moaned, quickly becoming lost in the sensation.  He
put his hand into Chrissie's long blonde hair and ran his fingers through it
as she worked on him.  Michelle gave one more grunt and then closed her eyes
again, trying to ignore what was going on.

Chrissie sucked him for the better part of five minutes, tonguing every
millimeter of his cock and even taking his balls into her mouth for a few
quick slurps.  She deep throated him a few times although her technique was
very inexpert and she had to fight a gag when she reached bottom.  Brett's
hands left her hair and found their way to her breasts, which he squeezed
and kneaded gently, feeling the hardness of the nipples and the softness of
the flesh.

"Mmmmm," Chrissie said, pulling her mouth free and giving him one last
loving lick from root to head.  "Now we're getting somewhere."

"It would seem so," Brett told her, giving her nipples a playful pinch.

She pulled his sweats the rest of the way off and tossed them to the floor.
Her pussy was now quite wet and ready for action so she raised up and
straddled his legs, inching forward until his cock was nestled against her
pubic hair.  "Now for the payoff," she said, putting the head against her
moist lips.  She moved her pelvis back and forth a few times, sliding him
around in her opening and then she sank down upon him, engulfing his entire
length in her tight cavern.  Both of them sighed in pleasure at the
intrusion.  She began to move up and down, back and forth, pushing and
pulling him in and out of her body.  She ground herself against his pubic
bone, stimulating her clit and sending shivers of pleasure through her body
and his.  The bed began to bounce as his hands found her tits once more.

Michelle looked up at them in annoyance again, letting loose an irritated
sigh.  Chrissie's thigh was banging into hers through the comforter with
each stroke that she made and the headboard of the bed was clanking against
the wall behind it with the rhythm of their movements.  She felt a small
twinge of arousal when the odor of the union taking place next to her caught
her nose but she quickly buried it beneath her fatigue.  She picked up a
small pillow and crammed it between the headboard and the wall, silencing
the pounding.  With one more sigh she pulled the covers a little tighter
around her and put her own pillow over her head, trying to block out the
grunts and groans from her bedmates.

But Chrissie was feeling naughty this night and she had no intention of
letting her co-wife off that easily.  As she continued to bounce and gyrate
atop Brett's rigid cock, she forced her hand underneath the covers and found
Michelle's bare leg just below the back of her knee.  She moved her hand up
and down, touching the soft, feminine flesh, creeping higher and higher with
each movement.

Michelle tried to pull her leg away but Chrissie held tight.  Michelle
reached down and batted at the invading hand once but Chrissie simply put it
right back.  Soon, as her vaginal secretions dripped down and soaked Brett's
crotch, her hand was touching the swell of Michelle's bare ass.  Brett,
seeing this, decided to get in on the act too.  His fatigue was now
completely gone, overridden by passion and excitement.  He moved his right
hand from Chrissie's breast and pushed it under the covers as well, moving
it around against Michelle's body until he was fondling her breast through
her nightgown.

Again Michelle tried to squirm away from him but he refused to let her.
Soon he could feel the nipple hardening against his hand and could sense her
breathing quickening.  Finally, after being pawed and groped by two
different people of two different sexes, she gave up the battle.  She pulled
the pillow from her head and rolled onto her back, casting the covers aside
and opening her legs.

"You guys just don't know when to stop, do you?" she breathed, her face
flushed.

"We know when to go," Chrissie said, running her hand higher up the front of
Michelle's legs.

Brett pulled Michelle's T-shirt up, exposing her breasts.  Her nipples were
now standing up proudly and his fingers found them.  Chrissie, now panting
and flushed, let her own hand continue its journey until she touched the wet
folds of her pussy.  She slid first one and then two and finally three
fingers inside of her and began to push and pull with the rhythm of her own
strokes atop Brett.

"Yeah," Michelle groaned, feeling the delicious intrusion, "finger-fuck me
baby.  Give it to me hard."  She grasped Chrissie's wrist and began to
forcefully piston her hand in and out.

Chrissie felt the clenching muscles of Michelle's sex, felt the wonderful
slickness of her passage grasping at her, and suddenly she wanted more.  She
stared at that gaping slit as Brett's cock slammed in and out of her, she
saw that hard clitoris poking out of its hood, and she knew that the time
had finally come to do what she had been avoiding all of this time.  She
suddenly raised up, pulling herself free of Brett, who cried out in protest
at the loss of sensation just as he was approaching an orgasm.

"Fuck me from behind," Chrissie told him, dropping to her knees and swinging
her rear end around in a circle until it was facing him.  "I'm gonna eat
Shellie's pussy out."

"Oh god," Michelle moaned, feeling a shiver travel through her at the very
words.  She had been hoping and fantasizing since the first cautious
encounter that Chrissie would one day put her mouth upon her sex and now, at
last, it seemed it was finally coming true.

While Brett worked his way around behind her and put his cock back into her
pussy from behind, Chrissie, continuing to slam her fingers in and out of
Michelle's slit, dropped her mouth to her nipple.  She suckled it
frantically, harshly, the way she knew Michelle liked it at this point in a
session.  She kissed between the breasts and worked her way over to the
other one, sucking and biting the nipple over there as well.  Finally she
began to kiss and nibble her way across the soft flesh of Michelle's
stomach.  When her mouth reached the top of her pubic mound she pulled her
dripping fingers free, inhaling the sharp odor of her co-wife's juices.

"Do it Chrissie," Michelle moaned desperately, putting her fingers atop
Chrissie's head and pushing at her.  She was so keyed up by the sight of the
innocent-looking teenager about to lick her that she thought she might come
at the first contact.

"Yeah," Brett echoed, panting as well, barely in control of his own orgasm
at the sight of what was happening.  He slowed down the pace of his strokes
a little to keep from losing that thin edge of control. "Eat her Chris, eat
her good."

Chrissie, trembling with desire and feeling the delicious nastiness
pervading her body at what she was about to do, ran the back of her tongue
through Michelle's pubic hair, moving downward until she was licking the
edge of her swollen lips.  She tasted the tang of another woman's vaginal
juices for the first time and this drove her onward.  Without pausing for a
second thought, she plunged her tongue directly into the gaping chasm before
her, spearing it in as far as was physically possible.

"Oh yessss," Michelle cried, her hips rising up at the contact, her hand
pushing harder against Chrissie's head to increase it.

"Mmmmm," Chrissie moaned from around her mouthful of pussy.  She plunged her
tongue in and out, lapping at the juices, drinking in their flavor, feeling
like a depraved, nasty girl and loving it.  She licked up and down for a
moment and then went back to driving her tongue inside.  She rubbed her nose
against the swollen clit.

"Oh yess baby, yesss!" Michelle gurgled happily, her legs coming up around
Chrissie's back.  "Eat me, eat meeeee!"

"Oh god," Brett grunted, losing control of his body.  The spasms began in
his groin, quickly building up to a crescendo of wicked, glorious pleasure.
He grasped Chrissie's ass harshly, digging his fingers into the pale flesh,
his own hips an out of control piston as he slammed into her with all of his
might, their groins making a wet, slapping sound with each stroke.  Soon the
sperm was shooting out of his body, filling her and then overfilling her.

Chrissie experienced her first orgasm as she felt Brett shooting his hot
seed into her.  She groaned and panted, raising her wet face out of
Michelle's crotch long enough to cry out her own pleasure to the room.

No sooner had Brett pulled his sticky member from Chrissie's pussy than
Michelle brought things up to a new level.  "Swing around Chrissie," she
said, grabbing at her leg.  "Put your pussy on my face.  I want to eat his
come out of you."

"Ohhhh," Chrissie said, delighted at the nastiness of that.  She scooted
around in a circle, keeping her own face in Michelle's crotch, until her
legs were straddling Michelle's head.  Her pussy was gaping open obscenely,
the pubic hair matted from wetness, white sperm oozing out and running down
her thighs.

Michelle looked at this with a wild, lustful look in her eyes, as if she was
contemplating a gourmet feast.  She put her hands on Chrissie's ass and
pulled her crotch to her, burying her face in that messy junction.  Her
tongue began to lap up and down her slit, gathering all of the come and
vaginal secretions on the outside before she probed through the lips,
sucking what was inside out as well.

Chrissie shuddered at the sensation and immediately had another, more
powerful orgasm.  As the tremors faded away, making way for the next one,
she put her own face back in Michelle's crotch and began working to bring
her off.

Brett, still kneeling in the same spot that he had fucked Chrissie from,
watched this excitedly.  His penis, which had never really softened after
his own come, was once again firming up into a ramrod.  He stroked it softly
as he watched the two women eat each other, wondering just where he should
put it next.

It didn't take long before someone gave him a suggestion.


+++++


Meanwhile, in Auburn, Colonel Barnes and Captain Bracken were drinking
scotch and sodas in Barnes' office.  They sat in comfortable chairs in a
heated room beneath the glow of electric lights, sipping out of genuine
crystal glasses.  On the desk before them was a bottle of Cutty Sark, a
twelve-pack of Coca-Cola, and a decanter filled with ice-cubes that had been
made in a small freezer that was hooked into the generator.

"It's hard to believe that they managed to slip out of town," Barnes said,
taking a puff from his cigar.  He was referring to Anna and Jean, the search
for whom had finally been abandoned at sunset that very day.  "Who would've
thought?"

"I know how you feel," Bracken said, shaking his head a little.  "But I'm
quite certain at this point that they are nowhere in town, living or dead.
We've searched every building, every nook, every cranny within the guarded
area and we have found no trace of them.  We guarded the areas that we've
already searched just to make sure that they didn't slip from one area to
another.  Unfortunately, as much as I hate to admit it, they had to have
slipped out of town somehow, either on the night they killed the other bitch
or sometime after."

"They must've been incredibly lucky not to have been picked up," Barnes
said, shaking his head at the travesty of it all.

"Luckier than they'll ever know," Bracken agreed.  He took a sip of his
latest drink and then helped himself to one of Barnes' cigars.

"Now for the important question," Barnes said, flicking a gold-plated Zippo
lighter to life and igniting his companion's stogy for him.  "Will this
escape have any bearing on the upcoming attack on Garden Hill?  What do you
think the odds are that they will be heading for that town?"

Bracken puffed his cigar alight and then leaned back in his chair, looking
thoughtfully at his leader.  "I'm quite certain that their plan from the
start was to head to Garden Hill," he said.  "Ever since we brought that
bitch Jessica back from the last mission, rumors have been flying about the
town.  We've had reports from many of the men that they've overheard their
bitches talking about the place and how much better it would be if they were
there."

"I hope those bitches were beaten severely for that," Barnes said.

"Oh, I'm sure they were.  But my point is that I'm surprised that my two
bitches were the only ones who tried to get away.  The bitches see that
place as some sort of Utopia."

"So do you think that a change of plans is in order?" Barnes wanted to know.
"Will the possibility of those two bitches making it to Garden Hill destroy
the element of surprise in the attack?"

Bracken shook his head.  "I don't think we need to worry about that," he
said confidently.  "In the first place, I can't see them actually making it
to Garden Hill.  They left carrying nothing but a few blankets.  There's no
way that they'll survive a ten-day hike through the rain without any food.
My guess is that we'll come across their bodies somewhere between here and
there as we march.  They're probably out there collapsed and starving even
as we speak."

"That sounds logical to me," Barnes said.

"And even if, by some miracle, they manage to get to Garden Hill, what of
that?  What can they really tell those people that would compromise our
attack plans?  They're bitches after all.  Sure, they've probably managed to
overhear the fact that we plan to make an attack, but they won't be able to
tell them when, or how, or with how many men.  At worst, the Garden Hill
people will just have confirmation of what they probably already expect
anyway.  After all, they did probe us with their helicopter.  That tells us
they know we're here.  And they haven't been back since then.  That tells us
that they have decided we're something to fear."

Barnes thought these words over carefully for a moment and decided that they
made a lot of sense.  "You sound like you've thought this out very well," he
said.  "I concur with your reasoning.  Do you still plan to leave on the 7th
of January?"

"We've been delayed a bit in the training schedule because of the search for
the bitches," Bracken said.  "I would like a few more days to exercise the
new platoons and the new lieutenants."

"Fair enough," Barnes told him, finishing off the last of his drink.  "After
all, time is on our side, isn't it?"

"Exactly."




Al Steiner
2-11-01
Chapter 14 to follow

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