“Well—what do we do then? I’ve never been through this before.”
“Neither have I. . . . But we get three witnesses. We turn on the DW-three—there is a DW-three here, isn’t there?—then you say, ‘Be my wife, Marjorie Couzins.’ I reply, ’I will be your wife, Victor Savage.’ Then we face the screen while our picture is taken and we give our addresses and Waverly Numbers. That’s all there is to it.”
“I like the old-fashioned way better,” I said. “We would go to a temple or the priest comes here. He would read out of the ancient prayer book, then we would promise to love, honor, and obey each other and I would put a gold ring on your finger. Then we would kiss and would be married. We would get an engraved certificate which we could frame over our bed—a sort of license to make love. That’s real romance!”
“Phooie,” said Marge. But she gave me another one of those kisses and I didn’t care much how we got married, so long as we did.
9
ON FRIDAY, September 20th, the sun came out for two hours and set in a blaze of orange and dusty red over the Missouri plains. It was the first time any of us had seen the sun for some five months, and we stood on the porch of the Harrow farm at Fallon and watched it sink to rest. There was a large gathering of us at that memorable sundown. There were Elaine and Gabe Harrow, who had flown in from Mt. Hood, bringing with them Professor Osborne and Bob and Libby Jordan. Steve Engles and his mother Cora came from York Area Two, Rance Goodrich from Jersey Complex, Florence Donner from Colorado Center, and Dr. Rufus Howard and Bill and Martha Wernecke and their two children, Alice and George, from Missouri Center. There were Marge and myself, of course, and the two Lawrence boys, Fred and Sam Houston from the next farm.
Gabe Harrow, Bob Jordan and Jack Osborne brought with them further disquieting news that seemed oddly improbable with the sun shining and the temperature rising to the 30’s. They said that the abatement of the snow and the sunshine were very temporary—that the earth had been passing through a rift, or hiatus in the cosmic cloud, and that they had been able to measure its extent three days before and could predict that at 2:13 the next morning the snow and wind would begin again with redoubled violence.
Later in the evening Gabe, Osborne, Jordan, Engles, who was a former Navy commander and reactor engineer, Wernecke and I gathered in the library for the first meeting of the directors of the Harrow Group. Gabe presided, since it was his idea and his house, and he briefly outlined the agenda.
“Our problem now is simply ways and means of survival,” he said.
“Vic Savage has filled this house with enough food concentrates to last us a couple of years, so food will not be the problem. Also, he had the foresight to obtain one of the new Kincadium reactors and additional fuel for our present Fornium reactor, so our problem will not fall into the areas of heat, light, and power.
“What we face are two immediate problems, mainly. There was a third—that of ventilation in the event our oxygen generator failed, but Colonel Savage has already solved it for us with his design of a vent tube that will reach to the surface of the snow when it covers us over. What remain are a safe passageway from the house to the East barn, where all of our vital materials and our workshop and tools will be, and secondly the shoring up of our house and the barn so that they will not cave in on us with the weight of the snow.
“Bill Wernecke is applying his engineering skill to both of these situations, and I have no doubt they will be solved while we are still mobile.
“There is one more vital aspect of our condition, our escape from this place. Some time within the next twelve months the violence of the storm will subside and the precipitation will form into a more or less regular pattern for areas. Our expectation is that the heaviest precipitation will concentrate around the polar regions and that as we approach the Equator it will lessen and warmer weather will be found. In the polar regions we think a minimum of eighty degrees below zero Fahrenheit will prevail.
“At our latitude we expect the minimum temperature to hover around zero or ten below, Fahrenheit. What we expect and hope for is that at the Equator, when the storm levels off, we may find temperatures as high as plus forty degrees Fahrenheit. If we are right about that, only rain will be found at sea level in the Equatorial belt. The higher altitudes, of course, will be correspondingly colder.
“I am taking a tremendous gamble with all of our lives by installing us at Fallon, which is about one thousand miles from the sea as the Rings fly. I tell you all now, if you do not have faith in the plan I shall present, then by all means install yourselves closer to the Atlantic, your only highway South when the time comes to move. But in the meantime I think that the dangers of living near the sea are far greater than those we will encounter inland. I believe that the oceans will overrun a great deal of the Coastal lands and that destruction and loss of life will be uncountable.
“It was with this in view that I chose Fallon. We are in the center of the continent and safe from the waters of the oceans and the Gulf. We are in the flattest part of the continent, where the winds may pass freely without the tremendous pressure build-ups and resulting wild gusts found near the mountains. Also, we are surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges, which should reduce the wind force somewhat at low altitudes.
“It is also possible and quite likely that the winds in this area may reduce the snow buildup by many hundreds of feet, piling up the highest drifts in the mountainous terrain. So it is my plan to try to ride out the worst of it here, then try to get out of our own trap and get to the ocean when the time comes.
“Flying will be out of the question. The time to move will come years before the high winds subside. We can expect the hurricane winds to last some fourteen years. We will have to travel on top of the snow, and with that in view I have ordered constructed, according to the design of Rance Goodrich, a snow vehicle that should support us all in safety, if not comfort. The parts of this machine should arrive at Fallon by chartered Ring Express some time before midnight. We will have at least two hours to store the parts of our precious machine before the storm resumes.
“I was much interested to learn, upon my return home, that Colonel Savage had been working on designs of a similar machine. Here is proof that our minds are in accord and that our thinking is alike.
“Our first decision, then, should be on the question of whether we follow the Fallon plan, as outlined, or split up to seek our individual safety.”
Steve Engles got to his feet and faced Gabe. Steve was several inches taller than I, but twenty pounds lighter. He had been an outstanding athlete at the Academy and I had got to know him well there, though he was two years ahead of me. He had often been a fourth at our Bridge soirees and was a powerful, aggressive contestant. He was, to my mind, a doubtful choice for a group such as ours, however, for he had an uncertain temper and no sense of humor.
“I want to know something else before we get down to voting on anything,” he said. “I want to know who’s number one man here?”
Gabe looked embarrassed. He didn’t want to name himself, although he was the logical choice since he had assumed the leadership and responsibility from the beginning. I got up and faced Steve.
“Gabe Harrow is the boss,” I said. “There are six of us on this board of directors, and in the event of a tie vote on any question his is the vote that counts, all alone. . . . I’m not laying down any rules, Steve. I’m just making a motion. Let’s vote on it.”
Gabe called for the vote and the ayes were loud and clear. There was one no and it came from Steve, who had remained on his feet. I got up again. “You want to say anything about our decision?” I asked him.
“Yes, I have an opinion to express,” he said.
“We’ll listen to Steve,” said Gabe. I sat down.
“I’ll take only a moment,” Steve replied calmly. “I don’t know whether I want to entrust my mother’s life and my own to other persons if I am not going to have any greater say in the decisions, and if she is going to have none. I don’t