1632

Greg was shaking his head before he even reached the podium's microphone. "I don't think there's the proverbial snowball's chance in hell." He gripped the sides of the podium and leaned forward, giving emphasis to his next words. "Whatever happened was almost certainly some kind of natural catastrophe. If you ask me, we're incredibly lucky we survived the experience. Nobody suffered any serious injuries, and the property damage was minimal."

Greg glanced at the fluorescent lighting on the ceiling of the gym. A fleeting smile crossed his face. "The power plant's even back on-line, so we've got all the conveniences of home. For a while, at least." The smile vanished. "But we're still in the position of a trailer park hit by a tornado. What do you think the chances are of another tornado coming by-and setting everything back the way it was?" Greg took a deep breath. "Personally, I'd have to say the chance is astronomically minute. Let's hope so. Another Ring of Fire would probably destroy us completely."

The crowd jammed into the gymnasium was silent. Greg took another deep breath, and concluded with simple, forceful words. "Face it, folks. We're here to stay."

A moment later, he had resumed his seat. The mayor took his place back at the microphone. "Well, that's about it, people. As far as that goes. What we've got to do now is plan for the future. The town council has been meeting pretty much nonstop for the past three days, and we've come up with a proposal we want to put before everybody." He paused for emphasis, just as the teacher had done. "We'll have to vote on it. This is way beyond the council's authority. So every registered voter here-"

The mayor stumbled to a halt. "Well, I suppose everybody here, registered or not." The sour look on his face caused laughter to ripple through the gym. For as many years as anyone in Grantville could remember, Henry Dreeson had been admonishing people to register to vote.

The mayor plowed on. "We need to figure out a proper structure to govern ourselves by. We can't just stick with a mayor and a town council. So what we want to propose is that we elect an emergency committee to draw up a plan-kind of a constitutional convention. The same committee should oversee things in the interim. And we need to elect somebody as the committee's chairman. He-or she-can make whatever immediate decisions are needed."

Someone in the crowd shouted out the mayor's own name. Dreeson shook his head vehemently. "Not me! The town council raised that idea already, and I turned 'em down. I'm sixty-six years old, folks. I'm a small-town mayor, that's it." The elderly man at the podium stood a little straighter. "Been pretty good at it, if I say so myself, and I'll be glad to stay on in that capacity. But there's no way I'm the right man to-" He waved his hand. The gesture was neither feeble, nor hopeless. But it conveyed the sense of impending catastrophe nonetheless.

A motion at the edge of the crowd drew Mike's attention. John Simpson, his sister's new father-in-law, was stepping forward to the microphone. The well-dressed man moved with the same self-confidence with which he had addressed numerous stockholders' meetings. He did not push the mayor aside so much as he forced him to yield the microphone by sheer authoritativeness.

"I agree with Mayor Dreeson," he said forcefully. "We are in an emergency. That calls for emergency management."

Another, less self-confident, man would have cleared his throat before proceeding. Not John Chandler Simpson. "I propose myself as the chairman of the emergency committee. I realize that I'm not well-known to most of you. But since I'm certain that I am better qualified than anyone here, I have no choice but to put myself forward for the position. I've been the chief executive officer of a major corporation for many years now. And before that I was an officer in the United States Navy. Served in the Pentagon."

Next to him, Mike heard Frank Jackson mutter: "Gee, what a self-sacrificing gesture."

Mike repressed his own snort of derision. Yeah, like Napoleon volunteering to take the throne. For the good of the nation, of course.

Quickly, he scanned the faces in the crowd. Mike could detect some signs of resentment at a stranger's instant readiness to take command. But not much. In truth, Simpson's decisiveness was obviously hitting a responsive chord. People floating in the water after a shipwreck are not inclined to question the origin of a lifeboat. Or the quality of its captain, as long as the man seems to know what he's doing and has a loud voice.

He brought his attention back to Simpson. "-first thing is to seal off the town," Simpson was saying. "Our resources are going to be stretched tight as it is. Very tight. We're going to have to cut back on everything, people. Down to the bone. We certainly aren't going to have anything to spare for the refugees who seem to be flooding the area."