Earth Abides

The more ticklish questions were really as to the route and the means of transportation. In the last few years no one had used an automobile, and several once-fine cars stood forlorn and ruinous along San Lupo Drive on hopelessly flat tires; the children used them for playhouses. The trouble of keeping automobiles going was more work than pleasure, and the roads in all directions had become so clogged with fallen trees and the bricks of chimneys brought down by the earthquake that there would have been little practical advantage to trying to travel about the city by car, even if you had a workable one. On top of all that, the younger men had never known the fun of driving a car under good conditions, and so had no interest. Finally, where would you go if you had a car? You had no friends to visit in the other part of town, and no movies to go to. To bring cans and bottles home from the grocery stores, the dog-teams did well enough, and they also served for fishing-expeditions to the bay-shore.

Still, the older ones agreed, it might be possible to get an automobile running again, and to drive it for a considerable distance, even on rotten tires, if you kept the speed down below, say, twenty-five miles an hour. And that was really traveling, compared with a dog-team! Fast enough too to take you to New York in a month easily—provided the roads were passable!

That was the other difficult point—the route! Ish was suddenly at home, bringing into play his old knowledge of geography. Everything to the east, across the Sierra Nevada, would be completely blocked by fallen trees and landslides, and the roads to the north would probably be the same. The best chance would certainly be through the more open country toward the south, actually the route by winch Ish had gone to New York once long before. The desert roads might still be almost as good as ever. The Colorado River bridges might still be standing or might have fallen. ne only way to find out would be to go and see.

His excitement rising, the old road-maps standing out more clearly in his mind, Ish planned the route eastward. Beyond the Colorado the mountains should not be too difficult, and there were no big rivers for a long way-until you came to the Rio Grande at Albuquerque. Beyond there, if you could just get through the Sandia Mountains, you had open plateau country, and farther east there would be more and more choice of roads. (You could still find gasoline in drums; that would be no great problem.) Once on the plains, you should be able to get to the Missouri or the Mississippi, and even across those largest rivers; the high steel bridges should still be in. good condition, to judge by the Bay Bridge.

“What an adventure!” he burst out. “I’d give anything to be able to go! You must look everywhere for people-not just one or two, but communities. You must see how other groups are going at solving their problems and getting started again.”

Beyond the Mississippi (he resumed planning the route) it would be hard to say. That was natural forest country, and the roads might be badly blocked. On the other hand, fires might have kept the growth down, at least across the old prairie country in Illinois. All they could do would be to go and find out, if they even got that far, and to make decisions then.

By now the candles were getting well burned down. The clock. pointed to ten o’clock, although that was only an approximation. (Ish checked time once in a while by watching the shadow at noon, and the big clock in his living-room was considered standard for the community.) But it certainly was a late hour for people who had no electric lights, and so had gradually got arourid to making more and more use of sunlight.

Suddenly the others were all on their feet and taking leave. When they had gone, Ish and Em sent Robert to bed, and then started to straighten, up the living-room.

Ish felt a nostalgic touch. Things had changed so much and yet sometimes seemed to have changed not at all! This might have been away back in the Old Times, and he instead of Robert might have been the youngster just sent upstairs. He instead of Robert might be the one peeping down through the stairway (as Robert probably was), seeing his father and mother moving about, emptying cigarette trays, shoving cushions back into place, and generally putting the room to rights so that it would not look too devastating when they came down in the morning. It furnished a kind of comfortable little, domestic interim which rounded off the evening and let your nerves settle down from the buzz of conversation.

When they had finished, they sat on the davenport for a last cigarette. Ish’s mind could not help snapping back to the everung’s discussion. Even though things had not turned out as he had at first planned, still he felt that he had carried a main point.