Termination Shock

The more they went on pondering these things, the farther downriver they got. The stadium and the big structures on the Baylor campus receded. They found themselves in open country. Communications from Willem suggested he had things well in hand. Not just on the medical front but also in the sense of linking up with staff back home. Last week they had prepared a cover story to explain why Saskia would not be making any public appearances this week, and it was as good now as it had been before the jet had hit the pigs.

Rufus for his part was talking to his friends. They had retrieved his truck from where he’d left it and they were said to be “mobilizing,” which sounded like it involved getting “Beau’s pontoon” on a trailer and other such logistics. After dark they could all meet up at a “put-in” downriver. At that point some decisions would have to be made. The first being: Where could they sleep? Because more and more that was the only thing Saskia could think about.

She sent a secure text to T.R.:

> We have been delayed in the Waco area.

He responded:

> Willem informed me.

> Are you staying in Houston, or going to the site?

> Riding the storm out here. The whole program has been pushed back.

> So we are not going to miss the event if we wait?

> Correct. Stay safe and we’ll sort it out after the hurricane.

> Thank you T.R.

> Godspeed Y.M.

 

They ate, and then they slept, at what Rufus had called the put-in, by which he meant an earthen boat ramp accessible from a farm road. The degree of personal warmth and hospitality exhibited by the Boskeys was nearly overwhelming. The sheer quantity of food that they were able to produce on short notice had an almost slapstick effect on the Dutch guests. Anticipating Saskia’s only concern, Mary assured her that what was sizzling on the grill was by no means “swamp meat” harvested from feral swine and alligators, but had been purchased at a local grocery store “with expiration dates and everything.” The Boskeys were able on short notice to carpet an expanse of riverbank with pop-up canopies and other temporary structures that they produced like magicians from all their trucks and trailers. Most of those were neither bugproof nor air-conditioned. When it was time to sleep, they packed as many people as they could into the trailers and ran the air conditioners off portable generators. Rufus and Beau slept in the cabs of their trucks with the seats leaned back.

Saskia went to sleep almost instantly. She and Amelia were sharing the large bed in the back of Rufus’s trailer. She then woke up at three in the morning and knew right away that getting back to sleep was out of the question. It was a combination of jet lag and vivid visual memories of things that had happened at Waco. She got up, used the tiny but clean toilet in the middle of the trailer, then stepped over Fenna, who was sleeping in the living/dining area. Alastair had gone missing. She went out the side door, closing it quietly behind her, and stepped down to the sandy ground. She had foolishly expected that it would be cool at this time of night, but it wasn’t. She had also expected quiet, but in addition to the drone of the generators, some kind of creatures, evidently quite numerous, were making a pulsating racket in the scrub that came up to the river’s edge everywhere but here. Some kind of insect, she assumed. Here, insects seemed a good default explanation for just about anything that might require explaining.

Fat orange and yellow extension cords coursed over the sand, obliging her to pick her feet up as she walked. One of them ran up over the tailgate of the Boskeys’ pickup truck and connected to a backpack-sized unit perched atop the cab, which was humming and aglow with status lights. Saskia went over and looked down into the bed of the truck. Lying there, deeply asleep, was Alastair. Only the oval of his face was showing, and he’d veiled that under a mosquito net. The rest of him was covered by a bulky and yet form-fitting garment: stretchy fabric shot through with little tubes. These converged on an umbilical connection at his left hip, whence a bigger hose snaked up to the purring backpack. He’d put that up on the top of the cab, the better for it to blow hot exhaust into the slightly less hot atmosphere. Evidently he’d found it impossible to sleep in the confines of the trailer and so he’d gotten up at some point in the night, stolen outside, and broken out this earthsuit. It could run off its built-in battery pack, but if you were remaining in one place for any length of time it made sense to plug it in, as he’d done. Saskia envied his cool deep slumber. But it was perfectly obvious that she’d not be going back to sleep and so she did not follow his example.