Ben was bringing his medical notes up to date. Lewis was finishing his daily log. Thomas sat in the rear of the boat and stared back the way they had come. Ben had been watching him closely for the past three days, uncertain what to expect, not liking the change in attitude that Thomas wasn’t even trying to hide any longer.
He wrote: “Separation from our brothers and sisters has been harder on all of us than we expected. Suggest future parties send pairs of likes whenever possible.”
If Thomas became ill, he thought, then what? Even back in the hospital they had no provisions for caring for the mentally ill. Insanity was a community threat, a threat to the brothers and sisters who suffered as much as the affected one. Early on, the family had decided that no community threat could be allowed to survive. If any brother or sister became mentally ill, his or her presence was not to be tolerated. And that, Ben told himself sharply, was the law. Their small group could not afford to lose a pair of hands, though, and that was the reality. And when reality and law clashed, then what?
After a glance at Molly, Ben added another note: “Suggest parties be made up equally of males and females.” She had been more lonely than any of them, he knew. He had watched her fill page after page of her sketchbook, and wondered if that had substituted in some way for the absence of her sisters. Perhaps when Thomas was confronted with his real work he would no longer stare for long periods and start when anyone touched him or called his name.
“We’ll have to change our food-rationing schedule,” Lewis said. “We counted on five days only for this leg of the trip, and it’s been eight. You want to do the food count, Ben?”
Ben nodded. “Tomorrow when we tie up I’ll make an inventory. We might have to cut down.” They shouldn’t, he knew. He made another note. “Suggest double caloric needs.”
Molly’s hand slipped out from under her cheek and dangled over the side of her bunk. Ben had intended to lie with her that night, but it didn’t matter. They were all too tired even for the comfort of sex. Ben sighed and put his notebook down. The last light was fading from the sky. There was only the soft slap of wavelets against the side of the boat and the sound of deep breathing from the rear section. There was a touch of chill in the air. Ben waited until Thomas was asleep, then he lay down.
Molly dreamed of turning over in the boat, of being unable to get out from under it, of searching for a place to surface where the boat would not cut her off from the air above. The water was pale gold, it was turning her skin golden, and she knew that if she let herself remain still for even one moment she would become a golden statue on the bottom of the river forever. She swam harder, desperate to breathe, aching, flailing, yielding to terror. Then hands reached for her, her own hands, as white as snow, and she tried to grasp them. The hands, dozens of them now, closed on nothing, opened, closed. They missed her again and again, and finally she screamed, “Here I am!” And the water rushed to fill her. She started to sink, frozen, only her mind churning with fear, forming over and over the scream of protest her lips were unable to utter.
“Molly, hush. It’s all right.” A quiet voice in her ear penetrated finally, and she jerked awake from the dream. “It’s all right, Molly. You’re all right.”
It was very dark. “Ben?” Molly whispered.
“Yes. You were dreaming.”
She shuddered and moved over so he could lie beside her. She was shivering; the night air had become very cool since they had turned in to the Potomac. Ben was warm, his arm tight about her, and his other hand warm and gentle as he caressed her cold body.
They made no sound to awaken the others as their bodies united in the sexual embrace, and afterward Molly slept again, hard and tight against him.
All the next day the signs of great devastation grew: houses had burned, others had been toppled by storms. The suburbs were being overgrown with shrubs and trees. Debris made the trip harder; sunken boats and collapsed bridges turned the river into a maze where their progress was measured in feet and inches. Again they had found it impossible to use the sail.
Lewis and Molly were together in the prow of the boat, alert for submerged dangers, sometimes calling out in unison, sometimes singly, warning against hazards, neither of them silent for more than a minute or two at a time.
Suddenly Molly pointed and cried, “Fish! There are fish!”
They stared at the school of fish in wonder, and the boat drifted until Lewis shouted, “Obstacle! Eleven o’clock, ten yards!” They pulled the oars hard and the school of fish vanished, but the gloom had lifted. While they rowed, they talked of ways of netting fish for dinner, of drying fish for the return trip, of the excitement in the valley when they learned that fish had survived after all.
None of the ruins they had seen from the river prepared them for the scene of desolation they came upon on the outskirts of Washington. Molly had seen photographs in books of bombed-out cities—Dresden, Hiroshima—and the destruction here seemed every bit as total. The streets were buried under rubble, here and there vines covered the heaps of concrete, and trees had taken root high above the ground, binding the piles of bricks and blocks and marble together. They stayed on the river until it became impassable, and this time the rapids were created by man-made obstacles: old rusting automobiles, a demolished bridge, a graveyard of buses . . .
“It was worthless,” Thomas muttered. “All of this. Worthless.”
“Maybe not,” Lewis said. “There have to be vaults, basements, fireproof storage rooms . . . Maybe not.”
“Worthless,” Thomas said again.
“Let’s tie up and try to figure out just where we are,” Ben said. It was nearly dusk; they couldn’t do anything until morning. “I’ll start dinner. Molly, can you make out anything from the maps?”
She shook her head, her eyes fixed, staring at the nightmare scene before them. Who had done this? Why? It was as if the people had converged here to destroy this place that had failed them in the end so completely.
“Molly!” Ben’s voice sharpened. “There are still a few landmarks, aren’t there?”
She stirred and abruptly turned away from the city. Ben looked at Thomas, and from him to Harvey, who was studying the river ahead.
“They did it on purpose,” Harvey said. “In the end they must have all been mad, obsessed with the idea of destruction.”
Lewis said, “If we can locate ourselves, we’ll find the vaults. All this”—he waved his hand—“was done by savages. It’s all surface damage. The vaults will be intact.”
Molly was turning slowly, examining the landscape in a panoramic survey. She said, “There should be two more bridges, and that will put us at the foot of Capitol Hill, I think. Another two or three miles.”
“Good,” Ben said quietly. “Good. Maybe it isn’t this bad in the center. Thomas, give me a hand, will you?”
Throughout the night the boat moved this way and that as different people, tired but unable to sleep, crept about restlessly, seeking solace from one another.
Before dawn they were all up. They ate quickly and by the first light were on their way over the rubble toward the center of Washington. It appeared the destruction of the inner city was in fact less than on the fringes. Then they realized that here the buildings had been spaced farther apart; open land gave the illusion of less complete ruin. Also, it was obvious that someone had tried to clear away some of the debris.
“Let’s split into pairs here,” Lewis said, taking command once more. “Meet back here at noon. Molly and Jed, over there. Ben and Thomas, that way. Harvey and I will start over there.” He pointed as he spoke, and the others nodded. Molly had identified the locations for them: the Senate Office Building was up there; the Post Office Building; the General Services Building . . .
“We were na?ve,” Thomas said suddenly as he and Ben approached the ruined Post Office Building. “We thought there would be a few buildings standing with open doors. All we had to do was walk in, pull out a drawer or two, and get everything we wanted. Be heroes when we got home. Stupid, wasn’t it?”
“We’ve already found out a lot,” Ben said quietly.
“What we’ve learned is that this isn’t the way,” Thomas said sharply. “We a............