"The City's Burning Tears"

8/9/2019 "The City's Burning Tears"

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Yael Dragwyla and Richard Ransdell First North American rights

email: [email protected] 20,400 words

The Eris War

Volume 1: The Dragon and the Crown

by Admiral Chaim G. Resh, USN detached

Book 1: The End of the Beginning

Part 2: Judgment Day

Chapter 8: The Citys Burning Tears

New Mexico

Santa Fe, New Mexico, 12:05 pm MDT (2:00 p.m. EDT, 6:00 pm GMT), July 16, 2022

Late the previous evening, an Aztlan agent, a man who could follow directions if they were spelledout for him in words of one syllable had driven an 18-wheeler containing a 1-megaton thermonuclear

device in its cargo hold into downtown Santa Fe, parking it in a truck park. He had then quietly walked

away through back alleys until he found his way to one of the local transit stations, where he caught a bus

headed for the suburbs. About five miles out of town he spotted a Motel 6; debarking at the first stop after

that, he walked back to the motel, where he rented a room for the evening.

The next morning, as per his instructions from his political cell sergeant, after getting up and having

breakfast in the greasy spoon across the street from the motel, he walked from there to a nearby open field

with line-of-sight visibility right into the city and the truck park where he had left the truck the nightbefore. Smirking at the surprise the people in the city were about to receive, he triggered the truck bomb

with a radio signal, using a device his cell sergeant had given him.

Thats when he found out that five miles away from Ground Zero on a perfectly clear day wasntnearly far enough to avoid being roasted alive by the bombs thermal pulse . . .

Albuquerque, New Mexico, 12:15 p.m. MDT (11:15 am PDT, 18:15 GMT):

Another not-too-bright Aztlan dupe standing just south of Albuquerque International Airport, carefully

taking out the little black gadget which his superior in the Aztlan cell of which he was a member had givenhim two days before, depressed the little red button on it just the way he had been told to do thereby


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taking out Albuquerque (and himself) in the same way via a 750 kiloton ground-burst. No witnesses, no

witnesses . . .

What the hell was that?I dont know, Bob maybe wed better go see, said Bob Nugents wife, Elaine, a trim, brunette lady

with the prettiest smile Mikhail Pushkin had ever seen in his life, save for that of his late wife, Raisa.

Nugent never wasted an opportunity to tell others how lucky hed been to marry her shed had a host of

suitors before hed met and courted her and won her hand, and no wonder: shed been the loveliest girl at

the University of New Mexico, Santa Fe, as well as one of the smartest, on the Deans list every quarter

since shed first entered school there, majoring in microbiology. Nugent, who had majored there himself,

in electronic engineering, was no slouch himself when it came to intelligence, with a posted IQ of at least

140, but he always swore Elaine beat him out in the brains department by at least 15 IQ points.

It was the alarm in Elaines expression that galvanized the two men into instant action. For a momentor two, they had thought that perhaps the sudden blinding flash of light outside, as if a cosmic flashbulb had

just gone off in the Nugents back yard, so bright that they had all involuntarily turned away from thewindows, blinking to get the fireballs out of their eyes, might have been due to some local accident. Trucks

carrying hazardous waste were always passing by on Route 44, which, at its nearest point, was only a mile

or so from San Ysidro, where the Nugents lived. There was also a branch of the Southern Pacific about

two miles to the north of the town, one used by both passenger and freight traffic; it, too, carried a lot of

hazardous waste traffic in the form of big petrochemical tanker cars, and sealed boxcars carrying mystery

cargoes that almost certainly held militarily useful items, such as nuclear waste or even biowarfare

matriel. And about two miles southeast of the town was a big refinery which routinely processed

everything from petroleum products to witchs brews including such chemicals as chlorine and evenfluorine. The flash could have come from any of these.

But Elaine, already heading for the front door, which faced southward, toward Albuquerque, said,

You could see it out of windows on both sides anybody notice but me?

She was right. The flash had been visible from both the east and west windows of the Nugents front

room. Whatever it was, it had come from either the south or the north or maybe right above them, but if

so, theyd probably all have been gas and ash by now, not hale and whole and heading out to see whatever

it had been.

Elaine reached the door first. She threw it open, heedless of danger and stopped dead in her trackson the front stoop, mute and staring, lips slightly parted, her eyes riveted on something far south of them.

Elaine, what is it, baby? her husband asked her. Hed never seen her like this before, and it

frightened him. He tried to peer around her to see what it was. So did Pushkin, coming up on her other

side.

Slowly, without turning around, still staring southward, Elaine said, her voice low, Oh, dear I think

we may be at war. In all the twenty or so years of the Nugents marriage, she had almost never raised her

voice above what was needed to carry to whomever she spoke; as she had said, many times, yelling and

screaming about things rarely communicates what ones audience needs to know, and just adds to the

confusion rather than doing much that is useful. The contrast between her habitual calm, now with a

strange, studied edge to it, and her words frightened her husband even more, and he cringed back a littlefrom her, not sure he wanted to see what it was that had so captured her attention.

Stepping to one side, so that her husband and their guest could see it, too, Elaine said, Take a look.

Oh, dear Jesus, said Bob Nugent.Bozhemoi. Staring at the thingthat reared itself higher and higher there to the south, aiming for the

heavens themselves, Pushkin felt his whole world shift under and around him. Bozhemoi, he said again,

in the same low whisper in which hed uttered it the first time. The word, spoken reflexively, without

awareness, was the most reverent and honest of prayers.

There in the distance, just over the horizon, where Albuquerque lay some 30 miles away, a vastmushroom cloud, shot through with every color of the rainbow, lightning dancing everywhere within it,

was climbing into the sky, the signature ring of blazing nitrogen circling its bulbous cap like an infernal

halo. Within its monstrous, roiling bulk was the fireball that had just blasted Albuquerque into blazing


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rubble and toxic gas; though no longer sun-hot, that great bestial heart of the nuclear spectre now standing

so tall before them on the desert was still bright enough that the cloud surrounding it blocked its light no

more than the last gauzy veil draped about the body of an exotic dancer would have concealed her nudity.

The three of them still couldnt look directly at it for more than a second or two without having to turn

away again, blinking, so bright it still was.Um . . . better grab hold of something, boys, here comes the ground shock . . .

Oh, shit Misha, grab that post, there! yelled Bob as, responding to his wifes warning, he reachedout for another of the posts supporting the roof over the porch. Fortunately the porchs two corner posts

were both well-braced and very strong, having been, like the rest of the porch, constructed of California

live oak. The two men thus easily rode out the groundswells that now rippled eerily across the land on

which the house stood due to the shockwaves shuddering outward in all directions from ground zero.

Elaine, rather than trying to stay on her feet, had fallen to her knees on the porch, behind the low wooden

wall that wrapped around the porch on both sides and both sides of the stairs leading down from the porchto the ground below. There she had wedged herself tightly into the southeastern corner of the porch, where

two of the low walls came together, bracing herself with her feet.

As far away from the city as they were, the three of them might as well not have worried about the

ground shock. After being transmitted from the city through the packed desert earth and the bedrock below

it, the ground-shock was gentle enough to rock a baby to sleep by the time it reached and passed under the

Nugents home. The only real signs of its passage were the veils of dust that rose above the ground, shaken

free by the shockwaves passing under them, the intricate interference patterns of which were mirrored in

the draperies of dust floating above, and the mild sway of the cacti, big and small, scattered across the flatlandscape between the Nugents home and the burning city there in the distance. The only man-made

structures between their home and the city were roads and a few fence-posts. From the time of the Spanishland-grants up until about two years ago, when it had been seized by the federales on the basis of spurious

claims of unpaid taxes, most of that land had been owned by ranchers and one or two small-farmers, and in

the intervening two years since its seizure by the Bureau of Land Management nothing much had been

done with it. So there was nothing at all to block the view between the Nugents land and the city

something which, Pushkin thought, wasnt much of a mercy.

Why the feds hadnt also seized the Nugents land at the time they took the rest was something of a

mystery. Bob, who had tried to find out why but had never been able to get a straight answer, had been

worried that theyd be the next to go, their land seized in the next mass takings, this time of the propertiesranging north and east from their land over an area about five miles by ten that included a number of homes

like theirs, small parcels of land on which stood single-family homes, garages, occasional small

outbuildings, that sort of thing. None of that land contained a ranch, a farm, or any other business. Elainethought that that land hadnt been seized yet because, due to the different uses to which the two parcels of

land had been put, taking this land would require different legal strategies on the part of the federal

government than had the other takings.

Well, pretty clearly now, thought Pushkin, the question was moot or less than moot, totally

irrelevant. God, lookat that thing there, rising, rising so high, so high . . .Suddenly the veils of dust that filled the air virtually everywhere all around them began marching

northward. Hot dust hit them in the face, making them choke and gag. It spilled across the porch and

began to enter the house through the open front door. Get down behind the panels! Elaine yelled at the

two men. Its not nearly as bad down here!

Dropping down beside her in the corner of the porch where she now crouched, Bob and Pushkin found

that she was right. It was still dusty dust spilled over the edge of the porchs low wooden southern wall,

carried there by the hot wind driving north out of Albuquerque, but it didnt slap them across the face the

way the stuff had when they had been standing up with nothing at all between them and it.What the hell is going on here? Bob said, more to himself than anyone else, bewildered as a child

whose world has just turned up side down. Whats all this dust for? If he hadnt been so sandbagged bywhat had just occurred, hed have known. Gently, as if to a frightened youngster, Pushkin told him, Its

the same thing that happened a few minutes ago, when we had to hold on because the ground was moving.

That was the ground shock the shockwave from that bomb being transmitted through the Earths crust.

Shockwaves move a great deal faster through solid stuff like earth and rock than they do through air. So

the air shock took longer to reach us, thats all. As it came, it picked up the same dust the ground shock

threw up out there and brought the dust along with it, and of course the thermal pulse from the bomb, the


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heat. Thats why the wind is hot. It would have been much, much hotter if your house had been much

closer to the city were lucky you live all the way out here.

Were lucky we were all inside when it happened! Elaine said, an odd note in her voice. Pushkin

turned to look at her. She was staring in horror at the front wall of the house.

Bozhemoi, look at that, Pushkin said softly, staring at it.Below the edge of the shadow of the paneling of which the walls around the porch were made, the

stuccoed southern wall of the house, which Bob had repainted just four months before, was still clean andwhite as it had been when hed come over to visit just a couple of days ago. Above that line above it, the

wall had turned a sick beige color, spotted here and there with darker golden-brown or even mahogany

patches. Sitting up, he reached up to touch one of the latter. It had a weird texture, rough but somehow

gooey, as if something there had melted slightly. It was hot, not enough to sting, but definitely a lot

warmer than it should have been even in full sunlight at noon on a Summer day. Scorched, he thought.

The walls been scorched there, and the paint or underlying plaster or both are bubbled up from it.

Then he noticed, at the very edge of the meeting of the porch and the steps down from it, a small

lizard, twisting and turning as if in terrible pain, its mouth opening and closing, bright red tongue darting in

and out, making strange little chuck-chuck-chuck noises, as if it were coughing. There were blistered

places on its sides, and a patch on its back that looked baked. Victim of the thermal pulse, he thought. As

if to confirm the idea, a yellow scorpion suddenly fell from the top of the paneling next to him, landing by

his right foot. It, too, writhed and twisted about as if in terrible pain, its stinger striking the wood flooring

of the porch again and again, its claws reaching out, closing, opening, withdrawing, reaching out again, as

if its entire nervous system was in upheaval. All along one side its bright yellow coloration had beenreplaced by the ugly brown-black of charring. How weird, the way the thermal pulse touches this thing,

does nothing to that thing, jumps completely over another only to burn a fourth to a crisp, he thoughtabsently. A vague realization came to him that he was no longer firmly anchored to the real world in an

emotional sense, but rather beginning to drift on the psychological winds. It scared him a blessing, for

that galvanized him back to full alertness, brought him up out of a gathering fugue and cast him ashore on a

great, blinding-white beach of full conscious, once more himself.

Thats right, you got to see some of those tests they had over on Kamchatka, Bob said, a Thats

right, you know about this note in his voice that made Pushkin a little nervous. Did Bob blame him for

forthat, that thingin the distance? Reflexively he opened his mouth to say that yes, he had witnessed a

couple of tests of the Soviet Unions bigger thermonuclear devices while he was Undersecretary ofDefense, but had never been so much as consulted about any of them, when it dawned on him that Bob was

merely hoping that maybe Pushkin could enlighten him about the unenlightenable, could answer questions

hed never even knew existed in the first place, could bring some sort of order and sanity out of thisunthinkable horror for them all. The mute terror in Elaines eyes, the terror she would never, ever give

voice to, even in extremis, said the same thing. The two of them, his brave, staunch-hearted friends, were

on the verge of falling apart, and whatever could he do for them?

From someplace deep within himself hed never known before existed, Sophia rose up, showing him

what to do. Wordlessly the answers these two dear people needed now couldnt be couched in words;they needed action he scooted over the boards of the porch flooring until he was between Bob and Elaine,

then, putting an arm around each, drew them gently to him, and held them like that while an unknown

length of time passed. It couldnt have been long afterward he couldnt make out any significant change

in the Suns position in the heavens from where it had been when he began to hold them like that but

when he finally relaxed his arms, letting them fall away from him a bit, they were both calm, almost serene,

as if theyd been touched by an angel.

Still letting Sophia guide him he couldfeelHer within him, Pallas Athena become a Christian Saint,

directing him, inspiring him, showing him what needed to be done he said, smiling on his friends, Ibelieve we are needed, the three of us. Shall we see what we can put together to take to help the poor, lost

souls there at the fringes of the city who have survived? It may not be much it cantbe much, notcompared to the overwhelming need we are sure to find there but if we can save even one life, comfort

even one dying man and relieve his pain so that he doesnt go into the darkness alone and in agony, we

shall have done something good, something great. Shall we not go?

Elaine, tears standing out in her eyes, smiled and said, Of course. You are an angel for thinking of it

ourangel. We have no right not to share you with those people out there. Thank you, Misha spasebo.

And she leaned over and gave him a quick, gentle kiss on the cheek.


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Then, sighing, she began to rise to her feet. As she did so, steadying herself on Pushkins shoulder

he was still sitting down on the porch floor she extended her other hand to her husband. Come on, Bob,

I think thats the best idea Ive heard all day. Or since . . . itstarted, anyway. Lets go see what weve got

in the house.

Sure, babe, Bob said, likewise getting up, supporting himself by pushing off from the porch wall sohe wouldnt overburden Pushkin, though letting Elaine help him up as well. Misha, why dont you and

I go out and see if weve got enough gas in the car to get to the city and back, and look through the garage,see what we have there that might come in handy over there? he said. Here, let me give you a hand,

pal . . .

Taking Bobs hand, Pushkin joined his two friends and, with them, headed into the house.

It took them about forty-five minutes to figure out what to take, load the Nugents Chevy station-

wagon, and head out for the city. Part of the reason for that was due to the sudden loss of all electricity.

When Albuquerque had gone up, the portion of the Grid that served it and surrounding communities had ofcourse failed completely. They hadnt noticed it at first, because there hadnt been any lights on in the

front room the sunlight coming in through the windows was more than enough light, so why waste

energy? and it only became obvious once they got back to the house. The two men had had to help

Elaine start up the Nugents methane-fired emergency generator, the one theyd set up several years before

in their top basement, along with methane tanks for its fuel. The refrigerator and freezer had to be kept

running as long as possible, until theyd eaten up the perishables stored in them, and while they could use

the Colemans the Nugents had for lighting at night and cooking, until they began gathering wood for the

fireplace, theyd need the electric heaters during the desert nights. It didnt take too long to get thegenerator running and the refrigerator and freezer turned back on again, though, and once that was out of

the way, they could turn their full attention on loading the car.While Bob and Pushkin were getting the car ready, checking the fuel (there was plenty, enough for at

least ten trips out there and back), loading the car with everything from the large first-aid kit Bob kept in

the garage (In case of accidents when Im working on my home improvement projects, he told Pushkin,

laughing, pointing at the scars on his hands and arms; and believe you me, Ive had lots of them, so this

kit heres had one hell of a workout over the years!), two extra cans of gas Bob had in a well behind the

garage that was lined and covered with concrete, to keep out the heat, a well-filled chest of tools (not only

did it contain such things as screwdrivers and a hammer but also, Pushkin saw, surprised, wire-cutters, a

metal-saw, and a number of things which, though they might not be entirely legal for private ownershipthese days, might come in damned handy over there in the pandemonium wherever survivors from the city

gathered), and things Elaine brought from the house, such as blankets, another first-aid kit, two hampers

filled with food along with several bags of canned goods, a manual organ-grinder style can-opener, andbags of old clothes which the Nugents had been planning to give to Good Will or the Salvation Army, but

might be put to far better use now where they were about to go. It was also she, he noted with approving

surprise and yes, why not Elaine, so steady under fire, so calm and determined, of course it would be she!

who brought out from the house, one after the other, three small-arms storage boxes containing two

Glocks and a monster of a .357 Magnum revolver, two pump 12-gauge shotguns in their canvas storagebags, and something like twenty boxes of cartridges for the handguns and shells for the scatterguns.

You sure were gonna need all those, babe? Bob asked her, meaning the firearms.

We might and I dont want to leave them behind and then find out, too late, that we needed them,

she said as she carefully made places for them in a large hidden storage space under the floor in the back of

their big station wagon. A vintage model Its a 2001 Chevy wagon; I refurbished her completely right

after I got her about five years ago, and shes in cherry condition now, nothing but the best for her, runs

like a dream! Bob told Pushkin proudly. I upgraded her engine the only thing in her that isnt original

equipment or replacement for it and she gets at least thirty miles per gallon, so weve got more than enoughgas in her tanks to take us there and back again about ten times! it had a tremendous amount of room in

it, more than enough to hold the three of them and everything they wanted to take.You think we got enough of everything in there, babe? Bob asked his wife as they were packing the

last of the things theyd decided to take in the car.

We dont want to take it all with us now, honey, she told him. We cant stay out there forever.

Maybe a few hours, but not much longer otherwise well come back to find our place stripped bare by

some two-legged jackals who decided to do their shopping in our home before they head for the hills. And

were going to need most of what we have I never did open up our Mormon chest for this; itll all be

there for us when we get back. Ifthe local yahoos havent gotten here first.


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Mormon chest? asked Misha, puzzled. The phrase sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldnt place

it.

Oh, thats the sub-cellar you know, the cellar under our cellar, which Bob showed you a couple of

months ago where we keep at least a years supply of food for ourselves and at least two other people.

Weve got something like 500 MREs down there, a ton of canned vegetables and fruits and meat, cannedgravy, canned milk, boxes of dried milk, unopened bags of flour and sugar, just about everything youd

need to keep four people well-fed for over a year, or maybe a lot more. I havent inventoried it lately, andwe keep adding to it all the time, so we could have ten years worth of food down there for a whole damned

army and I wouldnt know it, she told him with a grin.

The main thing Im worried about, she said, frowning again, is whether weve taking enough

ammunition with us and if our firepower will be enough. Im not worried so much about the people we

may run into near the city. Theyll be in bad shape, most of them, shock-y and more than grateful for

whatever we can do for them. I do want us to leave before the Army or anyone like them comes theydtake everything we have in this car and the car itself and wed have to walk home. Assuming theyd let us

go.

How about looters? asked Bob.

There wont be any looters, Pushkin told him. Thered be nothing left to loot, at least as far as

anyone outside the city is concerned. People might come to the city from outside the way were going to,

to help. Looters might remain behind to loot the homes of people who do that. But go to the city itself to

do any looting? After seeing that? he said, waving his hand to indicate the view to the south, through the

open garage door, where the great thermonuclear toadstool that had been squatting there for the last three-quarters of an hour was beginning to lose definition as its ghastly cap spread out farther and farther across

the land, thunderheads starting to collect at its edges.Er, I guess youre right. Itd be kind of pointless, Bob conceded.

Not to mention lethal. No, looters wont be the problem not there. Here, though, they could be

Elaine is quite right, we should not stay there too long, for otherwise we would give looters a chance to

come here before we could get back here to protect your place. The main problem we might have there

would be from National Guard or Army units, as Elaine has just said these blankets, the food, the first-aid

supplies, everything we are bringing, even the car, could be used to help the survivors, and they would

simply commandeer them for that purpose. Likely they would also make us stay there, to help. And in the

meantime, the fallout would come drifting down, and soon we ourselves would be coming down sick fromit. No, we must go there, give what help we can for a few hours, distribute what we are bringing to

whoever is already in charge there, and then leave. Otherwise we risk coming back to an empty house or

not coming back at all. Ever.For a moment or two, the Nugents both stared at him, troubled. Without thinking, he had spoken in the

tone of voice he had used when confronting the Politburo or his superiors in the Ministry of Information

when he wanted to convince them, as quickly as possible, that a certain course of action hadto be taken if

certain disaster political, economic, national, personal was to be avoided by them. Grief welled up in

him. Had he alienated these two dear friends, among the first close friends he had made in this, his adoptedland? They were like family to him now. He prayed what he hadnt so alarmed them that they would now

close themselves off from him.

He neednt have worried. A sudden smile broke over Elaines face like the Sun appearing after an

April cloudburst. She stepped up to him, threw her arms around him, and hugged him, hard. Whatever

would we have done without you now, Misha? she said. You have ten times more good sense than the

two of us combined!

Then Bob was hugging him, too, and it was all right again between him and these, his friends. Okay,

kids, Bob said, lets go do that thing! Come on, honey, Ill drive on the way in. You can take over onthe way back, if thats okay. Why dont you ride shotgun for us on the way in, you and Misha both, while I

drive? he asked as he got into the front seat of the car on the drivers side.Of course, said Misha. Where should I be sitting?

Ill sit in the back, Elaine said. If we have trouble, nobody will think a woman, especially in the

back, will give them any trouble. Misha, you sit in the middle. Here, Ill load the guns for us . . .

A few minutes later, with Bob driving, Misha in the middle seat, with the revolver and a shotgun, and

Elaine in the back with one of the Glocks and the other shotgun, the three of them were headed down

Highway 44 toward the junction with Interstate 25 and Albuquerque or what was left of it. As they drove

toward the city, Bob asked Pushkin how big he thought the bomb that took out Albuquerque was, and why


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the mushroom cloud squattering over the city looked so squashed-down and strange compared to what

theyd seen of them from thermonuclear tests in old news films, or the way they looked in sci-fi movies.

He told them that he wasnt certain, but it was likely a ground blast rather than an airburst, which would

have made a far higher, more slender toadstool and wouldnt have left it so strange-looking in the

aftermath. It couldnt have been too large, he said, something under a megaton, I think, though I am notaltogether sure. All them time he was thinking, My God, if they only knew how muchI know about these

Devils toys and how I came to know it! Would they ever want to see me again? Could they stand meafter that? Oh, yes, my friends, I know! I wish I could be honest about how I came to know but I am

terrified of losing you, almost all I have left of family in the world now!

To change the subject, he said, The roads here look remarkably clear! You read these scenarios and

stories about nuclear war, where all the roads out of a city that has just been attacked are clogged with cars

full of fleeing, panicked people. But not here.

They must have attacked without warning, Elaine told him.Why dont we try the radio and see if we can get anything that tells us about it? said Bob, reaching

out to turn on the car radio as he drove.

He was rewarded only by heavy static, all over the dial.

Are you on AM or FM, honey? Elaine asked him.

Er, FM . . . okay, lets try AM, he said, punching a button.

Same result: nothing but shrieking static regardless of the frequency.

God, thats loud! said Bob, giving up at last and turning off the radio. I didnt even have the

volume up high it was the same setting as the last time we listened to it, when we went to the city to pickup some groceries we couldnt get at Andersons referring to the little Mom & Pop store on the outskirts

of San Ysidro where they went every few days to purchase a lot of their day-to-day groceries. But some oftheir most important needs, such as most fresh fruits and vegetables, the imported cheeses that Elaine loved

so much, most cuts of meat, and bulk lots of things such as candles and toilet paper, werent carried by

Andersons, and for those they usually went to one of the Safeway stores, Larrys Markets, or Ralphs

Markets in the city. After shopping, they often had dinner in one of their restaurants before taking in a

movie there, before driving the thirty or so miles back home, making a nice outing of the trip. And usually

while in transit they would tune in to one of their favorite all-music FM stations, either an all-Classical

station or one that played virtually non-stop vintage rock n roll, interrupted by just a few newsbreaks

every two or three hours. They never played the car radio very loudly, preferring it as a sort of Muzak atsuch times, background accompaniment rather than something they had to pay much attention to. So the

ear-splitting screeches and machine-gun roar of static coming from the radio now was jarring. Even with

the volume turned down almost to nothing an experiment Bob tried just a little bit farther down the road it grated on them like God raking cosmic fingernails down a blackboard big as the sky, as Elaine put it.

Turn it off, Bob, its hopeless, said Elaine, her voice grey and heavy. As he reached out to turn the

radio off, Bob glanced at his wife. She looked God, hed never seen her like this before! Her face was

stiff, virtually unmoving, and so pale, so very pale, like a mask in a Noh play. Lord, she must have been

holding herself together with both hands! She Uh-oh, he said, instantly hitting the brakes, slowing to48 kph from the 96 kph hed been doing all the way down from their home, then slowing still more as they

approached an enormous dark mass ahead which, stretching east and west seemingly clear to the horizons,

loomed up before them, less than a mile ahead, like a low range of hills.

Except that at worst, hills might become volcanoes throwing great showers of incandescent molten

rock and gas into the air clean, pure gases and lava which, however toxic they might be, however fast

they could reduce you to char and a lot of gas if you were unfortunate enough to be in their way, by no

stretch of the imagination could be thought of as unclean. Even non-volcanic hills are clean, with the

ancient, savory history of granite, calcite, and basalt, soil alive with invertebrates, snakes, gophers,nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and all the other creatures that give the earth its fertility, clear streams swollen

with meltwater, birds and flying insects making the sky over those hills vibrant with their calls,stridulations, and wing-beats. Above all, hills dont scream or wail, nor do they stink of an infernal medley

of scorched and melted metal and stone, melted and burned plastics, charred meat and hair, and an overtone

of raw sewage, all simmering together under a scorching Summer Sun in a perfectly clear sky. Pushkin

could smell it from here, at least a quarter of a mile from that dark, dark forest of flesh and metal and

agony.

Well. Guess were here, said Elaine in that same weird, flat voice.


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Seeing that terrible black spectre growing ever larger before them, shaken to the core of his being,

Pushkin thought,

Per me si va ne la citt dolente,

per me si va ne letterno dolore,

per me si va tra la perduta gente.

Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore;

fecemi la divina podestate,

la soma sapienza e l primo amore.

Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create

se non etterne, e io etterna duro.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi chintrate.1

Behind him, in the cars back seat, Elaine muttered, Maestro, il senso lor m duro.

Turning his head, Pushkin whispered to her, Qui si convien lasciare ogne sospetto; / ogne vilt

convien che qui sia morta. // Noi siam venuti al loco ov I tho detto / che tu vedrai le genti dolorose /

channo perdurto il ben de lintelletto.

Grazia, she told him, smiling wanly. I knew that.Hold on, kids, Bob told them, Im gonna find a spot and pull over . . .

Moments later they were parked by the side of the road, staring through the car windows at the ghastlyscene spread out before them.

That huge black mass lying athwart Highway 44 just before the interchange that served it, I-25, and a

host of feeders, like a snake a thousand miles long that had been flattened by a passing 18-wheeler, was

compounded of more people than Pushkin had ever seen in one place in his entire life, a host of vehicles

almost as numerous as the people there with them, countless dogs, chickens, cats, and other fauna that

milled everywhere, many of them covered with terrible burns and cuts, and, apparently, all the worldly

goods all those people had ever possessed, or at least a good-sized portion of them. They were the lucky

ones, those who had survived Albuquerques destruction simply because they had been at least 6-10 milesfrom Ground Zero and protected by walls, trees, vehicles, or some other form of shade when whatever

device had been used to take out the city had detonated. They were the lucky ones but, perhaps, not as

lucky as those who had been right at Ground Zero when the city went up.That vast, suppurating mass of horror comprised residents of the city, its suburbs, and its outskirts,

tourists, and visitors from the smaller towns that were Albuquerques satellites, together with their pets, a

few big wild animals (apparently keepers at The Barnum & Bailey Circus, which had been offering

performances somewhat east of the city, a little south of I-40, trying to save their charges, had brought them

along, too; other refugees in that great packed mass of humanity were already beginning to demand thatthe animals, a bear, two tigers, and five lions, be butchered and their meat handed out to those who were

hungry), and whatever the refugees had been able to bring with them out here. Few there had, like the

Nugents and Pushkin, come from beyond the city toward it to give what help they could; most were simply

people who had been on the outskirts of the blast when the bomb went off, far enough from it to survive,

but usually not far enough to avoid ghastly injuries, horrific burns, and radiation sickness. Pushkins heart

broke when he saw how many of them were children, smallchildren, utterly dependent on adults to keep

them safe and well, without any possibility of understanding what had happened to them and their parents.

The air, filled with roiling sheets of dust, lay like a hot iron on the land and the mass of people fillingit. The whole of the southern sky was a blue-black, lightning-shot mass of cloud, a warped mirror of the

refugee camp that had formed below it. Pushkin felt a profound reluctance to leave the dubious safety ofthe car and head toward the writhing, gibbering, pullulating, pustulant crowd before them. His stomach

had already begun to gripe with tension, grief, and rage rage at whatever lunatics had been responsible forthis. Aground-burst! That meant somebody had driven the bomb or bombs into the city in some sort of

vehicle which he had then parked and left, setting the bomb off later by radio remote. Or maybe hed

stayed in the vehicle himself and had triggered the device in situ Which meant that some terrorist had

carried this out. Where from? The Arab Emirates? Mexico? South America? North America? He hated

terrorists, hated them the way the Spanish Inquisition had hated heresy, for they made it so much easier for


9/25

ghastly dictatorships like the one his native land had become long before he fled to America, long before

his own birth, like Nazi Germany, like China and Cuba and Iraq. You could reason with dictators. After

all, they were in business for the money and the power, and would back down from a loaded gun if it

carried enough firepower. But terrorists they didnt care. Many of them were suicidal, wanting to die

gloriously for whatever God or Ideal they worshipped, not caring at all about the mere mortal clay theirbombs shredded and pulverized, the lives they destroyed, the communities they destroyed. If he could

have, he would have gathered every one of them up, gathered them in one big room, locked the doors onthem, and burned down the building housing it with them inside. Seeing this, more than ever he wanted to

do that. And laugh while they burned alive, shrieking and pleading as their flesh charred down to their

bones and their eyes burst with the heat and

Watch it, old man, he told himself. Youre not young any more, and they are not worth a burst aorta

or intracerebral accident. Sighing, he said to the Nugents, I suppose wed better go over there and do

what we can. Those clouds to the south of us are moving in our direction. I dont want to be here whenthey reach us.

Me, either, said Elaine. Come on, you two, she said to the men, I guess wed better gather up

some stuff and take it over there and see if we can get some help with the rest of it. There has to be

somebody there whos still able-bodied and not out of his mind with all this.

Pushkin doubted it, but said nothing as he got out of the car and began helping his friends stack up

some of what theyd brought in bundles they could easily carry.

Then Bob remembered something. Smacking his forehead with one hand, he said, Im stupid!

Elaine, youre gonna have to put me out to pasture one of these days, I swear Im getting Alzheimers! Here, Misha, let me get at the back of the wagon for a minute . . .

In one of the same hidden compartments in the back of the station wagon where theyd stored most ofthe firepower theyd carried with them out here, Bob always kept a dolly, a flat-bedded metallic thing

mounted on four sturdy swiveling wheels that could carry up to a quarter of a ton. It had a handle in front

like the one on a childs little red wagon (oh, dont do this to me! Pushkin screamed mentally at his

unconscious mind as it threw up an image of a little boy in one of those wonderful Red Flyer wagons they

still made and sold for reasonable prices here in his adopted country, a boy smiling and happy and then, in

an instant, turned along with his wagon into a puddle of twisted metal intertwined with the boys own

burning skeleton and melted flesh), so that you could pull it along rather than having to push it. As long as

you were on fairly level ground, you could pull even very heavy loads on it with little strain to whereveryou wanted to take them. The land was level out here, just perfect for using the dolly. Whistling

cheerfully, the two men, who had anticipated having to carry the load bit by bit in their arms over to the

refugees, the nearest of whom were a quarter of a mile from where they had parked, quickly loaded thedolly with a stack of blankets, a crate full of food, and the first-aid kit. Then, after tying the load down

tightly with bungee cords, they began to pull the load along the road toward the refugees.

Elaine wanted to help, but Bob and Pushkin, gallant men, wouldnt hear of it. You walk a little ahead

of us, sweetheart, let us know if theres a pothole or something we need to avoid, Bob told her. Me and

Misha, well take turns pulling this thing. Long as we avoid rough places in the road well be fine.If you say so . . . Sighing, thinking that all they needed right now is for one or both of her idiot

males to get a hernia, she turned and started up the road, the two men following her, Bob pulling the cart.

Oh!

What is it, honey? Bob asked her. Coming to a sudden stop in the middle of the empty road, she was

staring into the distance at something coming up the road toward them. Fortunately, shed halted at least

20 feet ahead of the men, that much clean stretch of road between her and them, so they didnt run into any

problems bringing the dolly to a halt.

I think weve got some help. Somebodys coming toward us.So there was. They couldnt make out who it was at this distance, though, and the men, who were

becoming more and more spooked all the time, let their hands drift toward their guns. Ahead of them, inspite of her cheerful words, Elaine was doing the same.

They neednt have worried. The man who approached them, dressed in the tattered and scorched

remains of a business suit, wore an expression you might expect on the face of a waif, abandoned by his

parents and God, hoping against hope that the strangers he approached would at least be kind, and maybe

give him some food. He limped as he walked, and from time to time he staggered Pushkin thought he

might have taken a blow from some heavy object.

When the man reached them, he said, Uh, I see you, uh, have a real load there . . .


10/25

Yes, yes, my friend, Pushkin said, going right up to him and placing a friendly hand on the mans

shoulder, immediately taking control in a way that reassured the other rather than spooking or angering

him. We brought some food, some blankets, first-aid things, AAA batteries, things we thought people

here could use right now. We have some bottles of Evian water there, too. Would you like something to

eat? he asked, his voice filled with measureless kindness.Oh, God, the man said, suddenly putting his hands over his face and breaking into tears. Oh, God,

oh, God, you dont know oh, yes, do you have water? Is it is it all right if I have a little? I should saveit for the others, but . . .

You are a life, Elaine said, coming up to the mans other side, gently touching his arm. You are as

much a life as anyone else. Anyone we can help, any life, we want to. Of course you can have some

water! Here, Bob, can you get him ?

Sure, darlin, Ill get him that. And a sandwich you want a sandwich, Mister? We got tuna, ham,

peanut-butter-and-jelly, a bunch of em.Taking his hands from his face, the man looked up, blinking away tears. P-peanut-butter-and-and-

jelly? Oh, Id love some!

Okay, let me get that for you . . . Quickly Bob went back to the dolly, pushed one bungee cord

aside, took another off completely, set down the things on top of the crate full of food so he could get at it.

Shortly he returned with a bottle of Evian water and a sandwich made out of thick slabs of home-baked

country bread, slathered with heavy layers of grape jelly and peanut butter. Handing the sandwich to the

man, who tore into it like a starved wolf, snapping it down in a few bites, Bob took the cap off the bottle of

water, and handed that to their new acquaintance, as well.For a long moment the man stared at the bottle as if he didnt quite dare to believe what he was seeing.

Then, his arm moving so fast it seemed to blur, he lifted it toward his face and began gulping it down.Careful! Careful, you dont want to drink that too fast! Elaine cautioned. Youll get sick!

Honey, he mustve had water this morning, before well, its not like hes been dying of thirst in the

desert. Hell be okay, Bob whispered to her.

Well . . . Then, seeing the look of profound satisfaction on the mans face as he finished off the last

of the Evian water, she smiled. Okay, Ill stop worrying.

For a minute or two the four of them stood there, not moving, not saying anything. Finally the

newcomer, letting the bottle drop to the dusty road, said, I Id like to help. May I? My names Troy

Troy Laughton. I Im an Allstate Insurance claims agent. I drove out this way from my office downtownto see a client, and I was there when, when ithappened . . .

Come on, Troy, sure, wed love to have some help, Bob said, taking the other man by the elbow and

gently steering him toward the dolly. You can trade off pulling with us. And you can help me get thatdamned bungee cord back on right it has a habit of getting away from you when you least expect it and

slapping you in the face or something, he said, laughing, as they walked along the road.

While they got the load on the dolly back in order and then began their trek toward the refugee camp

again, they made their introductions and plied Troy with questions.

From Troy they learned where the bomb had hit, or been triggered: a little south of the AlbuquerqueInternational Airport, over six miles south of the junction of I-25 and Highway 40. The refugee camp was

about two miles north of that junction, far enough from Ground Zero that anyone nearby at the time the

balloon went up was likely to have survived in reasonable shape. People living a little closer in to the city

didnt fare as well, but many of them had survived, and had streamed out of the city in whatever

transportation they could get or on Shanks Mare until they felt they were far enough away, then stopped

where they were, too wrung out to go any further for awhile. As others arrived, some driving there from

the other side of the city, at least a few miles away from the airport, finding people gathered here, theyd

joined them, as well. Gradually the crowd gathering there had built up and up and up until, as Pushkin andthe Nugents could see, there were maybe a hundred thousand people gathered there. Some had even come

south, from the suburbs north of the city, not to help, but rather to find help, for some reason thinkingthered be more safety in comfort where so many others were than back in their own homes. Damn

fools, Pushkin snorted.

Yeah, they are. I guess its like you see at fires, sometimes. People and horses will do the damnedest

things in an emergency, running back into the fire or whatever it is, not even sure why theyre doing it,

said Troy, who was now taking his turn pulling the dolly while Bob and Pushkin pushed from behind, using

a tire iron and a jack Bob had added to the load on the dolly in case they might need them.


11/25

I was driving west along Menaul Boulevard, said Troy, between two long rows of those new

condos and apartment buildings that went up over there near Anderson High School, the one that they built

a couple of years ago after the old one burned down, when there was this tremendous light all over the sky,

all over everything, like a huge flash-bulb going off, except far more intense. There were these weird

violet-blue, red, and green shadows everywhere, too I dont know how I remembered that, or even saw

those shadows, because for a few seconds I couldnt see at all. It was that bright. Next thing I knew Id

run into a telephone pole, totaled my car. Luckily I was only going about 10-15 miles per hour at the time there were these pot-holes here and there in the road, Albuquerque apparently has gotten behind a little on

fixing the roads, but anyway, thats probably all that kept me from being injured real bad or killed in the

crash.

Well, somehow I got out of the car, and staggered along the sidewalk for a little while, and then I saw

this mushroom cloud rising up in the south. It was the Bomb, he said, the awe-filled capital B clear in his

voice. If Id been anywhere on that road but between those rows of buildings, Id have been fried by thefireball, probably, although somebody told me that it was a ground-burst, which meant the fireball wouldnt

rise so high

Well, thats not quite true, said Pushkin. From the damage we saw on the way in, it must have risen

up high enough to singe things 30 miles away. You must have been very close to the buildings on the

south side of the street when you crashed, so that you were completely shaded from the fireball by those

buildings and others farther away. You were lucky, young man very lucky!

I know . . . I started walking west why west, Im not sure, probably luck and then somebody came

by me in a truck and asked if I wanted a ride, said he was headed out of town, north of the junction, whereit was safer. I took him up on it, and he let me out here (he lives a little farther out of town, and wanted to

get home to his family). When I got here you wouldnt believe what Ive seen this afternoon! Burns?Ive seen people walking around burned so badly that you can see the organs inside em, right through their

ribs, because most of their skin there was burned completely away or so full of holes it might as well have

been! Cuts, contusions, bones all broke to hell and gone so that all thats left is rubble and splinters

things that would make a veteran ER tech Ralph his insides out!

Oh, I agree with you, I really got off light! I walked away from my wrecked car, no real bad pains

anywhere, just this gimp leg, which feels a little better already, the only burns I got are from some

wreckage that fell on me from the top of a building when I first left my car and started walking up the

street. I guess the fireball ignited something up there, debris of some kind, and then the wind came andpushed it down into the street, and some of it fell on me. Didnt weigh very much I didnt have any

trouble pushing it off, but it did mess my suit up some. Course, that didnt matter much after what the

wreck did to it!And compared to what some of the people there ahead of us went through . . . He let the thought

trail away, unfinished, unspoken, the shell-shocked look hed had when they first met him creeping back

into his expression. The rest of the journey into the impromptu refugee camp, outside of an occasional

grunt in answer to a question from one of the others, small noises that a man trying hard not to weep might

have made, or, once in a while, a short enquiry as to which way to go, he said nothing at all, putting hisback into help pull the dolly along as if trying to lose himself and all awareness of the horrors surrounding

them in that effort.

Forever afterward, Pushkin was hard put to remember it as more than one long, blurred nightmare, his

unconscious mind mercifully refusing to disgorge the details of that walk in Hell save in rare dreams and

the occasional daytime flashback. At the time, though, everything came to him as sharp and clear as if hewere viewing a perfect digital film taken there just beyond the outskirts of the city, one registering not only

on the eyes, but on the ears and nose, even

the skin.

After nursing the loaded dolly along for about a mile, they finally reached the outskirts of that vast

mass of refugees. They would have been mobbed by those refugees who were still ambulatory and more orless able-bodied, except that, they discovered now, many of those composing the perimeter of that mass

were emergency workers of various kinds cops, firemen, medical technicians, even, here and there, a few


12/25

National Guardsmen. It was one of the latter who, unslinging his rifle and holding it at the ready,

approached them.

Who are you? the young man asked them suspiciously as the four of them came to a halt before him.

We wanted to help, Elaine told him, as disarmingly as possible. Extending her hands to the young

soldier, a corporal who, they saw now, hadnt come off unscathed in the horrors of the afternoon; hisuniform jacket, ripped in two places, was marked with long slashes of soot, his trousers spotted with smuts,

his shoes and trousers-cuffs covered with drying patches of mud, and his face and hands scratched deeplyenough in several places that blood, now brown and dry, had pearled along the cuts she said, It isnt

much, but it was all we had, and people here will need it.

I For a moment, he stood there, thinking hard. Okay, follow me, he said, finally, turning and

gesturing to them to follow him.

Nodding at the others to indicate they should do what the soldier said, Pushkin turned to the job of

getting the dolly where the soldier wanted it to go. A minute or two later, the five of them, the corporalincluded, were standing before the corporals superior, who was, according to the name-tag over his breast-

pocket, one Sergeant Ames.

Okay, Ames told them, after the corporal Corporal Jeff Balder, his name was introduced him to

the little group, and Ames had Pushkin and the Nugents explain what theyd brought, and why, we can

sure use that stuff. You want us to give you a ride back no, check that, he said, obviously aware that

they must have come in a vehicle of their own. For a moment, Pushkin and the Nugents feared hed decide

to commandeer the car. But Ames, perhaps by way of thanks for what theyd brought, instead told them,

his expression shifty, as if he were afraid someone was watching and listening who might get him introuble over the oversight, Look, you want to leave that dolly here, or unload it now and take it, uh, back

with you?Taking charge, sparing the Nugents the need of making the decision, Pushkin told him, Sergeant

Ames, please accept the dolly, too. Youll need it perhaps for use as a stretcher, say.

Well . . . yes. Thank you. Scratching his hair with one dark hand, Ames said, We can take it from

here, then. Unless you want to stay and help? he asked, hope filling his voice obviously they could use

all the willing, able-bodied help they could get.

No, no, said Pushkin, we, ah, have someone back at home who needs our help.

An old person, then? Child? said Ames.

Pushkin nodded, looking solemn.I can stay, Troy said, suddenly. Wont be any trouble.

Good we sure can use you here. Ever been in the Army, son? Ames asked him.

Yeah, I served a hitch in Costa Rica. I was a technician, worked in the vehicle pool, keeping all thetrucks and staff cars in shape. I also did some volunteer work on weekends for a couple of years before

that at a local hospital, even helped set broken bones, that sort of thing.

All right! Okay, Mr. whats your name?

Troy. Troy Laughton.

Right. Okay, Troy, lets get you a coverall and put you to work, Ames told him, grinning.Turning back to the others, Ames said, Thanks. Thanks for bringing the stuff and for bringing Troy,

here, too. Sticking out his hand, he said, a broad Texas twang now creeping into his voice, I guess you-

allll want to be getting back to, er, where you came from.

Taking his hand and shaking it firmly, Pushkin said, Yes. Good to meet you although we would

have preferred that it had been under less . . . interesting circumstances. Behind him, Elaine, who had

been scribbling something on one out of a stack of Bobs business cards that she kept in her purse in case

they might come in handy, quietly stepped up to Troy, passing the card to him. As she did so, Ames,

catching the motion in his peripheral vision, glanced over at her and winked.Pushkin, relaxing when he saw the wink, said, By the way, before we go, do you know well, I guess

you would by now, certainly. How did . . . this occur? he asked, scooping the air with his hand to take inthe horrendous panorama of misery and destruction before him.

I For a moment, Ames thought about it, then said, I guess by now it aint classified couldnt be.

When you guys get . . . where youre going, if you got a battery-operated radio, I cant guarantee the

powerll be on wherever it is you come from, but you can catch the news on the radio, turn it on. What

happened is, well, the East Coast got creamed by an asteroid somewhere around 11 pee-em last night. And

then Seattle went straight to hell this morning around 6 ay-em, he said, the twang becoming over-more

pronounced as the knowledge of catastrophe threatened to swamp the sergeant. And it all went south from


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there. This, he said, pointing at the burning city and the endless, battered throngs of refugees between it

and them, and Santa Fe, same thing happened there just about the same time this did, its happening all

over the world.

All over the wor- dear sweet Jesus, you mean world war, dont you?

Yes, I do that, my friend.An you said an asteroid hit the, the East Coast of this country, Pushkin said, noting with wonder

that for the first time in many, many years, in fact since he made the first step of his escape from the SovietUnion to the blessed West, his hands were trembling, minute tremors that he could feel in every one of his

aging joints.

Thats right. They think it was terrorists, though how those shitheads couldve well, thats neither

here nor there, though my personal opinion is that maybe the Russkies or the Chinks were behind it. And

then, like I said, around 6 this morning, Albuquerque time, Seattle went up theyre sayin now that it was

a 25-megatoner did it, but it had tove been moren that, because all of Puget Sound is . . . just gone, theysaid. Like somebody use a giant coring tool and pulled up everything from Seattle west to the ocean and

from the Oregon border to British Columbia goin about a mile down and threw it away. This friend of

mine, Dick Goring, another National Guard sergeant, only they got him directing operations about half a

mile east of here, says he heard that whatever was used on Seattle blew a hole in the bottom of Puget Sound

and opened up a volcano and when it blew, it took out everything for miles around. Hes studying geology

out of University of New Mexico here, so I figure he knows what hes talking about. Anyway, after that,

there were volcanic eruptions on this side of the country, maybe Seattle set em off, Yellowstone and a

place in Northern California called Long Valley.What about the rest of the country?

About what youd figure they took out New York City, then Washington, and Chicago, a bunch ofother cities. I mean, with nukes. Plus thereve been some truck-bombings of downtown areas in other

cities using fertilizer as part of the mix not nukes, but they sure did a number that way on a lot of cities,

blowing the crap outta the city cores, setting big fires that may still be burning, for all I know.

The weirdest one, at least in this country, so far, is Los Angeles they aint been hit by nothin, far as

we know, but the place is startin to burn like a torch all over the place. Rioters.

Riot- dear God, Elaine said. Why?

Beats me. Why do people do anything people do? Ames said, shaking his head, his voice heavy

with anger and disgust. There was this song I used to like a lot, it was on one of those old Dr. Dementoalbums, you know? It was called The Ballad of Irving.

Butterfingers Irving gunned himself down, Elaine said, remembering.

Yeah, thats the one. Sounds like old Ell-Ay is doing the same thing.And the rest of the world? Bob asked.

The Yew-Kay is gone, they said. A radioactive parking lot. A lot of Europe is, too. The Middle East

by now, they think, theres nothing but a great big saucer full of green glass where Mecca was. We aint

got no word on Israel, except that Tel Aviv ate it, as you might expect, fuckers hit em with a nuke.

Moscows gone. Sos Beijing. The whole Northern Hemispheres been hit, hit bad, and its likely to getworse.

How about space? asked Pushkin.

Space? Dont know. If it were me in charge up there, though, Id order everybody on the Moon to

skedaddle off there as fast as they can get it together and go, maybe to Mars, maybe farther out. Thats the

one place where people are left who might be able to come back here and help clean up the mess once its

all over with ifanythings left to clean up, that is. So lets hope they hightail it outta near-space and make

sure they aint all sitting on the bulls-eye if, and probably when, somebody down here decides to include

them in on the fun.You know space, then, Pushkin said, smiling a little.

Oh, you betcha! Ill probably never get there even without all . . . this now. But part of every oneof my paychecks for the last three years has been going into a college fund so when my boys grow up, at

least one of em can . . . could take the sort of college courses and get the sort of training hed need to

become a colonist out there. I grew up on science-fiction, cut my teeth on the stuff my daddy loved

Golden Age ess-eff, had all these great books and magazine collections going all the way back to 1940,

stuff his granddad had collected and passed on to him, cause Daddy was about the only one he ever knew

who liked it the stuff the way he did. I swore that if I didnt get to space myself, my kids would. I guess


14/25

thats . . . Suddenly overwhelmed by the horror that had dropped on the whole world this afternoon,

putting a hand before his face, for a moment he turned his head to the side, fighting tears.

Knowing that somewhere out there in the devastated world Amess sons might be dying, dead, their

fathers hopes for them gone forever with them, Pushkin and the Nugents waited patiently for him to

resume what he had been saying, saying nothing, not wanting to disturb the machinery of Amess thoughtsbefore the man was ready to say more. Finally Ames said, turning back to them, his eyes dry but a hint of

tears in his voice nonetheless, You didnt know anything about this, then? Until . . .Until this city was hit. Yes, said Pushkin. We hadnt realized anything was going on, you see, so

we didnt have the radio or TV on.

Our nearest neighbors are half a mile away from where we live, too, said Bob Nugent. And nobody

called us.

Ah. No, they wouldnt have, Ames said. The phone linesve been out since way early this morning

because of overload, everyone trying to call everyone else all over the country. If youd tried to call out,youd have known something was wrong, because you couldnt even have made a local call.

Listen, friends, he said in a much more brisk tone, changing the subject, when you leave here, due

north the roads are clear, because everyone whos heard about the initial attacks cut and run before 11 ay-

am this morning, or even earlier, and most of those headed north along Interstate 25, toward Colorado; east

along I-40 toward Texas or west along I-40 toward Gallup or Arizona; or south along I-25 toward El Paso

and Mexico. Up along Highway 85/I-25, north of Albuquerque, are Los Alamos and Santa Fe and like I

said, Santa Fe got taken out about the same time Albuquerque, here, did. So you want to take 44 outta here

its been empty as a starving mans gut since around 6-7 am, when anyone with a radio or TV on heardabout Seattle, Long Valley, and Yellowstone and decided to book. So even if youre trying to head south,

east, or west, take 44 north for at least ten miles, then find a feeder somewhere to gofararound this area.Well do that, Pushkin said, smiling, still tacitly colluding with the sergeant not to mention the car.

Thank you.

Uh, Sergeant Ames?

What, Mr. Nugent?

This morning, the power was still on. Why was there still power then? I mean, it was off by the time

we left, but before then it was on. Youd think itd have gone down way before then, what with so many

cities hit.

Beats me, Mr. Nugent, said Ames, shrugging. We havent heard all the details yet, probably neverwill hear some of em. But when they hit Santa Fe and Albuquerque, that cored the Grid in this part of the

country for sure. Once the Grid got thatbig a chunk taken out of it here, the power started going downfast

everywhere in the state. So you wanna make sure you got emergency lighting for tonight.Thanks. I know. We do have that, Elaine told him. We got our generator going before we left to

make sure the refrigerator and freezer would still be working.

Um, fellas? I think its time we started heading home again, dont you?

Yes, said Pushkin. It is, as the saying has it, time to make tracks. Sergeant Ames, it has been a

pleasure, he said, turning back to Ames and, once more, shaking the sergeants hand.Then, before anything might happen to hinder their getaway and return to the car, murmuring their

good-byes to the sergeant, Pushkin and the Nugents turned and started trudging back to where theyd left

the car.

When they were once more back at the car, Elaine said, I must confess Im surprised its still here I

halfway expected someone would come along and take it while we were gone.

Only halfway? Bob said, grinning, as he unlocked the car and climbed in on the drivers side. Hell,

I was just about sure of it which is why I locked it up tight, and also set the Crazy-Alarm so if anyone

tried to break in and hotwire it, theyd still be wrestling with electric shocks, serenading the neighborhoodwith that 100-decibel williwaw alarm, and all the rest of it! But it doesnt look like anybody tried, does it?

Why should anyone? said Pushkin? Most people around here would have headed away from thecity, not toward it, and as for the people fleeing out of the city itself we saw out there, clearly theyd come

about as far as they could, most of them, and the rest were busy caring for them. So nobody came this far

north of the city, and I would imagine we were among the very, very few to approach the city from

outside.

Except for the National Guard, said Elaine, as Bob put the car in gear, turned it about, and began

heading north again, toward the Nugents home. How did they get there that fast?


15/25

Theres a National Guard unit stationed about 15 miles northeast of Albuquerque, said Bob. They

mustve come from there.

Glancing backward through the rear window, Pushkin said, Looks like theyre getting reinforcements.

Therere a couple of choppers coming toward the area we just left from the east. Whats out that way?

Oh, Christ thank God we left when we did! said Bob. Gotta be from Guadalupe the Armyshares a staging out that way with the Air Force and the Marines. Im betting theyre Army theyre the

workhorses of the services, so theyd be the ones to bring in supplies and personnel to try untangling thatmess out there. If wed left any later, theyd be on our tails right now are they on our tails, Mike?

No, now theyre circling around, coming in for a landing somewhere near where we met Sergeant

Ames.

Good. Hang on tight, lets make some tracks while we can

Be careful, Bob, dammit! exclaimed Elaine as Bob suddenly floored it and the car raced forward,

heading north in a cloud of dust.You know, Pushkin said thoughtfully, a silent tut-tutlurking behind his words, if they wanted to

come after us, that rooster-tail of dust would certainly give them a clear indication of where we are.

Blushing a little as he slacked off the accelerator, Bob said, Okay, okay, maybe I overdid it.

Maybe? Elaine said, a giggle taking the sting out of the word. You

Bozhemoi!

What is it, Mike? Elaine said, turning around to see what had caught Pushkins eye out of the rear

window. I oh,shit.

The expletive, so uncharacteristic of his wife, loaded with equal parts horror and awe, got through toBob as nothing else could have. Hitting the brakes, he brought the car to a halt in a spray of dirt, the end

fishtailing around wildly as before the tread finally caught.Bob had feared that what had caught Elaines attention was a giant fleet of aircraft headed for the

refugee camp some of it coming their way, as well.

What the three of them saw as they climbed out of the car for a better look was far, far worse.

For the first time they realized how dark the sky was becoming. The cap of that gigantic toadstool of a

cloud standing over what had been, just a few hours earlier, the great city of Albuquerque had expanded

until it was many miles across, standing so tall that its peak reached far, far into the stratosphere. Spidery

lightning limned it everywhere, infested its bulk with blue-white and yellow-green spears of egregiously

ionized gases. Fireballs arced everywhere in it, lofted from lower to higher, from side to side, from higherto lower, as if demonic giants were playing handball within it. The thunderheads that had been building up

around it now filled most of the southern skies and a good deal of the eastern and western regions of the

heavens, as well.The northern front of those clouds had been expanding all afternoon. Now it was almost overhead.

From their fat purple bellies flakes of indeterminate material, some of it brilliant with fire from the

lightning? from the burning corpse of the city? were falling, liberally sprinkling the countryside,

occasionally setting the tumbleweeds and other sparse desert flora on which they fell on fire. Mingled with

the fire-fall were huge drops of rain, rain that put out the burning tumbleweeds and yucca almost as quicklyas the burning crud had set them on fire.

A cold wind came toward them from the fall of dirty rain in spite of the burning embers dropping

from the clouds, the air coming from it was cold. Bone-freezing cold.

Around them came softplopping noises birds falling to the ground. At the side of the road a lizard

resembling the one theyd found on the Nugents porch before theyd left for the city this afternoon,

writhed and twisted in the poisoned rain. Far away, on the other side of the road, they heard the grief- and

horror-stricken wailing of a housecat, the howling of dogs, the panicked lowing of cattle coming from a

farm somewhere out there. A womans rising screams. A man giving orders to someone. Then silence.Now, shattering the silence, more aircraft roared by, heading for the refugee camp, this time from the

west. They were huge, great cargo-carrying helicopters of the sort the services used for Medevac units aswell as for carrying supplies in job lots.

We left just in time, Elaine said softly. Those choppers are US Army oh, and theres one that

might be a USMC chopper. Theyre bringing in medical supplies and personnel, I think.

You think they might come after us? Bob asked.

No. Theyve got too much on their plate now to worry about one civilian vehicle out in the middle of

nowhere, said Pushkin.

I wonder if Troys okay, said Bob. Elaine, what was on that card you gave him?


16/25

I told Troy he could come to our place if he wanted, she said. I drew a map on it for him, wrote

down our names, so he can find us.

Hed better come fast if hes coming at all, Pushkin said. Otherwise he wont have a prayer those

big clouds up there, theyre full of radioactive fallout. I think wed better all get back in the car now and

head for your place as quickly as possible, to get there ahead of it. Dont go so fast it isnt safe, but wewant to move at least a little faster than they are.

Right. Okay, lets do that, said Bob.A few minutes later they were racing north again. It wasnt long until Bob had the car in the garage.

By then, they had also noticed the roiling, lightning-shot cloud-banks to the north, dark as the Devils heart,

more aircraft heading in that direction from east and west. Santa Fe. It had to be Santa Fe. Oh, please,

Pushkin prayed silently, frantically, hardly realizing he was doing so, the lightyears-thick adamant walls of

the citadel of atheism which he had been building in his heart ever since boyhood suddenly spiderwebbing

with cracks, the cracks widening into chasms, rubble beginning to pour from them into the bottomlesschasms opening up below them by the horrors of this day, dear Christ, let the ranch, let my people be well

out of the fallout zone. Let it not be Socorro . . .

As they got out of the car, Pushkin said, Um, I have a suggestion. Its yours to decide, of course, but I

very much hope you will say yes.

The Nugents looked at him, waiting.

What I would like is for you to come back with me to my ranch outside Socorro and live there with

the rest of my people. We have all we need for a long sie- well, extended time on our own, without

access to outside resources, for several hundred people, our own power sources, cattle and other foodanimals, land under cultivation, and even hydroponic gardens indoors so we can, if necessary, grow food

for ourselves and our stock animals. We have water there are wells, and we can purify the water fromthem in case they become contaminated. We have our own medical clinic, and even make some of our own

medicines, including essentials such as insulin for those of us who are diabetic. Everything we need, and

you wouldnt be any strain on our resources.

Also, you should realize that between the atmospheric and crustal shockwaves from the

thermonuclear explosion and its thermal pulse, the overall structure of your house must certainly have been

weakened in ways that will keep it from being airtight. Consider those burns on its front, and the way it

lurched when we were all sitting in the front room at noon. They will have opened up holes in the structure

between walls and joists and among the timbers that will permit the entry and circulation of fallout-ladenair. There is no way you can hope to make this house safe for you to live in, certainly not quickly enough

to do you much good, even if my own people were to come out here as quickly as possible and help with

the task. Even a plastic tent of the sort used to enclose large structures by fumigators, or by public healthofficials to quarantine buildings in which people have fallen ill from dangerous epidemic diseases, wont

help much, because within a few weeks the sort of weather that inevitably follows in the wake of

thermonuclear blasts, especially when far more than one of them will have been used all over the world by

now, will have caused rents in it, maybe even torn it wide open and flung pieces of it away. So the safest

option for you will be to move from here as quickly as possible.If you decide you want to do that, my people can move everything you want from here to your new

home there in covered vehicles before they become too contaminated with fallout to be used safely by you.

Please, he said, forestalling their attempt to speak, I know that is a very serious decision to make, and of

course this has been your beloved home and land for years and leaving it, probably for good, would be a,

what is the word, wrench.

But there is time for you to think it over. We can use your shortwave radio to call my people to come

get both me and you, but even if they started right now, it would take them many hours to get here, because

they would have to come out in covered vehicles that would protect them from fallout, heavy vehicles thathave to be careful going over the roads between here and there.

I Bob began, as the three of them left the garage and entered the kitchen of the house.Wait, said Elaine. Mike, Ill bet youre hungry. Why dont you help yourself to whats in the

fridge while Bob and I go into the next room and talk it over? Theres still cheese and some lunch-meat in

there, and you know where everything is.

That would be fine, he said, knowing the two of them needed some privacy to reach a decision and

decide how to tell him, regardless of what the decision they made might be.


17/25

Fifteen minutes later, as he sat at the kitchen table, devouring the huge Dagwood hed fixed for himself

he loved those vast sandwiches, wonderful things whose like hed never encountered before leaving his

homeland the Nugents, tightly clinging to each others hands, joined him in the kitchen.

Mike? Elaine said, taking a seat next to him as Bob did the same at Pushkins other side.

Youve decided.Yes. My God, lookat that sandwich! she said, grinning. You must have been hungry.

Da uh, yes. I hadnt realized Id worked up such an appetite, especially after . . . well, never mind.So, my dear, what is your decision?

You are such a tease, Michael, she said, smiling. Yes. Ourdecision is that we would like to go

with you. We would, however, like to take as much as possible from here, including our station-wagon

Im sure a use could be found for it at your place, and a lot of what we own, at least the stuff you cant

replace, irreplaceable documents, photos, mementos and souvenirs, that sort of thing, and maybe clothes

and stuff, that can all go in Betsy. Betsy? Oh, yes, your automobile.

Yes. You have to give names to members of your family, which is what she is, part of the family,

she said, a smile momentarily gracing her otherwise sad expression. Anyway, yes, it would be sensible to

go to your place. Especially with all the, um, questionable types thatll be running around out there for the

next few weeks or so until the dust settles we do have guns, but theres just two of us here, and if some

gang of thieves decides to pay us a visit . . .

It could get, um, sticky. Yes, said Pushkin. All right, then, all that remains is to use your most

handy shortwave radio to call Vlad, my hetman, and let him know to send some of our people to pick youand me up and transport us and your things over to the ranch.

Vlad?Vladimir Vladimirovich Petrenko. You may have heard the name before ?

Elaine looked at him in shock. I keep forgetting you were once pretty high up the totem pole back in

the USSR. Yes, I certainly have. He was head of the KGB there for awhile, wasnt he?

Yes, he was. He left the Soviet Union right after I did, for very much the same reasons. He hated the

regime, hated doing the job he was assigned to do and used the resources available through that agency to

get both of us out. I wouldnt be here today otherwise, believe me.

Oh, Lord. All right, he sounds like a good guy, then.

The KGB certainly has something of a reputation, doesnt it? Pushkin said to her, his grin more thana little feral. But by their fruits ye shall know them, yes? Yes, hes a good guy. I hope I am, too. Now,

we had better make that call the less fallout they have to drive through to get here, the better. And dont

be so sad, my dear I am thinking the two of you would make fine overseers for some of our importantoperations, especially those utilizing electronic media. You could have sat back in ease and comfort with

the money from Bobs retirement fund and your inheritance from your parents, Elaine. Instead, youve

both done very well for yourselves as writers and Web-publishers, and could do even better at the ranch

we need people such as you there, industrious, bright people who have so much to contribute, especially

now.And maybe . . . maybe someday, when all this is finally sorted out and much of the radioactivity has

died down, you may even be able to come back to this place if you want.

No, we wont, Elaine said. We have loved this place very much but what we take with us will

include its spirit. As you said, we can make a good home with you on your ranch, and that spirit will go

there. It will take so long for the countryside around here to become habitable again and Im not just

talking about mere radioactive fallout, as you know; the social fallout will be far, far worse for many years

to come, in spite of all the fallout, because you can bet the sort of cruds wed have to defend ourselves

against here will find some way to survive the stuff, dammit that by the time we could come back and nothave to fear for our safety, this place will have become so derelict it wouldnt be worth it. No, if we go

with you, its for keeps, she said, sighing. And thats all right. We wont have any regrets.Pushkin glanced over at Bob, arched his eyebrows in a question. Bobs silent nod said it all.

All right, then, Pushkin said. Well, if it helps, we can build a place for you there just like this one

Dont be silly, Mike, Elaine told him. Well be more than happy with whatever accommodations

you already have available. Your good company counts for more than appearances. Much more. Now,

lets go make that call to your majordomo or whatever you call him.

Hetman. Yes. Lets do that. He must be out of his mind with worry about me right now.


18/25

As it happened, Petrenko wasnt just out of his mind with worry, he was ready to spit red-hot bullets

when he finally got the shortwave call. Before leaving his ranch, Pushkin had arranged to have Petrenko

send someone to pick him up upon receiving a telephone call from him. When all the phones had gone out

around noon, however, it was clear there would be no telephone call from Pushkin forthcoming. Petrenko

had been on the verge of sending out a whole squadron of half-tracks and other heavily armored vehicles topick his boss up when a young runner had come stumbling into his office, holding out a flimsy, puffing,

We just got a radio call in over in communications! Its the Chief he needs pickup, and he wants you tocome over there and talk to him before anyone leaves to get him!

It was Petrenko himself who rode in the lead vehicle that came to get Pushkin and the Nugents. He

was still bubbling like fuming nitric acid when he arrived. He had barely been able to keep from screaming

blue-edged Russian imprecations at his boss over the radiophone. Now, confronting Pushkin face-to-face,

he growled, Why the hell didnt you call earlier, damn you?! We were frightened sick for you! What

happened?!Come, Vlad, let us reason together, Pushkin said, grinning, as he steered the younger man through

the garage into the kitchen of the house Petrenkos driver had intelligently parked the vehicle as far inside

the garage as possible (not an easy job, what with the rather robust Betsy taking up so much room in there;

he did manage to get it far enough in that Vlad was able to step out under the garage roof, which shielded

him from the fallout). I will tell you aaalllabout it on the way home, yes?

Youd damned well better, snarled the other man, thunderclouds weighting his brow.

A couple of hours later, after Elaine, with help from Bob and Pushkin, grudgingly assisted by the still-

fuming Petrenko, had loaded the Nugents most precious things into Betsy and the men from the othervehicles began carrying furniture and other things from the house into the garage to be loaded into the

heavy haulers for the journey to Socorro, the Nugents, Pushkin, Petrenko, and Petrenkos driver,Aleksander Andreev, a close-mouthed young man who seemed terrified of doing anything Petrenko might

take issue with. As well he might, as angry at the world in general and Pushkin in particular, whom

Petrenko seemed to believe was responsible for everything that had gone so horrifically wrong this ghastly

day, the hetman was.

But it wasnt until many days later that Petrenko got a full description from Pushkin of what had

happened to him and the Nugents out there, and of the horrors they had seen that afternoon. Most of that

long drive back to Socorro, Pushkin said little, withdrawing into himself, memories of the day

overwhelming him. At once exhausted and so high-wired with adrenaline from all he had witnessed in theprevious hours that he could barely sit still, he took a seat directly behind Petrenko, hoping that the

nuisance of having to turn around to talk to him would keep the other man from pestering him about not

calling until they got back to the ranch. Once on the road, his ploy of seating arrangements succeedingeven better than he had hoped, he was able to withdrew into himself for awhile, hoping for sleep but in

vain, trying to avoid falling back into the well of horror of the day just past and failing miserably.

Again and again it came back to him, how he and the Nugents had stood together in their back yard,

watching that ghastly mushroom cloud climb into the sky, the characteristic ring of burning nitrogen

surrounding its cap, a horrifying, infernal halo. Coming out of th

"The City's Burning Tears"

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Transcript of "The City's Burning Tears"