We Who Survived. Sterling Noel
brought the one you told Elaine and me about a couple of years ago?”
“Yes. I dropped her for a time but I couldn’t forget her.”
“You planning to marry her?”
“Of course.”
“She looks like a good choice to me, Vic. Elaine told me she likes her very much. You’ve complied with the trial-period regulations, I trust?”
“Oh yes. We’ve lived together the requisite number of days—in fact, twice the requisite. I’ve got the certificates somewhere.”
“You’d better have them here if you’re going to make it legal.”
“I’m sure they’re in my bag. . . . Gabe, what do you honestly think our chances are? I know the reasons for a lot of this—the elaborate plans, the snowmobile, the board of directors. We just can’t quit. It isn’t in you and it isn’t in any of this group you’ve gathered here. But—what’s the answer?”
He looked at me long and hard in the dim worklight that came through the open barn door. He shook his head, then, and said, “I wish the hell I knew, Vic.”
12
RUFE HOWARD met us at the jetshield and told us that Steve Engles had sent word to hold the Garbut Transport until he and his mother could get aboard. I found the pilot and asked him if he would take mother and son to some destination on the East Coast.
“The ship belongs to Dr. Harrow until midnight,” he replied. “I’ll take ’em anywhere this side of the United Arab Republic.”
I went back in the house and found Bill Wernecke spread out with his papers on the living room floor, working on the drawings for the reinforcement of barn and house. I asked him if he had seen Steve Engles.
“He was down here a moment ago,” he said, “but I think he went back upstairs.”
I went up to the second floor and along the hall that opened to the guest rooms. I heard voices coming from one and knocked on the door. Steve told me to enter.
Cora Engles was lying on the bed, a blanket drawn up under her chin. She was fluttering her eyelids in a most peculiar and difficult way.
“Oh, my heart!” she exclaimed. “I just know I am going to have another attack!”
“I’ll get Dr. Howard right away,” said Steve, great concern in his voice.
“Don’t, please don’t,” said Cora, gasping between the words.
“But you must have a doctor!” said Steve.
“Not Dr. Howard,” she said then, her voice suddenly firm and no-nonsense. “Get me my medicine.” Then she became the fading lily. “I don’t trust that Rufe Howard, Stevie.”
He got her medicine, a large bottle of purple pills, then filled a glass with water in the bathroom and held her head up gently in his arm while she took a pill and a sip. He eased her back on the pillow and stood looking at her sadly.
Cora was what you would call a handsome woman, at first glance. That was the over-all impression, but, as you examined her feature by feature, you were inclined to change your mind. Her mouth was too thin, her eyes were small and sharp when you looked at them closely under the make-up, and her nose was much too small for the wide cheekbones and the broad forehead. But she had kept her figure, her feet were always neat, and her legs, which she showed often, were pleasantly curved. Steve finally turned to me and opened his palms in a gesture of helplessness.
“The Garbut will take you and your mother anywhere,” I said.
Cora fluttered her eyelids, then opened her eyes and looked at me for the first time. “Hello, Colonel Savage,” she said. “Please excuse me for being so deathly ill. . . . I didn’t know you were in the room.”
“I’m afraid my mother can’t travel tonight,” Steve said. “We’ll have to charter a Ring in the morning.”
“The morning may be too late,” I said. “You heard what Gabe predicts. Of course, if the wind doesn’t come up suddenly—”
“We’ll just have to take that chance,” he said. “You can see how ill she is.”
“Don’t bother about me, son,” she said. “Take the transport yourself and leave me here. . . . I’m no good to you any more.”
He knelt by the bed and put his arms around her. “Don’t talk that way, mother!”
I went back downstairs.
13
THERE WAS LITTLE SLEEP for any of us that Friday night. It was the first night that the members of the Harrow Group (with the exception of the Lawrences) spent together and it was a night charged with much feeling of many different hues and intensities. I think that all of us were vitally interested in what would happen at 2:13 A.M., according to Dr. Harrow’s prediction. If the snow and the winds did not resume, then we would know, or suspect, that these hypotheses were in error, or at least that the observations were not accurate.
A buffet dinner was served at 7:30, with all fresh food, for the Harrows maintained a freezing unit in their basement coldroom that held a ton of meats and vegetables. Steve came from upstairs and fixed a plate for his mother and himself. He was greeted pleasantly enough, even by Dr. Howard, and he talked to everyone with relaxed charm. But when he had carried his plates up above, there was a general discussion of him and his mother. Florence Donner and Martha Wernecke, Bill’s wife, put the question almost simultaneously to different knots: “Is Cora being sick just because she wants to stay with the Harrow Group?”
I think that we all agreed this was the case, and that no matter what we thought of Steve and his mother, we were going to have to put up with them, unless Gabe’s prediction for 2:13 A.M. went sour.
“They won’t be any burden on us, so we shouldn’t regard this eventuality with such distaste,” said Rufe Howard. “Actually, Steve is a competent and trustworthy member of society and Cora is just as able and efficient as any woman I’ve ever known, so long as she doesn’t feel she has to have the vapors to get her own way.”
After dinner the group disposed of itself about the farmhouse, some to read, some to talk, some to look and listen to VM or VK or the short-wave programs from Europe East, but all of us to wait. Bob and Libby Jordan, Marge, Elaine and I gathered around the old-fashioned fireplace in the living room where logs were burning. We talked personalities—mostly Steve and Cora—for half an hour. Then Elaine asked, “When are you and Marge going to make it legal? Gabe tells me you’ve got your trial-period certificate.”
“We can do that any time,” said Marge.
“There’s a DW-three in the library if you want to do it now,” said Elaine. “How about it, Vic?”
“It’s up to Marge,” I said.
Marge gave me an odd look, then shrugged.
Libby Jordan turned on me angrily, “If you were my fiance, I’d drown you in the river! What’s the matter with you, Vic?”
“Matter with me!” I exclaimed. “Nothing. What am I supposed to be doing that I’m not?”
“You’re supposed to act just a little bit like a guy in love,” said Libby. “That’s what!”
I got up. I said, “All right, Marge. You’ve stalled long enough. We get married right away.”
She sat in her chair and shook her head. “Not yet,” she said.
“Yes, now,” I said. “Come on.” I took her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. “Now.”
“No,” she said. “I—well, no.”
Libby said, “Listen, you ape, tell her you love