The Fly-By-Nights (10 page)

Outside the ancient car park the sky had clouded over. “Are you two quite sure you’re right for each other?” Big Jon Lamon inquired of Garth and Layla as they reached the exit ramp. “If not, now would be a good time to speak up. Emotions were more than a bit heated back there, and when people are under pressure mistakes are easily made—not so easily corrected.”

The pair looked at each other, Garth with his heart in his mouth; but Layla only smiled and nodded. “We’re sure.” And with an audible sigh Garth said:

“Oh, yes. We’re sure. I think we have been for quite a long time, but…things got in the way.”

“Things like Ned Singer?”

“Yes, sir. Singer, and—well, just events.”

Big Jon nodded. “Yes, it’s been a very rough time, and probably a lot more to come. Which you’ll face together, right?”

“Yes, sir.” But Garth couldn’t hide a frown, and the leader had noticed.

“Is there something, anything?”

“No, not really,” Garth answered as they set out across the rubble toward the battered church. “Just the way Ned Singer was acting. His mood is always unpleasant, but this time—”

“Ned was thwarted,” said Zach. “He was bested, made to look foolish and didn’t much like it. But we brought him down a peg, so maybe he’ll be more reasonable from now on.”

“I expect he will,” said the leader. “Anyway, he was drunk. That’s why he was worse than usual—worse for drink, that is, and worse for wear.” He grinned a wolfish grin. “Ned’ll wake up later with a badly bruised ego, likewise a bruised forehead, and a sore head in general—which serves him right. And as for his scavenged booze—”

“He had five bottles!” said head tech Andrew Fielding. “Big Jon and me, we were out by the well in what used to be a garden in front of that old church, when we saw one of Ned’s team—”

“Dan Coulter, it was,” said Big Jon, nodding.

“—And he was reeling about in his radiation suit as if he was smitten!” Fielding went on. “For a minute we were concerned for him, until we saw he had a bottle in his hand.”

Again the leader’s nod, and his wolf’s grin. “Aye, so after we had words with Dan, we not only, er, ‘rescued’ his stash but Peder Halbstein’s and Ned Singer’s, too! Twelve bottles in all. Would have been thirteen if that one back there hadn’t smashed. Unlucky for some, so it’s said—namely those three damn fools! That booze might well be hot, tainted with something other than alcohol and much, much harder!” But:

“No, I think that’s unlikely,” said the head tech, sounding excited, suddenly energized, as if he had just remembered something important. Which indeed he had.

“Oh?” Big Jon frowned at him.

“Well, that’s what I was about to tell you at the old well! I was carrying out a radiation test on the water when we bumped into each other and saw Dan Coulter staggering about like that. Following which you were in such a hurry to, er, ‘rescue’ their liquor—which should have been handed over in the first place, for the good of the clan—that I became distracted; since when we’ve been busy. Anyway, that’s a very deep well, and its water seems fairly clean and…and even potable!”

That pulled the others up short, and together Zach Slattery and Big Jon said: “Clean?” And they stared at Fielding as if he had two heads.

Then, grabbing the head tech and drawing him close, Big Jon said: “Clean—
and
potable? Surely your instruments are on the fritz, Andrew?”

“Not a bit of it,” said Fielding, blinking rapidly and trying to free himself from the leader’s grasp. “My instruments are just fine, and so is the water…almost.”

“Almost?” said Big Jon, his eyes narrowing. “How, almost?”

“Well,” the other shrugged, “the background radiation is a tad high, but that’s about all…except it’s
not
all, not by a long shot! See, this entire area, at least in the half-dozen or so spots that I’ve tested, shows only a fraction of the residual radiation that I’d expect. Which makes this the cleanest place we’ve visited since leaving the Southern Refuge!” The leader’s mouth had fallen open; the others’ mouths, too.

“You’re saying we can actually drink that well water?” said Zach.

“And that we can maybe refill the bowser?” said Big Jon. “I mean, God only knows we need to! Last time I checked, the gauge was two thirds of the way down to the dregs!”

“Can we wash?” Layla sighed. “And cook, and perhaps launder some clothing, too?”

The head tech laughed excitedly and did a little jig as Big Jon released him. “What’s that?” he asked Layla. “You only want to wash? Why girl, there’s thirty-five feet or more of water in that well, so you can
bathe
in it if that’s your desire!”

The leader laughed, roared out loud, almost joined the head tech in his dance…then stopped abruptly and said, “But how? Explain, Andrew, for I just don’t understand.”

And as they set off again toward the church, but with so much more energy in their steps now, Fielding said: “Well, it’s possible that I
do
understand. Just look around and tell me: do you see any signs of terrific heat, calcined glass or metal and drifts of dust? No, nothing of the sort. A few burned-out buildings perhaps, but nothing special. Evidence of bombs, of blast, definitely: shell-shocked masonry, and a good many craters scattered here and there. But no real evidence of a nuclear attack. This place
was
bombed, that’s obvious, but I don’t think it was nuked. And—oh, I don’t know—perhaps it was simply fortunate to lie outside any major fallout zone; or then again, maybe down all the decades nature and the weather have worked in combination to clean the place up. That can sometimes happen quite quickly. In the world as was the very first nuclear weapon destroyed a city—whose survivors almost at once rebuilt it!”

“I’ve read something about that,” said Garth, “in a book in the library in the Southern Refuge. But there was only one bomb that first time—or maybe two?”

“Garth’s right,” said the leader. “And this time there were dozens, maybe hundreds! Enough to bring about a so-called ‘nuclear winter,’ anyway, and who knows what else?”

“A half-dead planet, that’s what else!” said Zach, spitting into the dirt. “Not to mention the rise of the fly-by-nights!”

As they approached the broken church’s walled garden, where the shattered steeple lay in crumpled sections, Andrew Fielding paused. Frowning, he narrowed his eyes to squint up at the slowly drifting cloud cover, and muttering quietly to himself said:

“And then…then there’s the sunlight…and that’s also hard to figure.” He gave his head a small, bewildered shake. But the leader had overheard his quiet, introspective remarks.

“Eh?” Big Jon caught Fielding’s arm. “What’s that about the sunlight? Something else to puzzle over, Andrew? And perhaps to worry about, too?”

The nervous little man blinked, shook himself and came back to earth. “Hmm? Something to puzzle over?” He repeated Big Jon. “Well, yes: to me it’s a puzzle, certainly. But worry about it? No, not at all! On the contrary!” 

“Well then?” The leader’s impatience was surfacing.

And as the five made their way across the overgrown, rubble strewn area toward the open-sided well, whose slumping pantiled roof was missing most of its tiles, the head tech explained his new enigma. “Even when the sun’s out—blazing in a clear blue sky, as it was earlier—it barely affects the radiation level. Which might mean that…that…” But as they reached the well he paused, and once again shook his head undecidedly.

“Oh, do go on!” Big Jon exploded. “Get it told, can’t you?”

Fielding nodded, shrugged apologetically and said, “Yes, of course; and I’m sorry if once again my explanation should prove inadequate. But as you know we’ve been trekking north for some two months now, frequently covering as little as four or maybe five miles a night, often as not in the wrong direction when dreadful conditions—acidic lakes, ravines, defiles and other obstacles; such as suspect or impassable rubble-heaped villages—have caused us to make endless diversions.”

“That’s right,” Big Jon nodded grimly. “And this last week we’ve been running low not only on water but also fuel. I haven’t wanted to start searching for tainted stuff in all the dubious towns we’ve skirted, but I may have to. Without it we’ll be in serious trouble, stuck for good wherever we end up.”

Fielding nodded. “But if we can find more here, it may well be as clean as everything else seems to be! And on that subject just look here.” He took a tin mug from a satchel hanging under his arm, filled it with water from a rusty bucket on the well’s crumbling stone wall and said, “This is where I was testing the water.” Without more ado he drank the mug dry, smacked his lips loudly, then patted his satchel with its precious contents, the various tools of his trade. “So then, now you’ve seen for yourselves how much I trust my instruments!”

“You’re absolutely sure it’s okay?” The leader reached for Fielding’s mug.

“Absolutely, and oh so very sweet!”

A handful of clan folk had been watching from the shady interior of the shattered church. Now, cautiously at first, they came out into the open. But as Big Jon and those with him took turns to drink, the people began to call to others behind them and quickened their pace, coming almost at a run.

Moving away from the well toward the church with his group, Big Jon called out: “Everyone can drink! The water is good! You can fill your personal containers, too. Then I’ll need a driver for the bowser, and volunteers for a work party. Oh, and if you washerwomen can hear me: those cauldrons of yours have been dry for much too long, so it’s time you got some fires going! Also, I shall need a scav team—preferably sober! People, now’s our chance to seek out and top up on fuel; and as a bonus, I’m told there’s no need to fear the sunlight! How’s that for good news? So let’s waste no more time but get busy, eh?”

And as the place began to show increasing activity, finally the leader turned his attention to the head tech. “Ah yes, Andrew. And with regard to that last, I believe you were about to tell me something?”

The exasperated other sputtered like a boiling kettle, more animated than any of Big Jon’s group could ever remember seeing him. “I was
trying
to tell you something, yes! And I would—if only you’d stand still for a moment and listen!”

“Well, go on then!” said Big Jon, and stepped into the cool gloom of the church. The others followed after him, then paused inside to listen to Fielding’s explanation:

“I think—” he began hesitantly, “—
think
it might have to do with the ozone layer. Some seven or so miles high but extending much higher than that, there’s a layer of gasses so constituted as to reduce dangerous ultraviolet radiation. Upon a time, before the war, the layer was much thicker…that’s according to tech forebears in the Southern Refuge, who left something of a record as to how in the aftermath things in the outside world deteriorated. It was all part and parcel of the nuclear winter, which not only damaged the inner atmosphere—the air itself—but also the outer atmosphere, especially the ozone layer which for countless decades had already been suffering the contamination of Man’s far-flung and seriously toxic labours.

“Ah, but since then—with just a handful of men reduced to burrowing in the ground, and no surface industries to mention—the Earth’s atmosphere may have begun righting itself. For note what would seem to be happening: the deeper we venture into the northern latitudes, the less we suffer from solar radiation!”

Now Zach spoke up. “I believe you’re right,” he said. “Why, it would explain how the fly-by-nights took so long to die once our lads flushed ’em out! I was watching you see, and while the sunlight certainly burned ’em I thought it took almost twice as long to do so!” And turning to the leader. “Wouldn’t you agree, Jon? For in our time down South, we surely chased enough of the damned things into the sunlight!”

“Aye,” Big Jon nodded. “And by God, didn’t they go up quick as a flash? They most certainly did!” Breathing deep, he seemed to swell up large. And throwing his arms wide he cried: “I feel reprieved, restored, renewed! What with the water, and now this news about the ozone—the fact that we can go out unprotected in the sunlight, and perhaps even travel during daylight hours, though that will take some getting used to—why, maybe things are finally turning in our favour! Indeed I feel sure they are. A good thing, too, because there’s so very much to do…!”

But as he turned away and made to stride out again into the daylight, Garth quickly caught his arm and said: “Sir, Big Jon! Please don’t go off and forget about us!”

“Eh?” said the other, then grinned as he clasped both Garth and Layla to his barrel chest. And: “No, of course I won’t!” he said, releasing them. “And what better time to get married, eh? When for a moment—if only for a moment—the future begins to look so much more promising?” And once again he turned away, as if making to leave the place.

“Sir!” said Garth, anxious now. But:

Laughing out loud, Big Jon turned back. “Oh, very well!” he cried: “I declare you man and wife—there! So give the girl a kiss, lad. For after all she’s yours now, and it’s perfectly in order!”

At which Garth did as he was told, and that was that…