The dying man scrutinized it. “It’s a balloon.”
Not believing him, Stuart said, “It’s the Chinese!”
“It really is a balloon, a little one. What they used to call a blimp, I think. I haven’t seen one since I was a boy.”
“Could the Chinese float across the Pacific in balloons?” Stuart said, imagining thousands of such small gray cigarshaped balloons, each with a platoon of Mongolian-type Chinese peasant soldiers, armed with Czech automatic rifles, clutching handholds, clinging to every fold. “It’s just what you’d expect them to think up from the beginning; they reduce the world to their level, back a couple centuries. Instead of catching up with us—“ He broke off, because now he saw that the balloon had on its side a sign in English:
HAMILTON AIR FORCE BASE
The dying man said airily, “It’s one of ours.”
“I wonder where they got it,” Stuart said.
“Ingenious,” the dying man said, “isn’t it? I suppose all the gasoline and kerosene are gone by now. Used right up. We’ll be seeing a lot of strange transportation from now on. Or rather, you will.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Stuart said,
“I don’t feel sorry for myself or anyone,” the dying man said as he carefully laid out the chess pieces. “This is a nice set,” he said. “Made in Mexico, I notice. Hand-carved, no doubt … but very fragile.”
“Explain to me again how the bishop moves,” Stuart said.
Overhead, the Hamilton Air Force Base balloon loomed larger as it drifted closer. The two men in the basement bent over their chess board, paying no attention to it. Possibly it was taking pictures. Or possibly it was on a strategic mission; it might have a walkie-talkie aboard and was in contact with the Sixth Army units south of San Francisco. Who knew? Who cared? The balloon drifted by as the dying man advanced his king’s pawn two spaces to open the game.
“The game begins,” the dying man said. And then he added in a low voice, “For you, anyhow, Stuart. A strange, unfamiliar, new game ahead … you can even bet your pillow case of money, if you want.”
Grunting, Stuart pondered his own men and decided to move a rook’s pawn as his opening gambit—and knew, as soon as he had touched it, that it was an idiotic move.
“Can I take it back?” he asked hopefully.
“When you touch a piece you must move it,” Ken said, bringing out one of his knights.
“I don’t think that’s fair; I mean, I’m just learning,” Stuart said. He glared at the dying man, but the sallow face was adamant. “Okay,” he said resignedly, this time moving his king’s pawn, as Ken had done. I’ll watch his moves and do what he does, he decided. That way I’ll be safer.
From the balloon, now directly overhead, bits of white paper scattered, drifted and fluttered down. Stuart and the dying man paused in their game. One of the bits of paper fell near them in the basement and Ken reached out and picked it up. He read it, passed it to Stuart.
“Burlingame!” Stuart said, reading it. It was an appeal for volunteers, for the Army. “They want us to hike from here to Burlingame and be inducted? That’s fifty or sixty miles, all the way down this side of the Bay and around. They’re nuts!”
“They are,” Ken said. “They won’t get a soul.”
“Why hell, I can’t even make it down to LeConte Street to the relief station,” Stuart said. He felt indignant and he glared at the Hamilton Field balloon as it drifted on. They’re not going to get me to join up, he said to himself. Fork that.
“It says,” Ken said, reading the back of the proclamation, “that if you reach Burlingame they guarantee you water, food, cigarettes, anti-plague shots, treatment for radiation burns. How about that? But no girls.”
“Can you get interested in sex?” He was amazed. “Christ, I haven’t felt the slightest urge since the first bomb fell; it’s like the thing dropped off in fear, fell right off.”
“That’s because the diencephalic center of the brain suppresses the sex instinct in the face of danger,” Ken said. “But it’ll return.”
“No,” Stuart said, “because any child born would be a freak; there shouldn’t be any intercourse for say around ten years. They ought to make it a law. I can’t stand the idea of the world populated by freaks because I have had personal experience; one worked at Modern TV Sales with me, or rather in the service department. One was enough. I mean, they ought to hang that Bluthgeld up by his balls for what he did.”
“What Bluthgeld did in the ‘70s,” Ken said, “is insignificant when compared to this.” He indicated the ruins of the basement around them.
“I’ll grant you that,” Stuart said, “but it was the start.”
Overhead, now, the balloon was drifting back the way it had come. Perhaps it had run out of little messages and was returning to Hamilton Field, over on the other side of the Bay or wherever it was.
Gazing up at it, Stuart said, “Talk to us some more.”
“It can’t,” Ken said. “That’s all it had to say; it’s a very simple creature. Are you going to play, or should I move your pieces? Either is satisfactory to me.”
With great caution, Stuart moved a bishop—and again knew at once that it had been the wrong move; he could tell by the dying man’s face.
In the corner of the basement, among the cement blocks, something agile and frightened plopped to safety, scurried and twittered with anxiety as it spied them. Stuart’s attention wandered from the board to the rat, and he looked about for his broom handle.
“Play!” Ken said angrily.
“Okay, okay,” Stuart said, feeling grumpy about it. He made a random move, his attention still on the rat.
VII
In front of the pharmacy in Point Reyes Station, at nine in the morning, Eldon Blaine waited. Under his arm he held tightly his worn briefcase tied together with string. Meanwhile, inside the building, the pharmacist removed chains and struggled with the metal doors; Eldon listened to the sound and felt impatience.
“Just a minute,” the pharmacist called, his voice muffled. As he at last got the doors open he apologized, “This was formerly the back end of a truck. You have to use both your hands and feet to make it work. Come on in, mister.” He held the high door aside, and Eldon saw into the dark interior of the pharmacy, with its unlit electric light bulb which hung from the ceiling by an ancient cord.
“What I’m here for,” Eldon said rapidly, “is a wide-spectrum antibiotic, the kind used in clearing up a respiratory infection.” He made his need sound casual; he did not tell the pharmacist how many towns in Northern California he had visited in the last few days, walking and hitching rides, nor did he mention how sick his daughter was. It would only jack up the price asked, he knew. And anyhow he did not see much actual stock, here. Probably the man did not have it.
Eying him, the pharmacist said, “I don’t see anything with you; what do you have in exchange, assuming I have what you’re after?” In a nervous manner he smoothed his thinning gray hair back; he was an elderly, small man, and it was obvious that he suspected Eldon of being a napper. Probably he suspected everyone.
Eldon said, “Where I come from I’m known as the glasses man.” Unzipping his briefcase, he showed the pharmacist the rows of intact and nearly-intact lenses, frames, and lenses in frames, scavenged from all over the Bay Area, especially from the great deposits near Oakland. “I can compensate almost any eye defect,” he said. “I’ve got a fine variety, here. What are you, near- or far-sighted or astigmatic? I can fix you up in ten minutes, by changing around a lens or two.”
“Far-sighted,” the pharmacist said slowly, “but I don’t think I have what you want.” He looked at the rows of glasses longingly.
With anger, Eldon said, “Then why didn’t you say so right off, so I can go on? I want to make Petaluma today; there’s a lot of drugstores there—all I have to do is find a hay truck going that way.”
“Couldn’t you trade me a pair of glasses for something else?” the pharmacist asked plaintively, following after him as he started away. “I got a valuable heart medicine, quinidine gluconate; you could most likely trade it for what you want. Nobody else in Marin County has quinidine gluconate but me.”
“Is there a doctor around here?” Eldon said, pausing at the edge of the weed-infested county road with its several stores and houses.
“Yes,” the pharmacist said, with a nod of pride. “Doctor Stockstill; he migrated here several years ago. But he doesn’t have any drugs. Just me.”