“Didn’t you have one with you?” I had had one; we always carried torches, outdoors in dark phase, but I had dropped mine when the quake hit. I didn’t know where it was.
Dad thought about it, then climbed over the slabs. He was back in a moment. “I found it between here and the barn. I must have dropped it.” He shined it on the inner door and we looked over the situation.
“It looks bad,” Dad said softly. “Explosive decompression.” There was a gap you could poke your fingers through between the top of the door and the frame; the door wasn’t pressure held, it was jammed.
Dad called out, “Peggy! Oh, Peggy, darling—can you hear me?”
No answer. “Take the light, Bill—and stand aside.” He reared back and then hit the door hard with his shoulder. It gave a bit but didn’t open. He hit it again and it flew open, spilling him on his hands and knees. He scrambled up as I shined the light in past him.
Peggy lay half in and half out of bed, as if she had been trying to get up when she passed out. Her head hung down and a trickle of blood was dripping from her mouth on to the floor.
Molly had come in right behind us; she and Dad got Peggy into the stretcher and Dad brought the pressure up. She was alive; she gasped and choked and sprayed blood over us while we were trying to help her. Then she cried. She seemed to quiet down and go to sleep —or maybe fainted again—after we got her into the bubble.
Molly was crying but not making any fuss about it. Dad straightened up, wiped his face and said, “Grab on, Bill. We’ve got to get her into town.”
I said, “Yes,” and picked up one end. With Molly holding the light and us carrying, we picked our way over the heap of rock that used to be our house and got out into the open. We put the stretcher down for a moment and I looked around.
I glanced up at Jupiter; the shadows were still on his face and Io and Europa had not yet reached the western edge. The whole thing had taken less than an hour. But that wasn’t what held my attention; the sky looked funny.
The stars were too bright and there were too many of them. “George,” I said, “what’s happened to the sky?”
“No time now——” he started to say. Then he stopped and said very slowly, “Great Scott!”
“What?” asked Molly. “What’s the matter?”
“Back to the house, all of you! We’ve got to dig out all the clothes we can get at. And blanketsl”
“What? Why?”
“The heat trap! The heat trap is gone—the quake must have gotten the power house.”
So we dug again, until we found what we had to have. It didn’t take long; we knew where things had to be. It was just a case of getting the rocks off. The blankets were for the stretcher; Dad wrapped them around like a cocoon and tied them in place. “Okay, Bill,” he said. “Quick march, nowl”
It was then that I heard Mabel bawl. I stopped and looked at Dad. He stopped too, with an agony of indecision on his face. “Oh, damn!” he said, the first time I had ever heard him really swear. “We can’t just leave her to freeze; she’s a member of the family. Come, Bill.”
We put the stretcher down again and ran to the bam. It was a junk heap but we could tell by Mabel’s complaints where she was. We dragged the roof off her and she got to her feet. She didn’t seem to be hurt but I guess she had been knocked silly. She looked at us indignantly.
We had a time of it getting her over the slabs, with Dad pulling and me pushing. Dad handed the halter to Molly. “How about the chickens?” I asked, “And the rabbits?” Some of them had been crushed; the rest were loose around the place. I felt one—a rabbit —scurry between my feet
“No time!” snapped Dad. “We can’t take them; all we could do for them would be to cut their throats. Come!”