“All right. Both. I’m not going to sleep in that bunk. It’s too hot up there, as well as scary when it shakes.”
“All right, I’ll pull the mattress down. Where’s your panties and bra, baby girl? Better put ‘em on.”
“Up there. I don’t care, I just want people. Oh, I suppose I should. Shock Joseph if I didn’t.”
“Just a moment. Here are your pants. But where did you hide your brassiere?”
“Maybe it got pushed down behind.”
Hugh dragged the mattress down. “I don’t find it.”
“The hell with it. Joe can look the other way. I want that drink.”
“All right. Joe’s a gentleman.”
Duke and Barbara were sitting on the blanket she had been napping on; they were looking very solemn. Hugh said, “Where’s Joe? He wasn’t hurt, was he?”
Duke gave a short laugh. “Want to see ‘Sleeping Innocence’? That bottom bunk.”
Hugh found his second-in-command sprawled on his back, snoring, as deeply unconscious as Grace Farnham. Dr.-Livingstone-I-Presume was curled up on his chest. Hugh came back. “Well, that blast was farther away. I’m glad Joe could sleep.”
“It was too damned close to suit me! When are they going to run out of those things?”
“Soon, I hope. Folks, Karen and I have just formed the ‘I’m-scared-too’ club and are about to celebrate with a drink. Any candidates?”
“I’m a charter member!”
“So am I,” agreed Barbara. “God, yes!”
Hugh fetched paper cups, and bottles-Scotch, Seconal, and Miltown. “Water, anyone?”
Duke said, “I don’t want anything interfering with the liquor.”
“Water, please,” Barbara answered. “It’s so hot.”
“How hot is it, Daddy?”
“Duke, I put the thermometer in the tank room. Go see, will you?”
“Sure. And may I use that rain check?”
“Certainly.” Hugh gave Karen another Seconal capsule, another Miltown pill, and told Barbara that she must take a Miltown-then took one himself, having decided that Dexedrine had made him edgy. Duke returned.
“One hundred and four degrees,” he announced. “I opened the valve another quarter turn. All right?”
“Have to open it still wider soon. Here are your pills, Duke-a double dose of Seconal and a Miltown.”
“Thanks.” Duke swallowed them, chased them with whisky. “I’m going to sleep on the floor, too. Coolest place in the house.”
“Smart of you. All right, let’s settle down. Give the pills a chance.”
Hugh sat with Karen after she bedded down, then gently extracted his hand from hers and returned to the tank room. The temperature was up two degrees. He opened the valve on the working tank still wider, listened to it sigh to emptiness, shook his head, got a wrench and shifted the gauge to a full tank. Before he opened it, he attached a hose, led it out into the main room. Then he went back to pretending to play solitaire.
A few minutes later Barbara appeared in the doorway. “I’m not sleepy,” she said. “Could you use some company?”
“You’ve been crying.”
“Does it show? I’m sorry.”
“Come sit down. Want to play cards?”
“If you want to. All I want is company.”
“We’ll talk. Would you like another drink?”
“Oh, would I! Can you spare it?”
“I stocked plenty. Barbara, can you think of a better night to have a drink? But both of us will have to see to it that the other one doesn’t go to sleep.”
“All right. I’ll keep you awake.”
They shared a cup, Scotch with water from the tank. It poured out as sweat faster than they drank it. Hugh increased the gas flow again and found that the ceiling was unpleasantly hot. “Barbara, the house must have burned over us. There is thirty inches of concrete above us and then two feet of dirt.”
“How hot do you suppose it is outside?”
“Couldn’t guess. We must have been close to the fireball.” He felt the ceiling again. “I beefed this thing up-roof, walls, and floor are all one steel-reinforced box. It was none too much. We may have trouble getting the doors open. All this heat- And probably warped by concussion.”
She said quietly, “Are we trapped?”
“No, no. Under these bottles is a hatch to a tunnel. Thirty inch culvert pipe with concrete around it. Leads to the gully back of the garden. We can break out-crowbars and a hydraulic jack-even if the end is crushed in and covered with crater glass. I’m not worried about that; I’m worried about how long we can stay inside . . . and whether it will be safe when we leave.”
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137