Farnham’s Freehold By Robert A. Heinlein

Chapter 3

The light went out, Grace Farnham screamed, Dr.-Livingstone-I-Presume wailed, Barbara was knocked silly and came to heaped over a steel bottle and disoriented by blackness and no floors or walls.

She groped around, found a leg, found Hugh attached to it. He was limp. She felt for his heartbeat, could not find it.

She shouted: “Hello! Hello! Anybody!” Duke answered, “Barbara?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m all right. Hugh is hurt. I think he’s dead.”

“Take it easy. When I find my trousers, I’ll light a match- if I can get off my shoulders. I’m standing on them.”

“Hubert! Hubert!”

“Yes, Mother! Wait.” Grace continued to scream; Duke alternated reassurances and cursing the darkness. Barbara felt around, slipped on loose oxygen bottles, hurt her shin, and found a flat surface. She could not tell what it was; it was canted steeply.

Duke called out, “Got ‘em!” A match flared up, torch bright in oxygen-rich air.

Joe’s voice said, “Better put that out. Fire hazard.” A flashlight beam cut the gloom.

Barbara called out, “Joe! Help me with Hugh!”

“Got to see about lights.”

“He may be dying.”

“Can’t do a thing without light.” Barbara shut up, tried again to find heartbeat-found it and clutched Hugh’s head, sobbing.

Lights came on in the men’s bay; enough trickled in so that Barbara could make out her surroundings. The floor sloped about thirty degrees; she, Hugh, steel bottles, water tank, and other gear were jumbled in the lower corner. The tank had sprung a leak and was flooding the toilet space. She saw that, had the tilt been the other way, she and Hugh would have been buried under steel and water.

Minutes later Duke and Joe joined her, letting themselves down through the door. Joe carried a camp lamp. Duke said to Joe, “How are we going to move him?”

“We don’t. It might be his spine.”

“Still have to move him.”

“We don’t move him,” Joe said firmly. “Barbara, have you moved him?”

“I took his head in my lap.”

“Well, don’t move him anymore.” Joe looked his patient over, touching him gently. “I can’t see any gross injuries,” he decided. “Barbara, if you can stay put, we’ll wait until he comes to. Then I can check his eyes for concussion, see if he can wiggle his toes, things like that.”

“I’ll hold still. Anybody else hurt?”

“Not to speak of,” Duke assured her. “Joe thinks he’s cracked some ribs and I wrenched a shoulder. Mother just got rolled into the corner of her bunk. Sis is soothing her. Sis is okay-a lump on her head where a can conked her. Are you all right?”

“Just bruises. Hugh and I were playing double solitaire and trying to keep cool when it hit.” She wondered how long the lie would stand up. Duke had no more on than she did and didn’t seem troubled by it; Joe was dressed in underwear shorts. She added, “The cat? Is he all right?”

“Dr.-Livingstone-I-Presume,” Joe answered seriously, “escaped injury. But he is vexed that his sandbox was dumped over. He’s cleaning himself and criticizing.”

“I’m glad he wasn’t hurt.”

“Notice anything about this blast?”

“What, Joe? It was the hardest of the three. Much the hardest.”

“Yes. But no rumbling. Just one great, big, grand slam, then. . . nothing.”

“What does that indicate?”

“I don’t know. Barbara, can you stay here and not move? I want to get more lights on, check the damage, and see what to do about it.”

“I won’t move.” Hugh seemed to be breathing easily. In the silence she could hear his heart beat. She decided that she didn’t have anything to be unhappy about.

Karen joined her, carrying a flashlight and moving carefully on the slant. “How’s Daddy?”

“No change.”

“Knocked cold, I guess. So was I. You okay?” She played the flashlight over Barbara.

“Not hurt.”

“Well! I’m glad you’re in uniform, too. I can’t find my pants. Joe ignores it so carefully, it’s painful. Is that boy square!”

“I don’t know where my clothes are.”

“Joe has the only pants among us. What happened to you? Were you asleep?”

“No. I was here. We were talking.”