“How do you figure?”
“I’m serving by consent of the majority-four to two, I think. But that doesn’t suit me; I want it to be unanimous, I can’t put up indefinitely with wrangling from the minority. You and your mother, I mean. I want it to be five to one before we get back, with your assurance that you will not interfere in my efforts to persuade, or cajole, or bully, your mother into accepting her share of the load-until you care to risk a vote of no confidence.”
“You’re asking me to agree to that?”
“No, I’m telling you. Willing discipline on your part . . or at the next clash one of us will be killed. I won’t give you the slightest warning. That’s why your safest course is to shoot me in the back.”
“Quit talking nonsense! You know I won’t shoot you in the back.”
“So? I will shoot you in the back or anywhere at the next hint of trouble. Duke, I can see only one alternative. If you find it impossible to give willing disciplined consent, if you don’t think you can displace me, if you can’t bring yourself to kill me, if you don’t care to risk a clash in which one of us will be killed, then there is still a peaceful solution.”
“What is it?”
“Any time you wish, you can leave. I’ll give you a rifle, ammunition, salt, matches, a knife, whatever you find needful. You don’t deserve them but I won’t turn you out with nothing.”
Duke gave a bitter laugh. “Sending me out to play Robinson Crusoe.. . and leaving all the women with you!”
“Oh, no! Any who wish are free to go. With a fair share of anything and some to boot. All three women if you can sell the idea.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Do. And do a little politicking and size up your chances of winning a vote against me ‘democratically’-while being extraordinarily careful not to cross wills with me and thereby bring on a showdown sooner than you wish. I warn you, I’m feeling very short-tempered; you loosened one of my teeth.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“That wasn’t the way it felt. There’s the shelter; you can start that ‘willing discipline’ by pretending that we’ve had a lovely afternoon.”
“Look, Dad, if you won’t mention-”
“Shut up. I’m sick of you.”
As they neared the shelter Karen saw them and yoo-hooed; Joe and Barbara came crawling out the tunnel. Karen waved her shovel. “Come see what I’ve done!”
She had dug privies on each side of the shelter. Saplings formed frameworks which had been screened by tacking cardboard from liquor cases. Seats had been built of lumber remnants from the tank room. “Well?” demanded Karen. “Aren’t they gorgeous?”
“Yes,” agreed Hugh. “Much more lavish than I had expected.” He refrained from saying that they had cost most of the lumber.
“I didn’t do it all. Barbara did the carpentry. You should hear her swear when she hits her thumb.”
“You hurt your thumb, Barbara?”
“It’ll get well. Come try the ladder.”
“Sure thing.” He started inside; Joe stopped him. “Hugh, while we’ve still got light, how about seeing something?”
“All right. What?”
“The shelter. You’ve been talking about building a cabin. Suppose we do: what do we have? A mud floor and a roof that leaks, no glass for windows and no doors. Seems to me the shelter is better.”
“Well, perhaps,” agreed Hugh. “I had thought we could use it while pioneering, if we had to.”
“I don’t think it’s too radioactive, Hugh. That dosimeter should have gone sky-high if the roof is really ‘hot.’ It hasn’t.”
“That’s good news. But, Joe, look at it. A slant of thirty degrees is uncomfortable. We need a house with a level floor.”
“That’s what I mean. Hugh, that hydraulic jack-it’s rated at thirty tons. How much does the shelter weigh?”
“Oh. Let me think how many yards of mix we used and how much steel.” Hugh pondered it, got out his notebook. “Call it two hundred fifty tons.”
“Well, it was an idea.”
“Maybe it’s a good idea.” Hugh prowled around the shelter, a block twenty feet square and twelve high, sizing up angles, estimating yardages.