Farnham’s Freehold By Robert A. Heinlein

I am not trusting any snakes.

It took three weeks to excavate under the house. Boulders! This area is a wide, flat, saucer-shaped valley, with boulders most anywhere. Whenever we hit a big one, we dug around it and the men would worry it out with crowbar and block and tackle.

Mostly the men could get boulders out. But Karen found one that seemed to go down to China. Hugh looked it over and said, “Fine. Now dig a hole just north of it and deeper.”

Karen just looked at him.

So we dug. And hit another big boulder. “Good,” said Hugh. “Dig another hole north of that one.”

We hit a third oversize boulder. But in three days the last one had been tumbled into a hole next to it, the middle one had been worried into a hole where the last one had been, and the one that started the trouble was buried where the middle one had been.

As fast as any spot had been cut deeply enough Hugh propped it up with pieces of log; he was worried lest the shelter shift and crush someone. So when we finished the shelter had a forest of posts under it.

Hugh then set two very heavy posts under the uphill corners and started removing the inner ones, using block and tackle. Sometimes they had to be dug under. Hugh was nervous during this and did all the rigging and digging himself.

At last the uphill half was supported on these two big chunks.

They would not budge.

There was so much weight on those timbers that they sneered at our efforts. I said, “What do we do now, Hugh?”

“Try the next-to-last resort.”

“What’s the last resort?”

“Burn them. But it would take roaring fires and we would have to clear grass and bushes and trees for quite a distance. Karen, you know where the ammonia is. And the iodine. I want both.”

I had wondered why Hugh had stocked so much ammonia. But he had, in used plastic Chlorox bottles; the stuff had ridden through the shocks. I hadn’t known that iodine was stocked in quantity, too; I don’t handle the drugs.

Soon he had sort of a chemistry lab. “What are you making, Hugh?” I asked.

“Ersatz ‘dynamite.’ And I don’t need company,” he said. “The stuff is so touchy it explodes at a harsh look.”

“Sorry,” I said, backing away.

He looked up and smiled. “It’s safe until it dries. I had it in mind in case I ever found myself in an underground. Occupying troops take a sour view of natives having explosives, but there is nothing suspicious about ammonia or iodine. The stuff is safe until you put it together and does not require a primer. But I never expected to use it for construction; it’s too treacherous.”

“Hugh, I just remembered I don’t care whether a floor is level or not.”

“If it makes you nervous, take a walk.”

Making it was simple; he combined tincture of iodine and ordinary household ammonia; a precipitate settled out. This he filtered through Kleenex, the result was a paste.

Joe drilled holes into those stubborn posts; Hugh wrapped this mess in two batches, in paper, and packed a bundle into each hole, tamping with his finger. “Now we wait for it to dry.”

Everything that he used he flushed down with water, then took a bath with his clothes on, removed them in the water and left them, weighted down with rocks. That was all that day.

Our armament includes two lovely ladies’ guns, .22 magnum rimfires with telescopic sights. Hugh had Duke and Joe sight them in. The sighting-in was done with sandbag rest- heaped-up dirt, that is. Hugh had them expend five bullets each, so I knew he was serious. “One bullet, one bear” is his motto.

When the explosive was dry, everything breakable was removed from the shelter. We women were chased far back, Karen was charged with hanging on to Dr. Livingstone, and I was armed with Duke’s bear rifle, just in case.

Duke and Joe were on their bellies a measured hundred feet from the posts. Hugh stood between them. “Ready for count?”