Alice Cox trotted up to them. “Senator wants to see you up at the big house, Mr. Randall.”

“Good.” Harvey gratefully carried the sledge over to the wall and left it for someone else to use. He squinted up at the sun to estimate how much daylight was left, then called to Mark. “You may as well go on back,” he said. “You can put in the rest of the day on the cabin.”

“Right.” Mark waved cheerfully and started up the hill toward the small house where Harvey, the Hamners, Mark and Joanna, and all four Wagoners lived. It was crowded, and they were building on extra rooms, but it was shelter, and there was enough to eat. It was survival.

Harvey went the other way, downhill toward the Senator’s stone ranch house. It had additions built onto it, too. In one of them Jellison kept the Stronghold’s armory: spare rifles, cartridges, two field-artillery pieces (but no ammunition) that had been part of a National Guard training center before it was flooded out, hand-loading equipment to reload shotgun shells and rifle cartridges, loot recovered from a gunsmith’s shop in Porterville. The dies had been underwater and were rusty, but they still worked. Powder and primers had been sealed in tins that hadn’t yet rusted through when they were recovered, although that had been a near thing too.

In another annex the Senator’s son-in-law sat with a telegraph and radio. The telegraph at present ran only to the roadblock on the county road, and there was nothing coming in on the radio, but they had hopes of extending the telegraph lines. Besides, it gave Jack Turner something to do. He wasn’t good for a lot else, and he did know Morse code. He might as well be a telephone orderly, Harvey thought. Turner’s only attempt to supervise a ranch project had been a disaster, with the men finally going to the Senator and demanding Turner’s replacement…

Turner hailed him as he went past. “Hey, Randalll”

“Hello, Jack. What’s new?”

“We’ve got another President. A Hector Shorey of Colorado Springs. He proclaims martial law.”

Jack Turner seemed to think that was funny, and so did Harvey. He said, “Everybody always proclaims martial law.”

“Littman didn’t.”

“Yeah, I liked Emperor Pro Tem Charles Avery Littman. Even if he was getting most of his material out of ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus.’ The others were too damn serious.”

“Shorey’s group sounds serious enough. I got some good recordings through the static.”

“Hold the fort, Jack,” Harvey said, and he went on. Four Presidents now, he thought. Littman was just a ham radio operator, and half mad. But Colorado Springs… that was near Denver, a mile above sea level. That could be for real.

The big front room was crowded. This was no ordinary meeting. The Senator sat near the fireplace in the big leather armchair that reminded Harvey of a throne — and was probably meant to. Maureen sat on one side, and Al Hardy on the other, heiress and chief of staff.

Mayor Seitz and the police chief were there; and Steve Cox, Jellison’s ranch foreman, the man now responsible for most of the agriculture in the valley; and half a dozen others who spoke for the valley people. And of course George Christopher, alone in one corner, with only one vote, though it counted for as much as the rest together except for Maureen’s.

Harvey smiled at Maureen. He got a quick impersonal smile and nod, nobody home, and he pulled his eyes away fast.

Bloody hell! She wore two faces, and so did he. Maureen had been up to see him in the hut at the top of the ridge several times when Harvey had night guard duty. She’d met him at other times and places, too, but always very privately. It was always the same. They talked of the future, but never of their future, because she wouldn’t. They made love with care and tenderness, as if they might never meet again; they made love, but never promises. She seemed to draw strength from him, as he knew he did from her; but never in public. It was as if Maureen had an armed, jealous, invisible husband. In public she barely knew him.

But in public she treated George Christopher no differently. She was a bit more friendly, but still cold. He wasn’t her invisible husband… was he? Was she different with him when they were alone? Harvey couldn’t know.

These thoughts ran through his head before an old reflex pushed them down below conscious thought. He didn’t have time for them. Harvey Randall wanted something, and these were the men who could refuse him. It was a familiar situation.

“Come in, Harvey.” Senator Jellison had not lost the warm smile that had won him elections. “We can start now. Thank you all for coming. I thought it might be wise to get a full report on how things are here.”

“Any reason for doing it now?” George Christopher asked.

Jellison’s smile didn’t falter. “Yes, George. Several. We have word from the telegraph that Deke Wilson’s coming in for a visit. Brought some visitors, too.”

“There’s news from Outside?” Mayor Seitz asked.

“Some,” Jellison said. “Al, would you begin, please?”

Hardy took papers from his briefcase and began to read. How many acres cleared of rocks, and how much they’d be able to plant in winter wheat. Livestock inventory. Weapons, and equipment. Most of the people in the room looked bored before Hardy finished. “The upshot is,” Hardy said, “that we’ll make it through the winter. With luck.”

That got their interest.

“It’ll be close,” Hardy warned. “We’ll get damned hungry before spring. But we’ve got a chance. We’ve even got medical supplies — not enough, but some — and Doc Valdemar’s clinic is set up and running.” Hardy paused for a moment. “Now for the bad news. Harvey Randall’s people have been looking over the dams and powerhouses above here. They can’t get them working again. Too much washed out. And out of the lists of stuff the engineering people have asked for, we don’t have a quarter of the supplies. It’ll be a while before we rebuild much of a civilization here.”

“Hell, we’re civilized,” Police Chief Hartman said. “Almost no crime, and we’ll have enough to eat, and we’ve got a doctor and a clinic and most of us have plumbing. What more do we need?”

“Electricity would be nice,” Harvey Randall said.

“Sure, but we can live without it,” Chief Hartman said. “Goddam. We can live till spring.”

And Harvey felt his joy. The journey to the Stronghold had been a terrible time: the end of the world passing in endless agony… and goddam! Listen to us now, talking like it isn’t enough just to be alive! I could have been turned away, sent down the road…

“I think I would express thanks in a more positive way,” Reverend Varley said. “We should be singing hosannas.” The minister’s expression was grim, in contrast to his words. “Of course the cost has been high. Perhaps, Chief, you have said it correctly after all—”

Senator Jellison cleared his throat to get their attention. The room fell silent.

“There’s a bit more news,” Jellison said. “We have a new claimant to the office of President of the United States. Hector Shorey.”

“Who the devil is Hector Shorey?” George Christopher demanded.

“Speaker of the House. Newly selected by the party caucus. I don’t even remember the House taking a formal vote. Still, his claim is the best we’ve heard, and the Colorado Springs government at least talks like it’s still in charge of the country.”

“I could do that myself,” Christopher said.

The Senator laughed. “No, George, you couldn’t. I could.”

“Who cares?” George Christopher was belligerent. “They can’t help us and they can’t jail us. They’d have to fight their way through all the other United States Governments, and even then they can’t get to us. Why do we give a damn what they say?”

Al Hardy said, “I point out that Colorado Springs probably has the largest military detachment surviving in this part of the world. The cadets at the Academy. The NORAD — North American Air Defense — command under Cheyenne Mountain. Ent Air Force Base. And at least a regiment of mountain troops.”