Catrin brought the puffy-eyed Leona into the house where the party had been set up. All activity stopped and everyone looked at her.

After a few moments of silence, Catrin said, "She's pregnant and she's afraid."

"Oh," Xeng said, coming across to the two women, "you should not be afraid. I have studied this." He took one of her hands in his.

"It'll be our first original member," Winch said. "That's great."

"I'll be in terrible pain and I could die!" Leona said, starting to sob.

"Oh, not likely," Xeng said. "I even have now...." He looked back over his shoulder at Martin.

"We have home-grown painkillers now," Martin said. He explained how Xeng made it and how the manufactured drugs they had now would soon become ineffective. "I told Xeng there wouldn't be a problem with this."

"It's opium," Paul said quietly. "It's illegal."

Ignoring Paul, Catrin said, "Of all the things we might need, I'd put a painkiller at the top of the list."

"I agree," Jan-Louise said. "What if someone gets appendicitis? What's Xeng supposed to do, just say, 'Hold still, please'?"

Winch was nodding. "I say we need it. Top priority."

"I just don't want it to hurt," Leona whined. "Paul? Paul, say yes."

Paul might have nodded.

"If we have it, we can use it or not," Catrin said, "and Leona or I may need it, or not."

Martin turned to stare at her. "Why?"

"Can you guess?" Catrin asked with a smile.

"I-" Words failed him.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Winch said, coming forward, awkwardly balancing a tray of glasses filled with wine and soda with his good hand and sling-arm, "ladies and gentlemen, a toast to the day Martin Lake had nothing to say! A toast to our children, present and future!"

They lifted their glasses and drank.

"I was going to announce it today," Catrin said, "but Leona upstaged me."

They sat at the loaded table and passed the plates around, filling each other's plates, serving one another, and ate until they were tired.

When it was dark, Winch lit the brilliant pink-burning flares, and announced that it was time for his surprise.

He brought out his saxophone and, surrounded by light, he played "Happy Birthday" for the children. Then, slowly, lazily, he played "Summertime," and it brought back to Martin the memories of hearing it before the catastrophe, when it meant something so different.

Martin felt tears run down his cheeks for all they had lost and all they had gained.

Isha retired to the front of the house, away from the sputtering flares and the noise of the people. She lay just inside the bars of the front gate, her muzzle resting on her front paws.

An instant before she saw Mona, she smelled her. Out of the darkness, black Mona materialized without a whisper of sound, and stepped through the bars of the gate. Mona had grown huge during the cooler months.

Mona came closer and Isha smelled something else now, too. In her mouth, Mona held a long chunk of meat that hung halfway to the ground from each side of her jaws. She stretched her neck forward and dropped the meat at the end of Isha's nose. Then Mona backed away two steps and sat down and watched.

Isha stood and nosed it and turned it over. Yes, this gift was something she would like.

She held it down with her front paws and bit into it and pulled away. After ripping and swallowing several bites, she backed off a step and waited for Mona to have what was left. Soon there was nothing but a wet spot on the cement. Mona then cleaned herself as they listened to the noises of the humans inside the house, talking, laughing, and singing.

Chapter 55.

There was no rain during the warm December. During the long nights, by moonlight they would watch immense, sky-spanning V's of geese cross the sky. In February, daffodils bloomed, and by the beginning of March, there had been only three inches of rain.

"Do you think Mother Nature's trying to tell us something?"

"I think she's saying we've messed with her long enough, and now I think she's going after the snivelers. It's time to think about moving out. Whatever water we get, we'll have to pump out, and I don't know if we can scrounge up enough gasoline to hold us through next summer. Any kind of garden is highly doubtful."

Martin didn't like to think about it. "If we don't have any rain, I don't see any point in staying here another summer. We'll probably have to move eventually. I guess we should give it some thought and be ready."

"I guess. How would we do it?"

"Skate?" Martin asked.

Winch laughed and shook his head. "That Diaz was some guy. Suppose he'll ever come back?"

Chapter 56.

Diaz lay flat on the saddle, throttled it, and even over the whining roar of the bike, he could hear bullets making a slicing sound as they cut the air around him. He hoped she was a bad shot, because if she hit him, he'd take it in the ass, and he sure didn't want to get shot there - anywhere else he'd take his chances - but not in the ass.

He twisted the throttle tight, felt the back tire lose tracton, spin sideways- Fly, baby! Fly! -then grab the pavement as more bullets zinged past his head. Not in the ass, he was thinking, and, How big a magazine does that thing have?

Around the corner and out of range, Diaz sat straight up, let his hair blow back, the sweat dry off, and rode like the wind, a casual eighty, ninety-mile-an-hour breeze at a hundred and ten decibels. Passing abandoned cars, passing grain storage elevators, passing neatly arranged car lots, leaving it all behind him. That was freedom! Gradually, through the afternoon, he felt the pressure of his mania begin to dissipate. It had to happen.

He told her he'd be back for her. He probably wouldn't, but he meant it when he said it. He told her he loved her - told her that a lot over the last months - and he meant it, too - but like a migrating bird, he had movement wired into his head. When he was up-cycle, he had to go, he had to roll, and when he was down, the world was a suckhole of waste and loss and half the dials in his brain were set to zero.

Kansas City - wasted. A grotesque disneyland of weird burned-out shapes and vine-crawling ruins, but the muddy Missouri River kept on rolling. Midway through the city, mile long swarms of rats, as vast as the old buffalo herds, spilled across the freeway, traveling from one blown-out grain storage area to another. Diaz put the kickstand down and sat on his bike and watched the herd spread toward him and run between his tires, surrounding him... millions of gray and black rat backs, skittering and humping toward more food.

Diaz talked to them, yelled encouragement, waved them forward, recited to them, and preached.

"Diaz is an island! Surrounded by the rivering flocks of the true successors of Man! Go, my children! Go and multiply! Seed the earth! Slay those who set up nations, eat those who set up laws, throw into the chasm those who claim enlightenment, for they are the in the grip of delusion! Remember Mickey, and onward!"

For an hour, they roiled and swarmed, and when their tide receded, Diaz fired up his Harley and rolled on, like the wind.

Outside Ames, Iowa, a hailstorm cut him up badly, but he rode on, wind-whipped blood flying from his knuckles and into the past behind him. In his rearview mirror, he laughed at his blood-streaked face - from the ice-nicks and punctures, the blood made weird branching patterns back into his hair.

East from Ames, in the cloud-streaked twilight, just a dozen yards off the road, he saw two men and a woman hoeing in a garden. They looked up and waved and yelled something at him. He didn't understand, but he waved back and yelled, "Power to the people!"

He saw them laugh and wave again but he rode on. They might have been nice people and he would have had to stay, but he had too much juice in him, too many vibrations, too many free radicals in his blood needing the fix of physical speed.

Chicago - long dead bodies on the freeway, bones scattered by animals through the central part of the city which, surprisingly, still looked habitable. When he slowed up, he heard the pops of gunfire, figured he didn't need that, and gassed it.

Up into Michigan, he rode on through Kalamazoo where someone threw rocks at him from an overpass. Rode on through Battle Creek where he saw wolves at the edge of the freeway eyeing him suspiciously.

He rode on, rode on, draining gas from abandoned cars, once from a gas truck, and as he left it, he flicked a match into the spill. Five miles down the road, he heard the blast and entered the Detroit city limits with the bang.

Since it was daylight, Diaz cruised around till he found the Ford factory. The gates stood half open and the wind pressed year-old newspapers against the chainlink fence. Through a few dark offices and unlocked doors, he found one of the assembly lines. Huge dim shapes of frozen robot welders rose over him, their hydraulic fluids cold and stale inside the heavy hoses. The air smelled of dust and oil.

He walked a little further in, threading his way through the equipment and around the engineless car bodies that lay shiny and open, like patients waiting for hearts. He thought he saw a flickering light ahead and tried to move slowly, which was not easy for him.

It was candle light, and he could now hear low whispering voices.

Around the next robot pedestal, he saw the gathering. A dozen or so men knelt before candles, their hands held in prayer under their chins as they whispered rhythmic words. At their knees were a few socket wrenches, pliers and screwdrivers.

After prayers, a hefty man in grease-stained gray coveralls passed around small metal bowls of soup and led a discussion of the excellent qualities of the cars they had once owned. One man praised an '06 Camaro. Another sweet-dreamed a '94 Malibu. One spoke in reverential tones about the '84 Chevy van he'd had as a teenager. "That was life," he concluded. "That was real life."

And this, Diaz thought, was a real bummer. He never had much feel for cars. He found a near exit.

Through the night, he rode along the north shore of Lake Erie, toward the light of Lake Ontario. As far as he could see, the lake burned. Smoke-blackened flames roared from the surface, turning the night orange. As he rode, the left side of his body cooked and the right side chilled. Twenty miles later, approaching Niagara Falls, the lake still burned, and sometimes oily smoke blew across the highway, blinding him. He twisted up the throttle.

Even the river connecting Lakes Ontario and Erie burned, though the flames were fainter orange and licked lazily only a few feet above the surface. When the river dumped over the falls, they were extinguished.

In the cold hazy light of morning, Diaz rode on, full of life, loaded with expectations, bugs plastered to his face, heading East to New York, capital of the world!

Chapter 57.

No rain through March, a few sprinkles in late April, 101 on May 30, and by June 15, most of what they had planted had cooked in the ground. It was time to consider moving.

Since Catrin and Leona were now seven months pregnant, it was decided that the move would wait until after they delivered; they would muddle through until the Fall, when the babies would be several months old, and then move. In the meantime, Xeng assiduously watched the videos on childbirth that he had collected. And as always, Solomon was there beside him, occasionally pressing the pause button to ask a question. Xeng examined the women weekly, and although Leona made it clear that she thought that this was unnecessary, she complied and griped.

On a nearby farm, Martin located a fifteen-foot truck that Winch worked on and had running after several weeks. Gallon by gallon, gasoline was collected, tediously filtered, and stored in jerry cans until they had enough for two hundred miles, although no destination had been finally decided. "The gas situation is getting bad," Winch said one day. "We've got all we can find within foot transport, and now I have to use almost as much driving to find it as I collect."

"Maybe we need to think about horses."

"Could be about that time," Winch said.

"Do you know anything about horses?"

"Horses?" Winch looked blank for a moment. "They have to have their shoes nailed on."

June 14th, Catrin went into labor and Martin helped her across the street and into the room that Xeng had arranged as the delivery room. Xeng examined her and grinned and rubbed his hands together. "Just like movies show," he said. And, as always, Solomon stood nearby, wide-eyed, craning his neck to see what was going on.

Martin sat next to Catrin and held her hand.

"I cut my nails yesterday," Catrin said between contractions. "I didn't want to hurt your hand."

"Always two steps ahead," he said, touching her face. "My Catrin."

Between breaths, she said, "If I get mean, I want to apologize now."

Solomon stood at Martin's side and put his hand on Catrin's arm. "You'll be okay, Mommy. Me and Xeng know what to do."

"You're going to be our doctor when you grow up, aren't you," she said.

"I will."

"He learns fast," Xeng said. "He would be an excellent doctor."

So that was his special aptitude, Martin was thinking. Always looking at bugs, looking in Isha's ears or at Mona's paws or feeling her bones and muscles through her skin. He would be the one to keep them well.

Another contraction drew her head off the pillow and her fingers dug into Martin's hand. Solomon's eyes widened.

"All ready for the new baby now?" Xeng said, lowering himself to one knee.

"Any time," Catrin breathed. "Soon. Sooner even."

Jan-Louise had a small silver-bowled pipe in her hand which she lit and puffed on three or four times to get it going. She held the stem-end near Catrin's lips. "Here," she said, "it tastes like shit, but it beats a spinal."

She hesitated.

"It's okay, Mommy," Solomon said. "I help Xeng make it."

She inhaled a bit of smoke, made a face and blew it out. Jan-Louise held it near her lips again and she took more. Five contractions later, Catrin said, "Have I been bitchy yet?"

He pushed strings of wet hair off her forehead. "No, you haven't."