Farnham's Freehold Read Online Free PDF Page B

Seconal, and Miltown. “Water, anyone?”
    Duke said, “I don’t want anything interfering with the liquor.”
    “Water, please,” Barbara answered. “It’s so hot.”
    “How hot is it, Daddy?”
    “Duke, I put the thermometer in the tank room. Go see, will you?”
    “Sure. And may I use that rain check?”
    “Certainly.” Hugh gave Karen another Seconal capsule, another Miltown pill, and told Barbara that she must take a Miltown—then took one himself, having decided that Dexedrine had made him edgy. Duke returned.
    “One hundred and four degrees,” he announced. “I opened the valve another quarter turn. All right?”
    “Have to open it still wider soon. Here are your pills, Duke—a double dose of Seconal and a Miltown.”
    “Thanks.” Duke swallowed them, chased them with whisky. “I’m going to sleep on the floor, too. Coolest place in the house.”
    “Smart of you. All right, let’s settle down. Give the pills a chance.”
    Hugh sat with Karen after she bedded down, then gently extracted his hand from hers and returned to the tank room. The temperature was up two degrees. He opened the valve on the working tank still wider, listened to it sigh to emptiness, shook his head, got a wrench and shifted the gauge to a full tank. Before he opened it, he attached a hose, led it out into the main room. Then he went back to pretending to play solitaire.
    A few minutes later Barbara appeared in the doorway. “I’m not sleepy,” she said. “Could you use some company?”
    “You’ve been crying.”
    “Does it show? I’m sorry.”
    “Come sit down. Want to play cards?”
    “If you want to. All I want is company.”
    “We’ll talk. Would you like another drink?”
    “Oh, would I! Can you spare it?”
    “I stocked plenty. Barbara, can you think of a better night to have a drink? But both of us will have to see to it that the other one doesn’t go to sleep.”
    “All right. I’ll keep you awake.”
    They shared a cup, Scotch with water from the tank. It poured out as sweat faster than they drank it. Hugh increased the gas flow again and found that the ceiling was unpleasantly hot. “Barbara, the house must have burned over us. There is thirty inches of concrete above us and then two feet of dirt.”
    “How hot do you suppose it is outside?”
    “Couldn’t guess. We must have been close to the fireball.” He felt the ceiling again. “I beefed this thing up—roof, walls, and floor are all one steel-reinforced box. It was none too much. We may have trouble getting the doors open. All this heat—And probably warped by concussion.”
    She said quietly, “Are we trapped?”
    “No, no. Under these bottles is a hatch to a tunnel. Thirty inch culvert pipe with concrete around it. Leads to the gully back of the garden. We can break out—crowbars and a hydraulic jack—even if the end is crushed in and covered with crater glass. I’m not worried about that; I’m worried about how long we can stay inside…and whether it will be safe when we leave.”
    “How bad is the radioactivity?”
    He hesitated. “Barbara, would it mean anything to you? Know anything about radiation?”
    “Enough. I’m majoring—I was majoring—in botany; I’ve used isotopes in genetics experiments. I can stand bad news, Hugh, but not knowing—well, that’s why I was crying.”
    “Mmm—The situation is worse than I told Duke.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Integrating counter back of the bottles. Go look.”
    She went to it, stayed several minutes. When she came back, she sat down without speaking. “Well?” he asked.
    “Could I have another drink?”
    “Certainly.” He mixed it.
    She sipped it, then said quietly, “If the slope doesn’t change, we’ll hit the red line by morning.” She frowned. “But that marks a conservative limit. If I remember the figures, we probably won’t start vomiting for at least another day.”
    “Yes. And the curve should level off soon. That’s why heat