the time. Of course there
were things I could do to slow its growth, lots of little gimmicks, in
fact--I was pretty experienced at this business.

* * * * *

For instance, I could take a shot at talking to her pretty soon. For a
catchy starter, I could tell her about Nowhere, how these five other
buggers and me found ourselves independently skulking along after this
scavenging expedition from Porter, how we naturally joined forces in
that situation, how we set a pitfall for their alky-powered jeep and
wrecked it and them, how when our haul turned out to be unexpectedly big
the four of us left from the kill chummied up and padded down together
and amused each other for a while and played games, you might say. Why,
at one point we even had an old crank phonograph going and read some
books. And, of course, how when the loot gave out and the fun wore off,
we had our murder party and I survived along with, I think, a bugger
named Jerry--at any rate, he was gone when the blood stopped spurting,
and I'd had no stomach for tracking him, though I probably should have.

And in return she could tell me how she had killed off her last set of
girlfriends, or boyfriends, or friend, or whatever it was.

After that, we could have a go at exchanging news, rumors and
speculations about local, national and world events. Was it true that
Atlantic Highlands had planes of some sort or were they from Europe?
Were they actually crucifying the Deathlanders around Walla Walla or
only nailing up their dead bodies as dire warnings to others such? Had
Manteno made Christianity compulsory yet, or were they still tolerating
Zen Buddhists? Was it true that Los Alamos had been completely wiped out
by plague, but the area taboo to Deathlanders because of the robot
guards they'd left behind--metal guards eight feet tall who tramped
across the white sands, wailing? Did they still have free love in
Pacific Palisades? Did she know there'd been a pitched battle fought by
expeditionary forces from Ouachita and Savannah Fortress? Over the loot
of Birmingham, apparently, after yellow fever had finished off that
principality. Had she rooted out any "observers" lately?--some of the
"civilized" communities, the more "scientific" ones, try to maintain a
few weather stations and the like in the Deathlands, camouflaging them
elaborately and manning them with one or two impudent characters to whom
we give a hard time if we uncover the