After the Collapse

to wood-spoked iron-rimmed wheels.

Four men sat on the rig, two abreast. Dressed in homespun and leathers, they sported big holstered side arms. The guns were formed of ceramic barrels and chambers, and carved grips. Small gasketed pump handles protruded from the rear of each gun. Pertinax knew the weapons operated on compressed air and fired only non- explosive projectiles. Still, sometimes the darts could be poison-tipped. A rack of rifles of similar construction lay within easy reach. The driver, busy with his tiller-style steering mechanism and several levers, was plainly a simple laborer. The other three occupants seemed dignitaries of some sort. Or so at least Pertinax deduced, judging from various colorful ribbons pinned to their chests and sashes draped over their shoulders.

Surprised by the solid rank of mounted wardens, looming high over the car like a living wall across the dump road, the Overclockers reacted with varying degrees of confusion. But soon the driver managed to bring his steam cart to a halt, and the three officials had regained a measure of diplomatic aplomb. The passenger in the front seat climbed down, and approached Pertinax and friends. Leery of the stranger, the Kodiak Kangemus unsheathed their long thick claws a few inches. The awesome display brought the man to a halt a few meters away. He spoke, looking up and shielding his eyes against the sun.

“Hail, wardens! My name is Brost, and these comrades of mine are Kemp and Sitgrave, my assistants. As the Mayor of Chicago, I welcome you to our fair city.”

Pertinax studied Brost from above, seeing a poorly shaven, sallow baseline Homo sapiens with a shifty air about his hunched shoulders. Some kind of harsh perfume failed to mask completely a fug of fear and anxiety crossing the distance between Brost and Pertinax’s sharp nostrils.

Sylvanus, as eldest, spoke for the wardens. “We accept your welcome, Mayor Brost. But I must warn you that we are not here for any simple cordial visit. We have good reason to believe that certain factions among your people are planning to tamper with the tropospheric mind. We have come to investigate, and to remove any such threats we may discern.”

The Mayor smiled uneasily, while his companions fought not to exchange nervous sidelong glances among themselves.

“Tamper with those lofty, serene intelligences, who concern themselves not at all with our poor little lives? What reason could we have for such a heinous assault? No, the charge is ridiculous, even insulting. I can categorically refute it here and now. Your mission has been for naught. You might as well save yourself any further wearisome journeying by camping here for the night before heading home. We will bring you all sorts of fine provisions—”

“That cannot be. We must make our own investigations. Will you allow us access to your village?”

Mayor Brost huddled with his assistants, then faced the wardens again. “As I said, the city of Chicago welcomes you, and its doors are open.”

Pertinax repressed a grin at the Mayor’s emphasis on “city,” but he knew the other wardens had caught this token of outraged human dignity as well.

With much back-and-forward-and-back maneuvering, the driver finally succeeded in turning around the steam cart. Matching the gait of their hoppers to the slower passage of the cart, the wardens followed the delegation back to “Chicago.”

Beginning with outlying cabins where half-naked children played in the summer dust of their yards along with mongrels and livestock, and continuing all the way to the “city” center, where a few larger buildings hosted such establishments as blacksmiths, saloons, public kitchens and a lone bath house, the small collection of residences and businesses that was “Chicago”—scattered along the lake’s margins according to no discernible scheme— gradually assembled itself around the newcomers. Mayor Brost, evidently proud of his domain, pointed out sights of interest as they traversed the “urban” streets, down the middles of which flowed raw sewage in ditches.

“You see how organized our manufactories are,” said Brost, indicating some long low windowless sheds flanked by piles of waste byproducts: wood shavings, coal clinkers, metal shavings. “And here’s the entrance to our mines.” Brost pointed to a shack that sheltered a pit-like opening descending into the earth at a slant.

“Oh,” said Cimabue, “you’re smelting and refining raw metals these days?”

Mayor Brost exhibited a sour chagrin. “Not yet. There’s really no need. We feel it’s most in harmony with, uh, our beloved mother earth to recycle the buried remnants of our ancestors’ civilization. There’s plenty of good metal and plastic down deep where the Upflowered sequestered the rubble they left after their redesign of the globe. Plenty for everyone.”

“And what exactly is your population these days, Mayor?” inquired Tanselle.

“Nearly five thousand.”

Tanselle shook her head reflectively, as if to say, thought Pertinax, Would that it were even fewer.

After some additional civic boosterism the party—considerably enlarged by various gawking hangers-on— arrived at a large, grassy town square, where goats and sheep grazed freely. Ranked across the lawn, tethered securely, were several small lighter-than-air balloons with attached gondolas of moderate size. The shiny lacquered patchwork fabric of the balloons lent them a circus air belied by the solemn unease which the Mayor and his cohorts eyed the balloons.

Immediately, Pertinax’s ears pricked forward at this unexpected sight and the humans’ nervous regard for the objects. “What are these for?” he asked.

Mayor Brost replied almost too swiftly. “Oh, these little toys have half a dozen uses. We send up lightweight volunteers to spy out nearby bison herds so that our hunting parties will save some time and trouble. We make surveys from the air for our road-building. And of course, the children enjoy a ride now and then. The balloons won’t carry much more weight than a child.”

“I’d like to examine them.”

“Certainly.”

Pertinax clambered down off Flossy. Standing among the humans, the top of his head just cleared their belt buckles. He was soon joined by his fellow wardens, who moved through the crowd like a band of determined furry dwarves.

The balloons featured no burners to inflate their straining shapes. Pertinax inquired as to their source of gas.

Highlighting the mechanisms, Mayor Brost recited proudly. “Each balloon hosts a colony of methanogenic bacteria and a food supply. Increasing the flow of nutrients makes more gas. Closing the petcocks shuts them down.”

Pertinax stepped back warily from his close-up inspection of the balloons. “They’re highly explosive then.”

“I suppose. But we maintain adequate safety measures around them.”

The wardens regrouped off to one side and consulted quietly among themselves.

“Any explosion of this magnitude in the tropospheric mind would do no more damage than a conventional rain squall,” said Cimabue.

“Agreed,” said Chellapilla. “But what if the explosion was meant to disperse some kind of contaminant carried as cargo?”

“Such as?” asked Tanselle.

“No suitably dangerous substance occurs to me at the moment,” Sylvanus said, stroking his chin whiskers.

“Nonetheless,” cautioned Pertinax, “I have a feeling that here lies the danger facing the tropospheric mind. Let us continue our investigations for the missing part of the puzzle.”

Pertinax returned to address the Mayor. “Our mounts need to forage, while we continue our inspection of your town. We propose to leave them here on the green. They will not bother people or livestock, but you should advise your citizens not to molest them. The Kangemu are trained to deal harshly with threats to themselves or their masters.”

“There will of course be no such problems,” said the Mayor.

Sylvanus advised splitting their forces into two teams for swifter coverage of the human settlement, while he himself, in deference to his age and tiredness, remained behind with their mounts to coordinate the searching. Naturally, Pertinax chose to team up with Chellapilla.

The subsequent hours found Pertinax and his lover roaming unhindered through every part of the human