arched over them. It was some kind of gigantic arboretum. Completely enclosed, walls rising all around. Mortimer could see blue sky and the towers on either side, but that was all.
An ancient woman tended a dozen goats. There were also chickens and a few ducks. The old woman wore a loose, flowing white gown of light cotton and walked barefoot among the animals. She spotted Ruth and Mortimer, approached and curtsied, her old joints creaking.
“Hello, Ruth. Hello, mister.” Her voice sounded like a rusty hinge.
Ruth smiled. “And how are the goats today, Felicity?”
“My mommy says if I milk them all before dinner I’m to have a treat.”
Mortimer stared at the old woman.
“You’re a good girl, Felicity. Run along and make sure the goats stay out of the tomatoes this time.”
Felicity trotted back to the goats, tittering, a creepy burlesque of a little girl’s giggle.
Mortimer looked at Ruth. “Is she okay?”
“She has a good way with animals,” Ruth said. “Come on. I have so much to show you.”
Mortimer followed, a little dazed.
They passed through a storage area marked RECREATIONAL EQUIPMENT. Croquet mallets, a Ping-Pong table, Frisbees, horseshoes, a soccer ball and other sporting gear. Mortimer noticed three large archery targets but neither bows nor arrows.
Ruth took him to the first sublevel, where a big hydroponics setup impressed Mortimer. Ruth explained that they grew a variety of sprouts as well as carrots and other vegetables. They had several books on gardening and hydroponics in the hospital library. Gardening had been considered very good therapy during the hospital’s heyday, and they’d started with a good variety of seeds.
They paused to watch a young girl about Ruth’s age plant seedlings into small plastic pots lined in neat rows. She had bland brown hair, pale, sickly skin and bone-thin arms and legs. And white bedroom slippers.
“Hello, Emma.”
“Hello, R-Ruth.”
Ruth said, “This is Mortimer. He’s been sent to us. I’m showing him the ways of the society.”
Mortimer nodded. “Hi.”
Like the others, Emma looked at him like he was from Mars. “H-hello.”
“What have we here?” Ruth picked up one of the seedlings, squinted at it.
“B-banana p-peppers,” Emma said.
“Emma has quite a green thumb.” Ruth passed the seedling to Mortimer.
He looked at it briefly before setting it back on the table. “Great.”
A panicked, high-pitched noise popped out of Emma’s mouth. She bent over the seedling, lined it up exactly with the rest of the seedlings in the row. She examined it from every angle, making sure it was perfectly aligned.
“She likes things just right,” Ruth said.
Mortimer smiled weakly. “Who doesn’t?”
She showed him through the kitchens, then took him down another level. She opened a big steel door, and Mortimer balked at the darkness and the damp smell. But Ruth took a lantern hanging from the wall and flipped it on. It hummed and buzzed to life, casting a blue glow on the rough cavern walls beyond. She led, and he followed.
The tunnel’s low ceiling was a mere two inches from his head, but it soon opened into a wide cave. The sound of rushing water. She held up the lantern, showing Mortimer the pool of water, the underground river flowing in one side and out the other. Mortimer thought of his own caves, where he’d hidden from the world for so long.
“We catch fish here,” Ruth said. “This isn’t the drinking water. The hospital has a system fed by a very deep well. But we have plans to put in a hydroelectric waterwheel here if the solar panels on the roof give out. There are complete diagrams for how to build a waterwheel in a book in the hospital library.”
She took Mortimer through the rest of the hospital, showing him inconsequential nooks and crannies. The entire time something about the place nagged at him, something beyond the general strangeness of the people he’d met. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“How many live here?” Mortimer asked.
“Eighty-eight,” said Ruth. “Fewer than in the old times.”
“The old times?”
“Before. The time before the society.”
Right.
A large room with many shelves and books was obviously the hospital library. Ruth credited the written knowledge within for a good portion of the society’s survival. Everything anyone needed to know, she claimed, was written down in one book or another. How to make soap or repair a furnace or catch fish or set a broken arm or… well…anything.
Mortimer wandered while Ruth chattered on about the wonders of the library, her bubbly voice fading to background music. He drifted toward a wall where several framed newspaper articles hung. The newspaper had yellowed almost to brown. He scanned the headlines and photos.
