SAND

шесть: 6

She left as the sun edged up, to look over the tank farm again and pick the best hiding spots. The empty, rusting tanks were a dispiriting sight and the place was seldom visited. Still, she must be careful about leaving tracks. That's why several stockpiles would be better than one. She carried her prybar, to loosen the hatches, and a wrench, and a small lump of shpick, to grease the bolts and hinges so they wouldn't shriek.

She chose four tanks, clean inside, with hatches that opened easily. She would place a load in each, to start. She would sort the supplies so that the necessities were available from a single stockpile, to avoid having to visit two or three at a time. That meant keeping lists. She had a notebook that would do.

From the tank farm, she took a circuituous route to the buried house, stopping to scan for followers. When she was in the hoard, sorting another load, she noticed a case on the bottom shelf, at the back. She flashed her headlamp on the label: DANGER. HIGH EXPLOSIVE. DO NOT STORE NEAR ELECTRICAL WIRING OR MECHANICAL DEVICES.

That must be charges for blasting. She wracked her memory. To set off such charges required a detonator and wiring and, perhaps, a battery. You couldn't just light a match and run. Although if you set the stuff on a bonfire, it would certainly blow up. She wondered if it was in sticks or in bricks or something else. Oh, well.

She turned to sorting food, the bulk stuff this time: kasha, flour, rice, dried beans and peas, dry milk, sugar, loose tea (which smelled like heaven when she opened the plastic bucket). She'd brought some bags, cloth and plastic. So far she'd not found anything that was spoiled. It helped that the temperature in the cellar was stable and it wasn't moist.

She filled the net and hauled it up, with a couple more pots and a frypan. When she'd made up he packbasket load, she set all to rights, replacing the planks, spreading sand, making the place look untouched. She set off in a different direction, across the wind so her tracks would be erased.

When she was small, it was hard to walk in the loose sand. She remembered falling, her bum thumping down. But as she grew up, it became natural. Some sand was firm and some would give. She could judge without thinking and adjust her weight and stride. She wondered how much sand was left in the sea, to be washed on shore and blown inland. What if it covers everything? How could we live?

That was a question she couldn't answer. As she trudged toward the green ribbon of heath, she thought about how the supplies could be distributed without a big fight. The men couldn't be trusted: that was plain. But perhaps she might stand a chance executing a plan with the women and girls. That would take some thought.

She crossed the heath to the stone circle, on a low knoll overlooking the sea. She didn't know who had put the stones in place. They'd been here when the first Russian settlers had been dumped on the coast by a ship, to assert Russia's claim, and start building a lighthouse to warn ships off the bars and shoals. She needed to organise the girls to come and clear off the sand that obscured it, which would take a half-day of work. She went down to the beach, to walk back to the village—the rising tide would wash away her tracks.

On the way was the Pegasus, a ramshackle structure of driftwood. A couple of her friends had started building it and invited her to take part. The idea had come from a painting in a book, the winged horse of the Greek myths. They'd work on it, coming or going from the patches of cloudberries, driving rusty nails and binding with old wire, until it was five meters tall and bore a slight resemblance to a horse with wings. It was a monument to their continued existence.