He tried Marty Carnell, just on the off chance. The meteorchewed highways had probably stranded him somewhere on a dog-show circuit—
But Marty answered.
“I’ve done this once before, and it worked out,” Ken told him. “It isn’t that everyone’s starving. Things haven’t got that bad. But anyone’s likely to have a ton of something and none of everything else, and the way to make it work is to get all the food together and make a feast.”
“Sounds good.”
“Okay. Get here around noon—”
“For dinner?”
“Stone soup takes time, and I want sunlight for the mirror. I’d guess we’ll eating all day and night. Come hungry. Have you got meat?”
“I found a meat source early on. I can keep the dogs fed till I run out of money, but it’s horsemeat, Ken. I’ve been eating it myself—”
“Bring it. Can you bring five pounds? Four will do it, and you won’t recognize it when I get through, Marty. I’ve got a great chili recipe. Lots of vegetables.”
The Offutts would have to come by bicycle. Chad Offutt sounded hungry. With no transportation, how the hell were they to get food? How about some bottles of liquor in the saddlebags? Ken agreed, for charity’s sake. Damn near anyone had liquor; what was needed was food.
Ken hung up.
He caught himself humming while he lugged huge pots out into the backyard and set them up around the solar mirror. It seemed almost indecent to be enjoying himself when civilization was falling about his ears. But it did feel good to finally find a use for his hobbies!
The Copeleys had brought everything they’d promised, and yellow chilis too. The pair of guests were a cousin’s daughter and her husband-Halliday and Wilson; she’d kept her maiden name — both much younger than the others, and a little uncomfortable. They seemed eager to help. Ken put them to cutting up the Copeley’s vegetables.
“Save all seeds.”
“Right.”
The lost weight looked nice on Con Donaldson. She chatted while she helped him carry dishes. Things were bad throughout the Los Angeles Basin… yeah, Ken had to agree. Con had tried to get to Phoenix, but her mother kept putting her off, she wouldn’t have room until her brother moved out… and then it was too late, the roads had been chewed by the snouts’ meteors. Yeah, Ken had tried to get out too.
He should have asked someone — to bring dishwashing soap! Someone must have an excess of that.
Marty was cuffing horsemeat into strips. “Could be a lot worse,” he said. “We could be dodging meteors. I can’t figure out what the snouts think they’re doing.”
“They think they’re conquering the Earth,” Ken said. “It’s their methods that’re funny. They’re thorough enough. I haven’t heard of a dam still standing. Have you?”
“No big ones. No big bridges either.”
“But they don’t touch cities.” Could be worse, He might have fled with no destination in mind. Still, it was hard times. Food got in, but not a lot, and not a balanced diet. There would have been no fruit source here without the Copeleys’ oranges and the lemon tree in Graves’ backyard.
Reflected sunlight blazed underneath Ken’s largest pot. The water was beginning to boil. He ladled a measured amount into the chili, then moved it into the focus.
He’d built the solar minor while he was still married, and after the first month he’d almost never used it. They’d gone vegetarian for a few months too, and his wife hadn’t taken the cookbooks with her. He had the recipes, he had the skills to build a balanced meal, and the phones worked sometimes. If the snouts shot those down, he might try to form a commune. His next-door neighbor had fled to the mountains, leaving the keys behind. More important, he’d left a full swimming pool. Covered, to prevent evaporation, the water would last until the fall rains, and the goldfish would keep the mosquitoes down.
Then there was the golf course across the street. The President asked everyone to grow food, especially to put up greenhouses. There wasn’t any water for the golf course, but there were flat areas, good places for tents if the commune got big enough.
When the aliens had blasted Kosmograd, everything had turned serious. So had Kenneth Dutton. Two years before he’d studied greenhouses; but in one two-day spree he’d built one, from plastic and glass and wood and hard work, and goddam had he been proud of himself. It worked! Things grew! You could eat them! He’d built two more before he’d even started the Stone Soup Parties, just because he could.
Past two o’clock, and the Offutts weren’t here yet. Not surprising, if they were on bicycles, especially if malnutrition was getting to them. Sarge Harris hadn’t arrived either. Lateness was less a discourtesy than a cause for worry: had dish-shaped craters begun to sprout in city roads? The snouts had been gone for three weeks, but when might they return? And with what?
