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when she thrust the role of father onto
Joshua almost immediately. And undoubtedly that had helped Joshua develop by
obliging him from early childhood to assume the role of man rather than boy. Not
ever one to shirk responsibility, her firstborn. Not one to complain,
either.

     
     
    And in the big front room of the second
floor (he shared this floor with his mother and sister, leaving the top floor to
be divided between his married brothers), Dr Joshua Christian prepared for bed.
His mother always put a hot-water bottle in the middle of it, but the moment he
climbed in he always shoved it down indifferently to his feet and lay without
feeling the cold, even on the thirty-below nights when on waking he found his
hair frozen to the fabric of his pillow. He did wear his Dr Denton's, and a pair
of hand-knitted socks, but no nightcap ever invented remained on his head, and
his sleep pattern was so restless his mother had been obliged to deal with his
down bedclothes by sewing them up into a kind of sleeping bag, much narrower and
more confining than the German down cocoons the rest of the
family — and the rest of America — used.
    Someone had to tell them, all those
bewildered people wandering out there afraid and crying in this craven new
world. If you cannot grow babies, grow potted plants in the winter and
vegetables in the summer, find work for your hands and plenty of challenge for
your brains. And if the God of your church no longer seems to bear any
relationship to your plight and your way of seeing the universe, have the
courage to strike out to find your own God. Don't waste your years in grief!
Don't curse a central government that has no choice, only remember that the
choice was forced upon it. Only remember that you can keep yourself and America
alive if you give the children of the future an ethic and a dream tailored to
suit them. Don't wish for what might have been, for what your mother and
grandmother had in plenty and your great-grandmother in excess. One is
infinitely better and greater than none! One is a hundred percent more than
zero. One is beauty. One is love. One perfect one is worth a hundred genetically
warped ones. One is one is one is one is one is…
2
    There had been a faint powdering of snow,
but nothing slippery enough to slow the buses down, and the temperature hovered
just sufficiently above freezing to take the fear out of walking.
    Dr Judith Carriol sat about halfway down
the cold and stuffy bus, her furs wrapped about her tightly. Inside them she was
too warm, but they were a barricade against the man pressing himself hard along
her thigh. Her stop was approaching; she reached a gloved hand up to pull the
bell cord, then rose to give the man battle in earnest. Sure enough, he was not
about to let her climb across him unmolested, his hand was groping under her
sable hem while his eyes stared straight and innocent ahead. The bus was slowing
down. Her foot encountered his, and she brought the full force of her thin high
heel down on the base of his toes. He had guts, give him that. He didn't scream,
only jerked his foot away and withdrew himself from all contact with her. From
the aisle she turned to quiz him derisively with brows and eyes, then sidled
between the seats to the front of the bus as it came to a final squealing
halt.
    Oh, for a car! Insulation against the
likes of the smarting predator back there in the bus alone. When a man boarded a
bus empty save for one woman, and sat himself down next to that woman, she knew
exactly what she was in for; an uncomfortable ride, to say the least. And it was
no use appealing to the driver for help, he never wanted to know.
    Half expecting the man to make a
last-minute leap off the bus, she stood militantly on the sidewalk at the stop without moving until the
lumbering vehicle
    pulled away, unpleating its accordion
middle with a groan. His eyes were glaring at her through the grubby window; she