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visitor!”
    Will came down from the bedroom with the Mossberg shotgun open under his arm.
    “ A visitor?” he growled.
    “Look there.”
    The bear was busily sniffing and licking the salt. He looked up at them through the glass door.
    “Oh,” he laughed. “That’s just Walter. He comes by now and again.”
    “He’s not dangerous?”
    “Walter? No, black bears aren’t that aggressive. Now, a grizzly or a brown bear will kill and eat a deer if he can catch one and attack a person if you startle him, but these small black bears aren’t dangerous to people.”
    They went out on the deck. She had her arm around Will’s waist and he around her shoulders. They watched as Walter made a mess of the deer feeder.
    “Why ‘Walter?’” She asked.
    “Why not?”

 
    9 .
     
    As Mary and Will discovered each other through love, the rest of the Western World was rediscovering the art of conversation. Coffee shops which a month ago had been full of people ignoring each other, silently texting on their phones or typing e-mails into their notebook computers, were haltingly trying to actually speak to each other. The coffee shops and other restaurants were using kerosene lamps for light and making their coffee the old fashioned way, but they were in business.
    A way of life, of wit and lively talk was slowly and painfully being rediscovered. There was no choice but for married couples to talk to each other now. There was no more TV, no internet, no modern distractions. If you wanted to see a sporting event you had to walk or bike to the field, buy a ticket and physically watch the game, without an earphone stuck in your ear for commentary.
    Some people discovered that their mates were actually smart and witty if given half a chance, but far more people discovered that conversation for them was a lost art and sat staring at each other and at the silent TV screen as if waiting to be rescued.
    Separations and divorces were being planned. And the canned food and crackers were running out—
     
    The astronauts had struggled for a week after the Event began to try to stay alive.
    Five of the seven solar arrays were still generating electricity but their controllers were fried and there was only one spare that had not been fatally damaged as well. Grigory had made a space walk to get two of the arrays wired to one replacement controller and that had worked for six days. After the last controller failed the temperature in the station began to drop precipitously as the carbon dioxide rose to toxic levels as the scrubbers failed too.
    In the end Baker Sheldon and Grigory had embraced and even kissed, huddled together with their four comrades from other parts of the world, threw a switch and let the vacuum of space flood into the cabin. They were all flash frozen in thirteen seconds and the International Space Station continued its melancholy orbit of the darkened earth below, accompanied by the silent fleet of dead satellites from all nations.
     
     
    The strange thing was that Fred Goodman and his family were actually enjoying their new life among the Amish. At least after a month they could say that. They were helping with the harvest as it was now into September, and pruning fruit trees. The work was healthy and not at all stressful. They were spared the most difficult aspects of Amish life, the constant rush to daily prayer and the domineering supervision of the Bishop and the deacons, who wielded considerable power in community life.
    The Amish were a little in awe of them and gave them room as a family that a single individual would never have gotten. They were taught good farming techniques, which they learned rapidly and participated in group work in the harvest and construction of outbuildings, but they were otherwise left alone.
    Fred had left the twenty-five shotguns and rifles with their ammunition he had bought in two different Maryland gun stores the day of his arrival in the community storehouse near the church. They