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xthe10thdoctor If you didn't catch it before, the story behind this is that I took freshman composition from Joe Sanders when I was still in community college. After that, I took five more classes with him: SF novel, SF short story, Fantasy novel, Fantasy short story, and Contemporary Fiction. In at least four of these, I had to read "Bears Discover Fire" for credit. After reading it for about the fifteenth time, I wrote the following interpretation, with apologies to Terry Bisson, who has seen it; Joe evidently mailed it to him years ago.
************************************
I was driving with my brother, the chaplain, and my nephew, the chaplain's son, on a highway just north of Fairchild Air Force Base when we got a flat. It was Sunday night and we had been to visit Mother at the Senior Center in Spokane. We were in my staff car. The flat caused what you might call knowing groans since, as the old-fashioned one in my family (so they tell me), I let the motor pool fix old tires, and my brother is always telling me to get radials because the Pentagon can afford new tires.
But if you have men who can mount and fix tires, you can keep unit costs down to almost nothing.
Since it was a left rear tire, I pulled over to the left, onto the median grass. The way the Jeep stumbled to a stop, I figured the tire was ruined. "I guess there's no need asking if you have any of that FlatFix in the trunk," said Wallace.
"Here, son, hold the light," I said to Wallace Jr. He's old enough to want to help and not old enough (yet) to think he knows it all. If I'd married and had kids, he's the kind I'd have wanted.
Wallace was wearing his dress uniform, so he didn't offer to help while I rummaged in back for the jack. The spare looked a little soft. The light went out. "Shake it, son." I said.
It went back on. I found the jack under Mother's old Soldier of Fortune magazines, 1978-1986. I had been meaning to drop them at the dump. If Wallace hadn't been along, I'd have let Wallace Jr. position the jack under the axle, but I got on my knees and did it myself. Even if you're going to be an officer, you may still need to change a tire in this life. The light went off again before I had the wheel off the ground. I was surprised at how dark the night was already. It was late October and beginning to get cold.
"Shake it again, son," I said.
It went on again but it was weak. Flickery.
"With new tires you hardly ever have flats," Wallace explained in that voice he uses when he's addressing a congregation; in this case, Wallace Jr. and myself. "And even when you do, you just squirt them with this stuff called FlatFix and you just drive on. Twelve ninety-nine a can from any Department of Defense contractor, and they say it works even under combat stress."
"Uncle Bobby's a Colonel, and he says a real airman can fix a tire hisself," said Wallace Jr., out of loyalty, I presume.
"Himself," I said from halfway under the car. If it was up to Wallace, the boy would talk like what Mother used to call "a muddy-footed Army ape from the gorges in the mountains." But drive on radials.
"Shake that light again," I said. It was about gone. I took a look at the wheel. The tire had blown out along the sidewall. "Won't be fixing this one," I said. Not that I care. We have a pile as tall as a bomb rack back in the hangar. The light went out again, then came back better than ever as I was removing the hubcap. "Much better," I said. There was a flood of dim orange flickery light. But when I turned to find the lug wrench, I was shocked to see that the flashlight the boy was holding was dead. The light was coming from two bears at the edge of the trees, holding chemical lightsticks. They were big, three-hundred-pounders, standing about five feet tall. Wallace Jr. and his father had seen the rifles they carried and were standing perfectly still. It's best not to alarm armed bears. It looked like there was a whole squad behind them, in the trees.
I reacted swiftly, lunging into the Jeep and breaking the paralysis gripping Wallace and Wallace Jr. They dove through the open door on the passenger side while I gunned the motor and we spun out through the grass and onto the pavement, sparks flying from the naked metal of the rim where the gash was.
Despite their gear, the cold weather had made them sluggish, so that when they fired on us, only a few bullets went spang! off the metal of the frame. Wallace was the first to speak. "Looks like bears have discovered military science," he panted.
When we first moved Mother into the retirement community, she said she was ready to start gardening. "Don't worry about me, boys," she whispered. I'm ready to quit. For thirty-nine years, she was the Pentagon's top-ranked Wildlife Impact Officer.
"What's this I hear about bears carrying rifles?" she shouted to be heard over the clamor of CNN camera crews surrounding the vehicle that would transport her to the base to help debrief the newly formed task force. "It's true," I told her, in the car. "Just this morning Navy Intelligence informed us that it's worse than we feared. Traces from those satchel nukes the Soviets can't account for have turned up in the Alaskan wilderness. The bears transported them to North America, and presumably from there into the continental United States. They would have no problem getting them across the Canadian border."
"This is trouble," she said. "There's more," I told her grimly. "We forced their hand, so they are moving sooner than they wanted to, but just an hour ago the bears sent a message saying that they have planted the nukes in D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles. If all logging and wilderness exploitation doesn't stop within 24 hours, they will detonate the devices." As an afterthought I added, "They also want Yellowstone."
An hour later, in a conference room with the President, the Joint Chiefs, and my mother, I thought about the problem. As Mother explained, pointer in hand, these animals were in no mood to negotiate. Our only choice would be to find their command headquarters and knock it out with a nuclear device of our own. The U.S. has never had to deal with nuclear terrorism on its own soil, but now we had to. The bears were a nuclear power.
"Gentlemen, we have no choice," said Mother. "The bombers should leave immediately if we are to prevent a total disaster. We have three main possibilities as to where their base may be. One is deep in British Colombia, one is in the Baja desert, and the third is in Montana." "It's near an Aryan Nation enclave, actually," she added thoughtfully.
"Mr. President, will you sign the order?" Mother asked. After a long minute, he signed, rubbed his eyes, and called it a "grim day for all mankind". "Let's get to work," said Mother. "Since I left retirement for this, I will pilot one of the bombers myself. I have a better chance than some young buck to spot their headquarters."
I saw Mother off, saluting the petite, grey-haired figure decked out in her olive-drab flight suit. Her crew followed, stepping smartly. I walked with her to the yellow line painted on the flight deck around her plane. One sentry never took his eyes off me while his buddy checked Mother's I.D., and all her crew as well. I stayed back, because I knew his orders were to shoot to kill if I stepped over the line.
Later, I heard the whole story of "Operation Bearskin Rug". The bears were holed up exactly where Mother thought they were, but something went wrong. No one knows why the armed bomb wouldn't detach, because you can't retrieve a flight recorder that's been at ground-zero in an atomic fireball. All we know is that Mother took her plane straight into the ground rather than fly over any populated areas. But they took out the furry bastards, nearly all of them in this hemisphere, as far as we can tell, plus a fair number of white supremacists. The satchel bombs have been found, and the threat is over, for now.
We will be watching the woods from now on. Who knows what the remaining bears might try, or even the otters. Unless you're a bear.
************************************
I was driving with my brother, the chaplain, and my nephew, the chaplain's son, on a highway just north of Fairchild Air Force Base when we got a flat. It was Sunday night and we had been to visit Mother at the Senior Center in Spokane. We were in my staff car. The flat caused what you might call knowing groans since, as the old-fashioned one in my family (so they tell me), I let the motor pool fix old tires, and my brother is always telling me to get radials because the Pentagon can afford new tires.
But if you have men who can mount and fix tires, you can keep unit costs down to almost nothing.
Since it was a left rear tire, I pulled over to the left, onto the median grass. The way the Jeep stumbled to a stop, I figured the tire was ruined. "I guess there's no need asking if you have any of that FlatFix in the trunk," said Wallace.
"Here, son, hold the light," I said to Wallace Jr. He's old enough to want to help and not old enough (yet) to think he knows it all. If I'd married and had kids, he's the kind I'd have wanted.
Wallace was wearing his dress uniform, so he didn't offer to help while I rummaged in back for the jack. The spare looked a little soft. The light went out. "Shake it, son." I said.
It went back on. I found the jack under Mother's old Soldier of Fortune magazines, 1978-1986. I had been meaning to drop them at the dump. If Wallace hadn't been along, I'd have let Wallace Jr. position the jack under the axle, but I got on my knees and did it myself. Even if you're going to be an officer, you may still need to change a tire in this life. The light went off again before I had the wheel off the ground. I was surprised at how dark the night was already. It was late October and beginning to get cold.
"Shake it again, son," I said.
It went on again but it was weak. Flickery.
"With new tires you hardly ever have flats," Wallace explained in that voice he uses when he's addressing a congregation; in this case, Wallace Jr. and myself. "And even when you do, you just squirt them with this stuff called FlatFix and you just drive on. Twelve ninety-nine a can from any Department of Defense contractor, and they say it works even under combat stress."
"Uncle Bobby's a Colonel, and he says a real airman can fix a tire hisself," said Wallace Jr., out of loyalty, I presume.
"Himself," I said from halfway under the car. If it was up to Wallace, the boy would talk like what Mother used to call "a muddy-footed Army ape from the gorges in the mountains." But drive on radials.
"Shake that light again," I said. It was about gone. I took a look at the wheel. The tire had blown out along the sidewall. "Won't be fixing this one," I said. Not that I care. We have a pile as tall as a bomb rack back in the hangar. The light went out again, then came back better than ever as I was removing the hubcap. "Much better," I said. There was a flood of dim orange flickery light. But when I turned to find the lug wrench, I was shocked to see that the flashlight the boy was holding was dead. The light was coming from two bears at the edge of the trees, holding chemical lightsticks. They were big, three-hundred-pounders, standing about five feet tall. Wallace Jr. and his father had seen the rifles they carried and were standing perfectly still. It's best not to alarm armed bears. It looked like there was a whole squad behind them, in the trees.
I reacted swiftly, lunging into the Jeep and breaking the paralysis gripping Wallace and Wallace Jr. They dove through the open door on the passenger side while I gunned the motor and we spun out through the grass and onto the pavement, sparks flying from the naked metal of the rim where the gash was.
Despite their gear, the cold weather had made them sluggish, so that when they fired on us, only a few bullets went spang! off the metal of the frame. Wallace was the first to speak. "Looks like bears have discovered military science," he panted.
When we first moved Mother into the retirement community, she said she was ready to start gardening. "Don't worry about me, boys," she whispered. I'm ready to quit. For thirty-nine years, she was the Pentagon's top-ranked Wildlife Impact Officer.
"What's this I hear about bears carrying rifles?" she shouted to be heard over the clamor of CNN camera crews surrounding the vehicle that would transport her to the base to help debrief the newly formed task force. "It's true," I told her, in the car. "Just this morning Navy Intelligence informed us that it's worse than we feared. Traces from those satchel nukes the Soviets can't account for have turned up in the Alaskan wilderness. The bears transported them to North America, and presumably from there into the continental United States. They would have no problem getting them across the Canadian border."
"This is trouble," she said. "There's more," I told her grimly. "We forced their hand, so they are moving sooner than they wanted to, but just an hour ago the bears sent a message saying that they have planted the nukes in D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles. If all logging and wilderness exploitation doesn't stop within 24 hours, they will detonate the devices." As an afterthought I added, "They also want Yellowstone."
An hour later, in a conference room with the President, the Joint Chiefs, and my mother, I thought about the problem. As Mother explained, pointer in hand, these animals were in no mood to negotiate. Our only choice would be to find their command headquarters and knock it out with a nuclear device of our own. The U.S. has never had to deal with nuclear terrorism on its own soil, but now we had to. The bears were a nuclear power.
"Gentlemen, we have no choice," said Mother. "The bombers should leave immediately if we are to prevent a total disaster. We have three main possibilities as to where their base may be. One is deep in British Colombia, one is in the Baja desert, and the third is in Montana." "It's near an Aryan Nation enclave, actually," she added thoughtfully.
"Mr. President, will you sign the order?" Mother asked. After a long minute, he signed, rubbed his eyes, and called it a "grim day for all mankind". "Let's get to work," said Mother. "Since I left retirement for this, I will pilot one of the bombers myself. I have a better chance than some young buck to spot their headquarters."
I saw Mother off, saluting the petite, grey-haired figure decked out in her olive-drab flight suit. Her crew followed, stepping smartly. I walked with her to the yellow line painted on the flight deck around her plane. One sentry never took his eyes off me while his buddy checked Mother's I.D., and all her crew as well. I stayed back, because I knew his orders were to shoot to kill if I stepped over the line.
Later, I heard the whole story of "Operation Bearskin Rug". The bears were holed up exactly where Mother thought they were, but something went wrong. No one knows why the armed bomb wouldn't detach, because you can't retrieve a flight recorder that's been at ground-zero in an atomic fireball. All we know is that Mother took her plane straight into the ground rather than fly over any populated areas. But they took out the furry bastards, nearly all of them in this hemisphere, as far as we can tell, plus a fair number of white supremacists. The satchel bombs have been found, and the threat is over, for now.
We will be watching the woods from now on. Who knows what the remaining bears might try, or even the otters. Unless you're a bear.
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