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A peculiar phenomenon of the latter half of the twentieth century was the increase in "retreatists." These people—usually in groups of fifty or less—staked out isolated country tracts as their territory, expecting a disaster of major proportions to destroy civilization, resulting in anarchy. With their stores of food and weapons and their "strictly survival" attitude—a willingness to isolate themselves morally as well as physically—they embodied the worst aspects of what Orson Hamill has called "the conservative sickness of the twentieth century." There is no room here to analyze the causes of this sickness, where individual power and survival counted above all other moral considerations and where the ability to destroy was emphasized over any nobility of spirit, but the ironies of the outcome are rich.

The "retreatists" were right—and wrong. The catastrophe did come, and much of the world was destroyed, but even in the Long Winter that followed, civilization did not crumble into complete anarchy. Indeed, within a year, highly cooperative societies emerged. The lives of one's fellows became almost infinitely precious—and all of the Death's survivors became fellows. Love and support of neighborings groups were essential, for no single group had the means—or the stamina—to survive long without aid. The retreatist enclaves—heavily armed and viciously indiscriminate about how they defended themselves or whom they killed—soon became targets of hatred and fear, the sole exceptions to this new perception of brotherhood.

Within five years after the end of the Death, most of the retreatist enclaves had been sought out and their half-crazed members killed or captured. (Unfortunately, many isolated "survivalist" [q.v.] communities were also included in the sweep. The distinction made between these branches with similar inclinations is a historical one, and was ignored by the authorities of that time.) Many of the retreatists were put on trial for crimes against humanity—specifically, for refusing to participate in the recovery of civilization. In time, these purges extended to all who advocated the right to bear weapons, and even, in some communities, to all who favored high technologies.

Those military personnel who had survived were forced to undergo social reconditioning.

The landmark trial of 2015—where high-ranking politicians and military officers of both the Eastern and Western blocs were accused of crimes against humanity—capped this grim but not-unexpected reaction against the horrors of the Death.

It didn't seem real. She closed her book and shut her eyes. Here she was, reading a book about events that hadn't taken place—yet—and had happened in another universe.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. If it was real, and if it was going to happen, then something should be done. She leafed through the appendices.

On page 567, she found what she was looking for. Every city in the world that had been bombed was listed in the next two hundred pages, with approximate casualties and deaths. She searched for California and found it: twenty-five cities, each receiving from two to twenty-three warheads. Los Angeles, twenty-three, spaced over a two-week period. ("Spasm," an asterisked footnote commented.) Santa Barbara, two. San Francisco—including Oakland, San Jose and Sunnyvale—twenty over a three-day period. San Diego, fifteen. Long Beach, ten. Sacramento, one, Fresno, one. Vandenberg Space Operations Center, twelve evenly spaced along the coastal strip.