Tunnel In The Sky

13. Unkillable

The matter never came to a vote. Long before Friday Rod knew how a vote would go- about fifty against him, less than half that for him, with his friends voting with him through loyalty rather than conviction or possibly against him in a showdown.

He made an appeal in private to Cowper. "Grant, you've got me licked. Even Roy is sticking with you now. But you could swing them around."

"I doubt it. What you don't see, Rod, is that we have taken root. You may have found a better place... but it's too late to change. After all, you picked this spot."

"Not exactly, it... well, it just sort of happened."

"Lots of things in life just sort of happen. You make the best of them."

"That's what I'm trying to do! Grant, admitted that the move is hard; we could manage it. Set up way stations with easy jumps, send our biggest huskies back for what we don't want to abandon. Shucks, we could move a person on a litter if we had to- using enough guards."

"If the town votes it, I'll be for it. But I won't try to argue them into it. Look, Rod, you've got this fixed idea that this spot is dangerously exposed. The facts don't support you. On the other hand see what we have. Running water from upstream, waste disposal downstream, quarters comfortable and adequate for the climate. Salt- do you have salt there?"

"We didn't look for it-but it would be easy to bring it from the seashore."

"We've got it closer here. We've got prospects of metal. You haven't seen that ore outcropping yet, have you? We're better equipped every day; our standard of living is going up. We have a colony nobody need be ashamed of and we did it with bare hands; we were never meant to be a colony. Why throw up what we have gained to squat in caves like savages?"

Rod sighed. "Grant, this bank may be flooded in the rainy season- aside from its poor protection now."

"It doesn't look it to me, but if so, we'll see it in time. Right now we are going into the dry season. So let's talk it over a few months from now.

Rod gave up. He refused to resume as "City Manager" nor would Caroline keep it when Rod turned it down. Bill Kennedy was appointed and Rod went to work under Cliff as a hunter, slept in the big shed upstream with the bachelors, and took his turn at night watch. The watch had been reduced to one man, whose duty was simply to tend fires. There was talk of cutting out the night fires, as fuel was no longer easy to find nearby and many seemed satisfied that the thorn barrier was enough.

Rod kept his mouth shut and stayed alert at night.

Game continued to be plentiful but became skittish. Buck did not come out of cover the way they had in rainy weather; it was necessary to search and drive them out. Carnivores seemed to have become scarcer. But the first real indication of peculiar seasonal habits of native fauna came from a very minor carnivore. Mick Mahmud returned to camp with a badly chewed foot; Bob Baxter patched him up and asked about it.

"You wouldn't believe it."

"Try me."

"Well, it was just a dopy joe. I paid no attention to it, of course. Next thing I knew I was flat on my back and trying to shake it loose. He did all that to me before I got a knife into him. Then I had to cut his jaws loose."

"Lucky you didn't bleed to death."

When Rod heard Mick's story, he told Roy. Having had one experience with a dopy joe turned aggressive, Roy took it seriously and had Cliff warn all hands to watch out; they seemed to have turned nasty.

Three days later the migration of animals started.

At first it was just a drifting which appeared aimless except that it was always downstream. Animals had long since ceased to use the watering place above the settlement and buck rarely appeared in the little valley; now they began drifting into it, would find themselves baffled by the thorn fence, and would scramble out. Nor was it confined to antelope types; wingless birds with great "false faces," rodents, rooters, types nameless to humans, all joined the migration. One of the monstrous leonine predators they called stobor approached the barricade in broad daylight, looked at it, lashed his tail, then clawed his way up the bluff and headed downstream again.

Cliff called off his hunting parties; there was no need to hunt when game walked into camp.

Rod found himself more edgy than usual that night as it grew dark. He left his seat near the barbecue pit and went over to Jimmy and Jacqueline. "What's the matter with this place? It's spooky."

Jimmy twitched his shoulders. "I feel it. Maybe it's the funny way the animals are acting. Say, did you hear they killed a joe inside camp?"

"I know what it is," Jacqueline said suddenly. "No 'Grand Opera.'"

"Grand Opera" was Jimmy's name for the creatures with the awful noises, the ones which had turned Rod's first night into a siege of terror. They serenaded every evening for the first hour of darkness. Rod's mind had long since blanked them out, heeded them no more than chorusing cicadas. He had not consciously heard them for weeks.

Now they failed to wail on time; it upset him.

He grinned sheepishly. "That's it, Jack. Funny how you get used to a thing. Do you suppose they are on strike?"

"More likely a death in the family," Jimmy answered. "They'll be back in voice tomorrow."

Rod had trouble getting to sleep. When the night watch gave an alarm he was up and out of bachelors' barracks at once, Colonel Bowie in hand. "What's up?"

Arthur Nielsen had the watch. "It's all right now," he answered nervously. "A big buffalo buck crashed the fence. And this got through." He indicated the carcass of a dopy joe.

"You're bleeding."

"Just a nip."

Others gathered around. Cowper pushed through, sized the situation and said, "Waxie, get that cut attended to. Bill... where's Bill? Bill, put somebody else on watch. And let's get that gap fixed as soon as it's light."

It was greying in the east. Margery suggested, "We might as well stay up and have breakfast. I'll get the fire going." She left to borrow flame from a watch fire.

Rod peered through the damaged barricade. A big buck was down on the far side and seemed to have at least six dopy joes clinging to it. Cliff was there and said quietly, "See a way to get at them?"

"Only with a gun."

"We can't waste ammo on that."

"No." Rod thought about it, then went to a pile of bamboo poles, cut for building. He selected a stout one a head shorter than himself, sat down and began to bind Lady Macbeth to it with rawhide, forming a crude pike spear.

Caroline came over and squatted down. "What are you doing?"

"Making a joe-killer."

She watched him. "I'm going to make me one," she said suddenly and jumped up.

By daylight the animals were in full flight downstream as if chased by forest fire. As the creek had shrunk with the dry season a miniature beach, from a meter to a couple of meters wide, had been exposed below the bank on which the town had grown. The thorn kraal had been extended to cover the gap, but the excited animals crushed through this weak point and now streamed along the water past the camp.

After a futile effort no attempt was made to turn them back. They were pouring into the valley; they had to go somewhere, and the route between water and bank made a safety valve. It kept them from shoving the barricade aside by sheer mass. The smallest animals came through it anyhow, kept going, paid no attention to humans.

Rod stayed at the barricade, ate breakfast standing up. He had killed six joes since dawn while Caroline's score was still higher. Others were making knives into spears and joining them. The dopy joes were not coming through in great numbers; most of them continued to chase buck along the lower route past camp. Those who did seep through were speared; meeting them with a knife gave away too much advantage.

Cowper and Kennedy, inspecting defenses, stopped by Rod; they looked worried. "Rod," said Grant "how long is this going to last?"

"How should I know? When we run out of animals. It looks like- get him, Shorty! It looks as if the joes were driving the others, but I don't think they are. I think they've all gone crazy."

"But what would cause that?" demanded Kennedy. "Don't ask me. But I think I know where all those bones on that beach came from. But don't ask why. Why does a chicken cross the road? Why do lemmings do what they do? What makes a plague of locusts? Behind you! Jump!"

Kennedy jumped, Rod finished off a joe, and they went on talking. "Better detail somebody to chuck these into the water, Bill, before they stink. Look, Grant, we're okay now, but I know what I would do."

"What? Move to your caves? Rod, you were right-but it's too late."

"No, no! That's spilt milk; forget it. The thing that scares me are these mean little devils. They are no longer dopy; they are fast as can be and nasty... and they can slide through the fence. We can handle them now-but how about when it gets dark? We've got to have a solid line of fire inside the fence and along the bank. Fire is one thing they can't go through... I hope."

"That'll take a lot of wood." Grant looked through the barricade and frowned.

"You bet it will. But it will get us through the night. See here, give me the ax and six men with spears. I'll lead the party."

Kennedy shook his head. "It's my job."

"No, Bill," Cowper said firmly. "I'll lead it. You stay here and take care of the town."

Before the day was over Cowper took two parties out and Bill and Rod led one each. They tried to pick lulls in the spate of animals but Bill's party was caught on the bluff above, where it had been cutting wood and throwing it down past the cave. They were treed for two hours. The little valley had been cleaned out of dead wood months since; it was necessary to go into the forest above to find wood that would burn.

Cliff Pawley, hunter-in-chief, led a fifth party in the late afternoon, immediately broke the handle of the little ax. They returned with what they could gather with knives. While they were away one of the giant buck they called buffalo stampeded off the bluff, fell into camp, broke its neck. Four dopy joes were clinging to it. They were easy to kill as they would not let go.

Jimmy and Rod were on pike duty at the barricade. Jimmy glanced back at where a couple of girls were disposing of the carcasses. "Rod," he said thoughtfully, we got it wrong. Those are stobor... the real stobor."

"Huh?"

"The big babies we've been calling that aren't 'stobor.' These things are what the Deacon warned us against."

"Well... I don't care what you call them as long as they're dead. On your toes, boy; here they come again."

Cowper ordered fires laid just before dark and was studying how to arrange one stretch so as not to endanger the flume when the matter was settled; the structure quivered and water ceased to flow. Upstream something had crashed into it and broken the flimsy pipe line.

The town had long since abandoned waterskins. Now they were caught with only a few liters in a pot used by the cooks, but it was a hardship rather than a danger; the urgent need was to get a ring of fire around' them. There had already been half a dozen casualties- no deaths but bites and slashings, almost all from the little carnivores contemptuously known as dopy joes. The community's pool of antiseptics, depleted by months of use and utterly irreplaceable, had sunk so low that Bob Baxter used it only on major wounds.

When fuel had been stretched ready to burn in a long arc inside the barricade and down the bank to where it curved back under the cave, the results of a hard day's work looked small; the stockpile was not much greater than the amount already spread out. Bill Kennedy looked at it. "It won't last the night, Grant."

"It's got to, Bill. Light it."

"If we pulled back from the fence and the bank, then cut over to the bluff- what do you think?"

Cowper tried to figure what might be saved by the change. "It's not much shorter. Uh, don't light the downstream end unless they start curving back in on us. But let's move; it's getting dark." He hurried to the cooking fire, got a brand and started setting the chain of fire. Kennedy helped and soon the townsite was surrounded on the exposed sides by blaze. Cowper chucked his torch into the fire and said, "Bill, better split the men into two watches and get the women up into the cave- they can crowd in somehow."

"You'll have trouble getting thirty-odd women in there, Grant."

"They can sit up all night. But send them up. Yes, and the wounded men, too."

"Can do." Kennedy started passing the word. Caroline came storming up, spear in hand

"Grant, what's this nonsense about the girls having to go up to the cave? If you think you're going to cut me out of the fun you had better think again!"

Cowper looked at her wearily. "Carol, I haven't time to monkey. Shut your face and do as you are told."

Caroline opened her mouth, closed it, and did as she was told. Bob Baxter claimed Cowper's attention; Rod noticed that he looked very upset. "Grant? You ordered all the women up to the cave?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry but Carmen can't."

"You'll have to carry her. She is the one I had most on my mind when I decided on the move.

"But-" Baxter stopped and urged Grant away from the others. He spoke insistently but quietly. Grant shook his head.

"It's not safe, Grant," Baxter went on, raising his voice. "I don't dare risk it. The interval is nineteen minutes now.

"Well... all right. Leave a couple of women with her. Use Caroline, will you? That'll keep her out of my hair."

"Okay." Baxter hurried away.

Kennedy took the first watch with a dozen men spread out along the fire line; Rod was on the second watch commanded by Cliff Pawley. He went to the Baxter house to find out how Carmen was doing, was told to beat it by Agnes. He then went to the bachelors' shed and tried to sleep.

He was awakened by yells, in time to see one of the leonine monsters at least five meters long go bounding through the camp and disappear downstream. It had jumped the barrier, the stakes behind it, and the fire behind that, all in one leap.

Rod called out, "Anybody hurt?"

Shorty Dumont answered. "No. It didn't even stop to wave." Shorty was bleeding from a slash in his left calf; he seemed unaware of it. Rod crawled back inside tried again to sleep.

He was awakened again by the building shaking. He hurried out. "What's up?"

"That you, Rod? I didn't know anybody was inside. Give me a hand; we're going to burn it." The voice was Baxter's; he was prying at a corner post and cutting rawhide strips that held it.

Rod put his spear where it would not be stepped on, resheathed Colonel Bowie, and started to help. The building was bamboo and leaves, with a mud-and-thatch roof; most of it would burn. "How's Carmen?"

"Okay. Normal progress. I can do more good here. Besides they don't want me." Baxter brought the corner of the shed down with a crash, gathered a double armful of wreckage and hurried away. Rod picked up a load and followed him.

The reserve wood pile was gone; somebody was tearing the roof off the "city hall" and banging pieces on the ground to shake clay loose. The walls were sunbaked bricks, but the roof would burn. Rod came closer, saw that it was Cowper who was destroying this symbol of the sovereign community. He worked with the fury of anger. "Let me do that, Grant. Have you had any rest?"

"Huh? No."

"Better get some. It's going to be a long night. What time is it?"

"I don't know. Midnight, maybe." Fire blazed up and Cowper faced it, wiping his face with his hand. "Rod, take charge of the second watch and relieve Bill. Cliff got clawed and I sent him up."

"Okay. Burn everything that will burn-right?"

"Everything but the roof of the Baxter house. But don't use it up too fast; it's got to last till morning."

"Got it." Rod hurried to the fire line, found Kennedy. Okay, Bill, I'll take over- Grant's orders. Get some sleep. Anything getting through?"

'Not much. And not far." Kennedy's spear was dark with blood in the firelight. "I'm not going to sleep, Rod. Find yourself a spot and help out."

Rod shook his head. "You're groggy. Beat it. Grant's orders."

"No!"

"Well... look, take your gang and tear down the old maids' shack. That'll give you a change, at least."

"Uh- all right." Kennedy left, almost staggering. There was a lull in the onrush of animals; Rod could see none beyond the barricade. It gave him time to sort out his crew, send away those who had been on duty since sunset, send for stragglers. He delegated Doug Sanders and Mick Mahmud as firetenders, passed the word that no one else was to put fuel on the fires.

He returned from his inspection to find Bob Baxter, spear in hand, holding his place at the center of the line. Rod put a hand on his shoulder. "The medical officer doesn't need to fight. We aren't that bad off."

Baxter shrugged. "I've got my kit, what there is left of it. This is where I use it."

"Haven't you enough worries?"

Baxter grinned wanly. "Better than walking the floor. Rod, they're stirring again. Hadn't we better build up the fires?"

"Mmm... not if we're going to make it last. I don't think they can come through that."

Baxter did not answer, as a joe came through at that instant. It ploughed through the smouldering fire and Baxter speared it. Rod cupped his hands and shouted, "Build up the fires! But go easy.

"Behind you, Rod!"

Rod jumped and whirled, got the little devil. "Where did that one come from? I didn't see it."

Before Bob could answer Caroline came running out of darkness. "Bob! Bob Baxter! rve got to find Bob Baxter!"

"Over here!" Rod called.

Baxter was hardly able to speak. "Is she- is she?" His face screwed up in anguish.

"No, no!" yelled Caroline. "She's all right, she's fine. It's a girl!"

Baxter quietly fainted, his spear falling to the ground. Caroline grabbed him and kept him from falling into the fire. He opened his eyes and said, "Sorry. You scared me. You're sure Carmen is all right?"

"Right as rain. The baby, too. About three kilos. Here, give me that sticker- Carmen wants you."

Baxter stumbled away and Caroline took his place. She grinned at Rod. "I feel swell! How's business, Roddie? Brisk? I feel like getting me eight or nine of these vermin.

Cowper came up a few minutes later. Caroline called out, "Grant, did you hear the good news?"

"Yes. I just came from there." He ignored Caroline's presence at the guard line but said to Rod, "We're making a stretcher out of pieces of the flume and they're going to haul Carmen up. Then they'll throw the stretcher down and you can burn it."

"Good."

"Agnes is taking the baby up. Rod, what's the very most we can crowd into the cave?"

"Gee!" Rod glanced up at the shelf. "They must be spilling off the edge now.

"I'm afraid so. But we've just got to pack them in. I want to send up all married men and the youngest boys. The bachelors will hold on here."

"I'm a bachelor!" Caroline interrupted. Cowper ignored her. "As soon as Carmen is safe we do it- we can't keep fires going much longer." He turned away, headed up to the cave.

Caroline whistled softly. "Roddie, we're going to have fun."

"Not my idea of fun. Hold the fort, Carol. I've got to line things up." He moved down the line, telling each one to go or to stay.

Jimmy scowled at him. "I won't go, not as long as anybody stays. I couldn't look Jackie in the face."

"You'll button your lip and do as Grant says- or I'll give you a mouthful of teeth. Hear me?"

"I hear you. I don't like it."

"You don't have to like it, just do it. Seen Jackie? How is she?"

"I snuck up a while ago. She's all right, just queasy. But the news about Carmen makes her feel so good she doesn't care."

Rod used no age limit to determine who was expendable. With the elimination of married men, wounded, and all women he had little choice; he simply told those whom he considered too young or not too skilled that they were to leave when word was passed. It left him with half a dozen, plus himself, Cowper, and- possibly- Caroline. Trying to persuade Caroline was a task he had postponed.

He returned and found Cowper. "Carmen's gone up," Cowper told him. "You can send the others up now.

"Then we can burn the roof of the Baxter house."

"I tore it down while they were hoisting her." Cowper looked around. "Carol! Get on up.

She set her feet. "I won't!"

Rod said softly, "Carol, you heard him. Go up- right now!"

She scowled, stuck out her lip, then said, "All right for you, Roddie Walker!"- turned and fled up the path.

Rod cupped his hands and shouted, "All right, everybody! All hands up but those I told to stay. Hurry!"

About half of those leaving had started up when Agnes called down, "Hey! Take it slow! Somebody will get pushed over the edge if you don't quit shoving."

The queue stopped. Jimmy called out, "Everybody exhale. That'll do it."

Somebody called back, "Throw Jimmy off... that will do it." The line moved again, slowly. In ten minutes they accomplished the sardine-packing problem of fitting nearly seventy people into a space comfortable for not more than a dozen. It could not even be standing room since a man could stand erect only on the outer shelf. The girls were shoved inside, sitting or squatting, jammed so that they hardly had air to breathe. The men farthest out could stand but were in danger of stepping off the edge in the dark, or of being elbowed off.

Grant said, "Watch things, Rod, while I have a look." He disappeared up the path, came back in a few minutes. "Crowded as the bottom of a sack," he said. "Here's the plan. They can scrunch back farther if they have to. It will be uncomfortable for the wounded and Carmen may have to sit up- she's lying down- but it can be done. When the fires die out, we'll shoehorn the rest in. With spears poking out under the overhang at the top of the path we ought to be able to hold out until daylight. Check me?"

"Sounds as good as can be managed."

"All right. When the time comes, you go up next to last, I go up last."

"Unh... I'll match you."

Cowper answered with surprising vulgarity and added, "I'm boss; I go last. We'll make the rounds and pile anything left on the fires, then gather them all here. You take the bank, I take the fence."

It did not take long to put the remnants on the fires, then they gathered around the path and waited- Roy, Kenny, Doug, Dick, Charlie, Howard, and Rod and Grant. Another wave of senseless migration was rolling but the fires held it, bypassed it around by the water.

Rod grew stiff and shifted his spear to his left hand. The dying fires were only glowing coals in spots. He looked for signs of daylight in the east. Howard Goldstein said, "One broke through at the far end."

"Hold it, Goldie," Cowper said. "We won't bother it unless it comes here." Rod shifted his spear back to his right hand.

The wall of fire was now broken in many places. Not only could joes get through, but worse, it was hard to see them, so little light did the embers give off. Cowper turned to Rod and said, "All right, everybody up. You tally them." Then he shouted, "Bill! Agnes! Make room, I'm sending them up."

Rod threw a glance at the fence, then turned. "Okay, Kenny first. Doug next, don't crowd. Goldie and then Dick. Who's left? Roy-" He turned, uneasily aware that something had changed.

Grant was no longer behind him. Rod spotted him bending over a dying fire. "Hey, Grant!"

"Be right with you." Co'wper selected a stick from the embers, waved it into flame. He hopped over the coals, picked his way through sharpened stakes, reached the thornbush barrier, shoved his torch into it. The dry branches flared up. He moved slowly away, picking his way through the stake trap.

"I'll help you!" Rod shouted. "I'll fire the other end." Cowper turned and light from the burning thorn showed his stern, bearded face. "Stay back. Get the others up. That's an order!" f

The movement upward had stopped. Rod snarled, "Get on up, you lunkheads! Move!" He jabbed with the butt of his spear, then turned around.

Cowper had set the fire in a new place. He straightened up, about to move farther down, suddenly turned and jumped over the dying line of fire. He stopped and jabbed at something in the darkness... then screamed.

"Grant!" Rod jumped down, ran toward him. But Grant was down before he reached him, down with a joe worrying each leg and more coming. Rod thrnst at one, jerked his spear out, and jabbed at the other, trying not to stab Grant. He felt one grab his leg and wondered that it did not hurt.

Then it did hurt, terribly, and he realized that he was down and his spear was not in his hand. But his hand found his knife without asking; Colonel Bowie finished off the beast clamped to his ankle.

Everything seemed geared to nightmare slowness. Other figures were thrusting leisurely at shapes that hardly crawled. The thornbush, flaming high, gave him light to see and stab a dopy joe creeping toward him. He got it, rolled over and tried to get up.

He woke with daylight in his eyes, tried to move and discovered that his left leg hurt. He looked down and saw a compress of leaves wrapped with a neat hide bandage. He was in the cave and there were others lying parallel to him. He got to one elbow. "Say, what-"

"Sssh!" Sue Kennedy crawled over and knelt by him. "The baby is asleep."

"Oh..."

"I'm on nurse duty. Want anything?"

"I guess not. Uh, what did they name her?"

"Hope. Hope Roberta Baxter. A pretty name. I'll tell Caroline you are awake." She turned away.

Caroline came in, squatted and looked scornfully at his ankle. "That'll teach you to have a party and not invite me.

"I guess so. Carol, what's the situation?"

"Six on the sick list. About twice that many walking wounded. Those not hurt are gathering wood and cutting thorn. We fixed the ax."

"Yes, but... we're not having to fight them off?"

"Didn't Sue tell you? A few buck walking around as if they were dazed. That's all."

"They may start again."

"If they do, we'll be ready."

"Good." He tried to raise up. "Where's Grant? How bad was he hurt?"

She shook her head. "Grant didn't make it, Roddie."

"Huh?"

"Bob took off both legs at the knee and would have taken off one arm, but he died while he was operating." She made a very final gesture. "In the creek."

Rod started to speak, turned his head and buried his face. Caroline put a hand on him. "Don't take it hard, Roddie. Bob shouldn't have tried to save him. Grant is better off."

Rod decided that Carol was right- no frozen limb banks on this planet. But it did not make him feel better. "We didn't appreciate him," he muttered.

"Stow it!" Caroline whispered fiercely. "He was a fool."

"Huh? Carol, I'm ashamed of you."

He was surprised to see tears rolling down her cheeks. "You know he was a fool, Roddie Walker. Most of us knew... but we loved him anyhow. I would 'uv married him, but he never asked me." She wiped at tears. "Have you seen the baby?"

"No."

Her face lit up. "I'll fetch her. She's beautiful."

"Sue said she was asleep."

"Well... all right. But what I came up for is this: what do you want us to do?"

"Huh?" He tried to think. Grant was dead. "Bill was his deputy. Is Bill laid up?"

"Didn't Sue tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"You're the mayor. We elected you this morning. Bill and Roy and I are just trying to hold things together."

Rod felt dizzy. Caroline's face kept drawing back, then swooping in; he wondered if he were going to faint..

"-plenty of wood," she was saying, "and we'll have the kraal built by sundown. We don't need meat; Margery is butchering that big fellow that fell off the bluff and busted his neck. We can't trek out until you and Carmen and the others can walk, so we're trying to get the place back into shape temporarily. Is there anything you want us to do now?"

He considered it. "No. Not now.

"Okay. You're supposed to rest." She backed out, stood up. "I'll look in later." Rod eased his leg and turned over. After a while he quieted and went to sleep.

Sue brought broth in a bowl, held his head while he drank, then fetched Hope Baxter and held her for him to see. Rod said the usual inanities, wondering if all new babies looked that way.

Then he thought for a long time.

Caroline showed up with Roy. "How's it going, Chief?" Roy said.

"Ready to bite a rattlesnake."

"That's a nasty foot, but it ought to heal. We boiled the leaves and Bob used sulfa."

"Feels all right. I don't seem feverish."

"Jimmy always said you were too mean to die," added Caroline. "Want anything, Roddie? Or to tell us anything?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"Get me out of here. Help me down the path." Roy said hastily, "Hey, you can't do that. You're not in shape."

"Can't I? Either help, or get out of my way. And get everybody together. We're going to have a town meeting."

They looked at each other and walked out on him. He had made it to the squeeze at the top when Baxter showed up. "Now, Rod! Get back and lie down."

"Out of my way."

"Listen, boy, I don't like to get rough with a sick man. But I will if you make me."

"Bob... how bad is my ankle?"

"It's going to be all right... if you behave. If you don't- well, have you ever seen gangrene? When it turns black and has that sweetish odor?"

"Quit trying to scare me. Is there any reason not to put a line under my arms and lower me?"

"Well..."

They used two lines and a third to keep his injured leg free, with Baxter supervising. They caught him at the bottom and carried him to the cooking space, laid him down. "Thanks," he grunted. "Everybody here who can get here?"

"I think so, Roddie. Shall I count?"

"Never mind. I understand you folks elected me cap- I mean 'mayor'- this morning?"

"That's right," agreed Kennedy.

"Uh, who else was up? How many votes did I get?"

"Huh? It was unanimous.

Rod sighed. "Thanks. I'm not sure I would have held still for it if I'd been here. I gathered something else. Do I understand that you expect me to take you down to the caves Roy and I found? Caroline said something..."

Roy looked surprised. "We didn't vote it, Rod, but that was the idea. After last night everybody knows we can't stay here."

Rod nodded. "I see. Are you all where I can see you? I've got something to say. I hear you adopted a constitution and things while Roy and I were away. I've never read them, so I don't know whether this is legal or not. But if I'm stuck with the job, I expect to run things. If somebody doesn't like what I do and we're both stubborn enough for a showdown, then you will vote. You back me up, or you turn me down and elect somebody else. Will that work? How about it, Goldie? You were on the law committee, weren't you?"

Howard Goldstein frowned. "You don't express it very well, Rod."

"Probably not. Well?"

"But what you have described is the parliamentary vote-of-confidence. That's the backbone of our constitution. We did it that way to keep it simple and still democratic. It was Grant's notion."

"I'm glad," Rod said soberly. "I'd hate to think that I had torn up Grant's laws after he worked so hard on them. I'll study them, I promise, first chance I get. But about moving to the caves- we'll have a vote of confidence right now."

Goldstein smiled. "I can tell you how it will come out. We're convinced."

Rod slapped the ground. "You don't understand! If you want to move, move... but get somebody else to lead you. Roy can do it. Or Cliff, or Bill. But if you leave it to me, no dirty little beasts, all teeth and no brains, are going to drive us out. We're men....nd men don't have to be driven out, not by the likes of those. Grant paid for this land- and I say stay here and keep it for him!"