CLOSE TO CRITICAL

had. He had turned his mind to other matters even before the cavalcade was out of sight.

He had been given a free hand. Very well, he still felt that leaving the village was best; they would do so as soon as possible. Of course, it wouldn't be possible for a few days, until everyone was able to travel again, but the tune could be spent in planning. There was certainly the question of where to go, and the corollary one of how to get there—Nick began to realize with a shock just what leaving the village, with its lifetime accumulation of property and equipment, would mean—and how to get back in touch with Fagin when the move was accomplished. It was easy to tell oneself that the Teacher could always find them wherever they went; but Nick was mature enough to doubt the omniscience of anyone, including the robot. That meant, then, three problems to solve. Since Nick had no desire to resemble Swift in any way, he postponed solving them until the others would be awake and able to help in the discussion.

The fire lasted until morning, but only just, and only by virtue of Nick's running around the hut rapidly on a number of occasions to stir oxygen into an oncoming mass of dead steam. He got very little sleep after the last of the outer fires went, and that was pretty early hi the night.

Morning brought no relief. The first task normally accomplished was to put a guard on the village herd, which was penned in a hollow near the village. The depression remained full of water a little later than the surrounding country, so the "cattle" were normally safe from predators until the guards could arrive; but at the moment there simply weren't enough people in condition to guard both herd and village. They suffered several losses that morning as a result, until Nick could round up the reviving creatures by himself and herd them into the village. Then there was the problem of firewood for the next night; he had told the absolute truth to Swift in that respect. Someone had to get it. There was no choice but for the still battered Cerebration; Transportation; Emigration 53

Jim and Nancy to do the job together, dragging as best they could the cart on which they piled their fuel. They had never succeeded in training their cattle to pull the conveyance; the creatures stubbornly refused to budge under any sort of load.

By the second day, most of the others were on their feet if not at full efficiency, and matters were considerably easier. A consultation was held that morning, in which Nick proposed and defended vigorously the notion that they move to the viciously rough country he had crossed during his flight from the cave village. His chief point was the presence of so many spots which could only be approached from a single, narrow point, like a canyon or ridge, and could therefore be defended effectively by a small force. It was Nancy who answered the suggestion.

"I'm not sure that's a very good plan," she said. "In the first place, we don't know that any of the places you describe will still be that way when we get there." A quake lent emphasis and support to her words.

"What if they aren't?" retorted Nick. "There will always be others. I wasn't suggesting any of the specific spots I described, only the general area."

"But how is Fagin to find us? Supposing one of us does get to the cave village and get a message to him, how are we to describe the way to him? We'd have to guide him directly, which would probably interfere with his own plans—you judged, and I think rightly, that he is planning to take advantage of his ability to travel at night without fire."

Nick felt a very human surge of annoyance at this opposition, but remembered Swift in time to keep from yielding to it. He didn't want to be compared with that savage in anyone's mind, he told himself; besides, there was something to what Nancy was saying, now that he really gave his mind to it.

"What sort of place would you suggest?" he asked.

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