And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend—ourselves to make a Couch—for whom?

His gaze descended to Alaric. The boy sprawled on the floor in a litter of open books. His eyes darted from one to another, skipping crazily, their blankness become a weird blue flicker. The books—Theory of Functions, Nuclear Mechanics, Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, Principles of Psychology, Rocket Engineering, Biochemistry. None of it could be skimmed through, or alternated that way. The greatest genius of history couldn’t do it. And a senseless jumble like that—No, Alaric was just turning pages. He must be—a moron?

Well, I’m tired. Might as well go to bed. Tomorrow’s Sunday—good thing we can take holidays again, and sleep late.

* * *

There were a good fifty men in Richard Hammer’s gang, and about ten women equally gaunt and furtive and dangerous. They moved slowly along the riverbank, cursing the rocks they stumbled on, but in a ferocious whisper. Overhead a half moon gave vague light from a cloudy sky. The river sped on its way, moonlight shimmering fitfully off its darkness, and an uncertain wind ghosted through soughing trees. Somewhere a dog howled, and a wild cow bellowed alarm for her calf—descendants of domestic animals that ran free when their masters fled or died. And most savage of all the creatures moving through that night were the humans who had likewise been thrust back into wildness.

“Dick! How much longer, Dick?”

Hammer turned at the low call and scowled back at the uncertain shapes of his followers. “Shut up,” he growled. “No talkin’ on march.”

‘‘I’ll talk when I please.” The voice was louder.

Hammer hunched his great shoulders and thrust his battered hairy face aggressively into the moonlight. “I’m still boss,” he said quietly. “Anytime you wanta fight me for the job, go ahead.”

He had their only remaining firearm, a rifle slung over his back and a belt of a few cartridges, but with knife and club, fists and feet and teeth he was also the deadliest battler in the gang. That was all which had kept him alive, those unending dreadful years of feud and famine and hopeless drifting, for no gang-man was ever safe and a boss, with his own jealous subordinates to watch as well as outsiders, least of all.

“O.K., O.K.,” yielded the other man sullenly. “Only I’m tired an’ hungry, we been goin’ so long—”

“Not much farther,” promised Hammer. “I rec’nize this territory. Come on—an’ quiet!”

They moved ahead, stumbling, half asleep with weariness and the terrible gnawing void in their bellies was all that kept them going. It had been a long journey, hundreds of miles of devastated southland, and it was hard, bitterly hard to pass these comparatively rich farms without lifting more than a few chickens or ears of corn. But Hammer was insistent on secrecy, and he had dominated them long enough for most of them to give in more or less automatically. He had not yet chosen to reveal his plans, but this far into “enemy” country they must involve fighting.