Their own ideas of a future went little beyond a house and a harem. But to smash the government was a cause worth giving life for. They associated it with the disaster, and thus with all their woes. And it was their enemy. It would kill them, or at least lock them up, for deeds done when life depended on ruthless action. It would certainly never permit them to hold this green and lovely land.

Unless—unless!

The dog had been snuffling around the outlaw camp, a vague misshapen shadow in the fleeting moonlight. Now he howled once more and trotted down the ridge toward the dark silent mass of the town.

* * *

Alaric Wayne woke up at the sound of scratching. For a moment he lay in bed, mind still clouded with sleep. Moonlight streamed through the window to shimmer off the tumbled heaps of books and apparatus littering the room. Outside, the world was a black and white fantasy of bulking shadow, dreaming off into the remote star-torched sky.

Full wakefulness came. Alaric slid out of bed, went to the window, and leaned against the screen. It was his dog, scratching to get in. And—excited. He raised the screen and the animal jumped clumsily over the sill.

The dog whined, pulled at Alaric’s leg, sniffed toward the south and shivered. The boy’s great light eyes seemed to deepen and brighten, flash cold in the pouring moonlight; shadow-masked; his thin face was not discernible, but its habitual blankness slid into tight lines.

He had to—think!

The dog was warning him of danger from the south. But, though the mutation shaping the canine brain had given it abnormal intelligence, he was still a dog, not qualitatively different from the rest of his species, not able to understand or reason above an elementary level. Three years before, Alaric had spotted qualities in the pup by certain signs, and raised and trained it, and there was a curious half-rapport between them, a mutual understanding. They had co-operated earlier, on their long hikes, to hunt or to avoid the wild dog packs, but now—

There was danger. Men outside town, to the south with hostile intentions. That was all the dog had been able to gather. It would have been enough for any normal human, as a basis of action. But Alaric wasn’t normal.

He stood shivering with effort, clenching his hands to his forehead as if to prevent a physical disintegration of his frantically groping brain. What did it mean? What to do?

Danger—danger was clear enough, and primitive instinct revealed the action one must take. One ran from the packs of human boys when they intended to commit mayhem on a mutant, and hid. One skirted the spoor of wild dogs or the bears beginning to spread since hunting fell off. Only in this case—slowly, reluctantly, fighting itself, his shuddering mind spewed out the conclusion—in this case, one couldn’t run. If the town went, so did all safety.

Think—think! There was danger, it couldn’t be run from—what to do? His mind groped in fog and chaos. It could grasp at nothing. Disjointed logic chains clanked insanely in his skull.