Her right hand stretched out. Like a magnet the map drew her hand. Her finger pointed. “There. Right there.”

SHE MET LUKE, the youngest Innovator next to her, twenty years old, with smooth brown hair and twinkling dark eyes. He showed her a sketch map. It had been hastily drawn, the names scribbled in, and it had no title.

“This was in the Archives, too. Look, Ruth. Exactly the place you marked on the other map.”

She looked past his pointed finger at a mountainous area, a river, a small circle. Printed beside the circle were the words 'Ark One'.

ARK ONE. Now the dream had a name and a direction. The Expedition to Ark One. Plans became more concrete. Ruth's notebook of sketches became public property among the planners. They riffled through her pages, arguing with each other, turning to her for clarification. “Exactly what clothes do they wear Outside?”

Ruth remembered the red-haired girl. “A fur tunic and trousers. Fur slippers indoors and for outdoors, fur boots tied around the leg with string - or something like string.”

“Fur? We cannot be expected to slaughter fur-bearing animals!”

“I am sure that the chemists can come up with some other insulating material.”

“But will we need that much? We don't plan to leave until June.”

“In summertime they wear short tunics and have bare legs and feet,” Ruth put in helpfully.

“Bare feet? We wouldn't last a day like that.”

“In fact boots may be the most crucial item of clothing.”

“Made to fit each person precisely ... “

“ ... out of synthetic strong enough for rock climbing.”

“And we should probably have rainproof coats.”

“But the rain ... “Ruth remembered a dream of standing in a forest glade with the rain coming softly through the trees.

She could still feel the sweetness of it on her checks, her eyelids, her open mouth. “Rain is lovely,” she said. “Why do we need raincoats?”

“Perhaps the people of Ark One are accustomed to Outside and move freely to and fro. But we - we are disgustingly

weak. We'd probably catch pneumonia.”

The people of Ark One! What were they really like? How did they live? As the weeks passed they began to assume the stature of the heroes and heroines of the old myths and sagas.