“We shouldn't be disgusted,” Karol, one of the historian Teachers, argued. “Meat has been part of human diet since the Ice Age. It was a necessary part of our development. The concentrated protein gave human beings time to think, to create, to become more than grazers whose whole life was filled with the process of finding enough food to survive.”

“But nowadays, when It IS no longer necessary – why would they? Do you suppose they will expect us to ... ? It is unthinkable. It would be a denial of our philosophy to take life.”

“We must accept the people of Ark One as we find them,” Luke argued. ··After all, the original idea of separate Arks was that each should develop independently, so that each group should bring its own particular strength to the making of a new world.”

“By killing defenceless animals?”

“We don't have to hunt, ourselves. We will take a supply of soy cakes and dried yeast and vegetable soups and stews.”

“Some of the currants and grapes from the Dome garden should be ripe by then. We can have dried fruit, too.”

“Food for fourteen days! That will be quite a load.”

''We can fish,” Ruth suggested, remembering dreams of lines and hooks, of traps built of willow branches. She remembered savouring the smell as she woke. “It's not really like meat.”

Everyone else agreed and a team went down to the stores to investigate. They came back triumphantly with fishing rods and line, and tiny bundles of feather and silk concealing wicked- looking hooks.

The historians were fascinated and wasted so much line, with such danger to each other's eyes, that the Warden decreed that casting must only be practised by one person at a time in a vacant room. “Or we'll be blinded before we even set out.''

By APRIL plans were going well and the time had come to choose the twenty who would go. This was a number thought to be sufficiently large to mesh with each other and so maintain their Esper strength, but not so large as to seem threatening to the people of Ark One.

The very notion of making contact with another telepathic group was a challenge even to the most retiring, and there were hundreds of volunteers.

Ruth must go, of course, it was decided, and the Initiator and at least one other Innovator, since they alone had the natural skill to react quickly to the unexpected. There must be a team of Healers in case of accident or illness, and an expert in geology and natural history. Above all, the twenty must contain the strongest Communicators in Ark Three.

“We must be able to reach out to them as soon as possible, to let them know that we are on the way. And, of course, it is essential that we keep our contact with the Web.”