“It most certainly won't be. The choice to go was the result of a free and open vote. And you're not alone this time. You're part of a team, with the Initiator in charge. The final decisions will be hers. You have a skilled map reader in Luke. There is a powerful team of Communicators along. And there is the Web, to support you all as long as we can reach you. I am confident that as you get closer to the Ark the signals will get clearer and the Communicators will be able to get in touch. Why, I shouldn't be surprised if, by the time you sight Ark One, they are not all out there, ready to welcome you with open arms. After all, their signals wouldn't be so powerful if they didn't want to get in touch with someone.”

To get in touch, thought Ruth. Tomi, are you really out there?

To the Mountains

THE SNOW melted and the river swelled with the run-off from the mountains. The grass greened and the trees unfurled their leaves. Colour once more dotted the meadowland that stretched westward and southward. The days lengthened and everyone was ready.

Then, on April the twenty-eighth, it began to rain. Not a thunder shower or a spring sprinkling, but a steady unrelenting downpour that persisted day after day. Water streamed from the curved plastic of the Dome. Ruth could hardly see the drowned world beyond. The river spilled over its ancient banks. Along the corridors and up and down the stairs the team of twenty walked, afraid of losing their new-found strength, in an agony of impatience to be off.

On June the second the rain stopped, as abruptly as if a tap had been turned. The clouds rolled eastward and the sun shone down brilliantly on the wet and steaming land.

“Tomorrow?” begged Ruth. The Four shook their heads. Bryan, the geologist, agreed with them.

“Look at those hills. See the white threads among the folds?

Every one of those threads is a freshet scouring down slope, swelling the streams, making the rivers impassable. There are other dangers after a rain like that: rockfalls, mud- slides. We would be crazy not to wait.”

“I'm going crazy waiting! Suppose it starts raining again?” Ruth found it hard to cope with the prickliness that was growing inside her. She needed so badly to reach out to this unknown person - no, these two people - the one in whom she dreamed, Tomi, and the other, the girl with red hair. Her feelings were like a bitter hunger that with each day grew more intense. She could feel them drawing her towards them and she could feel her body respond to the pull. “What if it rains?” she wailed again.

“Then we must wait,” answered Bryan, as stolid as the rocks he studied.