“I can't. That's the problem. Look, let me go down there by myself. But wait for mc. Rest for a day. Don't do anything rash.”

“Ruth, that's crazy. There are people needing us inside this Ark - that man who was being beaten.”

“Luke, I thought you'd understand.”

“But you haven't told us anything we can understand.”

“All right, everyone.” The Initiator intervened. ''We'll camp up river out of sight. Ruth can go down to this place in the morning. I'll go with her and Luke will be in charge here.”

“ Initiator, I must go tonight. I must. “

“What's the hurry, Ruth? You need rest. We all do.''

“I don't know.” Rowan. The word jumped into Ruth's mind, but what was the use of it? A tree with white flowers and clusters of red berries. Why should it be so important?

“Then stay. Have a meal and sleep.”

“I'm sorry. Let me go alone.” She walked rapidly away again, with the others straggling behind her. Almost two kilometres up river the banks were closer together and there was a fallen tree half in the water, half out. Beyond it was a gap of about a metre to the farther shore.

“Yes!” Ruth ran recklessly along the mossy trunk and leapt. She slipped, grabbed at grass, at the exposed root of a tree, and then hauled herself out of the river's grasp.

The Initiator followed her, negotiating the jump neatly. “You don't have to come,” Ruth said. “It's all right.”

“Perhaps I want to.” She turned to the others, clustered by the river bank. “Make camp back in the trees close by. We'll be back by evening tomorrow. Take care.”

“You take care. “

Ruth didn't wait. She began to run across the scrub-covered slope. It was now late afternoon. The sun slanted across the hills to her right. It was hot, and myriads of tiny flies rose out of the scrub as she passed and clouded her head. She battered them away and hurried breathlessly on.

“Ruth, wait.”

She did not hear the Initiator's voice. Her heart was thumping against her chest and every breath hurt. But it didn't matter. She was escaping from ... from something. She was going back to the village. Back to the mountain ash.

She came to the top of the slope. It was just as she had known it would be. There was the peaty river. There was the forest beyond, maple and nut and beech. And beyond it ...

The Initiator caught up with her. “Slow down a bit.”

“I must get there by sunset.”

The sun had dropped behind the western mountains and the valley was drowned in shadow by the time she reached the river. She slid down a bank of reddish dirt and plunged into the water. It was a warm river, friendly, no more than waist high at its deepest, with a gravel bar to walk on.