The crisis lasted four days, and during that time they lost thirty-four babies, and forty-nine animals. When Barry finally fell into bed exhausted, he knew the loss of the animals was the more grievous. They had depended on those animals for the glandular secretions, for the chemicals they extracted from their bone marrow and blood. Later, he thought, sinking down into the fog of sleep, later he would worry about the implications of the loss.

"No maybes! We have to have the computer parts as soon as the snow melts. If this happens again, I don't know if we can repair it." Everett was a thin, tall computer expert, no more than twenty, possibly not that yet. His older brothers deferred to him, and that was a good sign that he knew what he was talking about.

"The new paddle-wheel boats will be ready by summer," Lawrence said. "If a road crew can get out early enough to make certain the bypass is open…"

Barry stopped listening. It was snowing again. Large lazy flakes of snow drifted, in no hurry to get to earth, wafted this way and that. He could not see past the first dormitory, only twenty yards from the window he looked through. The children were in school, absorbing everything being presented to them. The laboratory conditions had been stabilized again. It would work out, he told himself. Four years wasn't too long to hold out, and if they could have four years they would be over the line from experimental to proven.

The snow drifted, and he mused at the individuality of each snowflake. Like millions of others before him, he thought, awed by the complexities of nature. He wondered suddenly if Andrew, the self he had been at thirty, had ever felt bemused by the complexities of nature. He wondered if any of the younger children knew each snowflake was different. If they were told that it was so, were ordered to examine the snowflakes as a project, would they see the difference? Would they think it marvelous? Or would they accept it as another of the endless lessons they were expected to learn, and so learn it obediently and derive no pleasure or satisfaction from the new knowledge?

He felt chilled, and turned his attention back to the meeting. But the thoughts would not stop there. They learned everything they were taught, he realized, everything. They could duplicate what had gone before, but they originated nothing. And they couldn't even see the magnificent snow sculpture Mark had created.

After the meeting he walked with Lawrence to inspect the new paddlewheel boats. "Everything's top priority," he said. "Without exception."

"Trouble is," Lawrence said, "they're right. Everything really is top priority. It's a fragile structure we have here, Barry. Very fragile indeed."