"We had six accidents so far," another one said excitedly. "Broken arms, legs, stuff like that. Nothing like the other groups had in the past. We're making it!"

"Gary said we'll start for Baltimore or Philadelphia by the end of this week."

"We have a map to show you which warehouse they're doing now."

"We have at least four boatloads of stuff already…"

"We've been taking turns. Four days down here getting stuff ready for the boat, cooking, all that, then four days in the warehouses finding stuff…"

"It's not bad here, not like we thought it would be. I don't know why the others had so much trouble."

Mark followed them wearily. "I'm hungry," he said. "There's soup cooking now for dinner," one of them said. "But Gary said…"

Mark moved past them to the building they were using for their quarters. Now he could smell the soup. He helped himself, and before he finished eating he began to feel too sleepy to keep his eyes open. The boys kept talking about their successes. "Where are the beds?" Mark asked, interrupting one of them again.

"Aren't you going to the warehouse like Gary said?"

"No. Where are the beds?"

"We'll start for Philadelphia in the morning," Gary said with satisfaction. "You did a good job, Mark. How long will it take us to get to Philadelphia?"

Mark shrugged. "I didn't walk, so I don't know. I've shown you where it's all marshy, maybe impassable by foot. If you can get through, probably eight to ten days. But you need something to measure the radioactivity."

"You were wrong about that, Mark. There can't be any radioactivity. We weren't at war, you know. No bombs were used here. Our elders would have warned us."

Again Mark shrugged.

"We trust you to get us through," Gary said, smiling now. He was twenty-one.

"I'm not going," Mark said.

Gary and his brothers exchanged glances. Gary said, "What do you mean? That's your job."

Mark shook his head. "My job was to find out if the cities are there, if anything's left in them. I know I reached them by water. I don't know if they can be reached on foot. I know there's been radioactivity, and I'm going back to the valley to report that."

Gary stood up and began to roll the map they had been using to mark the swamps, the changed coastline, the marsh that had been the intercoastal waterway. Not looking directly at Mark, he said, "Everyone in this expedition is under my command, you know. Everyone."

Mark didn't move.

"I order you to go with us," Gary said, and now he looked at Mark.