Barry didn't object; he knew it would be useless. They had determined that Mark, now a man of twenty, could not be allowed to exert his influence any longer. If he hadn't come up with his plan to scout the shipyards at Norfolk, it would have been done sooner. He was a disturbing element. The young clones followed him blindly, took his orders without question, and looked on him with reverential awe. Worse, no one could anticipate what he might do, or what might stir him into action of some sort. He was as alien to them as a being of another species; his intelligence was not like theirs, his emotions were not like theirs. He was the only one who had wept over the deaths of the radiation victims, Barry remembered.

Andrew was right, and there was nothing he could do to change that. At least, if Mark was responsible for the series of accidents, they would stop and there would be peace for a while in the valley. But the day Mark led his group out on foot, it was found that the corral had broken down at the far end and the livestock had wandered out and scattered. They were all rounded up except two cows and their calves and a few sheep. And then the accidents did stop, exactly as Andrew had predicted.

The forest became thicker each day, the trees more massive. This had been a park, protected from cutting, Mark knew, but even he was awed by the size of the trees, some of them so large that a dozen youngsters grasping hands could hardly reach around them. He named those he knew: white oak, silverbell, maple, a grove of birches… The days were warm as they headed south. On the fifth day they turned west by southwest, and no one questioned his directions. They did what they were told to do cheerfully and quickly and asked nothing. They were all strong, but their packs were heavy, and they were very young, and it seemed to Mark they were going at a crawl when he wanted to run, but he didn't push them too fast. They had to be in good shape when they arrived at their destination. In the middle of the afternoon of the tenth day, he told them to stop, and they looked at him, waiting.