"Sounds as good as can be managed."

"All right. When the time comes, you go up next to last, I go up last."

"Unh... I'll match you."

Cowper answered with surprising vulgarity and added, "I'm boss; I go last. We'll make the rounds and pile anything left on the fires, then gather them all here. You take the bank, I take the fence."

It did not take long to put the remnants on the fires, then they gathered around the path and waited- Roy, Kenny, Doug, Dick, Charlie, Howard, and Rod and Grant. Another wave of senseless migration was rolling but the fires held it, bypassed it around by the water.

Rod grew stiff and shifted his spear to his left hand. The dying fires were only glowing coals in spots. He looked for signs of daylight in the east. Howard Goldstein said, "One broke through at the far end."

"Hold it, Goldie," Cowper said. "We won't bother it unless it comes here." Rod shifted his spear back to his right hand.

The wall of fire was now broken in many places. Not only could joes get through, but worse, it was hard to see them, so little light did the embers give off. Cowper turned to Rod and said, "All right, everybody up. You tally them." Then he shouted, "Bill! Agnes! Make room, I'm sending them up."

Rod threw a glance at the fence, then turned. "Okay, Kenny first. Doug next, don't crowd. Goldie and then Dick. Who's left? Roy-" He turned, uneasily aware that something had changed.

Grant was no longer behind him. Rod spotted him bending over a dying fire. "Hey, Grant!"

"Be right with you." Co'wper selected a stick from the embers, waved it into flame. He hopped over the coals, picked his way through sharpened stakes, reached the thornbush barrier, shoved his torch into it. The dry branches flared up. He moved slowly away, picking his way through the stake trap.

"I'll help you!" Rod shouted. "I'll fire the other end." Cowper turned and light from the burning thorn showed his stern, bearded face. "Stay back. Get the others up. That's an order!" f

The movement upward had stopped. Rod snarled, "Get on up, you lunkheads! Move!" He jabbed with the butt of his spear, then turned around.

Cowper had set the fire in a new place. He straightened up, about to move farther down, suddenly turned and jumped over the dying line of fire. He stopped and jabbed at something in the darkness... then screamed.

"Grant!" Rod jumped down, ran toward him. But Grant was down before he reached him, down with a joe worrying each leg and more coming. Rod thrnst at one, jerked his spear out, and jabbed at the other, trying not to stab Grant. He felt one grab his leg and wondered that it did not hurt.

Then it did hurt, terribly, and he realized that he was down and his spear was not in his hand. But his hand found his knife without asking; Colonel Bowie finished off the beast clamped to his ankle.

Everything seemed geared to nightmare slowness. Other figures were thrusting leisurely at shapes that hardly crawled. The thornbush, flaming high, gave him light to see and stab a dopy joe creeping toward him. He got it, rolled over and tried to get up.

He woke with daylight in his eyes, tried to move and discovered that his left leg hurt. He looked down and saw a compress of leaves wrapped with a neat hide bandage. He was in the cave and there were others lying parallel to him. He got to one elbow. "Say, what-"

"Sssh!" Sue Kennedy crawled over and knelt by him. "The baby is asleep."

"Oh..."

"I'm on nurse duty. Want anything?"

"I guess not. Uh, what did they name her?"

"Hope. Hope Roberta Baxter. A pretty name. I'll tell Caroline you are awake." She turned away.

Caroline came in, squatted and looked scornfully at his ankle. "That'll teach you to have a party and not invite me.

"I guess so. Carol, what's the situation?"

"Six on the sick list. About twice that many walking wounded. Those not hurt are gathering wood and cutting thorn. We fixed the ax."

"Yes, but... we're not having to fight them off?"

"Didn't Sue tell you? A few buck walking around as if they were dazed. That's all."

"They may start again."

"If they do, we'll be ready."

"Good." He tried to raise up. "Where's Grant? How bad was he hurt?"

She shook her head. "Grant didn't make it, Roddie."

"Huh?"

"Bob took off both legs at the knee and would have taken off one arm, but he died while he was operating." She made a very final gesture. "In the creek."

Rod started to speak, turned his head and buried his face. Caroline put a hand on him. "Don't take it hard, Roddie. Bob shouldn't have tried to save him. Grant is better off."

Rod decided that Carol was right- no frozen limb banks on this planet. But it did not make him feel better. "We didn't appreciate him," he muttered.

"Stow it!" Caroline whispered fiercely. "He was a fool."

"Huh? Carol, I'm ashamed of you."

He was surprised to see tears rolling down her cheeks. "You know he was a fool, Roddie Walker. Most of us knew... but we loved him anyhow. I would 'uv married him, but he never asked me." She wiped at tears. "Have you seen the baby?"

"No."

Her face lit up. "I'll fetch her. She's beautiful."

"Sue said she was asleep."

"Well... all right. But what I came up for is this: what do you want us to do?"

"Huh?" He tried to think. Grant was dead. "Bill was his deputy. Is Bill laid up?"

"Didn't Sue tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"You're the mayor. We elected you this morning. Bill and Roy and I are just trying to hold things together."

Rod felt dizzy. Caroline's face kept drawing back, then swooping in; he wondered if he were going to faint..

"-plenty of wood," she was saying, "and we'll have the kraal built by sundown. We don't need meat; Margery is butchering that big fellow that fell off the bluff and busted his neck. We can't trek out until you and Carmen and the others can walk, so we're trying to get the place back into shape temporarily. Is there anything you want us to do now?"

He considered it. "No. Not now.

"Okay. You're supposed to rest." She backed out, stood up. "I'll look in later." Rod eased his leg and turned over. After a while he quieted and went to sleep.

Sue brought broth in a bowl, held his head while he drank, then fetched Hope Baxter and held her for him to see. Rod said the usual inanities, wondering if all new babies looked that way.

Then he thought for a long time.

Caroline showed up with Roy. "How's it going, Chief?" Roy said.

"Ready to bite a rattlesnake."

"That's a nasty foot, but it ought to heal. We boiled the leaves and Bob used sulfa."

"Feels all right. I don't seem feverish."

"Jimmy always said you were too mean to die," added Caroline. "Want anything, Roddie? Or to tell us anything?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"Get me out of here. Help me down the path." Roy said hastily, "Hey, you can't do that. You're not in shape."

"Can't I? Either help, or get out of my way. And get everybody together. We're going to have a town meeting."

They looked at each other and walked out on him. He had made it to the squeeze at the top when Baxter showed up. "Now, Rod! Get back and lie down."

"Out of my way."

"Listen, boy, I don't like to get rough with a sick man. But I will if you make me."

"Bob... how bad is my ankle?"

"It's going to be all right... if you behave. If you don't- well, have you ever seen gangrene? When it turns black and has that sweetish odor?"

"Quit trying to scare me. Is there any reason not to put a line under my arms and lower me?"

"Well..."

They used two lines and a third to keep his injured leg free, with Baxter supervising. They caught him at the bottom and carried him to the cooking space, laid him down. "Thanks," he grunted. "Everybody here who can get here?"