are among the best in
the world, and they have the finest equipment. I hope things are not
like that everywhere."

Members of the science club took turns at the transmitter the following
days for 20-hour stretches, until everything possible had been done to
establish the contacts requested by Professor Maddox.

In Chicago there appeared to have been a complete collapse. The operator
there reported he was unable to reach any of the scientific personnel at
the university. He promised a further contact, but when the time came he
could not be reached. There was no voice at all in the Chicago area. Ken
wondered what had become of the man whose voice they had heard briefly.
He was certain he would never know.

Although there was much disorder on the west coast, the situation was in
somewhat better control. The rioting had not yet threatened the
universities, and both Berkeley and Pasadena were working frantically on
the problem with round-the-clock shifts in their laboratories. They had
welcomed wholeheartedly the communication network initiated by the
Mayfield group.

In Washington, D.C. tight military control was keeping things somewhat
in order. In Stockholm, where contact had been established through a
Washington relay after 2 days of steady effort, there was no rioting
whatever. Paris and London had suffered, but their leading universities
were at work on the problem. Tokyo reported similar conditions.

Ken grinned at Maria as they received the Stockholm report. "Those
Swedes," he said. "They're pretty good at keeping their heads."

Maria answered with a faint smile of her own. "Everybody should be
Swedes. No?"

* * * * *

The fall winds and the black frost came early that year, as if in fair
warning that the winter intended a brutal assault upon the stricken
world. The pile of logs in the community woodlot grew steadily. A large
crew of men worked to reduce the logs to stove lengths.

They had made a crude attempt to set up a circular saw, using animal
power to drive it. The shaft was mounted in hardwood blocks, driven by a
complicated arrangement of wooden pulleys and leather belts. The horses
worked it through a treadmill.

The apparatus worked part of the time, but it scarcely paid for itself
when measured against the efforts of the men who had to keep it in
repair.

The food storage program was well underway. Two central warehouses had
been prepared from the converted Emp