and swung around. A dozen or so
paces away was a red-headed boy of about ten or eleven, dressed in
plastic overalls, and carrying a basket of ripe raspberries. The stains
about his mouth showed that not all the raspberries were carried in the
basket.

Hall's anxiety faded, and he was glad to see the child. He had hoped to
meet someone who was not so old that they would become suspicious, but
old enough that they might give him directions.

He waited for the lad to catch up.

"Hello," the boy said. "I've been walking behind you most of a mile, but
I guess you didn't hear me."

"It looks as though you've been p-p-picking raspberries," Hall said.

"Yup. My dad owns a patch by the river. Want some?" He proffered the
basket.

"No, thank you," Hall answered. He resumed his walk up the highway with
the boy at his side.

"D-do you live around here," he asked.

"Just up the road a ways." The lad studied his companion for a minute.
"You stutter, don't you?"

"A little."

"There was a boy in my class who used to stutter. The teacher said it
was because he thought so far ahead of what he said he got all tangled
up." The boy reached in his basket for a handful of berries and chewed
them thoughtfully. "She was always after him to talk slower, but I guess
it didn't do any good. He still stutters."

"Is there a p-power plant around here?" Hall asked. "You know, where the
electricity comes from."

"You mean the place where they have the nu-nuclear fission"--the boy
stumbled on the unfamiliar word, but got it out--"and they don't let you
in because you get poisoned or something?"

"Yes, I think that's it."

"There are two places. There's one over at Red Mountain and another over
at Ballarat."

"Where are they?"

"Well--" The boy stopped to think. "Red Mountain's straight ahead, maybe
ten miles, and Ballarat's over there"--he pointed west across the orange
groves--"maybe fifteen miles."

"Good," Hall said. "Good." And he felt glad inside of himself. Maybe it
could be done, he thought.

* * * * *

They walked along together. Hall sometimes listening to the chattering
of the boy beside him, sometimes listening to and answering the distant
voices of the seventeen. Abruptly, a few hundred yards before the house
that the boy had pointed out as his father's, a small sports car whipped
down the highway, coming on them almost without warning. The lad jumped
sideways, and Hall, to avoid to