s it fear?"

"I don't know. Their vice is fear, but they have some virtues."

Deering's voice was quiet. "Jars wanted me to ask you--about your wife.
Where is she? Is she coming with you? It was forbidden."

"I don't know where she is, she's not coming with me, and I know it was
forbidden. But where is Jars? He has been avoiding me, hasn't he? Why?"

"He has been pleading for you, before the assembly." Deering rose, and
went to the window, to look out. "Who will win this war that's shaping
up among the huddlers, Fred?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure I give a damn."

Deering continued to look out the window. "The gray nation, the mixed
nation, this America; they have some promise of the light, have they
not?"

"Some."

"But this black nation, this nation of robots, there is no chance of of
light there?"

"Not under their present leaders. If they should win the war the planet
would be set back five hundred years."

Deering shook his head, and turned to face me sadly. "It would be worse
than that. If they should win this war shaping up, there would be no
planet for them to rule."

I stared at him, not believing, still so bound up in my trip I couldn't
believe his words. _Love,--faith, fear, Jean_--were running through my
mind. And Jean...?

Deering answered everything for me. "We can't take the chance," he said.
"We will abolish the planet. The assembly so decided this morning."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Huddlers, by William Campbell Gault

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUDDLERS ***

***** This file should be named 32904.txt or 32904.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/9/0/32904/

Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if