een exhausted but for small and scattered fragments.
It was enough, with some aluminum above the amount needed for the wire.

It was the year one hundred and fifty-two when they smelted the
aluminum. In eight more years they would reach the middle of Big Summer;
the suns would start their long drift southward, not to return for one
hundred and fifty years. Time was passing swiftly by for them and there
was none of it to waste....

The making of ceramics was developed to an art, as was the making of
different types of glass. Looms were built to spin thread and cloth from
woods goat wool, and vegetable dyes were discovered. Exploration parties
crossed the continent to the eastern and western seas: salty and
lifeless seas that were bordered by immense deserts. No trees of any
kind grew along their shores and ships could not be built to cross them.

Efforts were continued to develop an inorganic field of chemistry, with
discouraging results, but in one hundred and fifty-nine the orange corn
was successfully adapted to the elevation and climate of the caves.

There was enough that year to feed the mockers all winter, supply next
year's seeds, and leave enough that it could be ground and baked into
bread for all to taste.

It tasted strange, but good. It was, Schroeder thought, symbolic of a
great forward step. It was the first time in generations that any of
them had known any food but meat. The corn would make them less
dependent upon hunting and, of paramount importance, it was the type of
food to which they would have to become accustomed in the future--they
could not carry herds of woods goats and unicorns with them on Gern
battle cruisers.

The lack of metals hindered them wherever they turned in their efforts
to build even the simplest machines or weapons. Despite its dubious
prospects, however, they made a rifle-like gun.

The barrel of it was thick, of the hardest, toughest ceramic material
they could produce. It was a cumbersome, heavy thing, firing with a
flintlock action, and it could not be loaded with much powder lest the
charge burst the barrel.

The flintlock ignition was not instantaneous, the lightweight porcelain
bullet had far less penetrating power than an arrow, and the thing
boomed and belched out a cloud of smoke that would have shown the Gerns
exactly where the shooter was located.

It was an interesting curio and the firing of it was something
spectacular to behold but it was a weapon apt t