ed
it and half obscured it.
He went back down the hill as Lake's men appeared. They started work on
what would be a continuation of his own camp and he told Lake what he
had seen from the hill.
"We're between the lowlands and the highlands," he said. "This will be
as near to a temperate altitude as Ragnarok has. We survive here--or
else. There's no other place for us to go."
An overcast darkened the sky at noon and the wind died down to almost
nothing. There was a feeling of waiting tension in the air and he went
back to the Rejects, to speed their move into the woods. They were
already going in scattered groups, accompanied by prowler guards, but
there was no organization and it would be too long before the last of
them were safely in the new camp.
He could not be two places at once--he needed a subleader to oversee the
move of the Rejects and their possessions into the woods and their
placement after they got there.
He found the man he wanted already helping the Rejects get started: a
thin, quiet man named Henry Anders who had fought well against the
prowlers the night before, even though his determination had been
greater than his marksmanship. He was the type people instinctively
liked and trusted; a good choice for the subleader whose job it would be
to handle the multitude of details in camp while he, Prentiss, and a
second subleader he would select, handled the defense of the camp and
the hunting.
"I don't like this overcast," he told Anders. "Something's brewing. Get
everyone moved and at work helping build shelters as soon as you can."
"I can have most of them there within an hour or two," Anders said.
"Some of the older people, though, will have to take it slow. This
gravity--it's already getting the hearts of some of them."
"How are the children taking the gravity?" he asked.
"The babies and the very young--it's hard to tell about them yet. But
the children from about four on up get tired quickly, go to sleep, and
when they wake up they've sort of bounced back out of it."
"Maybe they can adapt to some extent to this gravity." He thought of
what Lake had said that morning: _So many of them are so young ... and
when you're young it's too soon to have to die._ "Maybe the Gerns made a
mistake--maybe Terran children aren't as easy to kill as they thought.
It's your job and mine and others to give the children the chance to
prove the Gerns wrong."
He went his way again to pass by the place
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