eir thinness
and weariness with the way Bemmon's paunch still bulged outward and his
jowls still sagged with their load of fat.

"I'll send West down to take over in here," he said to Bemmon. "You come
with me. You and I seem to be the only two in good health here and
there's plenty of work for us to do."

The fawning expression vanished from Bemmon's face. "I see," he said.
"Now that I've turned Anders's muddle into organization, you'll hand my
authority over to another of your favorites and demote me back to common
labor?"

"Setting up work quotas for sick and dying people isn't organization,"
Lake said. He spoke to the two boys, "Both of you go lie down. West will
find someone else." Then to Bemmon, "Come with me. We're both going to
work at common labor."

They passed by the cave where Bemmon slept. Two boys were just going
into it, carrying armloads of dried grass to make a mattress under
Bemmon's pallet. They moved slowly, heavily. Like the two boys in the
food storage cave they were dull-eyed with the beginning of the
sickness.

Lake stopped, to look more closely into the cave and verify something
else he thought he had seen: Bemmon had discarded the prowler skins on
his bed and in their place were soft wool blankets; perhaps the only
unpatched blankets the Rejects possessed.

"Go back to your caves," he said to the boys. "Go to bed and rest."

He looked at Bemmon. Bemmon's eyes flickered away, refusing to meet his.

"What few blankets we have are for babies and the very youngest
children," he said. His tone was coldly unemotional but he could not
keep his fists from clenching at his sides. "You will return them at
once and sleep on animal skins, as all the men and women do. And if you
want grass for a mattress you will carry it yourself, as even the young
children do."

Bemmon made no answer, his face a sullen red and hatred shining in the
eyes that still refused to meet Lake's.

"Gather up the blankets and return them," Lake said. "Then come on up to
the central cave. We have a lot of work to do."

He could feel Bemmon's gaze burning against his back as he turned away
and he thought of what John Prentiss had once said:

"I know he's no good but he never has guts enough to go quite far enough
to give me an excuse to whittle him down."

* * * * *

Barber's men arrived the next day, burdened with dried herbs. These were
given to the seriously ill as a supplement to