The Survivors Read Free Page B

happened,” he said.
    He looked at Lake’s group of Rejects, in their misery and uncertainty so much like his own, and asked, “How was it last night?”
    “Bad—damned bad,” Lake said. “Prowlers and Hell Fever, and no wood for fires. Two hundred died last night.”
    “I came down to see if anyone was in charge here and to tell them that we’ll have to move into the woods at once—today. We’ll have plenty of wood for the fires there, some protection from the wind, and by combining our defenses we can stand off the prowlers better.”
    Lake agreed. When the brief discussion of plans was finished he asked, “How much do you know about Ragnarok?”
    “Not much,” Prentiss answered. “We didn’t stay to study it very long. There are no heavy metals here, or resources of any value. We gave Ragnarok a quick survey and when the sixth man died we marked it on the chart as uninhabitable and went on our way.
    “As you probably know, that bright blue star is Ragnarok’s other sun. Its position in the advance of the yellow sun shows the season to be early spring. When summer comes Ragnarok will swing between the two suns and the heat will be something no human has ever endured. Nor the cold, when winter comes.
    “I know of no edible plants, although there might be some. There are a few species of rodent-like animals—they’re scavengers—and a herbivore we called the woods goat. The prowlers are the dominant form of life on Ragnarok and I suspect their intelligence is a good deal higher than we would like it to be. There will be a constant battle for survival with them.
    “There’s another animal, not as intelligent as the prowlers but just as dangerous—the unicorn. The unicorns are big and fast and they travel in herds. I haven’t seen any here so far—I hope we don’t. At the lower elevations are the swamp crawlers. They’re unadulterated nightmares. I hope they don’t go to these higher elevations in the summer. The prowlers and the Hell Fever, the gravity and heat and cold and starvation, will be enough for us to have to fight.”
    “I see,” Lake said. He smiled, a smile that was as bleak as moonlight on an arctic glacier.
    “Earth-type—remember the promise the Gerns made the Rejects?” He looked out across the camp, at the snow whipping from the frosty hills, at the dead and the dying and a little girl trying vainly to awaken her brother.
    “They were condemned, without reason, without a chance to live,” he said. “So many of them are so young … and when you’re young it’s too soon to have to die.”
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    *
    Prentiss returned to his own group. The dead were buried in shallow graves and inventory was taken of the promised “ample supplies.” These were only the few personal possessions the Rejects had been permitted to take plus a small amount of food the Gerns had taken from the Constellation ‘s stores. The Gerns had been forced to provide the Rejects with at least a little food—had they openly left them to starve, the Acceptables, whose families were among the Rejects, might have rebelled.
    Inventory of the firearms and ammunition showed the total to be discouragingly small. They would have to learn how to make and use bows and arrows as soon as possible. With the first party of guards and workmen following him, Prentiss went to the tributary valley that emptied into the central valley a mile to the north. It was as good a camp site as could be hoped for; wide and thickly spotted with groves of trees, a creek running down its center.
    The workmen began the construction of shelters and he climbed up the side of the nearer hill. He reached its top, his breath coming fast in the gravity that was the equivalent of a burden half his own weight, and saw what the surrounding terrain was like. To the south, beyond the barren valley, the land could be seen dropping in its long sweep to the southern lowlands where the unicorns and swamp crawlers lived. To the north the hills climbed