The Strong Man strode down the alley

to join the man of

THE BARONY.

To a crescendo of screams, he pulled the clawing women from his shoulders and hurled them to the pavement. He moved straight forward, a man apparently without fear and indestructible, right into the Street People. The mob hesitated, then with cries rushed at him. He dealt with them with a terrible swiftness.

The slanted eyes above the broad oriental cheekbones blazed with an unholy glare. His graceful moves of avenging death were deceptively simple. He seemed to pull sudden death from out of the sheer air around him. A man's throat was crushed with a forearm; another enemy swung an axe---and lost both axe and arm in midair. A third foe was kicked in the chest, and in that moment, the chest dissolved into a mess of broken bones, blood and tissue. At the feet of the strong man lay piles of broken bodies.

The Baron caught the champion's gaze and said quietly, "I'll show the way."

WARNER BOOKS EDITION

First Printing: November, 1975

Copyright © 1975 by Warner Bros., Inc.

All rights reserved

Warner Books, Inc., 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10019

A Warner Communications Company

Printed in the United States of America

Not associated with Warner Press, Inc. of Anderson. Indiana

S.E.B. 2025

THE

ULTIMATE

WARRIOR

CHAPTER ONE

The city awaited death like a giant in extremis. It lay hopeless and helpless, paralyzed, awaiting the end. Here and there occasional indications of life flickered like the irregular rhythm of a heartbeat or an occasional tiny stirring in its deadening brain. Everywhere the wreckage spread to the horizon; ruins ran down to the polluted harbor; poisons and wastes whitened the ocean. Jagged cinders of crumbling concrete and prongs of rusting steel pointed accusingly at the thickened heavens above. Desolation and despair echoed in the empty streets; where was the hope of man? "Calendar" was a word from the past. A past and a word never quite forgotten, but no longer important. Time itself was indivisible. Time present, time past, and time future were one and the same because there was no longer a past and there would be little future.

The streets and avenues, the boulevards and expressways that once were filled with limousines and sedans, darting brightly painted taxis and lumbering trucks, served now to funnel the wailing of the lonesome winds---the Trumpets of the Apocalypse.

The pale riders---pestilence, war, famine, and death---galloped at will through the boroughs of the once great metropolis.

Pestilence and plague had decimated both the land and the people. The land had gone first---played out, unable to support the demands of multiplying populations. The fertility of the land died when it was no longer able to enrich itself with fertilizers and protect itself against insects by insecticides. Billions of clamoring bellies permitted no acre of ground to lie fallow. The good ground fought weakly to produce, but what it produced was scythed low by the blackening hordes of flying pests.

The seas, which might have produced food, were as devastated as the lands. Waste disposal and chemical and petroleum pollution had strangled the last life from the oceans and replaced it with the stench of decay.

With starvation came the plagues. Epidemics swept the cities, towns, and countries unchecked. "Medicine," as a word, was lost to the tongues of the people. There was no medicine because there was no science. Physicians were helpless to prescribe the medicines that no longer were manufactured; chemistry vanished along with the raw materials with which it worked. The old folklore remedies of herbs, too, had died with the crops of food.

War raged in the streets. Men fought against men, friends against friends, neighbors against neighbors. Age, race, and creed held no distinctions. Why should they? They no longer had meanings. Creed was composed of one word---survival. Survival, alone, was important; it cut across all morals, ethics, and religion.

A generation had passed since the last great tanker had sailed; when the last pipeline was drained, so, too, were severed the arteries of civilization.

In the cities and countrysides men and women banded together in small settlements. These communes were scattered and few. Each was sufficient unto itself, and survived just so long as it was proficient. Although the settlements were often separated by long distances, rivalry and suspicion still flourished. Along with their survival, the survivors nourished hate and jealousy.

If, indeed, the survivors were composed of the strong, then among them were always the stronger. Among the stronger, of course, there is always the strongest.

In the center of the city stood the shell of a great sprawling warehouse. Its walls were scaled by decay, its interior gutted by a fire from long ago. Within the battered building a flock of pigeons pecked and poked at the charred floors searching for food. The golden eyes of the birds glinted occasionally as they searched for small infinitesimal morsels of food. Long since, the blue-green sheen of their feathers had disappeared. Now they were almost white, a gray, ghostly simulation of their former colorful elegance. They stabbed their beaks between pieces of broken glass seeking out tiny seeds that might have been blown into the warehouse by the wind.

High above the floor, hidden in the shadows toward the ceiling, a large net spread above the wary birds. At some distance a small ragged man, unshaven and disheveled, crouched from sight behind a pile of burned-out timbers and fallen rubble. With difficulty, he concealed his anticipation as he grasped a small cord that extended up to the net. When the flock eventually contracted into a compact group directly beneath the net, he gleefully pulled the cord and the trap fell over the pigeons. The frightened birds struggled fruitlessly, beating their wings against the net that entrapped them. The hunter with a joyful shout leaped from his place of concealment and ran toward the birds. He was joined by a companion who also had been hiding from their feathered prey. Both trembled with excitement and grinned at each other, showing rotting black teeth. Quickly they began to harvest the birds, pulling them from beneath the net and stuffing them into heavy woven sacks hanging around their necks. "Every one, by God!" the hunter exclaimed.

"I told you they come here pretty regular," his companion said. "And we don't have to share the haul with nobody, either."

Both men were stunted and scrawny from malnutrition. In their anticipation of meat to eat---meat, good meat, meat filled with protein---they became careless in their haste to bag their game. A pigeon struggled free from the hand of the hunter and lifted itself heavily into the air. On an injured wing it flew unsteadily to an elevated perch. With a shout of dismay, the hunter rushed after it, leaping high to try to recover his game. His companion spat condemningly on the floor. "You damn well better catch it!" he said. "We can't afford to lose a single one!"

The hunter's leaping antics frightened the bird, forcing it to leave its low perch. The pigeon struggled upwards again trying to gain altitude, and was able to remain just out of the hunter's grasp. The tiring bird became desperate in its frantic efforts to escape. It smashed against one of the few panes of glass that remained in the shattered windows. Stunned, it managed to cling to the sill. The window was set in the wall well above the hunter's hand, and the bird huddled on the sill in exhaustion. The runty hunter searched desperately to find a box or some other container to place beneath the window. By climbing on it, he could reach the bird.

Everything of possible use had long since been ripped from the warehouse. The hunter searched for some time to find a box. While he scoured around, his companion completed the job of stuffing the birds into his sack and tightened the drawstring. He watched the hunter who, finally, was compelled to build a pile of rubbish beneath the window upon which to stand and then climbed to the top of the heap of broken beams and charred rubble. Slowly he rose from a crouch and, cautiously, reached up to grasp the bird. His hand reached the sill of the window and then with a quick swoop grabbed the bird. The pigeon struggled vainly against its captor's firm grip, and the hunter turned with a grin to look back at his partner.

In this moment of victory an arrow flashed through the air to bury itself deep in the hunter's chest. Even as death spread throughout his body, the hunter did not let the pigeon go. The bird still struggled in its captor's frozen grip as the hunter pitched off the pile of rubble. The dead man continued to grin his black smile of triumph.

The dead hunter's companion clutched his bag of struggling birds and stared with terror across the floor toward the open door. Five men had entered the warehouse, and they spread out to advance on the lone survivor of the hunt. They were large, bearded men wearing heavy leather clothes, and they carried a variety of weapons. One grasped a sword that had been sharpened and shaped from what had formerly been a tire spanner. A second brandished a length of metal pipe, the end of which was fitted with a heavy round ball. The third threatened with a spear; its head was the long blade of a chef's knife wired to the shaft. A man with a bow readied another arrow, but a huge, red-bearded giant stopped him. "Hell!" he said, his voice dispassionate. "That's not necessary. He's yours anyway."

"Okay, Carrot."

The bowman removed the shaft from the bowstring and returned it to his belt where four other arrows were hanging. Grinning with pleasure, the archer and his three companions advanced slowly on the terrorized hunter. The man with the sack of birds backed away, his eyes searching desperately for an avenue of escape, but for him as for the bird captured by his dead companion, there was no way. The man tore the bag of birds from around his neck and threw it on the floor. "Here!" he said, his voice broke with fear. "They're yours. Every one of them!"

Fanning out in a semicircle, the four stalkers continued to move forward. There was no way for their victim to turn except toward the wall of the warehouse behind him. His voice rose to an unsteady squeak. "They're all there," he said, "didn't have time to even eat one of them." His eyes seemed to glint as the eyes of the hunted bird once had glinted, and they rolled in his head as he slowly backed towards the wall.

"Now, that's nice of you!" said Carrot.

The red-haired man stepped forward and lifted the bag. He shook it. The birds inside fluttered wildly. Carrot regarded the bag for a moment, estimating, and said finally, "Maybe six!"

He tossed it to the bowman and turned to exit from the building. For only a moment, the archer stood undecided; he wanted to join his companions in the fun that he knew was to follow. Then he tossed the bag over his shoulder and followed Carrot from the building. The others, however, had not hesitated a moment, and were slowly closing in on their prey. Their terrorized victim ran to the pile of rubble beneath the window; beside it still lay the body of his dead companion. He, too, climbed the rubble and chinned himself up to the sill. For a moment, he thrust his chest and head up to the window to catch a glimpse of the drop five stories to the street below. The spearman threw his weapon; it buried itself in the window frame beside the trapped man. Wild-eyed with terror, the doomed man dropped from the sill back to the pile of rubble and, with a scream, tried to break through the ring surrounding him. One of his tormentors stepped aside as if to let him go, but at the same time twirled a lasso over his quarry's head. He threw. The noose neatly dropped around the fugitive's waist and snapped him back, jerking him to the floor. Screaming, the victim struggled to his feet as another lasso snared him. Then the third rope fell in place. The stalkers toyed with him, playing their catch as a fisherman plays a running trout in a stream. They let him dart in one direction, until another brought him up short. The victim lost all sense of reason and, to a degree, all sense of control. Urine and defecation streaked his tattered pants. The spearman pulled a knife from his belt and slowly walked to his victim held immobile between two taut ropes. The wretch's tortured screams soared to an ear-piercing pitch. The one note of complete and utter terror held an unvarying intensity as if it were produced by a mechanical instrument. There was no break in the wailing crescendo, no change of pitch, no altering of volume as the predator with the knife moved deliberately toward the sufferer.

Outside the warehouse, Carrot stood in the middle of the street. Pushing up through cracks and breaks of the crumbling asphalt, weeds flourished, ranging in height from a few inches to as tall as four feet. Vines, unheeded, crept from the cracks to crawl across the pavement and up the curb to the sidewalk of the barren, desolate street; their probing tendrils explored each crevice and enveloped it in a green tide. Once the area had consisted of factory buildings, but the structures had been long deserted and except for the main walls were almost entirely gutted. High against the walls were piled rusted automobile bodies that, for years, had been stripped of all useful parts and fabrics.

Carrot stood very still, motionless, sensing the feel of the asphalt under his feet and the shift of a breeze that raised small flurries of dancing dust and caused the standing weeds to wave gently before it. Carrot stood as an animal stands testing its environment; an environment that is hostile and which offers sudden death. His nostrils flared to receive a scent borne by the breeze. He tilted his head as a bird might in receiving minute oscillations from the air. From the earth beneath his feet, he appeared to be awaiting vibrations of approaching danger. Satisfied that there were no immediate threats, Carrot started down the street followed by the man with the bow. From high above streamed a cry of anguish. It ended abruptly and with a terrible finality. The wail, however, continued to trail down the deserted street, echoing and vibrating. If Carrot heard the cry of the wretch in the warehouse, he gave no indication. His eyes did not stop scanning the rows of silent broken windows across the street from where he was passing. When he and the archer reached the corner, the three men in the warehouse came out into the street and followed them.

CHAPTER TWO

Half a dozen blocks down the street on which the warehouse stood, a group of once fine apartment buildings remained. The buildings stood in a cluster, side by side, rising from the street to eight, nine, and ten stories respectively. Unlike the neighboring buildings around them, these apartment buildings, for unknown reasons, had never been gutted by fire, but they had not escaped neglect and decay. Most of the windows in them had been broken for years and the yawning cavities covered over with boards, sheets of tin, and thin mattresses. Long ago, plumbing in the buildings had been ripped out . . . the precious metal needed for other purposes, and tubs, bowls and wash basins salvaged to serve more necessary functions. Electrical wire was the most precious commodity, although electricity was no longer in use. The buildings offered little more than basic shelter. Many of the rooms no longer had doors, as the wooden panels had been burned for fuel in cold winters past. Openings knocked through the adjoining walls of the buildings permitted interior access between the three structures without the necessity of their occupants to go out into the street.

On the roof of the highest building, the one that reached ten stories, a large, sturdy man, going slightly to fat, stood looking through a pair of big navy binoculars. Possibly sixty years of age, with a shock of white hair, an arched aristocratic nose, and firm chin, he was known as the "Baron." He stared through the old high-powered glasses that were mounted on a heavy steel post at a corner of the building. Because of their mounting, the Baron was able to swivel the binoculars in an arc of 360 degrees to command a view of the city . . . a city that suggested very little life. Smoke from an occasional faraway fire rose in the sky. But there was neither movement nor activity on the surrounding rooftops or in any of the streets that the Baron could see. Behind the watching man stood a guard holding the long slightly curved handle of a large fire ax.

Covering the entire top of the building was a garden. On the roof of the adjacent building (one story shorter) was a second garden. On the third building, farthest away and shortest of the three, was yet another garden. Seen from a distance, the three gardens rose in steps almost as if they sprang aloft on mountain tiers. The three oases were the only spots of green in the abandoned gray desolation of a hundred square miles of surrounding rooftops. Here within a few artificial acres man had been able to once again combine with the forces of nature to cultivate living plants. In the distant past, perhaps 40,000 years ago, hunters had first laid aside their weapons to grow crops. The success of their efforts had founded the first civilizations. The civilizations grew until all the good earth had been swallowed up. Plague and starvation swept the world---until even the seeds to be sown were eaten. Nothing remained. But man, resilient, started anew these hanging gardens.

A man hoed at the far corner of the garden as another, hauling two buckets of water, came up through the roof door. The latter looked across the garden and asked, "Is this enough, Cal?"

The man named Cal put aside his hoe. He was of medium height, lean and wiry, with the gentle, patient face of one who lives close to his beloved earth. He walked to the waiting hauler. For just a moment he stared at the tins and said, with regret, "That's all we're allowed for today, I guess."

Cal poured the water into a sprinkling can and began to distribute the water over beds of onions, radishes, and squash, and even a small stand of corn. The water carrier picked up the two empty pails and returned down the stairs. A short distance from where the Baron was making his observations through the binoculars stood a small shack built of discarded materials. Pushed to the side of the building, it occupied a very small area. This was the house within which Cal lived. It was convenient to the tiny acreage, and he was never far from his precious, growing plants.

Through the binoculars the Baron saw Carrot and his men making their way along the street toward Carrot's commune located four city blocks away from the "Barony commune." Each commune, wherever one existed, survived alone. Each was the enemy of all the others. In a world where there was no goal beyond survival, all men were enemies and no man was brother to another. Satisfied that Carrot and his band were not on a foray against his own people, the Baron closed down the binoculars and looked over the side of the building.

Outside the protection of the Barony was a structure of what formerly had been a branch public library. The building was several stories high and, in the Greco-Roman style, supported its facade with pillars. Rubble from its crumbling pillars was overgrown with climbing vines, and its walls were split apart by roots over decades of disuse. The structure stood back from the street a slightly greater distance than did the buildings on either side. A small open area thus formed on three sides, and facing the street, served the function of a tiny square.

Very few persons still inhabited this part of the city, and those who did had renamed the library; they called it the "Square." Through the prodding of necessity and by mutual agreement, the Square was recognized as neutral territory. In it men and women were free to meet, to exchange, to barter objects or food for other items they needed, without danger to their lives or the threat of being robbed by strangers. Money was no longer a commodity of exchange. Since it could buy nothing, it had no use and was considered worthless.

This day in the Square, in the exact center of the open space, stood the solitary figure of a man. He stood erect and immobile. His eyes were closed to the hot sun. His size was impressive and suggested a massive strength and agility even while he stood motionless. His head was clean-shaven and he wore no beard. From the smooth head exposed to the burning rays of the sun, rivulets of sweat ran down his neck set like a stump in the wide expanse of shoulders. Although he was not Oriental, there was a suggestion of the East in the slant of his eyes and the high broad cheekbones in the impassive face. Here, in the Square, he was offering his services to the highest bidder.

The Baron straightened from the small wall that rimmed the outer edges of the rooftop. He turned to speak to the guard behind him, "It's been two days, hasn't it?"

"Yes, sir," the guard said, "he hasn't moved a muscle in all that time, either." The guard shook his head, "Strange, isn't it? Don't see how a man can stand without moving for that long."

The Baron regarded the guard for a moment, thinking. Again he turned to lean over the railing and looked down into the Square. "That would depend a good deal upon the man," the Baron said. "Has he had any offers?"

The guard nodded. "Some of the Bethel commune from clear across town came to talk to him. But there he still is," he added.

"And that is all?" the Baron asked, "No one else?"

"As far as I know," the guard replied. He shook his head. "Guess they figure a man that big will eat up more food than he is worth."

"Whoever he is," the Baron said, "he looks like a real fighting man."

The Baron no longer looked down into the Square. Instead he turned his attention to the street fronting and running to the side of the commune buildings. A few feet above his head, the blades of an old windmill turned slowly in the slight breeze. The rods and pipes to the windmill dropped down along the side of the building to the street ten stories below. The pump rod disappeared into a small hole in the pavement and continued into the earth for another hundred feet to clean water. The street, one block long, was barricaded at both ends with thick walls of ancient refrigerators, rusted automobiles, buses, and truck bodies, all of them spliced together with steel cables and shored up with metal lamp poles.

In this particular area of the city, small retail stores, private dwellings, and apartments, together with manufacturing factories, had existed in a mosaic of activity. In the good times, they survived together in a complex of mutual interests. Toward the end, however, when the great city began to die, they had segregated their interests and moved further and further away from each other. But when they died, they died together, although some died before the others. All the buildings that faced on the street, North Willow Place, once held retail-stores and private dwellings. Now they served the communal life of the Barony, barricaded against the predators who came from other compounds or lived precariously on the streets like nomads. Several fires burned, continuous, on the asphalt street, as it was too wasteful of precious fuel to let them go out and to start them again. Long ago, the fires had melted through the asphalt down into the earth beneath the street to form firepits such as savages had used and known for thousands of years.

Animal skins, possibly dog hides or cat fur, hung drying from windows located above the third stories of the buildings. At that height, the window openings were safe from unexpected invasions. Water slowly poured from the well, driven by the windmill, into a huge ornate bathtub. Casting of raised letters on the tub identified its former owner: the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The Baron was convinced that the commune's defenses were in good order. He looked toward the man in the Square again. "We need that man. I'll have to talk to him," he said.

"You can yell at him," the guard said, "tell him to come over."

"He'd never hear," the Baron replied, "and if he did, I don't think he'd come."

He paused for a moment and reached a decision.

"We'll go get him! Get some men together to go with me."

The guard hesitated. "Leave this compound?" he asked.

A slight smile of amusement touched the Baron's lips.

"If you knew a way to get there without leaving the compound, I'd be happy to consider it," he said indulgently.

The guard was not happy, but he had nothing more to say. Reluctantly he started toward the stairway leading from the rooftop into the interior of the apartment building. More slowly the Baron followed him and passed Cal, who was still weeding and watering his vegetables.

"String beans are coming along fine, Cal," the Baron said.

Cal did not allow himself time to stop. He looked up with a smile on his intent, intelligent face. "Yes, sir," Cal said. "Quite a few crops from that pocketful of beans I walked off the farm with!" His calloused hand quickly plucked out a small weed from the plot and put it aside. "These beans come from good stock," he added.

The Baron stared at Cal's bent back. He nodded. "Good stock!" the Baron agreed. "Good stock, indeed!"

The Baron continued to the rooftop door and entered it. He descended the concrete steps. The guard had already rushed ahead to conscript a few men to go with them on the trip. Alone in the quiet of the stairwell, the Baron continued to descend the stairs, but with each step his progress slowed until he paused and finally stopped. He clutched the hand rail, and his eyes stared fixedly at the brick wall.

The Baron's wide chest heaved in great shattering breaths searching for air. Suddenly his frame shook and he bent double, clutching his belly as he wrapped his arms around his body. He forced back a choking cry that welled in his throat and muffled it. Breathing deeply, he slowly straightened up and slapped his face hard with the open palm of one hand. The self-inflicted blow reflected a combination of rage and sorrow. Gradually, his face assumed its normal expression and with resumed composure he continued down the stairs. The Baron found the guard with a couple of sturdy younger men who were willing to accompany them. Unfortunately, however, none of the younger men were formidable .in appearance. They did not give the impression of being fighters.

Leaving the recruits with the Baron on the first floor, the guard stepped down into a half-basement apartment slightly below street level. Beside the door was the nearly illegible sign of long-since-departed A. REVENSEN, TAILOR. The guard peered into the dim light of a room. His eyes located a muscular member of the commune busily hanging a woven swing from the ceiling. Beside the young man was his wife, Barrie. The young woman held in her arms their year-old baby. She placed herself between the guard and the infant and turned a narrow, suspicious stare on the intruder.

"What do you want?" Barrie asked.

Her husband spoke up, "It's Darrow, the guard,'' he said.

The guard nodded. "The Baron needs a few men to go with him to the Square," he explained.

"No!" the woman cried. "You can't go, Robert!"

Her husband's glance momentarily quieted her.

Turning to face the guard, he asked, "Why?"

"He's trying to recruit a new man," the guard said.

"A killer?" Robert asked.

"Don't know," the guard told him.

"God knows we can use one!" Robert turned toward his wife and continued. "We're just going to the Square," he said, "it's safe enough there."

Barrie shook her head, "Maybe while you are there, it's safe," she replied, "but how about coming and going. It's not like the old days. It's getting worse."

Robert glanced at the guard and then back at his wife. Suddenly aware that her husband was going to go regardless of her arguments, Barrie returned his look. Robert pulled on the rope swing to make sure it was secure, then moved to his wife and baby, touching the baby's nose with one finger.

"Take it easy. Don't get upset," he said.

Barrie looked down at her baby and for a moment displayed a sudden tenderness that she seldom permitted anyone to see. She shook her head and forced a smile. Robert, pleased by her reluctant agreement, went to a wall and reached for a wide-bladed ax. Without additional words, he turned to join the guard. The two men left the room, and Barrie watched her husband go. After a moment she turned her attention back to the baby and placed him gently in his swing.

CHAPTER THREE

The Baron stood on the street in front of the apartment buildings. With him were Robert and the two other young members of the commune. No signs of the Baron's recent experience of pain and shock showed in his face. His heavy breathing had been forced back to a more normal rhythm. Soon the guard joined the small group with two additional men he had recruited. Led by the Baron as he headed for the entrance to the barricade, the band of seven started down the block.

A short distance away, a group of young boys stood at attention in a line under the supervision of a middle-aged instructor. The instructor, a former athlete and obviously a veteran of many street fights, silently slapped the shoulder of a ten-year-old boy. The boy leaped forward with a shout to charge a large dummy that hung from a rope attached to a wooden beam protruding from the side of a building. The youth feinted at the dummy with short chopping strokes of his stiffened hand, fighting from a crouching position. The boy moved quickly and gracefully in an ancient Oriental style of fighting. He ended the exercise with a swift, wicked kick to the groin of the dummy. The instructor nodded his approval and turned to the next boy in the line . . . a six-year-old. The child attacked with the same feints and thrusts. His young face was frozen in a vicious mask. He, too, concluded his practice with a kick to the crotch of the dummy. The other youths remained in line, their eyes straight ahead, awaiting their turn.

"Good!" the instructor exclaimed in approval to the six-year-old student.

"But don't forget," he cautioned, "your first attack may also be your last. Be sure that it carries not only the full thrust of your own body, but the momentum of your opponent as well."

The Baron and the men with him continued past the class in "Martial Arts and Self-Survival" and continued down the street. They passed the firepits deep in the asphalt where thick iron pots held a bubbling soup-like mixture of hot food. One pit had been converted into a forge where a heavily muscled man was beating out several glowing spearheads on an anvil. Two young assistants watched him carefully as he shaped the glowing metal with a hammer. When one of the heads had been shaped to his approval, the smith tossed the red-hot piece of metal into a chipped enamel washbowl that was filled with a mixture of water and human urine. Acid chemicals were hard to come upon, but there was always plenty of urine. On the street near the smith's forge stood a large bathtub with ball-and-claw feet. In it stood clear fresh water, and several women from the commune filled their pitchers from it. On the corner were an aging woman and a young girl working at a large crude hand loom. Several very small girls crouched on the curb picking lint from a pile of discarded rags and old bags and sacks. The strands they recovered were used again in weaving new coarse cloth on the primitive loom. Weaving went back to the pre-dawn of human history, and its memory was still alive, although in a crude form in the Barony.

A young woman named Melinda stepped out of a doorway from what once had been a barbershop, its striped red-and-white pole now rotted and hanging aslant. With a slight gesture, the Baron waved his companions to a stop and crossed the street to speak to the young women. The girl stood silent awaiting him. An inner strength and self-sufficiency showed in her upright carriage. She was not beautiful, but nearly so; through wide-set, intelligent eyes she watched the Baron approach. He stood in front of her and regarded her carefully for a moment. His face, usually impassive, softened slightly, and for a fleeting moment his expression was one of fondness and concern. Quickly he wiped it away and said, "I'm going to talk to that man in the Square."

Melinda nodded approvingly and held a hand over her swollen belly where her baby still awaited a month to birth.

"Good," Melinda said. "I hope he's what you're looking for."

"So do I," agreed the Baron. "We need him badly. All of us need him badly."

The Baron moved away from the young woman and rejoined the group accompanying him. Again they started down the street toward the barricade. At his command, two guards struggled to pull back a heavy gate which sealed the end of a tunnel through the ten-foot-thick barricade. Once the gate had been the thick, steel-plated outer door to the vault of a bank. It moved open slowly because it did not hang true, and the hinges grated as it swung open. Before entering the tunnel to the outer world, the Baron asked a guard, "Any activity?"

The guard told him. "A couple dozen street people went by about daybreak. Nothing but them."

The Baron nodded and started through the barricade that rose more than forty feet above him. Rusting strands of barbed wire were strung and looped in a bewildering trail throughout the tunnel. The points of the barbed wire were coated with a wash of poison compounded, in the past, from a mixture of human feces and the rotting bodies of decayed fish floating in the harbor. A man must know his way through the maze to successfully navigate a course to reach the outer limits of the tunnel without being scratched. Antiseptics, disinfectants, and medical supplies were nearly nonexistent. A scratch was almost invariably fatal. Long, slender, narrow steel poles sharpened to needle points extended vertically from the ceiling of the tunnel and were thrust downward to impale invaders attempting to storm the tunnel. The Baron led his men carefully through the maze and reached the exterior of the street on the other side of the barricade.

For a moment the band stood in a cautious group while the Baron looked down the length of street fronting them and then started down it without another glance as if impervious to attack and hurt. The men followed, stretching out into a single line, and their eyes searched the windows of the buildings above them. The Baron's gaze was fixed on an intersection two blocks ahead, around the corner of which was the entrance to the Square. He led the way brushing past the shoulder-high weeds that grew in the street and stepped over the tangle of crawling vines. The long-familiar sight of rusting automobile bodies pushed against the walls of the buildings and resting along the curbs was not worthy of concern.

High up behind the wall of a deserted building, a man hidden from sight watched the Baron and his small band as they moved along the street below. Behind him, a dozen of his fellows collected. A few women huddled in the background. They were the street people: nomads, scavengers, and true barbarians, outcasts even in a world where savagery was the common level. For the Baron and his people, and even Carrot and his company of robbers and pirates, retained a semblance and structure of society, although it was crude and elemental. In the commune, at least, life was based on the memory and history of the past. The street people, on the other hand, were despoilers and destroyers. They ranged the streets of the city stripping them as bare as devastating swarms of locusts had once stripped the fields. Unkempt, tattered, homeless, and without pride, they attacked only when they found a lone victim or when they felt their number was sufficient to carry the fight. They watched the progress of the Baron and his six men and carefully calculated their chances. The man watching through the window said, "Seven pair of shoes!"

His fellow standing behind him added, "That's a near new leather jacket on the old one---the one out front." Because wool, cotton, and synthetic fibers were no longer produced, weaving was a dying art and still practiced in only the more advanced communes. Leather had became the common garb; not only did it wear better, but stocks from the good years before had not deteriorated as had the cloth.

The Baron reached the intersection and moved past a traffic light that was twisted over and lying on the ground. Empty sockets were all that remained where the red, yellow, and green glass had been. He turned the corner and crossed the street fronting the Square. His guards moved with him and their eyes constantly scanned the locale around them---alert for signs of movement or life. When the Baron stopped, the men shifted nervously.

From a short distance the Baron stared at the motionless figure of the man standing in the Square. Flies circled his body, landing and leaving at will. Beads of sweat gathered in small pools on the top of his head and ran down the sides of his face to gather in tiny pockets of perspiration around his ears. But the man made no move. Suddenly and without warning, the Baron slapped his hands together; the sound resounded sharp and quick. The closed eyes of the motionless man tightened slightly. The Baron edged closer to the crumbling curb of the street and observed the stranger thoughtfully.

"So you can hear me. What is your name?" he asked, finally.

The man made no answer, nor did he move.

The Baron stepped upon the curb and took a few strides into the Square to stand beside the motionless stranger.

"I assume you are for hire, or you wouldn't be standing here in the Square," the Baron said.

He paused, aware that he could expect no reply. Conversation or communication, if any, must be his responsibility. The Baron was a patient man---when his goal was urgent. And to hire this magnificent fighting machine was important to him and his people. Each commune of importance supported a "champion," a professional fighter, for increased aid and protection; he was in addition to the commune's regular guards who were recruited from the best physical specimens of the settlement.

"I am called the Baron," he continued. "The people of the commune took to using the term, and whether it is said in respect is unknown to me. It doesn't matter. I did not seek the position."

He paused again before going on.

"What I want to tell you is . . . that we are not searching out to destroy our neighbors. We do not covet the lives or goods of any people. We have a good and lasting supply of fresh water. We grow our own vegetables."

The Baron had the impression that the stranger was listening, although the man had not charged his position or expression.

"As our 'fighting man,' you're entitled to more than the others. Three adult allotments of food and water each meal. I don't know what your sexual requirements may be. Anything of that sort will have to be worked out on your own."

The guards around the Baron moved nervously, fearful that their leader had taken too long and had exposed all to a gathering danger. News of the expedition would spread rapidly throughout the area.

"Your room," the Baron continued, "will be dry and free of rats." The Baron regarded the man for a moment and added, "If you smoke, I have a cache of cigars. I believe that to be the extent of our offer."

When the stranger made no reply, the Baron's eyes squinted a little in disappointment, although his voice remained calm and authoritative.

"I can only think your answer is no. If you should reconsider, our compound is two city blocks away in the direction you are facing. You'll see the barricade."

The Baron waited for a long moment hoping for a reply. When he received none, he turned and started back, to the great relief of his guards. The Baron left the Square, stepped down from the curb, and made his way back down the street. He carefully concealed his disappointment; for some weeks the Barony had been without its professional champion.

After the Baron departed, the stranger slowly opened his eyes, and his stare followed the departing band of men. His face wore an expression of distrust and hostility. Then, slowly, his expression began to change and merged into another, very close to indecision.

The Baron's group made its way back to the corner with the overturned stoplight. The party scanned the street and the windows in the building overlooking it. They started back toward the compound. In a closely grouped band, weapons at the alert, they covered the first block without incident. But on reaching the second block, only a comparatively short distance from the security of the commune behind the barricades, a hideous collective wail rising to a frenzied shriek froze the group. The chilling sound reverberated from wall to wall and echoed from building to building. A tide filled the street with wild, unwashed bodies that leaped through broken windows and came screaming up from cellar doorways. Immediately the band drew closer around the Baron to fight as a single wedge. But the suddenness and the frenzy of the attack caused one of the younger men in the band to bolt away in terror. A group of the street people split away from the herd to bring him down. The senior guard of the commune called to the fleeing man, "Chris, come back! You don't have a chance by yourself!"

Chris, unheeding, ran as if he were blind. He stumbled on the broken pavement of the street and fell. Quickly he was cut off from the Baron's group and could no longer return. He flailed away at the vicious faces of the street people surrounding him. The circle of wild faces closed in on him, and he was thrown back to the pavement. The swarm lifted him aloft and pulled back his head by the hair; Chris's body arched backwards while the others pinned his arms and legs. In one long, shrill cry, Chris screamed for help, pleading for the Baron to come to his aid and at the same time begging for mercy from his attackers.

The Baron and his group were forced to retreat and through necessity backed into a narrow alley as the mass of street people surged forward. The men from the Barony were unable to reach Chris. The captive was dragged forward on his knees to a cleared space where all could see him. One of Chris's assailants lifted high a heavy stone and brought it down to crush the victim's skull. Shouting in triumph, they threw the body to the side of the street; several women ran out from a building and began to strip the corpse.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Baron's group backed farther into the alley when the mob pressed forward in a solid mass. The Baron searched the walls of the buildings that enclosed the alley; there were no windows or doors leading to escape. The band continued to retreat, keeping together as a unit under the growing volume of screams and verbal abuse hurled at them by the street people. Fortunately, the axes and spears of the commune's men were superior to the sticks, stones, and crude clubs of their assailants. Behind the Baron, blocking the width of the alley, was a huge mound of debris. The band must climb this obstacle while still defending themselves. As the Baron fought desperately, his small company swung their heavy axes and lunged . . . stabbing . . . with their long spears.

Then a diversion seemed to take place at the mouth of the alley.

A different sound began to override the furor of the raging battle. After a moment, the Baron identified the high-pitched shrieks of women. Some of the street men fighting the Baron and his band at the foot of the pile of debris slipped away from the fray and turned their attention back down the alley from whence came the crescendo of screams.

The man in the Square strode down the alley as he pulled two clawing women from his shoulders. He hurled them to the pavement and ignored the other women, who were hovering close by, screeching taunts and curses. He moved straight down the alley toward the street people, a man apparently without fear and indestructible. The mob hesitated, then with cries rushed at him. The last one to move away from the Baron's band was brought down from behind by a guard's ax. The others poured ahead to overpower the newcomer. In a torrent, the untrained, leaderless mob poured into the bottleneck defined and restricted by the width of the alley. Only two or three of them, at a time, reached the man from the Square. And he dealt with them with a terrible swiftness.

The slanted eyes above the broad Oriental cheekbones blazed with an unholy glare. His graceful moves of avenging death were deceptively simple. With fluidity and economy of movement, with a grace comparable to a conjuring magician performing sleight of hand, he seemed to pull sudden death from out of the very air around him. A man's throat was crushed with a forearm; another enemy swung an ax---and lost both ax and arm in mid-air. A third foe was kicked in the chest, and in that moment the chest was no longer there---dissolving into a mess of broken bones, blood, and tissue. In one sweeping movement, yet another attacker was kneed and then hurled to be impaled on a jutting piece of iron---all that remained from an ancient fire escape. Finally the mob stopped. The men in the front rank hesitated and no longer pressed forward. The man from the Square stood unblinking, staring at the now silent horde. At his feet lay piles of broken bodies.

The Baron seized this moment to make his move. He left the pile of debris, and his men prodded back the sullen crowd with their spears. Reluctantly, the silent mass opened, and the Baron's group made its way through to join up with the man from the Square. The man nodded to the Baron with an expression somewhere between remorse and relief. The Baron caught his champion's gaze and held it for a second, then said, quietly, "I'll show the way."

The man from the Square fell in behind the Baron and with the other men from the commune marched silently down the alley to the street. Without further incident, the band reached safety behind the barricades of the Barony.

Carrot made his way through the maze of small rooms in the commune that he headed. At some time a fire had partly gutted the interior of the building, burning a great hollow through the ascending stories to create an empty shaft that extended from the first floor to a hole in the roof. The remnants of an iron railing had been erected around the hole at the top. The old building had been converted into a fortress. In the first three stories above street level, all windows were blocked up, many of them stoned in with bricks and rubble and held together with mortar. Only one entrance opened to the street, and this was a set of heavy, solid, wooden doors reinforced with iron bolts and sheets of metal. Behind the first set of doors was a crude portcullis similar to those of old European castles. This rude grating could be lowered in case the outer door were forced.

The building offered little privacy to its inhabitants. Rooms were occupied by various families, but doors to the rooms and corridors did not exist. Instead, the doorways were covered by hanging pieces of old canvas or animal skins that had been sewn together. Carrot's commune had less comfort, or convenience, to offer its members than did the Baron's. In the center of the huge concrete floor, on the first story, fires smoldered in pits similar to those in the streets outside the Baron's buildings. The smoke from these interior fires drifted lazily upward through the hole in the top of the building. At the hole on the rooftop was a guard.

The guard's attention was fixed on some distant activity. Suddenly, he turned, waved down the shaft to catch Carrot's notice, and shouted, "Carrot!"

Carrot glanced up, stood, stretched, and yawned. Deliberately, he made his way to the roof by a series of stairways that had been patched together---some wood, some stone and marble, and one section consisting of a circular iron staircase. When he reached the roof, the guard handed him a pair of binoculars. "Take a look at the Baron's place," he told the red-haired man.

Carrot walked to the building's edge, placed the binoculars to his eyes, and focused the glasses on the commune down the street. He saw the band of returning men, including the man from the Square, emerge through the tunnel of the barricade into the street of the Barony. Carrot lowered the glasses to remark, "That son of a bitch joined up with him."

The guard nodded agreement.

Carrot continued, "Now why do you figure the Baron needs him? They got all the men they need or can support."

The giant red-haired man paused, then continued, "Or at least did have."

He again lifted the binoculars and used them to study the rooftop, where he saw Cal working in the garden. The greenness stretching from one rooftop to another, terraced from one building level to another, impressed him again as it had before on other occasions. "That farmer keeps things growing," Carrot remarked.

"They've got plenty of water," the guard said.

Carrot was skeptical. He was not convinced that it was merely the water supply which added to the importance of the Barony's food sources. "One thing sure," Carrot said, "they've got plenty of something."

He handed over the binoculars and turned to leave. "Keep track of everything over there," Carrot instructed the guard.

Within the Barony, the members of the commune crowded the windows, doors, and street awaiting the return of the Baron and his men and to get a look at the new champion fighting man who had been recruited. Most of the men and women wore a fatalistic air; they had learned from experience always to assume that some of their number had died while away in the outside world. When theirs was an occasional victory, there was little elation. Survival alone was triumph. If the community suffered loss, there was little sorrow. The living were little better off than the dead.

The Baron at the head of his small band moved down the block and reaching the center of it, stopped. He looked around at the waiting members of the commune and saw Melinda watching from a doorway---her hands supporting her swollen belly.

Barrie held close her year-old son, aware now that the scream of death she had heard from the distant street was not that of her husband. Robert saw her and nodded in recognition. The Baron gestured toward the new man. "I want all of you to meet . . ." The moment of silence was an unasked question as he looked at the man from the Square.

The man spoke. "Carson," he announced.

The Baron nodded and smiled. This was the first word he had heard from the stranger. The Baron turned to the waiting audience. "Carson, he saved our lives just now. Except for Chris, who made a mistake."

A woman in a window turned away quickly as her eyes filled with tears, but she made no outcry. Quickly she disappeared from the view of her neighbors. The Baron, who had watched the woman, once more turned his gaze back from the window. "Have some of the girls ready the room above the old tobacco shop," he ordered. To Carson he added, "When you're settled, I'd like to talk. Ask anyone where I am."

The Baron moved away as several women gestured for Carson to follow them. The new man looked around, taking in the faces that were scrutinizing him, then he followed after the women. The young boys who had earlier been practicing their fighting techniques followed his moves with awe and respect. If there was hope to be seen in the commune, it was on the faces of the youngsters. If it were not hope, perhaps it was their renewal of the belief that man can and will overcome all obstacles.

Robert left his companions to return to the half-apartment where he lived with his son and Barrie. He gently pushed the baby in the swing, moving him only a few inches back and forth in a gentle hello. Barrie picked up a tiny pair of moccasins she had been making. Her thin fingers pushed the leather strips through the holes very rapidly. She attempted to cover her agitation and flashed a critical glance at her husband, who was still pushing the baby in the swing. "Don't push him too high!" she warned.

Robert looked at her. Since the birth of his son, Robert had been concerned by his wife's cold preoccupation with the baby and her obsessive and excessive protection of the infant. He slowed the swing so that it barely moved. "He's okay," Robert told her.

"I've heard they're about out of powdered milk. I couldn't get any today," Barrie complained. She frowned.

"I know. I'll go over and talk with them," Robert replied.

The wife turned viciously on her husband. Her voice snarled, "That woman across the street got some for hers."

"Clara?" asked Robert.

Barrie nodded and angrily threw down one of the tiny moccasins. "I saw her come out with it and take it to her place."

Robert tried to calm her mounting anger. "Maybe it was something else."

"Are you trying to say I don't what I saw?" Barrie replied, her face flushed with anger.

"Please calm down, Barrie. I'll go find out," Robert assured her.

Barrie said nothing more. For a moment she stared at the small leather moccasin on the floor, then slowly she reached down to pick it up.

With a sigh, Robert arose and once more gently pushed the baby's swing. As he left the apartment, the anguished eyes of his wife followed him; her stare was haunted and hollow. Late afternoon shadows filled the room and built small pockets of darkness in the corners. Candles were too precious to light before complete sundown. With short wooden movements, Barrie carried the child's moccasins to the window and began to work on them again.

Robert left the apartment building. Walking a few steps down the sidewalk to the next building, he descended a short flight of steps into the door of a store that had at one time held a grocery. Its windows were protected by heavy bars and additional wooden slats nailed over to give it increased strength. He rapped at the door, but there was no answer. Clinching his fist, he pounded heavily. From behind the door came Melinda's voice. "We'll open in the morning!"

"Melinda? It's Robert Janss. I have to talk to you."

After a moment, a heavy bolt was drawn aside and the door opened. Melinda stood in the doorway that led into the storeroom holding the commune's food supply. Behind her on shelves were jars of vegetables the women had canned, barrels of hand-ground flour, and bundles of dried corn. Melinda stood aside so that Robert could enter and closed the door behind him. She returned to a counter behind which another clerk was at work. Robert walked to the counter and placed his hands on it, leaning his body gently against them. His voice was quiet as he asked, "Is it true that there isn't any powdered milk?"

For just a moment Melinda hesitated before she replied, "It's not true that there isn't any, but we do not have much. We're trying to save a little---for the really sick babies . . ."

"Barrie's worried---" Robert quickly corrected himself. "We are worried about our baby." He paused and added, "My wife said that she saw Clara taking some powdered milk home today. Is that true?"

Melinda and the clerk exchanged glances. The clerk spoke up, "No, it isn't true!"

Robert straightened up in front of the counter and looked at Melinda. Melinda started to nod agreement with the clerk and then remembered. "Clara got some dried beans. We put them in the same kind of sack we use for powdered milk."

The clerk quickly affirmed Melinda's statement. Robert eyed him for a moment suspiciously. "That's right," the clerk explained, "we just happened to use one of those blue plastic bags we ordinarily use for the powdered milk."

Melinda watched Robert, her eyes full of sympathy. "I'll talk to Barrie if you want me to," she offered.

Robert nodded, "It would make it easier. Maybe she would believe you."

CHAPTER FIVE

Deep within one of the apartment buildings, the Baron sat behind a desk in a large room. Night had fallen, and he read a book, occasionally drawing on a large dark cigar. The room was large, extremely so. Once it had been four smaller separate rooms. Their decayed walls of plaster and lath had long since fallen, and the debris had been cleared away so that only one large room remained. Thousands of books were stacked in rows that covered all the walls of the large room. Tables held expertly made artifacts, carefully selected examples of craftsmenship, and useful small items from hardly remembered cultures of the past. However, the room was not simply cluttered and filled with junk; instead, it gave the impression of some degree of order, an attempt at organization, and the cultivation and preservation of knowledge. The pages of most of the books were yellow and brittle, and many of the spines of the bindings were broken. But in them lay the future. For the Baron believed that what man had done once he could do again.

On the desk in front of him was a nickel-plated flashlight, its batteries long dead and discarded by some former owner. As the Baron read, he occasionally glanced at the flashlight. In the book that he was reading he discovered that long before the era that was once called Christianity, in the long buried culture of Mesopotamia, archaeologists had found remnants of small simple batteries made of lead and copper. The use for these batteries had never been explained, but the old experts thought that possibly they had been used for the purpose of electroplating jewelry. Indeed, examples of such electroplating had been found in 4000-year-old Egyptian tombs. Primitive workmanship and construction of whatever type of batteries these ancient people had used, the Baron thought, might not be out of the reach of his own few craftsmen. However, the construction of small dry batteries would not answer all the needs of duplicating the flashlight. The Baron sighed; to be discovered again were methods of making the tiny bulbs and drawing the fine metal filaments to light them.

At the sound of a knock at the door the Baron put aside the book and the flashlight and called out, "Come in!"

The door opened and Carson appeared in the doorway. He looked across the room at the Baron and watched a drift of heavy cigar smoke rising above the candle on the desk.

"Just push some of that material off and sit," the Baron said.

Carson moved across the room, in a glide of controlled energy. There was an effortlessness about his moves, and he seemed to settle gently into a gilded chair.

The Baron smiled, "You don't plop in a chair. Most people do."

Carson nodded with a suggestion of a smile but said nothing.

"I hope your room was dry," the Baron continued.

"Oh, yes, fine. And as you said---no rats," Carson told him.

The Baron leaned back in his chair and stared steadily at Carson for several seconds, gauging him closely. "I've been wondering about something. My pitch to you out there in the Square. What did I say that caused you to join us?"

Carson listened with an enigmatic smile but made no reply.

After a moment of silence, the Baron was forced into a surmise. "It might have been the promise of extra food. What? No? Then the fact, perhaps, that we do not seek the goods or the lives of others?"

Carson shook his head. "Nothing so noble."

Even in repose there was a massive sense of strength, a feeling of an almost inhuman drive of power and force that impressed the Baron. The round smooth-shaven skull gleamed like ivory in the candlelight. The broad face of Carson set above a square, outthrusting chin was expressionless. Staring at the Baron, the champion added simply, "You said you had a supply of cigars."

The Baron roared with laughter. He got up from his chair and turned to a large open carton behind his desk. "You may be kidding me, but it's interesting what becomes valuable to us when almost everything is taken away," he said.

From the carton pushed against a wall, the Baron pulled out a sealed plastic bag and held it up for Carson to see. "Twelve to a package, one hundred packs to a carton. There're about two thousands cartons in the basement which we salvaged from what had once been a cigar factory. All of them sealed in plastic and as fresh as the day they were made."

He slit the plastic bag with a letter opener and handed the dozen cigars across the desktop to Carson. Carson lazily reached out a hand to take them. "You can have all you want," the Baron added.

Carson selected one of the cigars and stored the remaining ones carefully in the pocket of his heavy leather jacket. He leaned over the desk and lit the cigar at the candle. An ornament on the desk caught his eye, and Carson nodded toward it as he drew on his cigar. "I think I know that," he told the Baron.

"Yes. The hood ornaments from a 1986 Cadillac. The last year the car was made, or any car was made for that matter. My father owned one. It really hurt him when he couldn't get gasoline to run it. I don't think I ever heard him say another word. He just sat there while his world was turned off around him. One by one. First the energy, then the food and next, the clothes. And finally the air when it became too poisonous to breathe." The Baron looked across the desk at Carson, then continued. "I guess you are too young to remember the epidemic . . . no hospitals . . . no medicine . . . when the whole world was turned off, my father was one of the first to go. He . . . and my mother."

The Baron stared out past Carson not really seeing him while Carson drew slowly on his cigar. Both men were silent for a few moments, then the Baron spoke again.

"Where were your born? When?"

Carson did not remove the cigar from between his lips. He spoke around it. "Detroit. A year before they made your Daddy's last Cadillac."

The Baron shook his head. "Detroit. The things I heard about all that. God, what a mess. The riots. The disease. The starvation, the killings. But probably no worse than anywhere else. Is there anyone there now?"

Carson's expression was blank. His voice was empty of all expression when he replied, "Mostly empty. Maybe a few groups. Something like this place. I haven't been there for a while, I've been moving around, making my way."

"That's not easy," the Baron said.

Carson nodded. "You have to be quick."

The Baron agreed, gauging Carson through the cigar smoke. "We're happy to have you with us," he told Carson.

As Carson stared back at the Baron, creases and lines of indecision put his mouth in parentheses. It took a moment for him to reach a decision. Then he said, as if to get everything straight, "This contract we have . . . I don't know how long I can work my end of it."

The Baron raised a gray eyebrow. "You are on your way somewhere?"

"Kinda," Carson replied, "where I was going, I've been---and now I'm on my way back." He paused momentarily and then continued. "I've got family living on an island. A small one off the coast of North Carolina. Out of the way of cutthroats going up and down the coast. But they had to leave a boy behind when they left Detroit. He was too sick. When I finally found them, they told me about my brother, so I went after him. When I got there, he'd been dead for quite a spell. That was a year ago. I've been trying to get back ever since. Working my way from commune to commune. Doing what I do. I've got this far, and I'm still in one piece." His slanted eyes squeezed tightly shut as if to block out a memory. When he continued, his voice was still flat and emotionless. "People are starting to eat people out there."

The Baron studied the end of his cigar, then replied slowly, "I've been hearing stories like that." He lifted the cigar to his lips and took a deep, heavy drag from it. The end burned more brightly than it should. Quite deliberately, almost in an aside, he observed, "Interesting, what you say about that island. Does it have a good supply of water?"

Carson hesitated, suspicious. He rolled the Baron's question around in his mind before replying. His voice was noncommittal. "Plenty enough, I guess."

The Baron nodded, and the two men eyed one another for a moment. The room was thick with smoke, and Carson added to it with a great plume that he blew ceilingward. "What happened to the other man?" he asked.

"The one before you?" The Baron knew that Carson referred to their previous champion. He had been a good one, a fighting man of highest caliber---a one-man standing army. Good champions were hard to find because the lack of proper food often failed to bring them to top physical maturity. Now that he had found a successor to Jason in Carson, the Baron decided he owed the new man complete honesty.

"That one," Carson said.

The Baron picked up the empty flashlight case and turned it slowly in his fingers. "Jason. He was a good fighter . . . very good, but he died." Carefully he replaced the empty tube on his desk and gave a slight shrug. "Attrition. First Jason lost a finger. Someone bit it off. That was certainly a handicap." He looked to Carson, and Carson nodded in agreement. "That led to a loss of a hand," the Baron continued. "He was a great fighter, even then, but was increasingly vulnerable. Jason knew that each day---each time he went out---at any street corner he might turn, it could be the finish for him. Then he got a bad cut. . ." The Baron drew a finger down and across his face before going on. "He lost an eye that way. It's the way the good ones finally go. Not a spear in the heart or a stab in the throat. Nothing so neat. Just finger by finger. Piece by piece." He paused for only a moment before adding, "Then he killed himself. Naturally."

"Maybe I'll be luckier," Carson said.

"I hope so." The Baron's eyes were steady. "I hope for the best. Nothing but the best for you and all of us." Carson could not doubt the sincerity in the Baron's voice.

CHAPTER SIX

Outdoors, the pitfires glowed warmly in the night. A few torches fanned by a breeze fluttered wavering shadows on the reddened walls of the buildings. Robert followed by Melinda crossed the street to enter his apartment. When they came in, the baby was asleep, tucked snugly in a woven basket. The fiber crib stood in a corner of the room resting several feet off the floor on fragments of broken bricks to escape the cold currents of draft. Robert walked to a table and placed a blue plastic bag on it. Barrie glanced at Melinda, a pleased smile flickering across her lips. With trembling fingers she opened the bag. Her face tightened in anger and disappointment. She exclaimed, "Beans!"

Melinda looked at Robert, then attempted an explanation. "It's what Clara took home. We put them in one of the blue bags used for milk," she said.

"You're lying!" Barrie spat out the words. Angrily she threw the bag of beans back on the table. Some of them rolled to the floor. Robert bent over to pick them up and carefully replaced them in the bag. He shook his head sadly. "I think they're telling the truth," he said.

Barrie was not to be pacified. "You'd let your own son starve," she accused.

"No, that's not true," Robert replied. "There's other food we can give him." He reached out to touch his wife, but she moved away. "He's plenty healthy, isn't he?"

Barrie walked around the bleak room, moving quickly, and her voice rose in agitation. "There's powdered milk stored in that old ice plant!" she exclaimed.

Melinda had not moved. She spoke up again. "Nobody knows that," she said, her voice reasonable. "It's been checked out."

Barrie's face set with determination as she considered her idea. "Not really," she replied loudly. "Not completely. Nobody is really sure!"

Robert crossed to his wife and took one of her hands, holding it gently. "It has always been just a rumor," he said, attempting to calm his wife. His quiet voice seemed to soothe the agitated woman.

She turned to him and her voice held a pleading note. "It's just down the block. We could check it out."

"No!" Robert said firmly.

"It wouldn't take long," Barrie argued. "The baby needs it. We're all out of powdered milk to give him now---"

"It's too dangerous, Barrie," Robert told her. "We'll just have to find something else."

Barrie's anger and frustration burst out anew. She flailed at him with her words. "You're a coward!" Her eyes blazed. With short erratic movements, she walked to the cradle and picked up the baby, cuddling it against her breast.

Robert stared at her, helpless. He was unable to cope with her unstable moods.

Melinda, embarrassed that she was intruding in a personal scene, walked to the door. For a moment she paused, hesitating, as if to speak, then with a sympathetic glance at Robert she nodded and went out.

"I'll ask around," Robert told his wife. "Maybe I can find some." Then he too went out into the street.

On the roof of the building, the Baron opened the door and stepped out into the garden. He moved down the extremely narrow walk toward Cal's rickety little shack. From around the door of the tiny wooden dwelling came a faint outline of light cast from a candle within. The Baron did not see the crouching figure of Silas, who remained motionless and invisible, concealed behind a high row of tomato plants.

When the Baron entered Cal's shack, Silas reached up and snapped off a large ripe tomato and began to chew it. He quickly stuffed half a dozen more into the wide patched pockets of his jacket and started toward the roof door that led to the interior of the building. But he changed his mind and turned to cautiously approach the closed door of Cal's shack. Placing an ear to a crack, Silas listened to the two men inside. The Baron was seated on a rough stool across a small table from Cal and held a large magnifying glass while he looked at a handful of seeds that Cal had spread on the table. Inspecting the seeds carefully, the Baron said, "They're magnificent. I've never seen any as large." Once more he examined them through the glass, then asked, "Are these tomatoes as resistant to disease as the others?"

"Every bit," Cal assured him. "They'll grow practically anywhere." The Baron continued to admire the extraordinarily large seeds and glanced up at Cal. His expression reflected the respect that he held for the young farmer.

"It's the same strain you've been eating all this last season," Cal continued. "Usually it takes seven to twenty years to develop one high-yielding strain in one certain area." He smiled. "I managed because I had plenty of time and not much else to do."

"And these seeds represent the whole output for cultivation?" the Baron asked. "These are all the seeds you have?"

"Every one," Cal said. "Twenty-seven seeds. I count them every night. From these I can get a whole lot more. They'll multiply fast if we have somewhere to spread out. More land on which to grow them."

The Baron sat silent for a moment as he regarded Cal closely. His voice held a forced air of casualness as he asked, "Cal, would you leave your garden . . . start up somewhere else?"

"I don't want to go, but I will. If there's a place where the land is still good enough and there is water that is fit to use. And if there were a safe way to get there, I'd do it."

Again the Baron examined the seeds under the magnifying glass. "You've worked another miracle; we need miracles, there are few enough left." He returned the seeds to Cal.

Cal collected the precious seeds one by one and dropped them into a leather bag. "Maybe the whole commune is ready to go," he said. "Move everybody to some place that's better."

The Baron shook his head sadly. "Some couldn't go if they wanted to," he said, "and the rest are afraid to leave. They are afraid to let go of the security of these walls."

He stood up and smiled at Cal. The Baron's regard was written across his firm features, and his admiration and fondness for the young man with the green thumb were obvious. He gestured toward the bag of seeds that Cal still held in his hand. "Thank you, Cal," the Baron said. "All of us should thank you."

Cal shrugged. "I like doing it, sir," he replied. And then he added, his voice wry, "In my old catalogs they talked about the Green Revolution---way back when they tried to avert the famine that was coming. Maybe this is the first step of Revolution II"

The Baron smiled and went out, closing the door behind him. The rooftop was again wrapped in darkness, and he did not see Silas, who squatted beside the side of the shack in a deep shadow. The thief watched the Baron walk slowly to the roof door and disappear. After a few minutes, he got up and cautiously followed, his pockets filled with the precious tomatoes. He went back down into the building.

The next morning, Cal found the broken bushes, evidence of the thievery in the night before. While he carefully examined the damaged plants, Melinda climbed to the roof and entered the garden. For a moment she stopped to rest, leaning against the door jamb. When she saw Cal at work, the touch of a smile curved her lips and she made her way carefully down the walk toward him. He looked up at the sound of her footsteps.

"Are you sure you should be climbing all the way up here, Melinda?" Cal asked. He regarded her with gentle care.

"It's tiring," Melinda admitted, "but worth it," and flashed a warm smile in return for his concern.

The young woman looked around and then across the city. Almost it seemed a painted backdrop, a panorama laid in by an artist with no knowledge of technique or perspective. Miles of bleak, sagging, caved-in rooftops stretched to the horizon. From nowhere the shells of monstrous buildings pointed gigantic, jagged fingers upward to the infinity of space. Occasional stretches of elevated freeways wormed their way through the crumble and desolation as if they were segments of an immense decaying snake.

Nothing moved, nothing stirred so far as the eye could see, except for the faint haze of dispersing smoke from a distant commune.

"I like to look out at the city," Melinda said. "I like to imagine what it looked like once."

Cal picked a large red ripe firm tomato and rubbed it clean on his sleeve before handing it to the girl. "You need things like this," he said.

Melinda hesitated. 'I've had my rations."

"I won't tell anyone, if you don't. Somebody has been up here stealing, anyway. We're going to have to get a guard up here at night."

Melinda accepted the tomato and took a large bite. She murmured, delighted, with its taste. She quickly ate the rest of it, no longer attempting to conceal her hunger. Cal smiled at her pleasure, pleased that he had made her happy. His fingers picked a pinch of earth and he worked the soil knowingly, lovingly, between his fingers while his eyes surveyed the neat, carefully cultivated rows of vegetables. "The earth is a little dry. They don't allow me any too much water." It was not a complaint, merely a statement.

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs. Carson came out on the roof and nodded to them. He quickly looked around the layout of the rooftop, then paced along the four sides of its perimeter as if surveying and judging the possibilities for its defense. Or the lack of them.

Melinda lowered her voice. "Did you meet the new man?" she asked.

Cal picked up his hoe. He looked over at the fighting man who stood by the mounted binoculars. "I will," he told the girl, then withdrew once again into preoccupation with his garden.

"I think I'll say hello," Melinda said. Cal nodded, only half hearing her words.

Melinda carefully picked her way through the rows of growing plants until she reached the commune's new champion. Carson's gaze was concentrated on the top of a building a few blocks away. He watched a figure on the rooftop who was looking back at him through another pair of binoculars. Suddenly Carrot entered Carson's view and took the glasses away from the other man. Carrot returned Carson's fixed gaze. Deliberately Carson straightened up from the binoculars so that Carrot could get a good look at his face. Although Carson could not hear him, the man beside Carrot said, "It's that fighter from the Square."

"Yes," agreed Carrot.

Then, as if in a ritual, Carrot too lowered his binoculars so that Carson could fully observe his features. Carson returned to his own binoculars with the air of a warrior who knows that someday he will meet this opponent and accepts the challenge.

"That's Carrot. He's always there . . . always around," Melinda said.

"He looks very sure of himself," Carson replied.

On the distant rooftop, Carrot slowly raised his hand and extended his middle finger straight into the air, then swaggered away.

"I don't need a pair of binoculars to know what he meant," Melinda said.

Carson looked around the garden. "It's been a lot of years since I've seen things growing like this."

The girl hesitated before replying, and Carson stared at her carefully. Finally she said, "Yes, that's Cal's doing." From the tone of her voice it was apparent to Carson that Melinda did not care to pursue the subject further. He let it go.

"Do you think it's smart to climb ten flights in your condition?" Carson asked sharply.

Melinda was stung by the critical tone of the man's words. She looked down at her swollen, extended belly and when she spoke, her voice carried a touch of annoyance. "I know what I'm doing," she said. "I just came over to say hello."

"Hello," Carson told her.

As she turned toward the rooftop doorway, Carson watched her move away. "You'd better brush those seeds off your blouse before someone below thinks you were up here stealing food," he cautioned.

Melinda did not reply but kept on walking. Carson returned his attention to the rows of growing food, then back to the binoculars again. But he did not look into them. On the distant rooftop he saw Carrot's man looking at him through his glasses. Carson slowly raised his head and gave the man a careless, indifferent salute. Leaving the garden, Carson descended the stairs to look for the Baron.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Carson knocked and at the Baron's call entered the room. The Baron was seated behind his desk, and in front of him were several plastic bags of cigars. He opened one and said, "Thought those two thousand cases would last me until I died." He smiled at Carson. "But I'm not so sure with you around here."

"I saw this fellow Carrot through your binoculars. We introduced ourselves," Carson replied.

The Baron nodded, "Know thine enemy," he quoted. "He's tough, and he's also a good organizer. He can call on thirty or forty men when he has to fight." He offered a cigar to Carson. "Light?"

The Baron held out a match toward Carson's cigar. After several puffs to get it lighted, Carson continued the conversation. "From the looks of this place, he should be able to take you over. Wipe you out."

The Baron's face was immobile. "Probably," he agreed. "But I don't think he knows that . . . yet. Carrot would like to have our well. So would all of his people. However, I don't believe he even knows our other man---Jason---is dead. He was buried in a basement in the compound without ceremony."

Carson observed the glowing tip of his cigar. "I get a feeling from looking at your people that they figure they're not going to live very long."

The Baron picked up a cigar from his desk and lit it deliberately. He stared steadily at Carson through the smoke. "There's a certain fatalism," the Baron agreed. "They look to me for salvation." After a moment he added, "There will be none."

It was very still in the room. Neither man moved, and the silence stretched for a long time. Carson was aware that the Baron was revealing a thought that was not to go beyond this meeting.

"You're going to give up on this place. You got me in here just to delay the end." Carson's quiet statement hung in the silence between them.

The Baron continued to stare at Carson while trying to reach a decision concerning how much to reveal. He realized that eventually he must reveal it anyway, and so he said, "There are times when a man must look at another and trust him with his life, or something even more valuable. He cannot ask that man whether he is a good man . . . or if he's going to betray him. He has to look at him and decide."

Carson drew slowly on his cigar and waited. After a long pause the Baron went on, "We've been doing something here . . . I say we, but it's Cal---he's the man---on the roof. There are other communes, but none have a Cal that I've heard about. He's a genius with things that grow. Seeds."

"Seeds?" Carson asked.

The Baron nodded and repeated the word again, "Seeds. The simple foundation of all living things. Perhaps someone else has been able to develop them again, but not that we know about. Not that anybody would publicize it or even let the news leak out. They'd be mobbed . . . killed for all their trouble."

"What kind of seeds?" Carson asked.

"So far only four crops: squash, turnips, soybeans, and now, Cal believes, tomatoes," the Baron said. "It's taken him years working twenty-four hours a day. The crops are resistant to all the diseases that wiped out every cultivated growth during the plagues. But let me warn you, there's no great abundance of these seeds. For instance, there're only twenty-seven tomato seeds, but given enough land, water, and time, Cal will expand them many times."

The Baron stood up behind his desk and moved around the room. Occasionally he stopped to eye the title of a book, but he continued speaking, and as he spoke, his voice began to ring with excitement. "Out there in the city, in the country, wherever little pockets of population remain, they're killing each other. The few people that are left have been reduced to simple savages. Or worse, to predators! They're going to have to have what our hybrid seeds can give them . . . a way to survive and start building again without ravaging one another. I can't think of a more important gift than this work of Cal's."

The Baron stopped and stood staring for a moment at Carson. Then he returned to his desk and sat down again.

"You're telling me this because you've got me figured in it somewhere," Carson said.

The years of the Baron's life were etched deeply into his intelligent face. He said, his voice somber, "I've been looking for a man who could combine several qualities. All of them to insure survival as much as could be expected. You're a fighter. More important, I see in you an instinct for survival. You seem to make all the correct moves, all the right decisions, intuitively. A few people are going to be leaving. Cal will be one. I'm asking you to lead them."

"Where?" Carson asked.

The Baron told him quietly, "To an island I've heard about." Carson stared at the Baron for a few seconds. Intuitively the Baron sensed that Carson was weighing the threats that this might bring to his family. Carson was as yet undecided, and the Baron tried to head off the hardening of his decision. "We wouldn't bring any harm to the people living there, and we've got something we could give them," the Baron added, his voice firm with conviction.

"Who else is going?"

"You've probably seen the pregnant girl? Melinda." Carson nodded and the Baron continued, "She's my granddaughter and she carries my great-grandson."

"Or great-granddaughter." Carson did not smile.

The Baron continued as if he had not heard Carson's remark. "Cal and Melinda . . . and a couple others will leave as soon as the baby is born and he can travel. That is perhaps within a month and a half."

"What about you?" Carson asked.

"I told Melinda that I'd be going with her, but that's a lie," the Baron said, and he smiled sadly. "I'd never make it. You can see that." His eyes fell, and he fixed his gaze on the top of his desk. He sat there, an old man, a man physically wasted by years and for whom time was running out. He did not want to die, but he was not afraid of death. All things came to an end. Nature's own holocaust had proven that. To the Baron it was simply a matter of time. He hoped the few remaining days would be sufficient.

In the basement apartment, Robert was worried.

He looked around the room, searching for a note, perhaps, that Barrie might have left. His concern grew to fear when he found nothing. A final time he called, "Barrie!" There was no reply. Robert rushed out of the apartment and up the steps to the street. He broke into a run and then slowed down as he approached one of the guards---attempting to calm himself and not give the appearance of panic. "Have you seen Barrie?" he asked. "She's not in our room."

"No," the guard told him.

At that moment, however, Robert saw the second guard, who waved to him from the barricade. No longer able to control his fear, Robert did not try to conceal his growing concern. He ran up to the guard at the gate, who told him, "Your wife went out about an hour ago."

"Went out? Did she have the baby?"

The guard nodded, "Yes. She wasn't going to let me stop her."

Robert pulled open the gate and rushed into the tunnel. The guard's voice followed him, "1 warned her not to go far."

Robert came up in the open street on the opposite side of the barricade. He did not pause to check the street or windows for possible predators. The building for which he headed was a three-story windowless structure. Once it had been an icehouse. Now it stood broken and crumbling. Robert, gasping for breath from his long run, turned through the open doorway of the structure and into a huge room where rusting refrigeration pipes still clung to the ceiling and hung precariously over a bare floor of rotting timbers. Robert paused and shouted, "Barrie!"

Robert's voice echoed hollowly against the bare brick walls. He looked about wildly, then heard a sound coming from somewhere above him. A staircase sagged in one corner of the room, and he ran to it. He made his way slowly and cautiously up the stairs that creaked and swayed under his weight. The second floor was much like the one below except the overhead pipes had fallen and lay in a rusting tangle of metal jutting out in every direction. Across the room he saw Barrie tugging and clawing at a heavy mass of rusted pipes and machinery. There was no sign of the baby. "Barrie!" Robert shouted again.

The wife did not hear her husband. She continued to claw at the barrier separating her from the wall ten feet behind the stacked heap of rubbish. Barrie had numerous cuts from the sawtoothed edges of pipe, and her fingers were raw and bleeding. Robert rushed forward and grabbed her clawing arms. With a startled scream she turned on her husband, but as soon as she recognized him she returned to her frenzied efforts.

"Where's the baby?" Robert asked.

Barrie ignored the question. "Help me!" she cried.

Robert grasped her again and pulled her away from the pile of heavy junk through which she was attempting to claw her way. For a moment he held her roughly and asked, "God damn it, where's the baby!"

Barrie pulled away from him and ran to a wall where a door opened into a small enclosure. Light filtered down from above in an ancient airshaft. The baby was lying in a box that Barrie had cleaned, wrapped in a blanket, and aimlessly waving his tiny hands.

"Pick him up!" Robert ordered. "We're going back."

Barrie slammed shut the door and threw herself against it, confronting her husband. Her face wore a wild and cunning look as she said, "No! You'd let him starve! I know where the milk is!"

Robert tried to consider his options while he wearily faced his wife. In her feverish, hysterical condition, he realized that he would have to beat her physically to get to the baby. He glanced at the stairs but nothing seemed to be stirring. Robert was uncertain; in his mind he searched for a way to handle her. During this slight pause, Barrie pointed up to the ceiling about the place where she had been digging in the debris. "Look," she said. "See! Pipes used to go through the holes in the wall there. There's a door behind all that."

Suddenly she left the door of the airshaft and rushed back to the rusting heap of metal where she had been interrupted. Again she started clawing at the mass of pipes and rusted machinery. After a glance at the airshaft door, Robert slowly followed her. When he stood beside his wife, Barrie looked up and said, "There's a door behind this stuff. You can see it if you get up close. Look for yourself."

Robert stared past the tangle of junk and peered into the shadow behind it. "There is some kind of a door," he agreed, patiently.

"I told you so!" Barrie exclaimed.

"If I help you, will you leave when we find out what's behind the door?" Robert asked quietly.

"Oh, yes!" Barrie said. She glanced at her husband. Her face lighted with joy that he would help.

"Even if there isn't any milk, we won't keep looking. We'll take the baby and leave," Robert insisted.

"I promise," Barrie said. "Yes."

Robert looked around the big deserted room again. He was worried and anxious. Finally he started in the tangle of pipes and machinery, pushing back the heavy metal as quietly as he could. Barrie, grateful and hovering, lent her weak strength to her husband's effort.

CHAPTER EIGHT

After half an hour of strenuous labor, Robert had shoved aside the obstacles to expose a heavy commercial refrigerator door secured by a padlock. The padlock was corroded by rust and for long had been frozen in position. Robert lifted a length of pipe and smashed the lock, breaking it open. Together he and Barrie pulled at the handle and the foot-thick door slowly edged open to reveal dozens of boxes stacked in the refrigerator dimly visible in the half light of the room.

"I told you! Didn't I tell you?" Barrie cried and rushed forward to the boxes. She tore open a carton. Her face filled with dismay when she discovered it was filled with bundles of correspondence and yellowed canceled checks. She stood back, stunned, while Robert touched her gently on the shoulder.

"Let's go," he said.

Barrie leaned limply against the wall, fighting to overcome the pain of her disappointment. Suddenly they heard a noise, and Robert's fears were realized. Barrie's terrified eyes stared, unblinking, close to his face and she whispered, "The baby!"

Robert nodded and placed a hand firmly on her shoulder, calming her and also attempting to make her remain concealed, although every fiber of her body trembled to spring out and rush to her child.

Two of Carrot's men cautiously made their way up the shaky staircase, stopping each few seconds to listen. They reached the second floor and stepped out into the huge room. At first glance they did not see the open refrigerator door behind the junk piled high before it. They moved slowly among the pipes scrutinizing the walls and floor. With an exclamation, one of the men pointed to the dust disturbed by Robert's and Barrie's footprints. They stood very still, and for a long moment there was not a sound. Then the baby laughed, its tiny voice coming from a distance. The men's heads snapped around. Finally one of them indicated with a glance the closed door to the airshaft.

When they started in that direction, Robert stepped out from the refrigerator door. The intruders stopped and stared at him from across the room, attempting to gauge what they had come upon. Then they separated and began to circle. Robert hefted the length of pipe that he had used to break the padlock and waited. When the intruders were close to him, Barrie ran from the storeroom and attempted to slip past the men to get to her baby. One of the men grabbed her, smashing her across the face and throwing her back into the storeroom. Stunned, Barrie lay on the floor as Robert slashed at her assailant with the length of pipe. With savage ferocity, the husband fought to protect his wife and son. He rushed headlong to smash both of his foes against the wall, but one evaded him and leaped on his back. Pausing to shake himself free, Robert again turned to attack the second assailant, who was backed to the wall and holding up his arms to protect himself. The slashing arc of pipe flashed down to crack his bones and tear open a wide gash across his chest. Robert pivoted quickly and brought the pipe down on the man whom he had shaken from his shoulders and who was just then lifting himself from the floor. The fellow crashed forward, his skull shattered.

But there was little respite. Half a dozen more of Carrot's men swarmed up the stairs and fanned out through the room. Closing in on Robert from all sides, they brought him to the floor. Deliberately they crushed his body part by part, stomping him and battering him with heavy pieces of metal.

Barrie staggered to the doorway to see the last of the fight. Horrified, her shattered mind failed to absorb what had happened. With a desperate cry she ran to the airshaft, only to be captured by several of the brutes as she struggled to open the door. On the far side, the baby was crying. "My baby! He'll starve! He'll starve!" Barrie screamed as the men dragged her away. The gang ripped off her clothes, stripping her naked, and threw her back into the storeroom. Barrie struggled frantically, not in an attempt to defend herself but to escape and reach her baby. They flung her to the floor as she screamed for the child. Pitiless, they raped her one by one, then repeatedly, with primitive savagery. Finally there was no sound from her, no movement or motion of life. Barrie was dead.

Carrot came up behind the men and stood in the doorway looking down at the dead woman. Without emotion, his gaze lifted from the still body and rose to take in the cartons stacked around the room. "I wonder what they were after," he mused.

One of Carrot's followers stepped up beside him. With a wide grin, he said, "There's a baby over there in the airshaft."

He pointed and started to lead the way. Carrot followed him. On the far side of the door the baby cried bitterly. Carrot opened the door and leaned over the baby and stared at him with dispassion. Deliberately the red-bearded leader reached out a rough hand and with a calloused finger rubbed the baby's cheek. Carrot's fingernails were thick with grime and he pinched the baby, slowly shaking the tiny face back and forth. For a moment the baby stopped his cries and gazed up with wondering eyes at the big figure looming over him. Carrot stepped back and closed the door. He looked at the other members of his band who had grouped together awaiting him. "A fine piece of bait," Carrot announced with a fierce grin.

Dusk was falling on the Barony as the people of the commune sat outside their doors, staring at their hands . . . and waiting. On the quiet evening air drifted the plaintive cry of a baby, a cry that came from a distance outside. By now they all knew he was one of their own crying for help.

Silas sat on a doorstep staring down the street, unconcerned and unmindful of the baby's cry. He watched with interest while a guard poked around near an open window of a dwelling several buildings away. The guard finished his search and came out. Unobtrusively he stepped to the next apartment, glanced at the little huddles of people sitting at the curb, then stepped inside. The guard was searching his way down the block in Silas's direction. Silas realized that the theft of the tomatoes had been discovered and the guard was searching for the stolen food. He stood up unhurriedly and turned to enter his own apartment.

Inside the bleak room that Silas occupied, several boxes were stacked against the wall. Silas pulled them aside to reveal a break in the plaster and reached within the cavity to remove four tomatoes. He looked around for a secure hiding place, but after several minutes of indecision decided that he could find nothing better. It was a matter of life or death that he remove the incriminating evidence, but his greed would not allow him to part with his hoard. With growing panic he shoved the tomatoes back into the hiding place and covered the hole with the boxes once again. He put a single tomato in his pocket and hurried out. In the street, clusters of people were standing, restless, when Silas came out once again. He sauntered slowly down the street toward the dwelling that the guard was searching. Over the dead street and gutted blocks drifted the thin, wailing call of the baby.

The baby's wail could be heard in the Baron's apartment, too. The Baron paced nervously while a guard stood close to the door awaiting the leader's decision. Carson sat in a chair smoking a cigar. "We can only assume that the parents are dead," the Baron said.

"They've been gone six hours," the guard agreed.

The Baron's shoulders sagged a little. His voice was tired. "I'll wait a bit more."

"Yes, sir," the guard replied. He turned toward the door to leave, then flashed a glance at Carson. He stopped and turned toward the Baron. "The baby is one of ours," he added.

Neither of the two waiting men replied, and the guard left. After the guard had gone, Carson said to the Baron, "You'd be quicker to ask me to go out there and get that baby if you weren't worried that I'd get myself killed off and there would be nobody to get your great-grandson out of here."

The Baron continued to pace and made no immediate reply. However, deep in his own heart he was not so sure that Carson wasn't closer to the truth then he would ever admit to himself. Carson took another heavy puff on his cigar and continued, "Those people outside are waiting for me to go. I'm getting two extra portions at every meal, and they want me to perform."

The Baron stopped his pacing to stare out of a window and down into the street. He saw the people standing or sitting around, waiting. Carson made the decision for him. Without a word Carson got up and walked out.

Heads turned as Carson came out into the street. He crossed to a rack of knives that stood close to one of the pitfires. Taking one, he tested the edge and point. With a shrug he started toward the gate in the barricade that was already being opened by a guard. He walked forward without a glance at anyone. From his window the Baron watched Carson as he disappeared into the tunnel in the barricade. As he started to turn back from the window his glance fell on Melinda, who stood in her door watching Carson go. Then the woman stepped inside and away from the Baron's view.

Slipping quietly from shadow to shadow, Carson moved quickly along the walls of the old buildings. As he made his way down the street the cries of the baby grew louder. His wail echoed and drifted from wall to wall. Once Carson stopped; listening, he tested the night air for other sounds, but except for the call of the baby he heard nothing. He moved on to the icehouse without pausing again and entered through the open door. Inside there was little light, and the darkness was a tangible curtain. Above him, Carson located the baby's cry and unerringly headed for it. He climbed the stairs, testing each step, and ascended to the second floor. A ragged hole in the sagging roof permitted the thin glow of the moon to filter its way among the pipes and machines.

The cry of the baby weighed heavily on his ears; it seemed deafening. Carson's face set in hard lines as he sensed that something was wrong. Nothing was right. His instincts warned him to leave at once. He thrust the thought aside and crossed the room to the airshaft door. A growing murmur of voices arising from the stairway stopped him. A yellow glow streamed up through the staircase, growing brighter and larger by the moment.

Carson backed away to place a pile of machinery between himself and the stairs. Suddenly and with shattering screams a dozen men burst up the stairwell carrying torches. The room bloomed with wavering light and the men crashed wildly through the tangle of junk searching for Carson. Their faces were as fierce as their animal screams, and when they discovered him they rushed him in mass, slashing with the torches.

Carson struck quickly, swiftly as a cobra strikes. His knife dispatched the first two men who reached him. Retreating, using the blocks of ancient machines and piles of pipes for defense, Carson exacted a heavy toll. He heaved one man, torch and all, down the staircase and through the aged wooden steps. Torches were strewn around the floor; the clothes of one corpse burned slowly as the body lay atop a flaming brand. Carson fought with strategy, utilizing every advantage he found. He wove and threaded his way through the formidable obstructions---restricting his opponents in reaching him to no more than one or two at a time. During the thick of the fight, however, Carson took a bad cut on his shoulder and the blood slowly ran down his arm and dripped from his wrist.

The last three men of Carrot's band retreated, dropping down the stairway to the floor below, and hurriedly rushed outside. Carson stopped and examined his wound. He shook his head, tested his wrist, and located the cut that he had sustained. But he wasted little time with his injury. He crossed quickly to the airshaft door. From behind it, there was no sound, and he opened it. A hideous and very ancient hag sat cramped in the airshaft clutching the baby hidden in a blanket. The woman shrieked at him and mashed the baby closer to her shriveled breasts. "He's dead!" she screamed.

CHAPTER NINE

Carson reached into the folds of the blanket while the withered old woman cringed back and he felt the tiny body. His fingers affirmed that the woman had told him the truth. His anger exploded. He lifted his hand as if to smash the old crone who had been used by Carrot to set the trap. Instead, Carson slammed shut the airshaft door. He backed away trying to contain his rage. The blood pumped loudly in his ears, and suddenly his fury erupted. "God damn it! God damn it!"

His anger calmed quickly, however, at a sound rising from below. Carrot entered the ground floor of the icehouse with the three survivors who had fled from the earlier encounter with Carson. Additional men and the archer had been added to the new group. The band headed for the fallen stairway as Carson appeared at its top. Carrot shouted an order to the archer and the bowman reached for an arrow, but Carson had disappeared from their view. Cursing his men, Carrot urged them to set up a temporary stairway. They searched the floor for lengths of pipe to lift into place and hurriedly tried to piece together a makeshift ladder.

Upstairs Carson ran to the airshaft and pulled open the door. He slipped in over the terrified old woman still hugging the body of the baby and began to climb upward toward the dim opening of the shaft above. Carson wedged himself against the sides of the walls and inched upwards. With a knotted fist he occasionally smashed a rotting board to punch a hole for the toe of his boot. He wasted no time looking down.

By now one of Carrot's band had scrambled up the ladder to the second floor. Hearing a noise from the airshaft, he pulled out the old beldame to send her sprawling on the floor. He looked up at Carson, then ran back to the ladder and called to Carrot below, "He's climbing up the airshaft!"

Carrot shoved the archer toward the ladder, and eager hands of the band urged the marksman upward.

Drenched with sweat, Carson pulled himself from the top of the airshaft as the archer appeared below. The bowman tried hastily to maneuver the bow in the narrow confines of the shaft and to string an arrow. Nearby on the rooftop lay a number of large, rusted, iron gears, remnants of the machinery and equipment below. Carson lifted one with a grunt and returned to the airshaft. He dropped the heavy piece of metal without looking down.

From below, the archer released an arrow at the first sight of movement at the top of the shaft. Then, desperately, he tried to pull out of the way of the falling gear, but his bow jammed in the narrow opening. He was unable to get out of the shaft in time to avoid the heavy, jagged piece of metal. It decapitated him.

The men of Carrot's band ran along the curbs of the street looking at the top of the building. Silhouetted against the sky they saw Carson running along the ledge of the structure. He leaped across a narrow opening to the roof of another building. The men shouted the news of their discovery. Carson ran some feet further, then turned, cautiously retracing his steps, and jumped back on the icehouse roof. Carrot's men were no longer in the street directly below as they had continued the pursuit to where they had seen Carson jump. He ran across the roof to the back side and peered over the ledge searching for a way down. He saw a few steel beams jutting out a foot from the wall. Originally they had supported a fire escape. He lowered himself to the first beam. However, they were set too far apart to permit him to hang from one and stretch out to touch the next one below with his feet. Holding on to the first beam, he let go, then grasped the one below as it flashed past. He continued his descent, grasping the beams and dropping from one to another quickly and without pause until he reached the earth.

As soon as Carson was safely back on the ground he moved swiftly to a corner of the icehouse and carefully surveyed the street. He saw Carrot, over a block away, with several of his men and another archer who had been called up. Others of Carrot's band had climbed to the roof of the icehouse from the sides of the adjoining building and shouted their disappointment down to the big red-bearded man.

Without hesitation, Carson stepped out from concealment and started to lope across the street. He was quickly discovered; the men down the street shouted a warning to their fellows and raced after him. Carson paused at the corner to look back at Carrot, then waved his hand before he disappeared into the shadows.

Carrot did not take part in the chase because he realized that Carson could not be caught before reaching the safety of the compound. He stared at the corner where Carson had stood, and his face was slack and expressionless. He figured that Carson was a man whom someday he would have to kill---and he would enjoy doing it.

The people of the Barony were in the street awaiting Carson's return. When Carson appeared, empty-handed, they accepted the loss with fatalism. Carson attempted no explanation; but he did concede a gesture of description. "They are all dead," Carson said, spreading wide his massive hands. He moved off quickly and the crowd slowly dispersed.

Carson returned to his quarters above the former tobacco shop. The room was furnished with a single bed, spread with clean blankets and a heavy animal hide; a low oblong crate served as a storage receptacle for his few possessions. The single paneless window was boarded over with slats spaced a few inches apart to permit entrance of narrow beams of light. In winter, during the really cold weather, the entire opening was covered with a heavy felt pad.

He struck a spark to a small piece of paper and when the paper caught flame, he lit a short, squat, extremely thick candle made from precious fat carefully collected by the women of the commune. The cut in his shoulder was stiffening, and he shrugged out of his leather jacket. While he was removing the heavy leather vest he wore beneath it, Melinda knocked on the door and entered without waiting for his invitation. She carried a small bundle including a jug of water and a battered metal spirit lamp. "I saw the blood on your arm. You've been hurt," she said.

"I've had it worse," Carson told her. He turned his neck and hunched his shoulder forward in an attempt to examine the wound.

"Let me see," Melinda said firmly. She placed her supplies on the bed and motioned Carson closer to the light of the candle. After a few moments of observation, she picked up a piece of clean white rag and dampened it with hot water from the jug. Gently, she swabbed the wound clean. While she worked, Carson recalled the words of the Baron concerning Jason. "He was a good fighter . . . very good, but he died. Attrition," the old man had said.

Melinda shook the spirit lamp. "I found this not long ago," she explained. "It's rusted shut---nearly airtight. That's why all the alcohol didn't evaporate, I suppose." She shook a few drops on a clean cloth and wiped out the wound. Carson did not wince at the bite of the alcohol, but he glanced askance when she picked up several long shreds of spiderwebs. Placing the silken strands over the wound, she smiled and said, "The cut is clean now. The webs will help clot the blood faster."

"Thanks," Carson told her. The girl folded a small pad and pressed it firmly in place over the cut, then tried to secure it in place by strips of narrow bandages ripped from the remaining cloth.

"It's not very good," Melinda said as she eyed her handiwork. "But it will have to do." She helped Carson put on his vest and jacket, then left. Shortly thereafter he went to find the Baron.

Carson found the Baron behind his desk with several large maps spread on top. Included was a very old and faded drawing of New York's subway system, its entrances and exits, and lines of communication. When Carson entered, the Baron looked up with a question in his eyes. Carson shook his head. With a sigh the Baron returned to the study of his maps. "You won't be able to travel the surface streets---you'd have to fight all the way to the ocean. You'd find predators everywhere, marauding bands. And, of course, the street people," the Baron said.

"Where did you get all those subway drawings?" Carson asked.

"The Public Library. The same place I got all my books. Years ago before it was entirely burned down." The Baron's finger traced a route across the map and his voice held a note of growing excitement. "You don't know New York very well, do you?"

"I've been getting around," Carson told him.

"Underground?" the Baron asked.

He pointed to a place on the map, uptown, in Manhattan. "The block we're in is here," he said as he started to outline his plan. He looked at Carson, then continued, "One line of the system runs under our street. In the basement of this building there is a manhole. It goes down into a chamber where fans forced fresh air into the tunnels. From this chamber there are iron steps that lead fifty feet down to the subway tracks. I've outlined with red the tunnels to get you close to where you'll have to go. Once you get entirely outside the city, into the country, you'll be safer---and the traveling more easy." Carson nodded his understanding. Before the Baron could continue, however, a heavy rapping sounded at the door. "Yes?" the Baron called.

The guard was breathing hard from his race up the stairs. "There's trouble between Silas and Lister over food rations," he announced. "I think it will take you to settle it."

"I'll be down in a little bit," the Baron told him. "Calm it down. All right?"

The guard hesitated, "Well... I'll try," he agreed reluctantly.

"I'll be there as soon as I can," the Baron assured him.

The two men in the room listened to the fading footsteps of the guard as he returned to the street. Calmly the Baron returned to his map, but before he could continue with his plan, Carson interrupted, "How many know you have these plans in mind?" he asked.

"Only Melinda and Cal," the Baron replied, then added, "---and us."

"Do you think the rest would agree to this?" Carson asked.

"No. They'd feel betrayed," the Baron said. "They'd claim what you intimated . . . that I was saving my granddaughter's neck at their jeopardy."

He paused to look closely at Carson, and the fighting man could not deny the sincerity and urgency in his voice when the Baron continued. "But I'll tell you this. I'd sacrifice any and all of this compound to get Cal's work somewhere where it would flourish. It's a matter of values. Those seeds are more valuable than any person or persons. They represent hope for everyone who is still alive!"

The sound of shouting rose from the street below. The Baron started toward the door, "I'd better go tend to the argument. You look this over while I'm gone."

"You don't want me to go along?" Carson said.

The Baron shook his head. "No . . . no. This is political . . . in the family, so to speak. No use in you taking sides. I'll be back as soon as I can."

The Baron went out. After he had gone, Carson approached the desk and stared down at the maps and drawings on it.

When the Baron reached the street, he found a large crowd had already gathered around Silas. Silas crouched on the steps that led to the storeroom and looked down at the storeclerk who worked there with Melinda. His name was Lister, and he stood at the foot of the steps in the doorway. Silas's eyes bulged angrily in his reddened face. The clerk was trying to defend himself against Silas's accusations, and he looked to the others for support, but the people of the commune did not respond. They remained apart, looking on only as spectators.

"You've got your own God damn favorites!" Silas accused the clerk.

"It's a lie," Lister denied. "Everybody gets the same!"

"You bastard!" Silas shouted. "Your wife has a stock of her own!"

Lister looked around, desperately trying to reason with his accuser while attempting to find some support. "She saved out of her own rations," Lister said, his voice reasonable.

Silas rose from his squat and took a step forward toward the clerk, so enraged he could scarcely speak. He spat out his words, "Nobody can save on the little shit we get!"

The crowd pressed forward watching the clerk; their eyes stared from impassive faces, searching him for a sign of guilt. Suddenly Silas lashed out to smash the clerk in the face. Lister sprawled back into the store. Silas ran past the clerk and into the storehouse and reached toward the shelves. Without pausing he pulled down canned goods to load his arms. After a few moments of hesitation, several others moved forward to join him, but they suddenly froze at the sound of the Baron from behind.

"Stop!" the Baron commanded.

They turned to look at the Baron and drew back from the dark expression that threatened them. He took a deep breath to gather control of himself. "You'd best put all that stuff back, Silas," the Baron said, calmly, working his way forward into the store.

Silas nodded toward the clerk. "Him and his wife's been stealing," he said.

"If that's true, it will be known," the Baron replied.

"A man had better get his before there is none to get," Silas said. He felt more confident when some heads in the crowd behind the Baron nodded agreement.

"If you believed someone was stealing, you should've come to me," the Baron said.

"You got your own problems, Baron, what with Melinda and all," Silas replied with a sneer.

The Baron ignored Silas's insinuation. "I'm not inaccessible. You only need knock at the door," he said.

Silas sensed he was gaining support from other dissatisfied members of the commune. He assumed an air as if repeating complaints that might well be of general discontent. "We wouldn't want to interrupt . . . you and your killer being holed up so much," he said boldly, dismissing the look of rising anger on the Baron's face. "I don't notice where you have lost any weight," he added.

Unexpectedly and with surprising quickness and agility for a man of his age and weight, the Baron feinted a blow at Silas, then kicked him in the groin. Silas dropped to the floor. No one moved, and the Baron stared with disdain at Silas. "Take him out of here," the Baron ordered, his voice contemptuous. "I'll find out if his accusations are true."

The crowd backed away and parted to give the Baron room as he walked up the steps to the street. Several men in the crowd helped Silas to his feet, but most of them moved away to go about their business without a backward look.

CHAPTER TEN

Melinda had gone to see her grandfather, and while waiting for his return she moved around the room full of books touching some with her fingers as she read the titles. From his chair Carson watched her. Finally the girl said, "People keep telling me how wonderful it once was, but I'm not all that positive it's true. I don't know anything about what was. I've been here in the compound as long as I can remember."

"Were you born here?" Carson asked.

"Yes," Melinda replied. "I was the first baby born here. Now it's my baby's turn."

"And he could be the last," Carson said, his voice flat and devoid of expression.

Melinda cast a glance at Carson and held his eyes for a few seconds. Then at the sound of the Baron's approaching footsteps on the stairway she turned toward the door to greet him. He came in and smiled at her. "Good. Getting to know one another. Traveling companions should, you know," the Baron said.

"Is it all settled out there?" Carson asked.

"No, but quiet." The Baron sighed. He was tired. His shoulders slumped a little, and he seemed to wear an air of dejection as he seated himself behind the desk and looked at Carson.

The young woman did not understand the exchange between the two men. "What's settled?" she asked.

The Baron lifted his hand in a slight wave of dismissal and said, "There was a little trouble at your storehouse, but it's all over." .

Melinda's face flushed in a sudden rise of anger. "And neither of you told me?" she demanded. She started for the door, glaring at Carson with his calm air of indifference.

"It's all over," the Baron repeated, attempting to smooth over the situation. "Johnson's locked it up by now."

"I'll find that out from Johnson!" Melinda flared. She reached the doorway and stopped, turning back to face the two men. "I won't be treated like a fool! That storehouse is my responsibility, and I expect to be told when something is wrong!" she said. She gave both of the men a hard look, then disappeared through the door and down the stairs.

After she had gone, the two men looked at one another for a few seconds. It was Carson who broke the silence first. "She's tough," he remarked.

"I hope so. She'll have to be. The women of our family have always been strong, not easily defeated," the Baron replied. He stood up from his desk and walked to the window. Looking down he saw the darkened street lit only by the pitfires and a few torches. "I think our women are probably stronger than the male line," he added.

The next morning the Baron's investigation of the food thefts had produced results of a sort. The evidence was a large tomato, now over-ripe and slightly mashed, which sat atop an old steel drum in the middle of the street. Around it, the whole of the commune had gathered while Garon was being tried for the unpardonable crime of stealing food. The defendant, near hysteria, screamed out denials of guilt. But his protests passed unheeded by the irate crowd that fixed him with accusing stares. Some of the growing mob, it seemed, took a certain pleasure in Garon's plight. "I didn't take them!" Garon repeated for the fourth time.

"It was found in your room," the Baron said quietly. He pointed to the tomato, as evidence.

Garon's voice rose almost to a shriek. "Somebody put it there! I swear it!"

"Who?" the Baron asked, serving as prosecutor, judge, and jury.

Garon's face twitched in nervous spasms. "I'd tell you, wouldn't I? If I knew, I'd tell you!"

"You were seen up on the roof. There are witnesses," the Baron told him.

"I was up there!" Garon admitted. Then continued quickly. "Lots of people go up there! I even looked at them, but I didn't take any!"

The mob waited quietly, watching the Baron. He sensed that it wanted to kill Garon, if not for the theft, then at least for the entertainment. He knew that the mob was demanding a purge, that it needed a figure on which to vent its frustration and fear. The laws of objective justice had long been discarded. It was now the law of the jungle.

Among the more fierce and vengeful of the members gathered around the Baron was Silas. "You're not letting that bastard get away with it!" he shouted. Silas shook his fist angrily to stir up his fellows. It had taken considerable craft and plotting on his part to plant the damning evidence in Garon's room and then, indirectly, so as not to arouse suspicion against himself, arrange for the searching guards to find it. "Thief! Thief!" he shouted again. "Is he going to get off?"

"No! No!" Other voices in the mob cried out in support of Silas's demands.

The Baron realized that he could not merely reprimand Garon for the act of stealing. Nor fine him by reducing his food allotment. Nor even have him lashed in public. Not any more, it was too late for that now. He turned and started to walk away. His heart was heavy, but he said, "Give him to the street people."

The crowd roared its approval. With a scream Garon started to run after the retreating figure of the Baron to beg his mercy. The condemned man was grabbed and cut off by the mob.

The Baron closed his eyes in pain at his decision, but he did not pause to look back to see the crowd pull down Garon. Quickly the condemned man's arms were forced behind him and his wrists bound together with wire. A burlap hood was pulled over his head and tied tightly at his throat. Garon's screams were muffled and the men kept him from thrashing around while the women pulled off his shoes and replaced them with a fine new pair.

Over his shirt, they draped a hand-tooled leather vest, as fine a garment as any in the commune. The vest was buttoned at the throat. The women festooned him with feathers and bright baubles and small disks of metal that chimed gaily when they struck one against another. The men led him toward the barricade, half carrying him at times. The guard opened the gate to the tunnel and the men took him out into the street. They escorted him half a block away while the crowd climbed to vantage points to watch the spectacle. In the middle of the street Garon was spun around and around, destroying his sense of direction. Then his peers left him and returned to the compound. A man rang a bell high up on one of the apartment rooftops, its brazen tongue summoning beasts to the kill.

At the sound of the bell, the street people began to appear from out of the doorways of the decayed buildings and up from the damp, dark cellars. Ragged and torn, they grinned in anticipation and began converging on the staggering figure of Garon. He turned desperately, first one way, then another, stumbling and bumping into walls and the rusting carcasses of abandoned automobiles. He shook his head to rid himself of the hood, but it only set the metal disks to ringing and jangling, drawing the street people like a magnet.

From the garden rooftop, Cal and Melinda saw the street people converging from both ends of the street on the isolated, hopeless figure of Garon. With a look of disgust at the broken tomato plants, Cal shook his head. "It wasn't worth it. No man's life is worth just a few vegetables."

Cal turned away to busy himself with his plants. Melinda followed him, turning her back to the scene below. But her voice was strong, more firm than Cal's, when she said, "There has to be some law, some rules of behavior. Otherwise we all die."

Garon thrashed wildly, stumbling against the crumbling curb while the street people slowly approached him. All of them wore a habitual wariness and some seemed to sniff the air as if trying to scent danger. Satisfied, at last, that there was no trap, they rushed ahead and closed around Garon, ripping him apart to get at the spoils.

In the garden, Garon's helpless cries and the noisy din of encouragement from the members of the commune urging on the street people were less easily heard. Cal reached down to gently straighten a tiny plant. From the street below arose a great roar, then silence. Cal slowly withdrew his hand from the plant and turned to face Melinda.

"You're about a month from having the baby," he said.

Melinda nodded. "Just about . . . precisely," she replied.

"It will be a fine day, that day," Cal said.

The young woman smiled at him warmly, then looked away thoughtfully. "We think we've found a place to go," she told Cal.

Again his hands started fussing gently with the plants as he replied, "Yes. The Baron tells me that . . . that fellow, Carson, knows about a place. Some island somewhere." Cal glanced up at Melinda and then went on, "I'll bet we've heard that kind of a story two dozen times."

"Carson's been there," Melinda said firmly. "He's going back to it."

"Do you believe him?" Cal asked. His own expression betrayed his distrust of Carson.

Melinda shrugged. Her voice was cautious when she spoke. "We're just about to the point where we are going to have to trust him."

"Are things all that bad?" Cal asked.

. Melinda attempted to remain calm. She kept her voice level. "You're not in contact with them, Cal. You're up here, but the Barony is about done. Grandfather is the only thing that keeps it all stuck together."

"I know," Cal nodded, "but it has lasted over twenty years. It's the only home a lot of people have had. Your own baby will be born here."

"That's the only thing that is stopping grandfather from moving now. He doesn't want me to be carrying the baby when we travel." She paused and stared levelly at her companion. "Cal, he's worried you won't be ready to leave when it's time."

Cal looked at his garden and then up to the terraces of growing plants above him. He shook his head sadly. "I'll never really be ready, but I told the Baron I would go. I know what it means."

Melinda nodded and started to move away between the rows of plants. She was reluctant to leave this place of peace and quiet, but she kept going toward the rooftop doorway. Cal's eyes followed her tenderly.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

That night, a nearly full moon lighted the royal-blue heavens, bathing the skeleton city in a wash of silver. Behind the block-long buildings of the Barony, figures clothed in black leather and carrying sacks tied around their necks prowled cautiously down the alley. Buildings that backed on the alley rose straight into the sky leaving no openings of any kind. Doors and windows had been boarded over and the wood strengthened with rusting metal rods. Carrot, in the shadows of a doorway at the corner, peered through a pair of night binoculars up at the garden on the rooftop. He observed carefully the small wooden shack where Cal lived. In that part of the garden which he could see, nothing moved; no one stirred. Finally his gaze stopped at a guard stationed in the rooftop doorway. Carrot lowered his binoculars and moved over to the alley down which his men were spreading out along the walls of the buildings.

They took out ropes and grappling hooks and coiled the strands neatly so that they would straighten out without snarling on the throw. One by one, the invaders hurled their hooks into the air and the metal prongs bit firmly into the slightly projecting window sills and other ledges on the structures that projected enough to set the hooks. The casts made very little sound and what slight noises occurred were quickly absorbed into the night by the restless activity of the commune's members moving around the cooking pits in the street fronting the buildings.

Cautiously, noiselessly, Carrot's men began their climb up the back wall of the building, inching their way up the ropes. Carrot watched the ascent of the men and once again looked up the side of the building on the top of which, by the edge, stood Cal's wooden shack. The thin light coming from the door and cracks in the boards indicated to Carrot that it was occupied.

Inside, Cal hunched over an open magazine. By his side stood a candle that illuminated the faded, colored pictures of roses, azaleas, and lilies, as well as other blooms in the old catalog he was studying. The room was crowded with stacks of magazines, booklets, and catalogs of gardening and farming material. Some of the periodicals were crumbling with age. His expression held an almost childlike delight as he admired pictures of the beautiful growing things that once had flourished, and which had covered the now ravished earth.

At the mouth of the alley, an archer joined Carrot and bent his bow to set the string. Carrot acknowledged the bowman's presence with a curt nod, but without removing his gaze from the wall; halfway up, members of his band were struggling toward the top.

The Baron, in his room, had no knowledge of the sneak attack underway. For the moment, he was concerned with opening a tin of meat. He sawed through the top with the blade of a knife and looked at brownish layers of meat inside. He lifted a small portion on the end of his knife and tasted it, prepared to spit it out. Instead, he found that it was still appetizing and unspoiled. With a look of pleased surprise, the Baron said, "Still good. All these years. I've got possibly a dozen tins left. I don't want to saddle you with too much. You'll have to take a couple of cans of water, too. I've got a good scratch lighter when you need a fire."

Carson hefted the tins in his powerful calloused hands, weighing them in his mind before he said, "I can wrap some of this stuff in a couple of bedrolls, but I'll need some extra blankets for the baby."

The Baron stared for a moment at Carson and slowly nodded. "Yes," he said. "He's snug now, but he won't be later. I didn't even think of that."

At that time Carrot was thinking of other things. He knew from previous reconnaissance with his binoculars that, lately, a guard was stationed at night near the rooftop doorway. It was imperative for the success of his assault that his men overpower the guard before an alarm was raised. Meanwhile, there was nothing more that Carrot could do; he hoped they would follow out his exact instructions. He watched one of his men pull himself up to the edge of the roof, then gently ease over the ledge and disappear from sight in the garden.

The invader on the rooftop pulled a sack from around his neck and placed it on the earth-covered flooring beside him. Taking a small roll of thin wire from his coat pocket, he started to crawl between the rows of vegetables. He stopped a moment at the stand of corn to draw a breath and look over at Cal's shack. Although weak light still outlined the door, he discerned no movement from within. Reassured, he moved on, away from the corn, and began to crawl more quickly. Several others from Carrot's band had also reached the rooftop, but they crouched by the Ledge, motionless, waiting for the way to be cleared by the strangler. From the doorway the unsuspecting guard saw no movement in the garden and was unaware that an assailant was now approaching him stealthily from behind.

The guard's last sound was a tiny cough as the wire bit into his neck and quickly strangled the breath in his throat.

More of the invading band slipped over the wall at the top of the building. They pulled off sacks from around their necks and began to fill them with vegetables . . . cabbage, corn, and squash, hurriedly working their way along the neatly laid out rows. A brass water bucket hung from a pole at one side of the garden, and one of the men in his haste brushed up against it. The bucket swung against its pole with a slight clatter, and Carrot's men froze at their work. They awaited a reaction to the noise, but when none came, they went back to their jobs of stripping the garden.

Inside the shack Cal continued to study the old catalog. Suddenly he lifted his eyes and stared straight ahead for a moment. The faint edge of a sound had reached him from the garden. He put down the catalog and stood up; blowing out the candle, he went to the door and eased it open. Through the crack in the door, Cal saw the invaders in his garden. A sudden rage burst upon him and with a shout he threw open the door to grasp the intruder nearest him. The man ducked under Cal's rush and with a sharp blow sent him sprawling headlong into the garden. Caught up in the heat of his anger and rage, Cal was unaware that others in the group had drawn closer to surround him. His attention was focused on the first foe he had rushed to attack, in defense of his garden. Cal dashed headlong at the enemy a second time, only to be struck down from behind by another of the invaders.

Cal's shout of discovery had reached the ears of Carson, who was still in the Baron's room. Carson streaked through the door and leaped up the stairs four at a time.

In the street, the people of the commune moved slowly along the cracked asphalt staring up at the top of the building from where the sounds of the fight could be heard. They were confused, bewildered, not yet comprehending the cause of the furor. The Baron shouted down to them from his open window, "Help him! Get up to the roof! Every single man!"

The groups hesitated, frightened by the suddenness of the attack, then two men rushed toward the stairs. The guards at the gate started forward to join them, but the Baron waved them back and shouted, "Don't leave the gate, for Christ's sake!"

At the sounds of the alarm, Melinda ran toward the foot of the steps ascending from the street level. Frantically she climbed them, her heavy body beginning to ache with pain. On the rooftop, three men fought with Cal, pushing him slowly backward through the garden while other members of the marauding band dropped bags of vegetables off the back of the building into the dark alley below.

Cal attempted to protect his garden and the fruit of his handiwork with almost superhuman strength. He attacked his foes again and again, but he was badly outnumbered. Catching a glimpse of a marauder dropping one of the plunder-laden sacks over the wall, he broke away from his own opponents to rush the man and grasped him by the throat. Concentrating his fury on the man in his hands, Cal left himself open to the other invaders. Quickly they swarmed over him, grabbing him by the head and pinning his arms behind him.

When Carson sprang from the rooftop door, several of Carrot's men moved quickly against him. One picked up a hoe, but Carson smashed both the hoe and the man's arm, and with the piece of remaining metal sank the hoe deep into the second attacker's skull. Carson saw the men grouped around Cal and raced across the garden to his aid. But before Carson could reach the knot of battle, Cal was lifted off his feet and hurled over the wall to the alley far beneath.

They turned immediately to face Carson. Carson's rage knew no bounds. He crashed into the group of invaders, scattering them like leaves before the wind of a hurricane. He grasped them separately, one by one, breaking their arms, necks, and legs, smashing whatever parts of their anatomy he could reach.

The two men from the Baron's compound had now entered the fray. They cornered one of Carrot's men against a ledge and grasping him, they bent him over the side of the building to smash into the street below. The falling man landed in a firepit that sent up a huge plume of glowing sparks and embers. The battle continued to rage across the garden. Carson knocked one invader through the open doorway of Cal's shack, smashing him through the thin wooden walls into the alley beneath. Some of the invaders started to climb back down the wall of the building using the grappling hooks and ropes they had used to climb up. A man from the commune picked up a bucket of earth and dropped it on one of the descending men. Knocked from his rope, he dashed to his death with a scream. The other man from the Barony peered over the wall attempting to find another target on which to drop a stone. At a signal from Carrot, below in the alley, the bowman released an arrow and caught the man in the throat. He fell to the garden dead.

The last of Carrot's men who had survived the battle, swarmed down the ropes and escaped in the alley.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Carson looked around him. The garden had been all but destroyed. He stared over the back wall down into the alley below where Cal lay dead. Turning, he discovered the remaining man from the commune behind him. Carson nodded thanks for his help and started for the rooftop door. Just inside the door he found Melinda huddled on a step unable to move further. Her head rested against one of the low concrete steps, and her arms were wrapped around her swollen belly as if to lessen the pain. Carson lifted her up gently and started down the stairs carrying her in his arms. Melinda turned her face, her eyes wet with tears, to stare up at Carson, "Is Cal all right?"

"I'll get you to your room," Carson replied.

The anxiety on Melinda's face deepened. "I said, is Cal all right!"

Carson stopped with his burden and stood motionless on a step for a moment. He looked down into her tired, anxious face. "No," Carson said. "He's been killed." Melinda's face tightened with the added pain and she closed her eyes as Carson again started down the steps.

He carried the girl to the Baron's room and gently deposited her in a wide chair. She huddled, crumpled and listless, her face white and without expression. The Baron sensed the vulnerability of his granddaughter. His voice held sympathy as he said, "I was afraid you would lose the baby."

Melinda stared ahead, her eyes fixed on a wall lined with books. She sat motionless for a long time, then nodded, and tears welled in her eyes. "I loved Cal," she said, simply.

The Baron got up from behind his desk and walked toward her. He had long been aware of the mutual attraction between his granddaughter and the now dead Cal. "I loved them both," he thought sadly. But the affair had never been discussed between Melinda and himself. He lowered his head to look directly at his granddaughter. "Was Cal your baby's father?"

"Yes," Melinda replied. They were silent for a few seconds; then Melinda took a deep breath as if to steady herself and continued, "I'm not going."

The Baron slowly shook his head as if recovering from a physical blow. "Not going? That doesn't make sense," he said. But his voice did not betray the disappointment which he was careful to conceal.

Melinda seemed to draw on some new inner source of strength. Her voice was adamant. "You and Carson can take the seeds . . . take them some place. Wherever you want."

The Baron was thoroughly alarmed, but he continued to conceal his emotions from the girl. His voice was even as he went on, "What do you suppose Cal would say to that?"

He looked down at her, awaiting her answer. Melinda sat stiffly, unresponsive to her grandfather's question. The Baron turned toward a small table on which a brass charcoal brazier was heating a metal bowl of water. He poured some of the water into a cup and sprinkled in a few crushed leaves.

"It seems to me he'd say . . . 'Get out of here. Find a place for my baby,' " the Baron said. He glanced carefully at the girl, but her attention was still fixed on the far wall of the room. The Baron took a small pack of powder from his pocket and stirred it into the cup. He placed the cup on the arm of the chair in which Melinda was seated. "Some warm tea. Drink it. Remember the baby."

Melinda finally nodded and picked up the cup. She lifted it to her lips and began to drink the warm brew.

In the morning the Baron entered what was left of Cal's shack. The flimsy structure was a shambles from the fight of the night before. The elderly man gazed around sadly at the sight of the torn and scattered catalogs---their pages strewn about the floor. He got down stiffly on his knees and thrust an arm beneath Cal's bed to pull out a small wooden box. In the box, concealed by a tattered notebook, were four leather bags of seeds. The Baron stuffed the bags into his pocket and rose again to his feet. Without another look at the shack, the Baron left the rooftop garden.

Carson stretched on the bunk in his room, one hand working the muscle and elbow of the other arm. He massaged the muscles, slowly opening and closing his clenched fist as if testing the steel tendons. A knock sounded at the door, but he did not stop. "Walk in," Carson called.

The Baron opened the door and entered the room. For a moment he stood just inside the closed door and watched Carson. "Are you all right?" the Baron asked.

"Sure. Sit down," Carson said.

The Baron walked to a box that was placed in the position of a chair but did not seat himself. Instead, he began a nervous pacing. "If I sat down, it might suggest time to talk. There isn't," the Baron said.

"It's that time?" Carson asked.

The Baron raised a hand in regret. "By now Carrot and his men have had a taste of our food. They know that there are two untouched gardens left. His raid last night was successful, which means that we are growing weaker. He must know by now that Cal is dead. This place is about lost."

Carson stared at the Baron flatly, waiting for him to go on.

The Baron continued, "You'll have to leave today. Melinda is very upset and says she's not going. But I'll have her ready. She'll go, all right."

"Cal's death changed her mind," Carson said.

"Yes," the Baron agreed.

"Do I have to take her out of here kicking and screaming?" Carson asked.

Baron shook his head, "She'll be asleep by the time we get to my room. She'll stay asleep for about three more hours."

Carson was surprised at the toughness of this old man. "You drugged her again, huh?" Carson said.

"I have if she drank her tea," the Baron replied with assurance. He started toward the door and paused to look back at Carson. "You know, of course, that you'll have to deliver the baby somewhere along the way," the Baron told Carson, his voice almost conversational.

Carson said, "I was wondering when you were going to get to that."

The Baron went out, and Carson drew himself up from the bed. Carefully he checked his clothing, then sat down again on the side of the bed and started to sharpen and hone the blade of his knife on a small smooth stone.

Since Carrot's successful raid on the commune, the people of the Barony had remained in their rooms where they felt safe. The commune was wrapped in despair fearing another surprise attack. The Baron walked along the deserted street in front of the buildings and then turned in to the doorway that led to his own room above. He had sensed that eyes followed his every movement on the street and now that he was about to start up the stairs, from somewhere a voice called, "What now, Baron?"

The Baron stopped and turned around. The voice seemed to echo through the empty street, but he saw no one. The doorways and windows were deserted. A breeze moved an occasional tattered curtain swinging from the windows higher up and made the pitfires glow a little more red. But there was no life to be seen. The Baron climbed the steps and made his way to his room. As soon as he had disappeared, persons began to show themselves at the corners of the windows and doors. They glanced from one to another, then slowly retreated from view. A pall of fear hung over the commune. From one open window, Silas spat his hatred into the street.

In the Baron's room, Melinda was lying on an ancient sofa, a teacup on the floor beside her. The Baron moved quickly behind his desk where he had gathered together supplies for the trip ahead. He packed tins of meat and jars of water in a stained knapsack that showed its age and past strains. He stared thoughtfully at the sack and then, at the last moment, put in a package of cigars before buckling it closed. He rolled two blankets in a tight bundle.

After tying them, he slipped a short-handled rag torch under the binding. Spreading out another blanket on the floor, he crossed to Melinda. He bent over to hoist her up from the sofa.

"Here, I'll get her," Carson said from the doorway.

The Baron started at the sound of Carson's voice, unaware that he had opened the door. Recovering from his surprise, the Baron motioned Carson to enter the room. Carson crossed the floor, gently lifted Melinda, and placed her on the blanket, folding it around her. The Baron handed Carson a packet. "These are all the maps that I showed you. I've been packing. If you want to take anything else, say it now," the Baron said, as he walked behind his desk.

Carson shook his head and looked down at Melinda. "Is she all right?" he asked.

"Perfectly," the Baron assured him.

Carson, however, was not so positive. He picked up the backpack and the roll of blankets. "Let's go," he said.

"I'll go first to make sure there is no one down below. When it's clear, I'll tap the vent pipes. You'll hear it in this room," the Baron told him.

Carson nodded and the Baron walked from behind his desk to the door and went out, closing the door behind him. He made his way down the flight of stairs as quietly as possible. Stopping at the open doorway, he glanced quickly into the street. Several persons had come out and were gathered around the firepits. Convinced that all was quiet, the Baron turned and continued down another stairway to the basement of the building.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A woman seated back from the light of her window, across the street, had seen the Baron enter the second flight of steps to the basement. She rose slowly and crossed to the open window, curious about the Baron's move. Gossip and legend combined in the Barony to report that the sub-basements of the buildings were filled with giant roaches. Few members of the commune entered these lower levels willingly. The Baron was unaware of the prying eyes that had followed his descent into the basement.

He moved slowly through a room crowded with refuse of the '60s, '70s and '80s, all of it worthless now. The old goods piled and stacked were covered with layers of grime and dust. The Baron pushed aside ancient broken pieces of furniture searching for the manhole cover that led below ground to a chamber that once housed an exhaust fan of the subway system. He finally cleared a space on the floor to reveal a large concrete slab that held the cover down against anyone approaching from below. He managed to slide the slab off, but when he inserted a finger through the hole in the heavy iron cover he was unable to budge it. Picking up a short piece of iron rod, he walked to a section of pipe that ran up the wall. He tapped the pipe once, and the sound reverberated along its length.

When Carson heard the signal from the Baron, he scooped up Melinda in his arms and started toward the door. "Here we go, kid," Carson said to the unconscious girl.

He kicked open the door and poked his head out cautiously. The stairway to the street was clear. Moving quickly, Carson left the Baron's room and glided down the stairs without a sound. At the foot of the stairs by the open door to the street, he hesitated momentarily to glance out of the door. He saw no one. He then continued around the corner of the steps and down the flight to the basement. But despite his silence and swift departure, Carson and his burden had not escaped observation. The same woman who had seen the Baron make his way to the basement turned away from the window and crossed to a man asleep on the bed. She shook him awake. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes and looked questioningly at the woman.

"What would he be doing down there?" the woman asked.

"Who?" her husband asked in return.

The woman shook her head with impatience. "First the Baron went down into the basement. Nobody goes down there any more. Then just a few minutes later I saw the fighting man carrying Melinda. He went down there, too."

"Are you sure it was the Baron?" the man asked.

"Of course!" the woman replied firmly.

Her husband sat on the bed, thinking. He scratched his head and the side of his jaw, then got up and started toward the door. "I'll give a look," he assured his wife. The fellow left the building. On the street, a short distance away, he saw Silas talking to another member of the commune. He waved---signaling them to join him.

Carson lowered Melinda to the floor of the basement and joined the Baron by the manhole cover.

"It's jammed," the Baron explained.

Carson pulled at it. His mighty muscles bulged in his attempt to lift the heavy cover. It didn't move. He began stamping around the outer edge of the metal with the heel of his boot. The sound rang out loudly, but there was no choice. The Baron, nervous, went to the stairs as a lookout while Carson worked his way around the circumference of the cover. He tried to lift it again, and this time it moved a bit. Carson renewed his efforts. Eventually he pulled it up enough to slide it out of the way. The Baron returned from the stairs and stood beside Carson. The two looked down into the blackness below. The Baron took a scratch lighter out of his pocket to light the torch held out to him by Carson. Carson dropped it down the hole where it landed on a concrete catwalk ten feet beneath the lower floor of the basement. The torch continued to bum, and its flaring light revealed a set of rusty iron rungs embedded in the concrete that led down from the manhole opening to the catwalk.

The sound of Carson's struggle to break loose the rusted manhole cover had led Silas and his two companions to the head of the stairway leading down into the basement. Crouching behind the partly opened door, they watched as Carson slipped his arms through the straps of the knapsack and pulled it up across his shoulders. He moved quickly to get on his way; wordless, he tested the straps to the backpack that held their precious supplies and looped the blanket rolls around his shoulders. The

Baron pulled the leather bags of seeds out of his pocket and knotted the draw strings to slip them over Carson's head. He tucked the bags to lie against Carson's chest beneath his vest. Catching Carson's eye, the Baron held it steadily; what he had to say was not to come easily.

"If it's a matter of saving one or the other . . . save the seeds," he said. "The future lies in the past. Those seeds are what we have left from . . . all those yesterdays."

Carson nodded but made no reply.

"She'll come around in about two more hours," the Baron continued.

"I hope she's happy when she finds out where she is," Carson said.

The Baron smiled slightly as he stared down at his granddaughter for a long moment. He pulled back the blanket and placed his hand lightly on her swollen abdomen. He held it there softly as if communicating with the great-grandchild he would never see. Finally he leaned over to kiss Melinda on the cheek and his eyes filled, overflowing. He wiped a hand across his eyes and waved Carson to the opening. Carson picked up the girl, placed her partly over his shoulders, and started down the iron rungs.

"I'll close the manhole again. You won't be able to come back," the Baron warned.

Carson nodded and above his head the heavy iron cover was pushed back into place, cutting off all light except for the flickering flames from the torch below.

After a moment, alone in the basement, the Baron again wiped his eyes, steadying himself. He turned and slowly climbed the stairs leading to the ground floor of the building. Passing the open door to the street, he saw that members of the commune had gathered outside the building while others were leaning out of windows as if awaiting his appearance. Sullenly, they watched the Baron as he started up the stairs toward his room and the floors above. He was aware of the silence and the tension, but he did not hesitate as he continued up the stairway. Wearily he climbed the remaining stairs and entered his room. He walked slowly to his desk and sat down. A rock flew through the open window and bounced on the floor in front of his desk. The Baron glanced over to the open window, then away. From the street a voice lifted and carried to the Baron's ears.

"How much food did they take with them, Baron?"

The Baron slowly pushed himself up from his desk propping his hands against the top. He remained motionless for a moment, then as if drawing his strength together, he moved to the window. He looked down into the street below for some seconds before he replied. "No more than they deserved," the Baron told the vengeful faces glaring up at him.

"How much was that?" a man shouted.

"A few tins of meat that I stored for years and three jars of water," the Baron called down.

The people of the commune moved in closer, packing together tightly like a mob. Even the guards left their post at the barricade. Silas at the back fringe of the mob ducked away, ran to the gate, and through the tunnel to the outside world.

"Why did they leave? You must know something we don't!" another shouted from the threatening crowd.

"I'm still here, am I not?" the Baron asked. His voice was calm, his face expressionless. Memories of the past flooded to his mind. He remembered those years, so long ago now, when he and his wife and a handful of good men had first founded the commune. All were gone now---except only the Baron himself. He could not blame his people; they were worried, confused, and frightened. His days of dominance were over, and he was not sorry to see them go. Often, too often, he had been forced to choose the good of the many against the just pleas of the individual. It had been a heavy burden to carry. He looked down at the upturned angry faces and repeated, "Here I am."

"A good God damn that does anybody! That bitch running away with the fighting man!" another voice accused.

A barely perceptible tightening of his eyes revealed that the insult had reached him. Nevertheless the Baron replied, "I'll get another fighting man. The garden will be restored."

"Until then we will eat the canned meat you got stored away! Is that what you're saying?" a woman shrilled.

"There were only a very few cans---" the Baron explained, but his further words were stopped by a rock that grazed his face and drew a line of blood across his cheek. The swift act of direct revolt excited. the crowd even more; the front line pressed in the door and started up the steps. Others picked up rocks and began to shower them at the window where the Baron stood. The mood of the mob had passed beyond the bounds of anger; the members were crazed with fright; no man or woman knew what was coming next. The Baron leaned farther out of the window, ignoring the stones flying around him to shout down, "You'd best go back to your rooms! Turning on our own will only destroy us."

He waited for someone to move away to break the tension, but no one did. For the first time in long years, they denied his authority. He saw the look of beasts on their faces. Their eyes glittered, vicious, in the sun. "When the day cools, we'll go up to the roof and see to the garden," the Baron said. "We shall save it and it will grow again."

He withdrew from the window, and as he turned his back a heavy rock crashed against his shoulder and a second hit him at the base of his head. He staggered forward, nearly falling to his knees, and momentarily he was out of the view of the mob on the street.

They looked from one to another, and then as if at some invisible signal the mass rushed through the door of the building and up the stairs. When the crowd reached the Baron's room, they found him sitting behind his desk with blood flowing from one side of his face, listening as their feet pounded up the stairs. They poured into the room and those in the first rows of the mob paused, attempting to hold back. The sight of the Baron and the proximity to him seemed, for an instant, to revive his old authority. But the ranks of the others pressing from behind pushed the mob deeper into the room. Soon they began to curse and revile him. The stairs acted as a funnel to pour scores of the commune through the door of the Baron's room. More and more jammed into the narrow confines and were pushed up to the Baron's desk. He watched them approach with a level gaze, a deep fatalism behind his eyes. The last resources of his strength broke and the mob flooded over him---flaying and kicking with an unleashed madness.

Others pulled apart his room, scattering the papers and priceless books. They tore apart the furniture and threw it into the street to burn later. The unshackled savagery was appalling. Then suddenly there was nothing more for the mob to destroy. All that had been was gone, and the Baron lay dead in the rubble of mad destruction. The noise ceased but for the sound of a lone woman crying out in the streets below. For several moments the mob shifted uneasily, refusing to meet each other's eyes. Then one by one they made their way out of the room.

The crowd, no longer a mob, filtered down the stairs and out to the street. They began to make their way to their own rooms bearing feelings of guilt and fear that most had never known before. Most of them seemed aware that the few chances of survival that they might once have had were now gone.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Down the street, Carrot squatted against the wall on the floor of the building that housed his commune. Greedily he ate the vegetables the band had pirated from the Barony, then looked up as one of his men came running toward him. Breathlessly he reported to the red-haired, red-bearded leader, "One of the Baron's men just walked in. He says he quit the commune."

Carrot finished chewing the last of his mouthful of food and stood up. With a nod to the messenger, they started back across the floor through the haze of cooking fires. "Got us a little traitor, huh? It's starting to break up over there," Carrot said.

He watched Silas escorted forward by a group of guards. The messenger continued, "He says the fighting man and the Baron's granddaughter took off . . . down below."

Carrot's eyes glinted with interest, and his teeth set in a fixed smile. "Gone underground? Go get the Harkness brothers and Lippert. We're going to need us some good trackers."

The messenger turned and started off in a half run as he shouted back to Carrot, "He's carrying on about some seeds. Something about growing more stuff!"

Carrot's set smile grew broader as he fixed his attention on Silas. Silas, misinterpreting the smile for one of friendship, returned it. Carrot extended a hand to the deserter and as Silas was about to accept it, Carrot smashed him in the face to send him sprawling beside a cooking fire. Lying on the floor, still dazed, Silas was grasped by the hair and Carrot pulled him over nearer to the live coals of the firepit. "Welcome, traitor," Carrot said. "We hear you have some news." *

Silas's eyes bulged and watered, and he had difficulty breathing because of the hot smoke from the fire. He choked. A crowd formed around him. "Too close to the heat?" Carrot asked. He lifted Silas a few inches, raising his head enough to breathe, but still maintaining a grasp on his hair, and continued, "Tell us about the seeds."

"They've got seeds!" Silas cried.

"To grow tomatoes, right?" Carrot shook Silas's head roughly.

Silas tried to reply, choking from the smoke. "They . . . they took 'em with them . . ." Silas said, his voice choking.

Carrot shook him roughly. "Took the seeds with them?" Silas struggled to sit up but Carrot's big boot planted on his chest pinned the deserter to the floor.

The men Carrot had sent for arrived. They were the trackers---one called Lippert, and Larry and Bill Harkness, brothers. Carrot twisted Silas's head in their direction. "See these men? They're the best underground trackers alive. You tell them about the slut and that bastard fighting man."

Silas could breathe only with difficulty. The coals of the fire were beginning to blister his face, and he had long since been frightened almost witless. "He went . . . into the subway . . . the girl . . ." he stammered, then began to cough.

Carrot shook him again and said, "Hurry! We've got to get them!"

Silas could barely speak. ". . .The girl . . ." and he fell into a spasm of coughing.

Carrot shook him again, pounding his head against the floor. "The old man's granddaughter. Right?" he demanded.

Silas could breathe only with difficulty. The coals of the fire were beginning to blister his face, and he had long since been frightened almost witless. "He went . . . into the subway . . . the girl . . ." he stammered, then began to cough.

Lippert nodded, "Old One Hundred and Third Street," he said.

The two Harkness brothers spoke nearly as one. "How long ago?"

"Ten . . ." Silas said, "fifteen . . . minutes."

Carrot interrupted, "You got anything else for us?"

Silas shook his head. "No."

Carrot lifted Silas's head by his hair and then plunged his face into the glowing coals. He held the informer face down until Silas's frantic struggles ended. Then releasing his hold, Carrot straightened up and looked at the trackers, a fierce and savage trio. "When you get a line on them, one of you come back and lead us in," he told them.

Without further words the three trackers turned and left the building. Carrot turned to some of his men who had watched the death of Silas. "We'll take in enough food for three days," Carrot ordered. "And two or three dozen torches. Twelve men will be enough."

Carson, carrying Melinda, moved along a catwalk that led to a door. His boot smashed the handle on the rotting wood and he pushed it open. Inside were located large housings to hold fans that once had forced air down to the subway level. His boots left deep imprints in the dust-covered floors; the prints were the first in many years. Near the center of the room an opening in the concrete served as an entrance to a circular iron ladder spiraling down to a platform by the subway tracks below. Carson dropped the torch twenty-five feet to the concrete platform beneath them, then hoisted Melinda over his shoulder---careful to avoid pressure on the baby. He descended the iron ladder cautiously, although he had to drop the last few feet because the metal rungs had rusted away. Sweating heavily in the still, dank air, he discovered that at the lower level there was more light---light that filtered from a subway entrance a quarter of a block away. He sat down on the concrete platform for a moment to rest, holding Melinda in his lap. Inhaling deeply the thin air, he recovered his breath, then heaved himself erect and started forward, striding along the rusted tracks.

The three trackers had left Carrot's compound and moved swiftly along the street heading for the subway entrance. They wore rough leather clothes with knives at their belts. Their soft moccasins made no more noise than the pads of cats. Stocking-like caps covered their shaven heads. Each held a torch in a lean, hard hand, and they moved tirelessly in an effortless lope. Instinct caused them to glance around the deserted street before starting down the debris-littered steps into the desolate subway.

A broad concrete passenger platform along which Carson moved and carried Melinda narrowed to a ledge that ran along one side of the tunnel. After some distance the ledge emerged in a large underground room with brick-lined, vaulted ceilings and huge arches through which the tracks forked in two directions. Carson set Melinda down and pulled the packet from his blanket roll to check a map. The red line, the Baron had drawn angled off through the arch to the right. Carson shoved the map back into the folds of the blanket, picked up Melinda, and started off again.

By now the trackers had penetrated a short distance into the vast underground maze of the subway. Lippert was in the lead, and the two Harkness brothers followed him spread out slightly to each side, the three men moving like a wedge. The faint light from the subway entrance was left far behind them, and they moved now with the light of their torches. Lippert stopped abruptly. Squatting on his haunches, he looked at the print of a boot outlined in the thick layer of dust. The footprint was located at the base of the ladder that Carson had descended to the passenger platform. Lippert stood up and moved forward a short distance following the trail that Carson had left behind. He turned to one of the Harkness brothers. "Get Carrot," Lippert told his companion quietly.

Bill Harkness started back in the direction from which they had come, while the other two trackers continued down the platform.

Carson came out through the massive arch following the second row of tracks. Dust-covered skeletons lay beside a number of rusting steel drums, clothes hanging in shreds from their bones. He continued forward, but stopped when Melinda stirred in his arms. She groaned softly and Carson after a moment of hesitation maintained their course. The strain was beginning to tell on Carson, and he was breathing heavily. He. had carried Melinda a long distance, and her weight was a drain on his strength.

The girl in Carson's arms stirred more as the minutes passed, and finally her eyes opened drowsily. It took her several moments to focus her eyes and comprehend the burning torch that Carson held aloft. The flames reflected from the brick ceiling above her head and then her eyes fixed on Carson's sweating face that strained straight ahead. Melinda's eyes widened as if she had just been gripped by a nightmare, and she screamed. Carson stopped abruptly and looked at the girl in his arms. She screamed again and began to struggle in his arms.

Far behind Carson and Melinda in the labyrinth of tunnels, Lippert and his companion heard the girl's cry as it traveled along the walls as if in an echo chamber. The stalkers moved ahead quietly, almost running.

Carson gently deposited Melinda on the floor, propping the girl's back against the wall of the tunnel. Her head rested against her knees and she sobbed quietly. Carson moved a few steps away from her and cocked his head to listen. Sounds traveled long distances in the tunnel, but he could hear nothing. Finally he turned to look down at Melinda and then he knelt beside her and spoke in a whisper. "We have to be getting along," Carson said.

Melinda shook her head, still sobbing. "God damn you both."

"I can't blame you a lot," Carson told her. "I wouldn't want to wake up in this place, either."

"I want to go back!" Melinda said.

"I'd like to say you can, but we can't. We---" Carson broke off abruptly and stood up. He stepped away from her to listen again. "Sshh," he cautioned.

Melinda tried to control her sobs. Her breathing calmed and she regained a measure of self-control.

Bill Harkness, the brother sent back by Lippert, arrived at Carrot's compound. Carrot was ready with a band of a dozen men. Three of them carried large packs of torches strapped on their backs and several more were laden with sacks of food and cans of water. All of them carried short-handled axes. When Carrot saw the tracker approaching, he smiled, "All ready, huh?"

Harkness grinned, "Yes. We've got a line on them."

Carrot turned away, wasting no time, and the tracker was at his heels. The band followed after them.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Carson's eyes were fixed on a line of rats running and scratching along the base of the wall across the tracks. The rodents were some distance down the tunnel, and in the darkness Carson could barely make them out. He sensed their motion rather than saw it, but he accurately identified the sounds they made. The rats disappeared in a crack in the wall. Carson returned to Melinda and whispered in her ear. "Some rats were running. There must be a reason."

"Us?" Melinda asked.

"No. They're behind us. As a danger, we've passed, but something else is coming up to scare them."

Terror grew in Melinda's eyes.

"Can you walk?" Carson continued.

Melinda nodded and tried to stand, but Carson had to help her to her feet. They began to hobble along the tracks. "My legs are asleep but I'll make it," Melinda assured him. Carson's arm encircled the girl's waist and he supported her, half holding her erect as they hurried along.

"The cramps will work out right away," Carson said. But he was not too sure.

After another few minutes, Carson again stopped suddenly to listen. Melinda froze under his hand. Carson nodded and hurried her forward. They passed a small intersecting tunnel to one side, but continued on until they reached a wider archway in the wall where a rusted iron gate hung askew. He guided her in behind the gate and his eyes quickly examined the walls and floor. "No rats. It's dry. Those things won't hurt us," Carson said, his voice assuring.

Melinda looked past Carson down the passageway behind the gate where two skeletons lay stretched out on the concrete. Their bony skulls were bound with gas masks and the lenses over the socketless eyes reflected the flickering light of the torch.

"A lot of people got trapped down here when everything went dead," Carson explained. "I'm going to put out the torch now and it will be pitch-black. And we'll have to be quiet and wait."

Melinda stared at him, her eyes widening in fright. Calmly Carson threw the torch on the floor and deliberately pressed the sole of his boot on it to smother the flames. The girl's face faded in the blackness. Her voice, however, was calm and assured when she next spoke. "You're talking to me like a child."

"Okay. I won't any more," Carson replied. Then after a slight pause his voice snapped, "Now shut up."

In the solid blackness that surrounded them, Melinda realized that Carson was listening for their lives.

Lippert and Larry Harkness had reached the fork in the tunnel that Carson and Melinda had taken. Lippert raised his torch and under its light saw the trail of the two as it turned left into the tunnel. Quickly the two stalkers moved forward on the trail.

"They're coming now. Two of them." Carson whispered.

Far down the tunnel beyond the passageway to the iron gate, Carson saw a faint glow reflected from a wall. He stared at it steadily and watched it grow brighter as the trackers approached nearer. The two men passed the arch with the iron gate and continued down the tracks a short distance. Then Lippert suddenly halted and looked around. His eyes followed the metal tracks that circled around toward a wall. "What the hell?" he said.

Instinct caused Lippert to spin around. He found Carson coming up behind him from out of the blackness. Both trackers drew their knives and fanned out. The younger Harkness immediately lunged at Carson. His blade slashed through the air as Carson side-stepped and buried a knee in the man's stomach, spilling the torch to the floor. Lippert circled cautiously around Carson and slowly backed away. Harkness pushed himself to his feet and shook his head groggily. Instantly Carson was upon him, picking him up and rushing him to the iron gate. With herculean strength he lifted the man aloft and impaled him on the point of an iron spike protruding from the grill work. Lippert waited no longer; he turned and ran back down the track. Carson picked up the rag torch and returned to Melinda. He gathered up the backpacks and bedroll. Lighting his own torch from the one he had taken from Harkness, he handed it to the girl.

"My screams gave you away, didn't they?" Melinda asked.

"Something like that," Carson told her.

"I won't do it again," Melinda said.

They pushed past the iron gate and started down the tunnel again. Carson shoved the torch that he was carrying through the bars of the gate, jamming it over the head of Harkness who hung limp and lifeless from the metal spear. "There'll be more. It might get them to worrying," Carson told Melinda.

They forged on deeper and deeper into the tunnel, moving as quickly as Melinda was able. The precious sacks of seeds slapped against Carson's sweat-soaked chest.

Behind the hurrying couple, Carrot and his band moved even more quickly after the remaining Harkness brother. A dozen torches lighted the way, but the light from them was hidden by the turns of the tunnel from their prey. They passed the ladder Carson had descended to enter the subway and continued to the vaulted room with the arches. They stopped when Harkness heard sound coming toward them. In a few moments, the lean figure of Lippert trotted through the arch. He waved a warning hand. "Ambushed," Lippert announced.

"Where's my brother?" Harkness asked.

Lippert glanced at Larry Harkness, then started past him toward Carrot, but Harkness grabbed him and spun him around.

"I said . . ." Harkness demanded.

"He's dead," Lippert said flatly.

Harkness let him go and started off down the tunnel.

"Wait!" Carrot shouted to Harkness.

Harkness stopped at the command, but a rage was rising within him.

Carrot turned toward Lippert and asked, "How far ahead?"

"About a mile and a half," Lippert told him.

"The girl with him?" Carrot asked.

"Didn't see her," Lippert said.

Carrot nodded and looked around at the tracks that forked to disappear in the tunnels. "Which way?" Carrot asked.

Lippert pointed, "If you follow this track it will branch off and feed into the tunnel they're in. About two miles up the line."

Harkness spoke up, his voice tight, to Carrot. "I know the one," he said. "I'll get there before he does. You just keep moving him along."

"Take a couple of men with you," Carrot told him.

Harkness shook his head in defiance of the order. "They'll just slow me up," he told Carrot.

Carrot and Harkness exchanged a long hard look. Carrot finally agreed. "Don't kill the girl," he ordered Harkness.

Harkness turned and ran off down the tracks; his torch faded and disappeared as he rounded a turn.

"Keep it going, Lippert," Carrot ordered.

Lippert started off with the band of men falling in behind him; they pushed on beneath the heavy archway. Lippert quickly pulled ahead of them.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Melinda stumbled in the darkness, grasped her belly, and her pace slowed. On her face were growing signs of strain and weariness. As her steps lagged she fell behind Carson. At first he did not notice, but finally he became aware that she was not beside him and he paused to wait. She limped up to him. A twinge of pain crossed her face, but she made no cry. "I'm getting cramps,'' Melinda said.

Carson sat down beside a wall and spread out his blanket roll. He picked her up and slipped her on it. "It can't be time, can it?" he asked.

A small smile crossed Melinda's face as she looked up into Carson's worried expression. "It shouldn't be. Not for three weeks or so. I'll just rest a few minutes," she said.

Carson opened the backpack and started to pull out supplies. "Can you eat?" he asked.

"Not now," she told him.

"How about some water?"

"I guess so," Melinda said, her voice indifferent.

Carson took out a jar of water and opened it. He stopped when he saw something else in the pack. He reached in, already smiling, and picked out the package of cigars. He started to laugh, almost forgetting where he was. "The Baron!" Carson exclaimed. "That man is more than I can believe!"

He handed the jar of water to Melinda, and the girl sipped at it slowly. Carson opened the package, selected a cigar, and lit it at the torch. After a long drag he seated himself at the other end of the blanket. "This place isn't half as bad as we thought," he remarked.

Melinda allowed herself a quirk of amusement and looked back at the water jar. Carson's expression of pleasure from his cigar changed slowly to a troubled frown. He looked across to the girl. "Don't you turn out that baby till we get to that island, right?" he cautioned.

"I'll try to keep it where it is," Melinda said.

Carson nodded and leaned against the wall, sending up a plume of smoke. "Are you still mad at us?" he asked.

Melinda thought a moment, then shook her head. "I don't think so. I guess I just felt safe there," she said. She paused and an old hurt renewed itself when she continued, "I suppose Cal thought it was safe, too."

Carson glanced at her. "That man's death bothered me." Carson's eyes seemed to look back through the years at events past and best forgotten. He continued, "If you last as long on the street as I have, then you've seen a lot of men die. After a while it's not personal any more . . . it's something that happens to somebody else. It's just an exercise. But that man's dying bothered me."

"My grandfather told me you were from Detroit," Melinda said.

"Yes," Carson told her. "My father worked on an assembly line." He took a drag on his cigar and turned a look of bewilderment on her. "Do you know that those assembly Lines are still loaded with automobiles? Sitting there like they're going to go somewhere."

They fell silent and Melinda took a final sip of water from the jar. She handed it back to Carson and he sealed the top back on it. "Thanks," Melinda said.

"You know," Carson continued. "I never went to school, but my mother was a schoolteacher. She worked hard to educate me." He shook his head at the wonder of it. "I let her do it to me because it was the only thing that made her happy. I was her son and her only pupil, but I don't know why she worked so hard to pump that stuff into me. Now, what can I do with it?" Melinda stared at him, unable to find an answer to his question. After a pause Carson went on, "She kept at it right up to . . ." his voice tightened, "the time they killed her for a sack of apples she found somewhere."

He stopped, staring out across the subway tracks, and his eyes glistened red in the torch light. Suddenly he exploded, "God damn them!"

"Bastard!" the scream shattered the quiet, and Larry Harkness leaped up from the tracks directly in front of Carson.

At the first sound of the curse, Carson vaulted to his feet and his massive arm swung across Harkness's belly to spin him against the wall. The knife skittered from Harkness's hand. Slowly the two men circled while Carson gauged the hatred in Harkness's eyes.

The shock of the sudden attack had brought a wave of nausea over Melinda, and a spasm started, causing her to shudder each few seconds.

Harkness's knife had been lost from Carson's sight in the darkness, but as they circled, Harkness managed to regain it. He feinted a thrust, then pulled back. Carson, in turn, attacked, almost catching Harkness against the wall. For the moment, Carson's main concern was to keep Harkness from getting close to Melinda. The two men moved toward the tracks. They dropped down to the railbed and Carson, backing up, tripped over a tie. Harkness lunged with Carson's fall, but Carson brought up a boot that caught the tracker in the gut and pushed him upwards while he rolled out from under Harkness's knife. Before the tracker could recover, Carson was on him and ended it very quickly by snapping Harkness's neck across a steel rail of the track.

Farther down the tunnel, Lippert moved along the rails and came up beside the body of the younger Harkness brother, Bill, impaled on the stake of the iron gate. In the flickering light of Lippert's torch, the hideously grimacing corpse seemed to turn and twist as if on a spit. Lippert wiped his grimy hand across his lips and glanced over his shoulder to see the approaching torches of Carrot and his men. Then he turned and went on.

Carson climbed up from the tracks to join Melinda. He put on the backpack and helped Melinda to her feet. "Something's starting," Melinda said.

Carson turned a look of growing panic on the girl. "You promised!" Carson said, his voice accusing.

Melinda lifted a hand weakly in a gesture of helplessness.

Carson said no more and put his arm around her for support. Together they moved down the platform, hurrying as quickly as possible under the circumstances. Eventually, they came to another station, its bars and turnstiles frozen with rust. Hundreds of dust-covered skeletons were stacked at the grates leading to the exit, their arms reaching through the bars for help that never arrived. A hundred yards down the track, a subway train sat where it had stalled. Its windows were shattered and its doors hung awry. Carson picked up Melinda in his arms and ran toward the train. Still carrying the girl, he climbed inside and stalked down the grime-filled aisle, past an occasional skeleton, and then into the next coach searching for a place to stretch her out. She could not suppress a moan when he stopped by a door at the far end of the car. Carson realized that the girl could go no farther and he shoved his way against the door, forcing it open. Inside was what had once been a toilet. He leaned her against the wall in the aisle and spread out a blanket on the floor of the small windowless room.

Carrot and his men moved along the platform and past the gate on which the body of Bill Harkness was impaled. At the sight of it the band paused. Carrot eyed the limply hanging body and said, "It's just as well his brother didn't come this way . . . let's get going." The band pushed ahead.

Farther down the tracks, ahead of Carrot and his men, Lippert still pursued the trail of the fleeing couple. Reaching the platform where Carson and Melinda had sat down to rest, he searched the area and traced the fight to the edge of the concrete abutment. He held the torch high, and in its light, he saw Harkness's broken body on the railbed below. Lippert turned away and again picked up the trail of footprints. He followed the dusty spoor along the concrete platform.

In the subway train, Melinda lay on the blanket, her face awash with sweat. Regular labor pains wracked her body. Carson stood in the doorway looking down at the girl. He was worried and, possibly for the first time in his life, nearly frightened. Beads of sympathetic sweat formed on his face to match those of the laboring girl. His big hands moved, helpless, and he rubbed his fingers on the sides of his leather trousers. When he spoke, it was in a whisper. "There'll be something to cut, won't there?"

"The cord," Melinda told him.

Carson nodded, pleased. The suggestion gave him something to do. Pulling the knife from his belt, he held the blade in the flame of the torch to sterilize it.

Melinda moaned.

Carson placed the blade upright, leaning the handle so that the blade did not touch the wall and become contaminated. The girl moaned again, this time louder than before. Carson looked at her tight-lipped, ashen face. He closed the door behind him and said, "You can make a little squeak, if you want to."

Melinda shook her head, "I said I wouldn't scream again and I won't . . ." she said firmly.

Suddenly her body arched and a scream was almost torn from her lips, but she managed to bite it back. When the baby came, it came so quickly that it left little time for Carson to be surprised.

Lippert reached the station gate with the piles of skeletons. He stood for a moment eyeing the subway train in the distance. Then he carefully checked every corner and possible hiding space in the area around the station before he started for the train.

In the coach, Carson held the tiny wrinkled body carefully in his huge hands. He stared, worried, at the baby and then at the door. He listened intently but heard nothing moving outside. Carson knew that he had to start the baby breathing. He realized that he had to take the chance that the sound would give them away. Turning the baby over in his hands, he slapped the infant's bottom---unloosing a loud gasping wail. Quickly Carson cupped his hand over the baby's mouth to muffle the sound and handed him to the mother.

Melinda took her son with a tired smile and nestled him against her breast.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Lippert entered the door of the train two cars away from where Melinda had been in delivery. The thin cry of the baby reached his ears. He stood motionless, listening, but the cry was not repeated. Slowly he moved forward through the coach.

Carson picked up his knife and looked with uncertainty at Melinda. "You have to tie a knot in it," she told him.

Carson nodded; he was not unfamiliar with the more commonplace tales concerning that part of a birth. His knife cut quick and true. Comforted by his mother, the baby stopped crying and Carson now heard a different noise. He quickly knotted the umbilical cord, wrapped the baby in a blanket, and then returned him to Melinda. "Take him," Carson said.

"I'm glad it's a him," Melinda replied.

But Carson wasn't listening to her. His senses were at battle alert. His instinct was reaching out for something . . . something no longer heard, but something that seemed to be sensed. Felt. He turned to face the door and slowly pressed against it, but it did not give.

On the other side of the door, Lippert had propped his back against the panel and braced his feet against a seat across the aisle. He felt the door give a little under Carson's pressure. The tracker looked out of a broken window toward the station platform. Carrot and the band were moving in the direction of the train under the light of a dozen torches. Lippert called out, "Hurry up! He's in here!"

Carrot and his men broke into a run toward the coach whence Lippert had called.

Carson heard Lippert's shout. He glanced at Melinda, then back at the door. He leaned against it . . . tentative . . . testing . . . and then stepped back and delivered a titanic kick at the resisting panel. The rusty metal ripped apart as if it were rotten linen. Carson's foot caught Lippert in the back and the tracker's leg crumpled beneath the blow as he was hurled across the aisle and through the broken window. He landed on a decaying wooden hatch-like covering, and he crashed through it taking his torch with him. Lippert's screams came from below.

Carson tore open the door and ran to the window to look down, ready to follow Lippert for the kill. At first glance, Carson realized that Lippert would no longer demand more of his attention. Through the shattered hatch cover, Carson saw a small concrete room, twelve feet below, lined with telephone communication tubes. On the floor, a horde of rats swarmed over the now quiet form of Lippert. The ravening rats were stripping the still warm flesh from the body of the tracker.

Carson quickly pulled his head in from the window and walked down the aisle to wait for the first of Carrot's men. Already, they were pouring into the rear entrance of the train and running toward the coach, axes raised. For the present, at least, it was impossible for the attackers to surround Carson in the narrow train. Confined by the aisle, they had to approach him singly or, at best, in twos, shoulder to shoulder.

The first of Carrot's men to reach Carson swung at him and buried an ax head in the side of the car. Carson's flashing hand smashed the man's windpipe. While the others in the band hesitated, Carson set himself for the massive onslaught that he knew was to come all too quickly.

At the sound of running footsteps Carson flashed a sideways glance out of the window to see Carrot running along the platform with two of his men heading for the coach behind Carson. The red-haired leader tried a door, but it was wedged and rusted shut and he was forced to climb into the car through a window. The men facing Carson looked over and past his shoulders anticipating the entrance of Carrot and his companions to catch Carson from behind. Carson retreated a step to take a quick look behind him, too, and saw that Carrot was unable to pull or pry open the rusted door joining the two coaches.

Carrot pushed his men aside and with his ax battered at the door. The connecting door, of stouter metal than other parts of the coach, refused to give way and remained frozen in position by its accumulation of rust. Carrot smashed the square of glass and cleaned out the jagged edges with the blade of his ax, but the opening was too small for him to crawl through. Although less than a dozen feet away, momentarily at least, Carrot was unable to get to Carson.

Carson, convinced that his flanks were not turned, whirled to face the men crowded in the aisle. Two of them rushed him and he dealt with them with the skilled precision of a perfect fighting machine.

Chopping, thrusting, twisting, with a fixed expression of almost sensual pleasure, Carson dealt with his attackers. When they fell, necks broken, he heaved them and their torches out the window. The others turned and ran back down the aisle to escape from the coach.

Moving swiftly, Carson returned to Melinda. He found her huddled with her baby, wrapped in a blanket, as he had left them. He tightened the blanket around them and picked them up, starting for the door through which they had originally entered. Behind them, Carrot in the next coach led his men down the aisle to get off the train and cut them off at the platform. Carson, however, was already out of the train and hurrying past the dead men beside the coach, their torches still burning. He started to run, still carrying Melinda and her son, toward a section of the platform where the iron bars had long been broken through. He started up the stairs toward daylight and glanced behind. Carrot's men were no longer in sight, but Carson knew that somewhere behind him in the subway the red-haired man and his band were still in pursuit. Eventually they would follow the trail up the stairs.

Above ground, Carson breathed deeply, inhaling the fresh air, and looked around the deserted street. This was a desolate section of the great city he had never seen before. He scanned the sky for tell-tale signs of commune fire, but saw no smoke. This particular section, like other vast areas, was simply deserted. He glanced down at Melinda; her eyes were closed, and she held the baby closely to her.

Carson started down the street but stopped suddenly when he saw several men disappearing around the corner of a building at the end of the block. After a moment, one of the men came back around the corner and stared down the street at Carson. The stranger lifted his left hand in a sign of peace and gestured to Carson. His companion, who also had vanished behind the corner of the building, returned and he was followed by several other men and two women. They presented a sturdy-looking band and Carson paused for a moment to make a decision. Behind him Carrot had come up from the subway entrance and stopped. The new band smiled at Carson and began to walk toward him. Carson made his decision and after a final backward glance at Carrot started forward to meet the new group halfway.

The strange band held tentative smiles, but they came forward openly. Carson sensed no menace in their attitude or appearance. In contrast to the people of the Barony, this group seemed to wear an air of hope. Their leader, apparently, was a man of early middle age, of athletic build and with an intelligent face. "What's the matter?" he called to Carson.

Carson placed the blanket with Melinda and the baby on the broken walk and straightened up. "I'd sure like you to look at these two," he said. "I don't know if I've done something wrong."

The new group saw the baby in Melinda's arms and the women rushed to her. "My God!" the leader said. "That baby can't be very old."

"Not very," Carson agreed.

He glanced back down the street to see Carrot still standing by the subway steps. Carson folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the side of a building. "Where you people going?" he asked.

"I was going to ask you the same," the leader of the group replied. "We're headed south . . . past New Jersey. There's a new colony building there."

Carson nodded as he considered the idea. He looked down at Melinda, who was being taken care of by the women. Then he cast another glance back at Carrot. The leader of the new group saw it. "He with you?" he asked Carson.

"No," Carson told him. He nodded toward Melinda and the baby. "We're from the Barony . . . way farther uptown. My name is Carson."

"We've heard of the Barony people. Good reports." The leader stretched out his hand. "I'm Eric." Carson accepted the hand offered in friendship. Eric continued, "You . . . and the woman and child, you're all welcome to come with us. This new colony I was telling you about . . . they've sent out scouts looking for certain kinds of people. I'd say they'd be happy to have all of you."

Carson nodded and looked off again, down toward the subway entrance. He removed the bags of seeds from around his neck and took a few paces toward Melinda. He slipped the bags in her hand and tightened her fingers over them. "No!" Melinda protested.

Eric watched the interplay and said to Carson, "You seem to have something you want to do."

"Yes," Carson agreed.

Melinda looked up from the sidewalk, her eyes filled with fear and loneliness. "Please . . ." she pleaded. Carson did not reply. "Forget him, Carson!" she urged.

"He'll just go back and get another bunch of men. Go after the Baron again," Carson said. He paused, then shrugged. "That... or keep coming after us."

Melinda clutched her baby closer. "Carson . . . "

Carson turned away. He fixed an unwavering stare on Carrot down the street. Even at that distance, Carrot's eyes met and held Carson's fixed gaze---a challenge made and accepted as it had been across the rooftops days before. Carson stalked down the street toward the subway entrance.

"Carson!" Melinda cried, then added, "The baby!"

"I figure . . . he's sort of mine, too," Carson replied without turning.

Eric joined her in protest. "I think you'd best come with us."

Carson heard, but gave no heed. He continued straight for Carrot.

Eric called out, "If you change your mind, you'll find us!"

Carrot waited until Carson was within a dozen feet, then the red-haired man turned and ran down the subway stairs until he was out of sight.

Carson did not pause but continued his deliberate approach and descended the stairs after Carrot. The two remaining members of Carrot's band were concealed in shadows on each side at the foot of the steps. Carrot, however, moved on toward the platform, remaining in sight to draw Carson into the tunnel past the steps.

Carson stood in the entrance of the tunnel, permitting his eyes to adjust to the darkness, before entering. When he had walked a few steps toward the platform the two ambushers leaped out behind him, cutting his retreat.

Spinning and moving almost faster than the eye could follow, Carson rushed his nearest foe so quickly that the second man had no chance to help his companion. Carson grasped the first man by one arm and spun him in a circle, lifting him off the ground, and released him in the air to smash head first into the concrete wall. Instantly, Carson shifted his position for the expected attack of the second assailant, but the dispirited man was already halfway up the subway stairs and running for his life.

From the center of the long platform came Carrot's roar of laughter. Carson turned to face him. "I knew they'd be worth nothing!" Carrot shouted. "Come on!"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Carrot's face was set in a wide grin as his hands straightened a length of piano wire, each end of which was tightly fastened to a two-inch steel ball. He made a loop and snapped the wire taut with a singing sound that vibrated, hollowing in the tunnel. It was a dangerous weapon capable of slicing off a man's head. "What're you waiting for?" Carrot called.

Carson was not waiting. He moved ahead without hesitation but remained just beyond the death-singing arc swung by Carrot. The two warriors maneuvered for position and ranged the length of the platform in the light of the discarded torches. Moving swiftly, they feinted and covered the distance from the turnstiles and the stacks of the dead, through the opening in the metal guard fence, down the tracks and close to the abandoned train. Occasionally Carson was able to slip under the twirling circle of the wire to deliver a quick slash with his hand or land a kick from his booted foot. But after each attack, Carrot quickly recovered and did not permit Carson to follow up on his momentary advantage.

In turn, the slicing wire and bone-breaking steel balls nicked, cut, and bruised Carson to take a toll of his quick hands. Then, quickly, Carrot managed to wind several loops of the twirling wire around Carson's wrist. With a quick jerk, Carrot tightened the noose and drew a stream of blood from Carson's flesh and, at the same time, grasped both metal balls in his own fist.

Each time that Carson lunged for Carrot, the red-haired man used Carson's own motion against him; with the leverage exerted by the wire around Carson's wrist, Carrot was able to swing him hard against the side of a coach. They fought only a few feet apart, joined together by the wire.

The fight continued along the line of coaches and the struggle brought them close to the underground pit in which Lippert had met his death. Carson managed to draw his knife; its gleaming blade slashed desperately at Carrot. With each thrust, however, Carrot fell back---pulling Carson off balance with him.

The feet of the struggling men raised a cloud of dust that rose and covered their sweating faces with masks of mud through which only the gleams of eyes and teeth were seen. Carson saw an opening to use his deadly boot; Carrot deftly avoided the kick and grasped the opportunity to swing Carson around to the very edge of the shattered hatch opening. Then Carrot made a mistake. He attempted to trip up Carson, and Carson fell to his knees. With a tremendous tug on the wire, he pulled Carrot over his back and the momentum carried the red-haired man over the edge of the pit.

Carson was nearly dragged over the opening, too, as Carrot continued to hang onto the steel balls while the wire cut deeper into Carson's flesh. On the floor of the pit the last rags of Lippert's torch glowed dully, and in the reddish reflections the swarm of rats teemed in a circle around it.

As Carrot hung from the side of the wall, clinging with a death grip to the wire coiled around Carson's wrist, he screamed up at him, "We'll go together, you son of a bitch!"

Despite his strength, it was impossible for Carson to lift Carrot from the pit. If he could raise the big red-haired man high enough, Carson might have knifed him in the throat when Carrot's head cleared the edge of the opening. Although he tried several times, each effort was unsuccessful, and the two foes eventually remained motionless. During the impasse, Carson saw an ax off to one side near one of Carrot's dead men. Carson stretched out the length of his body and with a foot managed to inch it along until it came within reach.

Carson grasped the ax and leaned over into the hole as far as he could risk. He chopped at Carrot's hand, but couldn't quite reach them. Next he tried to hack the wire, but the wire hanging free from the wall gave with the angled blows and the ax bounced off the strands.

Stopping for a moment, Carson gulped for air; the sweat ran in rivulets down his face. Although at the moment, there appeared no solution, his eyes were fixed on his wire-bound wrist. He knew that Carrot in the last moments of weakness before letting go of the iron balls would wrap the other ends of the wire around his own wrist and bind them together forever.

Deliberately and without apparent emotion, Carson raised the ax high and chopped it down to cut off his own hand. Instantly the severed hand disappeared into the hole, at the end of the wire, as Carrot fell screaming to the floor below. Immediately he seemed to be swallowed up by the rats.

Blood spurted from the stump of Carson's wrist. He squeezed the wound tightly and staggered on his knees toward a low-burning torch by a coach. Deep in his throat rumbled a moan . . . the cry of desperation of a proud man who never again will ever be whole. He reached the torch and plunged the bloody stump into the flame without hesitation. The moans rose to a shrieking curse of anguished pain.

He withdrew his wrist from the fire and rolled over on his side, half fainting, to regroup his senses. Finally he sat up and with his good hand ripped off the front of his shirt beneath his leather vest. Awkwardly, with one hand, he wrapped the cloth in a rough bandage around the cauterized stump, then stood up.

He left the coaches and started across the tracks toward the platform, stumbling at first, but his stride became more assured as he headed toward the faint haze of light drifting down the entrance of the stairs. As he climbed aloft, each step came faster and faster until he stumbled, half running, from the mouth of the entrance into the street. In the bright daylight, he paused for a moment to gain his bearings. Far down the street he saw the small band of pilgrims; one of them, although the distance was great, appeared to be a woman carrying a baby.

Carson raised his arms above his head and gave a great shout of triumph mixed with joy.

Then he started to run. He had to hurry to catch up with them.