We were sitting up in bed, my darling wife and I, quietly reading, when she
suddenly lowered her book into her lap. "If I live to be a hundred--"
she began.

"And you might," I put in.

"--I will never understand the male mind. Never."

With a tiny, and I hoped inaudible sigh, I marked my own book and laid it
aside. I had a sneaking suspicion that I wouldn't be picking it up again
anytime real soon; this sounded like the beginning of one of those
conversations. I turned over onto my side, facing her. "Meaning
what?" I asked resignedly.

She peered at me over the tops of her glasses--which is never a good sign,
by the way. "You and Justin," she said.

"What about us?"

She shrugged. "It's been a week since he suspended you..."

"Just about."

"...he and Judith are back together..."

"So it appears."

"...and yet the two of you still aren't speaking," she
concluded. "And that's what I can't understand. Is it pride? Stubbornness?
Too much testosterone? Or what?"

I frowned. "Well, you can't expect me to make the first
move..."

"Why not?" she demanded.

"That's obvious," I insisted. I paused. "Isn't it?"

She shook her head. "Not to me," she said. "Explain it to me,
please. Pretend that you're still talking to a poor ignorant field-mouse, and
explain it to me simply."

For a few seconds I floundered. Then I said, "He's the one who
should be making the first overture. And what he should be doing is
apologizing. After all, he was the one who overreacted in the first
place..."

Elizabeth shook her head again, sadly this time. "Jonathan my
darling," she said, "I keep imagining Justin having this same
conversation with Judith--and saying the exact same things, or close enough.
Justin overreacted, you say. Maybe that's true. But he would say that you
broke your promise to him, and he'd be correct too, even though you did it for
a good cause. But none of that matters any more--we've gone far past it. These
past few months you've been telling me that Justin is your best friend in all
the world--and Justin has been saying the same thing about you, ever since I
met him. And furthermore, the two of you still have to work together--maybe
even more so than before, if events turn out as it seems they will. One of you
is going to have to make the first move--and even if that means swallowing your
precious pride and apologizing, I honestly can't see that it's that big a deal.
You apologize, you hug, you shed a few tears, you both promise that it will
never happen again...and then you move on. Where's the difficulty?"

I thought about that for a moment. Then I said, "All right. I'll
apologize to him--"

"Good!"

"--But only if he apologizes first."

She rolled her eyes heavenward. "Jonathan Brisby," she said,
"you are completely impossible!"

I removed the glasses from her face and set them aside, along with the book
that lay forgotten in her lap. Then I took her firmly into my arms. "I'll
show you how impossible I am," I told her. Which pretty well ended the
conversation; or--at very least--took it in a completely different direction.

Ralph and his crew were working like madmen.

I'm not quite sure why I chose to watch the plowing that day; usually that
would not have been particularly high on my list of interesting leisure-time
activities. Perhaps it was boredom; in eight days of unemployment I had just
about exhausted every other kind of diversion. Perhaps too it was a touch of
cabin fever; this was the first day when the sun had shone, really, strongly
shone, in the better part of a week. Or perhaps Ralph's words to me, when I'd
run into him in the lounge several days before, had made more of an impression
on me than I'd thought.

But whatever the reason, that sunny late-October morning found me sitting on
a rock not far from the community's main entrance, looking down at the fields
and at the large team of rats working there. They were not having an easy time
of it, unfortunately. Rather the opposite, in fact.

Despite the sunshine, it was not what I would call a truly pleasant day. The
rain had indeed ended, just as Martin's friend Jake had predicted; only to be
replaced the very next morning by thick fog, which lay over the saturated
ground like a soggy grey blanket. For almost two days the fog persisted, cold
and clammy, until just the previous afternoon and evening, when it was finally
driven away by s stiff north wind. This morning that wind was still blowing,
hard and chill; even though the sun was warm upon me, I found myself huddling
deep inside my cloak, pulling it tight around my feet and tail. The wind did at
least have a drying effect, which was good; and it gave an almost surreal
clarity to the atmosphere. The spires of rock that topped the western ridge
might have been outlined by Timothy, using his finest, blackest pencil.

It was a full dozen rats I saw down there in the field, all of them
clustered around a single, fairly large, steel-bladed plow. I'm sure that by
now you've deduced the one major problem that we, the inhabitants of Thorn
Valley, had when it came to farming: we possessed neither beasts of burden nor
tractors; nor indeed motorized equipment of any kind. And what that means, of
course, is that when it came time for such operations as plowing, the beasts of
burden were ourselves. Well, some of us anyway. Myself, I was not in any way
tempted to go help them. Not this time. Putting up sluices is one thing; but
this was quite another. The addition of my small strength would have been of no
help to them whatsoever; and I would have been at serious risk of being
trampled.

As I said, there was a full dozen of them, mostly males. One--count 'em,
one--walked behind the plow, pressing down on its handles with all his
strength; and that was Ralph himself. He rarely entrusted that duty to anyone
else. The other eleven were--and there's no other way to put this--harnessed to
the front of the plow, in approximately the same way that a team of oxen or
horses might have been. Despite the chilly wind they were all stripped down to
their fur, and they trudged forward slowly on their hind legs, hunched far
forward, their hands grasping some part or other of their leather harnesses to
keep the straps from digging too deeply into their flesh. They were making
steady, if slow, progress; I rather suspect, though, that they would have been
getting nowhere at all if the leader of the team had been anyone other than
Brutus. On loan again from Philip, it seemed, the huge rat usually appeared
capable of pulling the plow single-handed, and if the soil hadn't been quite so
wet, he might indeed have done so. As usual there was a look of patient, grim
determination on his narrow face as he moved implacably forward, the massive
muscles bulging beneath his dark fur. Utterly unable to speak from birth,
communicating very infrequently by sign language and written note, he was truly
fearsome-looking when you first laid eyes on him--just ask my wife. But when
you got to know him you found that he was actually supremely gentle, as well as
utterly, unswervingly loyal. Brutus was by no means the "typical"
NIMH-rat--whatever that might be--but we were lucky to have him nonetheless.

But anyway, the plowing. There's a term which is often applied to the soil
on good farmland: "friable", meaning loose, crumbly and easy to plow.
That's what the soil was like on the Great Plains, in the years before the Dust
Bowl, after the first settlers cut through the thick roots of the native
grasses. Which of course was both a blessing and curse; friable soil is nice
and easy to work with, but once it's laid bare and the wind catches it...

Which wasn't a problem we were likely to have in Thorn Valley, because our
soil was the very opposite of "friable." In fact--for the moment at
least--it was inordinately dense, heavy and clayey. The streams that fed our
lake carried down silt from the higher mountains, and for the past few million
years that silt had been busy turning a deep V-shaped valley into a
flat-bottomed meadow. A process which of course was still ongoing. Though our
soil was a little short on organic matter, still it wasn't the worst in the
world, not by far. But it required careful tending. Ralph was no fool, to kill
his land by forcing the same fields to produce crop after crop of wheat until
they were exhausted. We had learned enough to avoid that pitfall, at
very least. No; he would work our land very carefully indeed, allowing some
fields to lay fallow a season or two, and rotating crops on the others: a crop
of wheat would be followed by a crop of soybeans, say, which fix nitrogen in
the soil. And if we'd "stolen" that knowledge from the humans, rather
than finding it out for ourselves by potentially-disastrous trial and
error...well, I think they owed us that much, if not indeed a lot more.

As I watched, Ralph and his team finished a furrow and turned the corner--a
rate of progress that was not at all encouraging: it might take them two days
or more to finish that one field. And it was about at that point, when Ralph
was allowing his "oxen" to stretch their kinked backs before
continuing--when I became aware that someone had quietly sat down beside me.

Without turning, I said, "I hope you're not going to tell me I'm not
allowed to watch the plowing."

"It's a free community," Justin said. "At least so far."
He paused. "He doesn't seem to be getting his furrows very deep."

"No," I agreed. "He isn't. The soil is just too wet and too
dense. He's going to plant the wheat as deep as he can, and then mulch the
whole field with pine straw for insulation. And then hope for the best."

"That's just the sort of information I've been missing lately,"
Justin said. "For some reason I never seem to have enough time to get the
details. Though I know I should."

"They say that's where God dwells," I commented.

"True enough." Justin was silent for a moment, watching as Ralph
and his team resumed their backbreaking labor. Then he said, "Are you
ready to come back to work, Jonathan?"

I looked up at him sharply, a sarcastic retort already on my lips; but it
appeared that he was totally sincere. "To the best of my knowledge,"
I said carefully, "I never left my work. It left me."

Justin sighed and glanced away. "All right," he said. "I
deserved that. I know I've been jerking you around this last week, Jonathan,
and I know you didn't deserve a half of it, if that much. I can only ask you to
believe that I'm not the same person I was, even seven days ago. I understand
many things much better now."

I peered up at him closely. Indeed, the last few days had been good to him;
the haunted, hollow-eyed look that he had worn for so long had begun to recede,
replaced by something a little more like the carefree Justin of old. But his
problems had been months in the making, and so short a time, I feared, would be
barely enough to begin a cure, let alone complete it. "Do tell," I
said dryly.

A brief spasm of anger flashed across his face. "Do you want me to beg,
Jonathan?" he demanded. "To plead with you to come back to work? If
that's what it takes, I will."

I sighed and shook my head. "No," I told him. "No, I don't
need you to beg. I don't even need you to apologize. I don't know anymore who
was at fault, Justin, and I don't even really care. If you want an apology from
me, here it is: I'm sorry I disobeyed you. But you know something? Given the
same circumstances, I'd do it again."

He looked startled; but then a slow smile spread across his face. "I
know you would," he said. "But as for what I did--I hope I
wouldn't do it again."

"There's only one thing I do need from you," I told him
firmly. "I need you to acknowledge--right here and now--that the job
you've got, the way you've been trying to do it, is too much for one rat."

He gazed down at Ralph and associates for a moment; then, finally, he
nodded. "You're right," he said softly. "It is. The amount of
work I was trying to accomplish single-handed was easily enough to keep a dozen
rats busy. Which, by an amazing coincidence, is just about the number of
department heads I have." He smiled wryly. "And believe me, Jonathan,
you're not the only person who's been telling me that lately."

"I'm not surprised," I said. I hesitated. "Would it be prying
if I asked you..."

"About our plans for the future?" he finished. He shook his head.
"We don't have any yet. We're pretty well taking it one day at a time for
now." His smile widened into his familiar grin. "And we're trying to
be more careful." He sobered. "But when I think about the mistake I
almost made...If I'd let her get away..." he trailed off. "But I don't think
I need to tell you about that."

"No," I said softly. "No, you don't."

"All right," he went on briskly, slapping his knees with the palms
of his hands. "That brings us back to my original question...and I'll
rephrase it. I find that I am in desperate need of an executive assistant. I
was a fool to think that I could get along without one in the first place. And
I would be very pleased, Mr. Brisby, if you would agree to take back the
job."

I grinned. "Well," I said, "to be very honest with you,
Leader Justin, I'm not a all sure how much longer that particular job will even
exist. But while it still does, I'm very happy to accept."

He smiled hugely, clapped me on the back, and hopped down from the rock.
"I don't know how much longer it will exist either," he said. He held
out his hand to help me down. "So we'd better make the most of it while it
still does. Come on--we've got some things to discuss."

We started toward the main entrance then; and halfway there, Justin looked
over his shoulder and grinned. "Not that I really expect things to change
much," he added.

You might be surprised, my friend, I thought. You and everyone
else.

As Hacker finished speaking and sat down, Justin cleared his throat and
stepped forward into the light. "I'm sure we'd all like to thank Eileen
and Judith for all their hard work--"

"And in Judith's case, for one or two other things," I muttered,
earning myself a stifled giggle from Cynthia and an elbow in the ribs from my
wife.

"--So," Justin went on, "do I hear any initial
discussion?"

He peered around the hall, and so too did Elizabeth and I. All around us
people were muttering together in pairs or small groups, casting what they
apparently thought were surreptitious glances at Elizabeth and me. But no one
seemed particularly eager to stand up and speak. I wasn't terribly surprised by
that. Among other things, the amendment as written by Eileen and her sister
(with a small assist from yours truly) was not terribly complicated. Basically
it just took Elizabeth's proposal from a week ago and couched it in somewhat
more legally-acceptable language. There really wasn't much for anyone to
discuss. In fact, had it been legal to do so, I suspect the populace might have
passed it right there and then, on a simple voice vote.

"No one is quibbling about the grammar," Elizabeth murmured in
satisfaction. "Good."

I grinned and pulled her a little closer. "Afraid you'd have to get
rough with them, eh?" I asked.

She gazed at me seriously. "As a matter of fact..."

Down below, Justin held up his hands, and the stir of conversation gradually
stilled. "All right," he said. "It appears there is no initial
discussion. As you all know, our law is very specific regarding the procedure
in these cases. I'm going to ask Stephen and his crew at the printing press to get
this set in type and printed as soon as possible. Copies will be available for
study in the library. Unless I hear an objection, I would like to schedule the
balloting for two weeks from today. Any discussion on that?"

To my extreme surprise, Elizabeth suddenly shook herself free of my
encircling arm and stood, climbing up onto the bench so she could be seen.
"I'd like to make a motion," she said.

Justin gazed upon her in some alarm. I couldn't really blame him; look where
the last motion she'd made had gotten us. "The chair recognizes Elizabeth
Brisby," he said in tones of mild dread.

"I've been studying community law as regards elections and
amendments," she said. "I believe that what I'm proposing is legal.
As we all know, if this amendment becomes part of our Constitution, we will
have to almost immediately turn around and hold another election, this time to
choose our new Vice-Leader. I believe we can save ourselves that trouble. What
I'm proposing is a dual ballot. Primarily to decide whether or not to adopt the
amendment--but at the same time to elect the Vice-Leader. The results of that
election will be contingent on the amendment passing--if it doesn't, of course,
the other will be null and void."

Which is about as likely as my beating Brutus in a wrestling match, I
thought wryly. I shook my head in amazement and admiration as she sat back
down. Up until recently, "devious" was not a word I would have
applied to my dear wife. But now, it seemed, that was becoming her specialty. I
had told her how long this process would take--and she had found a way to
short-circuit it. How could I help but be impressed?

Her words caused another stir of conversation, louder this time. Justin let
it run for a few minutes, and then he raised his hand again. A week ago, or
maybe even less, he would have been seething by now, believing possibly that we
were plotting against him. But these last few days did definitely seem to have
settled him down. I, of course, can take no credit for that, though the
four-hour talk we'd had that afternoon, forgoing any pretense of work, was one
of the best and most productive I could remember us ever having. And yes, we
did end up getting sloppily maudlin, hugging and shedding those few tears. A
guy is entitled, every once in a while. And now, a few hours later, a much
calmer and more centered Justin than we'd seen for a long time looked up at
Elizabeth, smiled, and even winked.

"I believe that Mrs. Brisby's proposal is in fact legal," he
observed blandly. "And it will indeed save us time and expense. Do I hear
a second?"

A little farther down the bench, Timothy stood. "I second," he
said firmly.

"It has been seconded. Discussion?"

Once again there was none; not even of the behind-the-hand variety this
time. Justin waited a moment, then said, "All in favor?"

Do I really need to tell you that the motion was carried unanimously? Of
course it was, though I myself thought it better to abstain. Somehow or other
this whole process was beginning to feel, well...inevitable. If not indeed predestined.

"Which leaves us with just one more matter to discuss," Justin
said with a smile. "Nominations. I don't suppose--?"

The only real question at that point was, who was going to do the
honors? Would Elizabeth dare to do so herself, abandoning all pretense of
impartiality? Or had she made arrangements? I glanced quickly at her, and she
gazed back innocently; but even as she did, several rows down Eileen climbed to
her feet. "I nominate Mr. Jonathan Brisby," she said.

The voices rose in response from all around the hall; from Philip, Mark and
David, from Judith, Mr. Ages, Arthur, Alice, and others, all simultaneously:
"Second!"

"The nomination of Jonathan Brisby has been moved and seconded,"
Justin said. "Do I hear any others?"

I suspect that he asked that just as a matter of form, to satisfy the
legalities. If so, though, he was surprised, along with everyone else in the
hall. Most especially, I'd say, my oh-so-sneaky spouse. She shouldn't have
been, though: I'd already told her what I thought of unopposed elections.

I stood. She grabbed at my arm, trying to pull me back down into my seat; I
think she was afraid I was about to refuse the nomination. But that wasn't what
I had in mind at all. "Yes," I said. I looked around. "I nominate
Mrs. Elizabeth Brisby."

In almost five months' residence in Thorn Valley, never before had I been
pulled out of my bed in the middle of the night by anything other than my own
insomnia. I certainly couldn't blame Sullivan, though. In his place I would
have roused everybody I could think of too.

For reasons that she herself found difficult to explain, my wife had chosen
to forgive Sullivan for his part in Jenner's crimes. In fact it was she who
urged Justin to exercise his executive powers and pardon Sullivan. The very day
I arrived in Thorn Valley--in fact almost the exact minute Dr. Schultz's
helicopter touched down--Sullivan's official status changed from
"convicted accessory to murder" to "free and equal
citizen."

But as for me...well, I was certainly glad that the woman I loved possessed
mercy and forgiveness among her other qualities; but I was myself finding it a
little harder to excuse what Sullivan had done. During the last five months I'd
had little to do with him; and every time he saw me he turned away, utterly
unable to meet my gaze. If pressed, though, I would have had to admit that he'd
been a model citizen since his release, hard-working and conscientious. Nor
could I bring myself to harbor too much ill-will toward him, because my
daughter Cynthia's best friend and confidante, Rachel, was in fact Sullivan's
youngest child.

"I arrived with my maintenance crew about half past eleven,"
Sullivan said grimly as we walked. "We were here to make sure the sluices
were running smoothly. I took a look around...and that's when I decided I'd
better call for help."

Of course it was not just me who Sullivan had rousted out of bed, but Justin
and Arthur as well. Whether any of us had been alone in our various bedrooms
when we were awakened I strongly doubt. The Leader and the Chief Engineer both
looked sleepy and rumpled, their eyes half-closed, their fur unbrushed, and
their clothes hurriedly donned, wrinkled and half-unbuttoned. I don't imagine I
looked much better. But the sight that greeted my eyes, as the four of us
rounded the corner into the north section of the fourth level, woke me up more
effectively than a slug of French Roast. Nor was I the only one.

"You did the right thing," Justin told Sullivan. He turned to
Arthur. "Well?"

The expression on Arthur's face was the closest I'd ever seen him come to
sheer terror. "This is bad," he said. "Very, very bad. And it's
my fault--all my fault."

"Never mind that now," Justin said. "Just tell us what's
happening."

Had we been anywhere else, I would have said that what we were looking at
was a case of vandalism. But our kids, thank God, didn't go in for that
sort of thing. Though it might almost have been better if they had.

Almost exactly a week had passed since Arthur's crew, with some small assistance
from me, built an intricate series of sluices to catch and channel the seepage
from the fourth level's walls and ceiling. The last few days had been drier,
fortunately, and the amount of seepage had diminished significantly. But that
could easily change, when the next rainstorm happened by, and until Arthur
could affect a more permanent solution, he'd been in no hurry at all to
dismantle the sluices. But now, it seemed, someone or something had decided to
do it for him. About three-quarters of the interconnected system lay in
shambles, either entirely collapsed or knocked askew, as if someone had
deliberately kicked the X-shaped braces out from under them.

"Who did this?" Sullivan asked in bewilderment. He was looking
much better than he had five months ago--he'd been putting back lost weight,
and the scar of his terrible injury was finally beginning to fade--but he still
had the habit of rubbing at his abdomen with the flat of his hand, as if the
old sword-cut still pained him.

"No one," Arthur said testily. "No one sentient, anyway. This
was caused by earth movement."

"A quake?" I asked, but Justin shook his head.

"I doubt it," he said. "No one has reported feeling anything.
And a quake strong enough to accomplish this would certainly have
knocked things off shelves, caused light fixtures to swing. We'd have reports
by now."

"And we haven't," Arthur agreed. "No, it wasn't an
earthquake." He moved forward slowly, carefully, picking his way through
the precariously-perched wreckage, bending almost double as he examined the
floor and walls closely. Finally he pointed. "Take a look here," he
said grimly.

The three of us made our way over to him, Sullivan hanging back a little,
deferring to Justin and me. What Arthur was pointing at chilled me to the bone.
In the right angle formed where the corridor's inner wall met the floor, a
ragged, rough-edged crack had opened. Already it was wide enough for Arthur to
slip his fist into easily. "And there," he went on, pointing up.
There was an almost identical crack, perhaps even a little wider, where the
wall met the ceiling.

"I was afraid of this," Arthur said. He glanced at me. "You
were right, Jonathan," he went on. "All those years ago, you were
right, and I wish to God I'd listened." He looked up at Justin. "It's
the water," he said. "Percolating down through cracks in the rock, it
must have found a layer of clay, or volcanic ash, or something similar. Or
perhaps a fracture plane, or an unconformity. It doesn't matter which. What
matters is, this mass of rock--" he pointed to the outer
wall--"is starting to slip along an inclined plane, away from that
mass." He pointed to the inner wall. "Probably it's been an ongoing
process...but I accelerated it greatly by excavating these tunnels."

"Good grief!" Justin said. "What about the lower levels? Do
we need to evacuate?"

Arthur shook his head. "I'm reasonably certain that the lower levels
are unaffected," he said. "No seepage down there, remember; and no
one has reported finding any cracks. But--" he waved a hand--"this
section of the fourth level is almost certainly doomed."

Justin and I exchanged a glance. Arthur always had tended toward the
overly-dramatic, but this time he sounded absolutely sincere, and that was
doubly alarming. "Define 'doomed,'" Justin said.

"Five or six feet of this corridor, and the outer rooms attached to it,
are in danger of breaking loose and sliding down into the valley floor,"
Arthur explained patiently. "And I doubt very much whether I can stop it.
As a matter of fact we probably shouldn't be standing here."

"How long do we have?" Justin asked.

"I can't say," Arthur said. "Right this minute it seems
stable. It might hold off until the next rain, or it might not."

"Why wasn't this noticed before?" I asked.

Arthur shrugged. "Because the seepage has slowed down," he said.
"I've only needed to send crews up twice a day to check the sluices. Once
in the morning and once at night. Obviously this happened sometime during the
day. There's nobody up here otherwise; who would have noticed?"

Justin held up his hand. "It's too late for that," he said firmly.
"Only two things are important now. First, is anyone in this community in
danger?"

Arthur hesitated for a long time before he answered, chewing on his lower
lip and gazing at the ominous cracks. Finally, reluctantly, he said, "No.
I don't believe there's any immediate danger. As I said, for the moment
it seems to have stabilized."

"And second," Justin went on, "what's to be done about
it?"

"Only one thing I can think of," Arthur said grimly. "Take it
down ourselves, rock by rock, before it slides."

Justin and I exchanged another glance. "Five or six feet, you
say?" I asked.

"At least," Arthur replied. "I'll have to investigate further
before I know for certain. I hope--hope--that it's confined to this
section, where the seepage was the worst. But at the moment I can't guarantee
that."

"And there's no way to save it?" Justin persisted.

"None that I can think of," Arthur said. "Not that I'd feel
good about, at any rate. Maybe someday we can build something--cantilever some
big beams into the inner wall here, if that's strong enough to hold
them. But for now the only safe alternative is to remove the unstable
material."

"If I understand you correctly," Justin said slowly, "it
seems to me like a long and hazardous job. Is it something that we have to
begin immediately, tonight?"

Arthur hesitated again, longer this time, his face a mask of agonized
indecision. Finally he shook his head. "No," he said. He smiled
wryly. "Part of me wants to say yes, begin instantly. But you're right,
Justin. It's going to be a tough job. Not something we want to do by
torch-light, not if we can help it. We can start tomorrow morning."

"Worst-case scenario," I said. "What happens if it does
go?"

Clearly that was something Arthur didn't want to contemplate. "The
slope below us is steep," he said thoughtfully. "And there aren't
many windows directly below. It ought to just slide straight down, en masse.
If there's nobody underneath it, the danger is minimal. It would be just as
well, though, to shutter all the adjacent windows on the first three
levels--just in case of flying rocks. That we can begin tonight."

Sullivan, standing quietly behind Justin and me, stirred and nodded.
"I'll gather my crew," he said.

"I'll come with you," Arthur said. "I've still got the
shutters from last summer in storage. I'll show you where they are."

The two of them departed; but on the way out, Arthur looked back over his
shoulder. "Er...there's not much more the two of you can do tonight,"
he said. "Everything is under control for now--you might as well go back
to sleep."

"Easy for him to say," Justin muttered. He looked around,
and shuddered slightly. "Let's get out of here," he suggested.
"I've got a thing about hanging around in condemned buildings."

"I'm with you on that one."

As quickly as we could, we made our way out of the fourth level and down the
ramp. On our way down to the first level, through the deserted, silent and
somewhat chilly corridors, I said, "So--what do you think?"

Justin pointed up. "About that?" he said. He shook his head.
"I'm thinking that I needed it like I need a hole in my head." He
sighed. "And I think you were right. He shouldn't have tried to
build that fourth level in the first place. But we're stuck with it now. I only
hope to God that he can get it dismantled before it goes, and without anybody
getting hurt."

"He's learned his job in doing it," I said. "As all of us
have. And he's learned some humility too. I trust him--he'll get it done
safely."

Justin grinned down at me. "'Learned his job in doing it,'" he
quoted. "I like that. And some of us had more learning to do than others,
eh?"

I frowned. "I didn't say that."

"You didn't need to. Truth is, Jonathan, I know very well that I had
the fastest crash-course in history, last spring. And I know that I'm still
learning. I don't suppose it ever ends, really." He paused, wrapping his
arms around himself against the chill. Then he said, "Jonathan? Why did
you nominate Elizabeth?"

I smiled. "Two reasons," I said. "Number one, to turn it into
a real contest. And number two, to get back at her for forcing the situation on
me in the first place."

"Does she know that?"

"Of course she does. We had some words on the subject before we went to
bed. And after. I'd only been asleep an hour or less when Sullivan came
pounding on the door."

"Me too," Justin said. Then, abruptly, he seemed to realize what
he had said, and he cleared his throat. "But she didn't refuse the
nomination," he went on. "I wonder why?"

I smiled. "Maybe," I said, "she intends to win."

In the darkness I shucked my clothes and slipped into bed; hurriedly,
because the room was cold despite the stove. As I settled in, Elizabeth turned
over to face me. "Jonathan?" she murmured sleepily. "What's
going on?"

"Oh, nothing much," I told her. "The fourth level is about to
collapse, that's all."

"Oh," she said. "If that's all..."

It took a full five seconds for it to sink in; then the bed bucked like a
wild horse as she suddenly sat up. "The fourth level is what?"
she cried.

My wife and I received a remarkable number of stares as we entered the
dining hall the next morning; especially considering that the place was more
than one-third empty.

"Where is everybody?" Elizabeth murmured, as we and our children
picked up our trays and got in line. "It's usually much more crowded at
this time of the morning."

I looked around and saw that she was right. Like most farmers, Ralph and his
crew started work at almost literally the crack of dawn; they always ate their
breakfast very early, and were long gone before my family and I arrived. The
"inside" workers, though, the people who didn't work on the farm,
were usually more than enough to fill the place up. But this morning a good
many of the tables were standing empty. I took a quick head-count...and I
suddenly understood.

"Arthur's crew," I said. "He must have called them out early.
They're probably up in the rocks above the fourth level by now."

Behind me, Timothy and Martin almost dropped their trays. "Hey,"
Timothy said, sounding as indignant as only he could, "he didn't call us
out early!"

Elizabeth and I exchanged a glance. How to put this diplomatically--?
"I rather suspect," I told Timothy, "that he'd like you to
continue with your regular work. After all," I added quickly, "somebody
has to."

Martin shook his head. "Nice try, Dad," he said. He sighed and
gazed back at his brother. "Looks like we're too small again, Tim."

"Yeah," Timothy agreed, his whiskers bristling in frustration.
"Again."

Elizabeth and I exchanged another glance, and a nod. I could almost read her
mind, and I very definitely agreed with her. The picture of our sons trying to
wrestle boulders on an unstable rock-face was an alarming one, and both she and
I were profoundly grateful for Arthur's decision to exclude them. But there was
little point in saying so.

Fewer people there may have been; but as we made our way over to our table,
I was keenly aware that the eyes of every last one of them were upon Elizabeth
and me. I really had dropped a bombshell in the meeting last night, it
seemed. And so too had my wife, by not refusing. No doubt they were all
wondering how we would conduct our campaigns. Well, in my case, that was simple
enough to answer: I had no intention of campaigning. These people already knew
who Jonathan Brisby was; if they intended to vote for him, fine. How--or even
if--Elizabeth intended to proceed, I had no idea. That was one point that
hadn't entered into our knock-down-drag-out fight the night before.

A surprise was waiting for us at our table: Mr. Ages. He smiled sardonically
and bowed his head at us as we sat down. "Ah," he said. "The
candidates. What an honor!"

I grimaced. "Please," I told him, "let me eat my breakfast in
peace, at least." I saw then that he had all but finished his meal, except
for his tea, and I cocked a curious eyebrow at him. "What brings you
out so early, anyway?"

He harumphed. "Noise," he said. "Sullivan and his crew woke
me up before dawn, shuttering my windows--my bedroom and the infirmary
both. I decided I might as well eat here as there." He looked around.
"And in truth it's quieter here, for once."

I frowned. The infirmary--and Ages' adjacent quarters--were by no means
directly beneath the section of the fourth level that was in danger of falling;
nowhere near, in fact. Arthur was being over-cautious again: apparently his
definition of "worst-case scenario" was somewhat broader than mine. My
family's apartment was almost directly below the infirmary; would he shutter our
windows next?

"The whole idea troubles me greatly," Ages went on. "I know
that we can scarcely let a thing like that lie, and I know Arthur and his crew
aren't afraid to tackle large projects." He glanced at Elizabeth.
"Your old home is a good example. But I hardly need mention how dangerous
those projects can be--even in the absence of someone with murderous intent.
Unstable rocks and steep, high slopes are a bad combination."

"You'll get no argument from me," I said. And if I glanced
significantly at my sons as I said it...well, can you really blame me?

"Which reminds me," Ages said. He turned to Cynthia. "If
you're willing, my dear, I'd like you to work with me all day today. I think
this might be a very good time for us to cover emergency procedures. I've
already spoken to your teacher, and she's willing to release you."

Without hesitation, Cynthia nodded. "I'm willing," she assured
him. Willing she may well have been, but to my eye what she mostly
looked was tired. I knew very well that she'd been "burning the
midnight oil," as they say, every night for more than a week. I really
couldn't see what good she'd do, for herself or Ages, by depriving herself of
sleep. But it was not my business, and with luck it might not last much longer
anyway. Already her attendance at school was largely a matter of form; with
each passing day the time she spend there grew shorter, and the time she spent
working with Ages grew longer. Any day now I expected Alice to give up, declare
Cynthia graduated, and let her go to work full-time. And as soon as that
happened, Cynthia would no longer need to burn the candle at both ends; perhaps
then she could get a little more rest. No, strike that. She would get
more rest, or Ages and I would be having a very serious discussion. He was not
going to work my daughter to death.

"Good," Ages said. "Let's hope we won't have to put them into
practice."

Beside me, Elizabeth suddenly sighed tragically. "What's wrong?" I
asked her, and she pointed.

"Them," she said simply.

I turned. Justin and Judith were already in attendance, at their accustomed
table in the back; they were sitting so close together, they might have been
joined at the hip. They were a rather interesting-looking pair, Justin in his
familiar blue tunic and white shirt, and Judith in her rugged, vaguely
masculine work outfit: an old, patched blue denim tunic, a flannel shirt, a
tool-belt and a head-scarf. They were all smiles, their heads bent close
together in conversation as they ate.

"What now?" I asked my wife. "They're back together."

"Back together, yes," she agreed. "And from what I
understand, Judith isn't even pretending to go back to her own apartment at
night any more. I just wish they'd decide to make it legal."

"Elizabeth--" I began warningly. There was a time, I seemed to
recall, when that actually worked; but that time was long past. She gazed at me
steadily, undaunted.

"I don't think," she said, "we need a repetition of what
started that situation in the first place, do we?"

I couldn't disagree with her on that point. "No," I said. "We
don't. That is, if it's even possible."

Mr. Ages cleared his throat. "I shouldn't say, of course," he told
us. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "But just between
us, yes, it is. Her hormone problems are under control. If they're not
careful..."

"See?" Elizabeth said triumphantly, and I raised my hands in
surrender.

"All right, all right," I said. "I certainly can't argue with
you: they should make it legal." I glanced at them again, through
the corner of my eye. If nothing else, life with Judith had improved our
leader's appetite, judging from the way he was shoveling it down. Which was all
to the good: the hollow-cheeked gaunt look definitely did not suit him.
"For public-relations reasons, if nothing else," I went on. I shook
my head. "This time though, I'm going to mind my own business. It's a lot
safer."

Across the table, Teresa suddenly cleared her throat. "Er--Father,
Mother...are you really going to run against each other?"

Elizabeth and I exchanged a wary glance. "Apparently so, honey," I
told Teresa. "Unless..."

"Unless I back down?" Elizabeth finished. She shook her head.
"Not a chance. I've been thinking about this all night. If you wanted a
real race, Mr. Brisby, you've got one."

Teresa gazed at us in turn. "So--you're going to have posters and
rallies and speeches and debates, and all that sort of thing?"

Once again her mother and I exchanged a glance. "I...don't know," I
said. "We hadn't really discussed it..."

Elizabeth grasped my hand. "I'll campaign," she said, "every
bit as hard as my distinguished opponent. No more and no less."

I smiled. "I suppose I'd have to say the same."

"Well, then, that leaves me with only one question," Teresa said.

"What's that, honey?"

She waved a hand, indicating herself and her two older siblings.
"Who," she said, "are we supposed to vote for?"

"That," I told her seriously, "will have to be a
matter for your own conscience." I leaned forward and whispered,
"Though once you've heard my campaign promises..."

"I'm looking forward to that myself,: Elizabeth said dryly. She looked
at me, and then back at our daughter. "Honestly, dear, my suggestion would
be to vote for whomever you think will do the best job. That's all anyone can
do."

"Or sometimes," I added, "whomever you think might screw up
the least."

"Thanks," Teresa said dubiously.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Justin and Judith rise from their table.
They embraced and kissed--Justin getting poked in the hip with a trowel--and
then they parted, Judith heading for the exit and Justin strolling slowly
across the hall toward my family and me. Inwardly I groaned. I knew exactly
what he was going to want me to do: accompany him up into the rocks above the
community's roof, to inspect Arthur's work. And after my extremely short night,
I wasn't looking forward to that hike.

As Justin stepped up beside our table he looked uncharacteristically
serious. Not depressed, nor grim--as he had been far too often of
late--just...serious. As if he had something very important on his mind.
"Good morning, all," he said. He glanced at Elizabeth and the kids.
"I hope Jonathan and I didn't disturb you too badly last night," he
went on.

"No," Elizabeth assured him. "And it was important
community business." She glanced sidelong at me. "The kind of thing a
Vice-Leader should be involved in."

Justin smiled. "The election is still two weeks away," he reminded
her. He took a deep breath, and then he continued quietly, "I won't
presume to second-guess the will of the people. The amendment is as good as
passed; that's clear. And one of the two of you is going to be elected
Vice-Leader. Whichever of you it turns out to be, there's something I'd like
you to do for me. More accurately, a power which I'd like to delegate to
you."

"Which is?" I asked.

"The authority to perform marriages," he said. He swallowed.
"I would like whichever of you ends up being Vice-Leader to officiate when
I marry Judith."

The effect of those words was both instantaneous and noisy: around the small
table six people dropped their spoons simultaneously, causing a clatter that
made heads turn all around the hall. Only Ages appeared unimpressed. Elizabeth
and I both reached up to clasp Justin's hands.

"Congratulations," my wife said. "I know you'll be very
happy."

He smiled. "I know we will too," he agreed. "And if I'm not
mistaken, what you really meant to say was, 'it's about time.'"

Elizabeth turned away, embarrassed, and I peered up curiously at Justin.
"Don't get me wrong," I said. "I'm absolutely thrilled, of
course, But isn't this just a little...sudden? Just yesterday afternoon you told
me that you had no plans..."

He nodded. "I know I did. And I wasn't lying to you--right then and
there, I didn't have any plans. But...well, in a way it was caused by what
happened last night. After I got back to my quarters I couldn't sleep. I just
lay there with her in my arms..." He trailed off and cleared his throat.
"Anyway," he went on, "that whole business with the fourth level
got me thinking about last summer." He glanced at Elizabeth. "By all
rights, by all known physical laws, I ought to be dead now. Don't get me wrong:
I'm certainly glad that I'm not. But it made me think how terribly
unpredictable life is. I plan to live forever; but I--any one of us,
really--could cash in my chips tomorrow, for all we know. I realize how morbid
that sounds, but you have to admit that it's true. What I mean is, for years
I've been telling myself 'oh, I've got time. I'll get around to that.' But
lately I've been thinking about all the time I've wasted." He took a deep
breath. "Anyway--long story short--I asked her this morning, first thing,
before we were even dressed. And she said 'yes' almost before I'd finished
asking."

I clasped his hand. "You won't regret it, my friend," I said.
"And here's my first campaign promise. If I am elected Vice-Leader, my
first official act will be to perform your marriage."

"You'll get no debate on that from me," Elizabeth said.

"Thank you," Justin told both of us. He turned to me, and suddenly
he was all business. "Jonathan," he went on briskly, "if you're
just about finished with your breakfast, we've got a lot of work to do. I'd
like you to--"

He suddenly stopped short, a strange expression on his face. I looked up at
him in confusion, wondering why...an at that moment several things happened at
once. All conversation in the hall ceased as if someone had pressed the
"mute" button, the people looking around in bewilderment; and in the
abrupt silence I became aware of a vibration, a kind of subsonic rumbling that
I felt rather than heard. Across the room, at the head of the service line, a
rack full of plates fell to the floor with a crash. My half-finished bowl of
oatmeal, and Elizabeth's, both skittered to the center of the table and met,
clinking together madly. The kids and Ages hung on to theirs.

The phenomenon lasted for just a few seconds...and then everybody in the
dining hall, my family and myself included, leaped to their feet in alarm.
"What on earth was that?" I demanded.

Justin looked down at me, suddenly grim-faced and pale. "I've got a
very good idea," he said. "And I don't like it."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "You mean--?"

"I hope not," he said. He grasped my shoulder and turned.
"Come on!"

He would have left the room then, dragging me with him; but he was
prevented. The silence suddenly broke into a babble of shouting, and the people
pressed in close to Justin, all of them loudly demanding an explanation. Even
the kitchen workers were emerging from behind the counter, looking frightened.
Justin held up his hands for silence...but what he would have said I don't know.

At that moment a figure came dashing into the dining hall, running
full-tilt. Rather undersized for a male rat, he was covered head to tail with
thick grey dust, and his clothes, a white shirt and a black vest, were dirty
and torn. His left arm was pressed against his abdomen, held there by his right
hand; a long ugly gash on his forearm leaked blood into his fur and down his
shirt-front. He paused in the doorway, his eyes searching frantically; then he
spied Justin and made his way over. The crowd parted for him as if he were a ghost.
He was so disheveled that I entirely failed to recognize him; but beside me
Timothy suddenly gasped. "Robert!"

Arthur's youngest son was out of breath, panting helplessly; only Justin's
strong arms grasping his shoulders kept him from falling full-length on the
floor. "Easy there," Justin said, setting him back on his feet.
"What's going on?"

The young rat looked up at him, an expression of sheer horror clearly
visible through his mask of dust and grime. "The fourth level," he
gasped. "Collapsed. People...trapped. And my father..."

I felt my blood run suddenly cold. Elizabeth was clutching at my right hand,
hard; and on the other side Cynthia had hold of my left. The other three, and
Ages, crowded close behind.

Justin grasped Robert's shoulders tightly. "What about your
father?" he demanded.

Robert looked up with suddenly tear-filled eyes. "I'm afraid...I'm afraid
he might have been underneath it."