Nightmare journey

inhabitants.
    Until what?-Chaney.
    Stop asking questions and help us find out-Kiera.
    They 're being preserved until the Earth is fit for them, Jask 'pathed.
    Until, Melopina expanded, the Last War is over, and the Earth is civilized again. What are they waiting for?
    They have their own criteria for “civilization,” Tedesco said.
    So?-Chaney.
    And those criteria are much different from ours. They're waiting for cities to grow up again, become as mighty as cities were in their day. They don't want to be awakened from their cryogenic state to face a world without all the comforts they became accustomed to.
    They may wait forever-Chaney.
    Why should they mind? Jask 'pathed. They have no sense of time. “Forever” is no longer than a day to them.
    These were the richest and most cunning men and women of those times just prior to the Last War, Tedesco 'pathed. They saw that total destruction was coming, and they prepared for it.
    They ran from responsibility, Chaney disagreed.
    How can a single individual stop the tide of mass hysteria?- Kiera.
    Agreed, Jask 'pathed. Chaney's acting like the moralist he dislikes. These people did what they thought wisest.
    They survived-Tedesco.
    As icicles?-Chaney.
    The wind blew spicules of ice against their backs as they sat below the glacier, staring up.
    Someday they'll be warmed-Tedesco.
    They'll join society again, in its next great era, as if no time has passed at all-Jask 'pathed.
    If there is another great era-Chaney.
    Night fell across the plain.
    The air grew colder still.
    They'll take up the reins of the Earth long after all of us have turned to dust-Melopina.
    Chaney said, This is nothing but a morgue full of zombies, then.
    A cryogenic laboratory, full of paying customers-Jask.
    Morgue and zombies, Chaney insisted.
    The grave robber should know-Tedesco.
    Chaney got to his feet, slapped his hands against his sides to knock away the thin film of ice that had begun to form on him. He looked up at the glacier one last time. No matter what they are, he 'pathed, they are not the Black Presence.
    The others rose, too.
    We can't afford to waste time-Chaney.
    We'll eat and start walking-Tedesco.
    Without sleep?-Kiera.
    If we pause to sleep, our food may run out before we get out of these arctic climes and into regions where game flourishes, Tedesco 'pathed.
    Over a cold supper of beef jerky, Tedesco explained the markings on his third map.
    At least, Kiera 'pathed, we know where the Presence is. We have only to get there.
    Let's not build false hopes, Melopina 'pathed. Perhaps none of these three locations is inhabited by the Presence.
    They all looked at the bruin.
    He tore off a chunk of meat from a stick of jerky and shrugged. Melopina may be right.
    If she is, Chaney 'pathed, what do we do then?
    No one had an answer for that.
    Coda: DEATHPIT AND BEYOND
    31
    IN the first two weeks of her term as the Preakness Bay General Merka Shanly drafted a complex set of rationing laws and initiated a governmental committee to research the science of agriculture and the many sciences of manufacturing with a mind toward making the enclave self-sufficient within the decade. In the fourth week the rationing laws were put into force, and the research committee delivered its initial report, listing possible research material sources “and manpower requests for the main body of the task. Merka personally supervised the punishment of ration-law violators and issued decrees for the conscription of men and women to work under the direction of the research committee. The historical tradition of, and the ages-old respect for, the office of General was such that-although they muttered disconsolately among themselves-none of the population took public exception to the new order of things.
    In the fifth week of her reign Merka Shanly was moved back into the Military Suite, where the quarantine had been lifted after careful sterilization of every room. She put her clothes in the closets, disposed of the garments of the dead man. At night she expected to be plagued by his ghost or, at the very least, by nightmares in which the old General played the leading role, but neither came to pass. Perhaps that was because she had no time to wallow in guilt. She had time only to make changes in the enclave's life-and to wait fearfully for someone to discover that she was an esper, a tainted creature worthy only of death.
    Throughout the sixth, seventh, and eighth weeks she administered the affairs of Preakness Bay