wrecked
bridge and accumulated enough mass to resist the periodic floods that
had kept the river usually clear. Three human figures fled across a
sand-flat at one end of it and disappeared into the woods; two of them
carried spears tipped with something that sparkled in the sunlight,
probably shards of glass.

"You know, Monty, I get nightmares, sometimes, about what things must
be like in Europe," Loudons said.

Five or six wild cows went crashing through the brush below. Altamont
nodded when he saw them.

"Maybe tomorrow, we'll let down and shoot a cow," he said. "I was
looking in the freezer-locker; the fresh meat's getting a little low.
Or a wild pig, if we find a good stand of oak trees. I could enjoy
what you'd do with some acorn-fed pork. Finished?" he asked Loudons.
"Take over, then; I'll go back and wash the dishes."

They rose, and Loudons, favoring his left leg, moved over to the seat
at the controls. Altamont gathered up the two cups, the
stainless-steel dishes, and the knives and forks and spoons, going up
the steps over the shielded converter and ducking his head to avoid
the seat in the forward top machine-gun turret. He washed and dried
the dishes, noting with satisfaction that the gauge of the water tank
was still reasonably high, and glanced out one of the windows. Loudons
was taking the big helicopter upstairs, for a better view.

Now and then, among the trees, there would be a glint of glassy slag,
usually in a fairly small circle. That was to be expected; beside the
three or four H-bombs that had fallen on the Pittsburgh area,
mentioned in the transcripts of the last news to reach the Fort from
outside, the whole district had been pelted, more or less at random,
with fission bombs. West of the confluence of the Allegheny and
Monongahela, it would probably be worse than this.

"Can you see Pittsburgh yet, Jim?" he called out.

"Yes; it's a mess! Worse than Gary; worse than Akron, even. _Monty_!
Come here! I think I have something!"

Picking up the pipe he had laid down, Altamont hurried forward,
dodging his six-foot length under the gun turret and swinging down
from the walkway over the converter.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Smoke. A lot of smoke, twenty or thirty fires, at the very least."
Loudons had shifted from _Forward_ to _Hover_, and was peering through
a pair of binoculars. "See that island, the long one? Across the river
from it, on the north side, toward this end. Yes, by Einste