to swing there. If there are any others like him, they'll know what to
expect."

The blue sun rose as they went back to the caves. Behind them Bemmon
swung and twirled aimlessly on the end of the rope. Two long, pale
shadows swung and twirled with him; a yellow one to the west and a blue
one to the east.

Bemmon was buried the next day. Someone cursed his name and someone spit
on his grave and then he was part of the dead past as they faced the
suffering ahead of them.

Julia recovered, although she would always wear a ragged scar on her
forehead. Anders, who had worked closely with Chiara and was trying to
take his place, quieted her fears by assuring her that the baby she
carried was still too small for there to be much danger of the fall
causing her to lose it.

Three times during the next month the wind came roaring down out of the
northwest, bringing a gray dust that filled the sky and enveloped the
land in a hot, smothering gloom through which the suns could not be
seen.

Once black clouds gathered in the distance, to pour out a cloudburst.
The 1.5 gravity gave the wall of water that swept down the canyon a far
greater force and velocity than it would have had on Earth and boulders
the size of small houses were tossed into the air and shattered into
fragments. But all the rain fell upon the one small area and not a drop
fell at the caves.

One single factor was in their favor and but for it they could not have
survived such intense, continual heat: there was no humidity. Water
evaporated quickly in the hot, dry air and sweat glands operated at the
highest possible degree of efficiency. As a result they drank enormous
quantities of water--the average adult needed five gallons a day. All
canvas had been converted into water bags and the same principle of
cooling-by-evaporation gave them water that was only warm instead of
sickeningly hot as it would otherwise have been.

But despite the lack of humidity the heat was still far more intense
than any on Earth. It never ceased, day or night, never let them have a
moment's relief. There was a limit to how long human flesh could bear up
under it, no matter how valiant the will. Each day the toll of those who
had reached that limit was greater, like a swiftly rising tide.

There were three hundred and forty of them, when the first rain came;
the rain that meant the end of summer. The yellow sun moved southward
and the blue sun shrank steadily. Grass grew again an