plateau and once again
game migrated up the valleys east of the caves.

There were many things to be done now that Big Winter was past and they
could have the chance to do them. They needed a larger pottery kiln, a
larger workshop with a wooden lathe, more diamonds to make cutting
wheels, more quartz crystals to make binoculars and microscopes. They
could again explore the field of inorganic chemistry, even though
results in the past had produced nothing of value, and they could,
within a few years, resume the metal prospecting up the plateau--the
most important project of all.

Their weapons seemed to be as perfect as was possible but when the
Gerns came they would need some quick and certain means of communication
between the various units that would fight the Gerns. A leader who could
not communicate with his forces and coordinate their actions would be
helpless. And they had on Ragnarok a form of communication, if trained,
that the Gerns could not detect or interfere with electronically: the
mockers.

The Craigs were still white and impassable with snow that summer but the
snow was receding higher each year. Five years later, in the summer of
one hundred and thirty-five, the Craigs were passable for a few weeks.

Lake led a party of eight over them and down into the chasm. They took
with them two small cages, constructed of wood and glass and made
airtight with the strong medusabush glue. Each cage was equipped with a
simple air pump and a pressure gauge.

They brought back two pairs of mockers as interested and trusting
captives, together with a supply of the orange corn and a large amount
of diamonds. The mockers, in their pressure-maintained cages, were not
even aware of the increase in elevation as they were carried over the
high summit of the Craigs.

To Lake and the men with him the climb back up the long, steep slope of
the mountain was a stiff climb to make in one day but no more than that.
It was hard to believe that it had taken Humbolt and Barber almost three
days to climb it and that Barber had died in the attempt. It reminded
him of the old crossbows that Humbolt and the others had used. They were
thin, with a light pull, such as the present generation boys used. It
must have required courage for the old ones to dare unicorn attacks with
bows so thin that only the small area behind the unicorn's jaws was
vulnerable to their arrows....

* * * * *

When the caves w