The Peach Blossom Time Meeting was always the best in the year. Those not already in Town were on the nearby bottom groves. After it, the Masters would return to the upper orchards, and the youth work parties would start their rounds. During the three-day meeting there would be dances and parties, an exchange of news while the assembled Elders would judge disputes, pass on the qualifications of Masters, deposing the lazy and unfit, selecting couples to take their places. It was the one time of the year when Henry could get the ear of everyone. They traveled down unseen, slipping into unlocked houses for food and the night. They entered Town at the beginning of the first meeting. They made it unrecognized to the Hall.
It was not crowded. The day was bland; most preferred to stay outside and watch the proceedings on the visiscreen. Henry and Theta slipped into a section to one side and awaited the clearance of the immediate business of the Elders.
There was none, of importance. Within an hour all that was pending was cleared up. The Senior Elder, emaciated and with shaking hands, faced the audience.
"Any further business?" he quavered.
Henry stood up. "Yes," he called out. "Something very important."
Theta fully intended to follow him, but she found she could not move. It was as if she was tied to the chair. The more practical of the two, she knew that the men he was facing would refuse to face the facts. All he was doing was placing himself in their hands. And that meant death!
The elders peered in his direction as he gained the aisle. Ole twisted about in his seat and was the first one to recognize him. For a moment he stared open-mouthed.
"It's Henry Callis!" he cried out. "He's proscribed for learning witchery! Grab him!"
Henry stopped before him. Ole's words became a gurgle and dried up.
"If I'm a witch," Henry said loudly, "I'm a good person to keep away from. Whether I am or not, I have something important to tell you. And all of you had better listen!"
He started again for the platform, those along the aisle shrinking back as he passed. The Elders, from fat to withered, with the same uneasy expressions on their faces, watched silently as he climbed to the stage and faced them. He could feel their chill hostility. He knew now that he had done wrong but it was too late to undo it. He stopped a short distance from their table, half turned so the audience could hear him.
"I have been living in the houses of the Old Ones at the head of the valley, beyond the defrosters and the forest above them. And I also have been up to the top of the East Range, expecting to look over the edge of the world. But what I saw was another valley just like this one. It had a force fence, defrosters, hoppers, houses. Everything this valley has, except for one thing: living inhabitants. There were people in the houses. Dead people. Reduced to bones, the bones of people who had died from hunger and cold when everything in their valley suddenly ceased to work.
"That is what sent me to the House of the Old Ones, to see if I could find out what had happened. I found out there that the Old Ones were not giants who did things with magic, but people like ourselves who used machinery to make things. Just as we make clothing with machinery here in Town. They had machines that could fly through the air. They could go the length of the valley in an hour in a road machine. With machines they built these buildings, dug the trenches for the hoppers, did everything. They were just men. Men who had studied in the learning houses from the time they were tiny children. And I found out more...."
He stopped to take a quick look about the still hall. He felt the hostility.
"And I found out more," he repeated. "I found that, in this valley, twenty banks of defrosters have already failed. Eleven houses cannot be used, plus two taverns and one factory here in town. It shows that our own system is breaking down. Some day—perhaps tomorrow, perhaps not until the time of our grandchildren—everything will stop as it did in the next valley. If we want to keep living, we must start to learn how to keep these machines running. At the House of the Old Ones there is a vast store of parts and visigraph records showing how it should be done. I ask you all to come up and see the record they have there of building the things in the valley! See the machine that keeps everything running. Then let me have a band of youths to start studying the records until we find out how to keep things running."
There was silence after he finished. The Elders eyed him, uneasy, suspicious.
From the seats of the hall came Ole's voice.
"Don't believe him!" he shouted. "He wants to get us up there so he can bewitch us—like he did Theta! Take him out and stone him!"
Someone on the other side of the hall echoed the cry. In a moment it seemed that everyone was roaring it, rising in their seats, shaking fists. The Senior Elder motioned to the Hallmaster. He stepped forward with two husky assistants who grabbed Henry.
"Put him in the strong room," quavered the Senior Elder. "Keep him there until the day for punishment."
Roughly Henry was pushed around, led out a rear door to the stage. The day of punishment! Three nights and two days to live!
He awoke the morning of the third night feeling cold. He opened his eyes to find himself in total darkness.
For a moment he thought himself free, hiding out in some deserted building, that all that had happened lately was a dream. But from outside he heard a panicky voice crying that the lights in his apartment were out and it was getting cold.
It had happened! Far sooner than he expected, it had happened............