TUNNEL IN THE SKY by ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

“Mmm . . . no.

“You should. It’s a treat. Sudden death in both hands, and eyes in the back of her head. If she were on watch, I would sleep easy. How many men do we have now?”

“Uh, twenty-seven, with the three that came in yesterday.”

“All right, out of twenty-seven who doesn’t stand watch?”

“Why, everybody takes his turn.”

“You?”

“Eh? Isn’t that carrying it pretty far? I don’t expect you to take a watch; you run it and check on the others.”

“That’s two off. Roy Kilroy?”

“Uh, look, Rod, you had better figure that he is a department head as chief hunter and therefore exempt. You know why no use looking for trouble.”

“I know, all right. Bob Baxter is off duty, too.”

“Until next week.”

“But this is this week. The committee cut the watch down to one at a time; I’m going to boost it to two again. Besides that I want a sergeant of the guard each night. He will be on all night and sleep all next day . . . then I don’t want to put him on for a couple of days. You see where that leaves me? I need twelve watchstanders every night; I have less than twenty to draw from.”

Cowper looked worried. “The committee didn’t think we had to have more than one guard at a time.”

“Committee be hanged!” Rod scratched his scars and thought about shapes in the dark. “Do you want me to run this the way I think it has to be run? Or shall I just go through the motions?”

“Well . .

“One man alone either gets jittery and starts seeing shadows or he dopes off and is useless. I had to wake one last night I won’t tell you who; I scared him out of his pants; he won’t do it again. I say we need a real guard, strong enough in case of trouble to handle things while the camp has time to wake up. But if you want it your way, why not relieve me and put somebody else in?”

“No, no, you keep it. Do what you think necessary.”

“Okay, I’m putting the girls on. Bob and Carmen, too, And you.”

“Huh?”

“And me. And Roy Kilroy. Everybody. That’s the only way you will get people to serve without griping; that way you will convince them that it is serious, a first obligation, even ahead of hunting.”

Cowper picked at a hangnail, “Do you honestly think I should stand watch? And you?”

“I do. It would boost morale seven hundred percent. Besides that, it would be a good thing, uh, politically.”

Cowper glanced up, did not smile. “You’ve convinced me. Let me know when it’s my turn.”

“Another thing. Last night there was barely wood to keep two fires going.”

“Your problem. Use anybody not on the day’s hunting or cooking details.”

“I will. You’ll hear some beefs. Boss, those were minor items; now I come to the major one. Last night I took a fresh look at this spot. I don’t like it, not as a permanent camp. We’ve been lucky.”

“Eh? Why?”

“This place is almost un-defendable. We’ve got a stretch over fifty meters long between shale and water on the upstream side. Downstream isn’t bad, because we build a fire in the bottleneck. But upstream we have walled off less than half and we need a lot more stakes behind the wall. Look,” Rod added, pointing, “you could drive an army through there and last night I had only two little bitty fires. We ought to finish that wall.”

“We will.”

“But we ought to make a real drive to find a better place. This is makeshift at best. Before you took over I as trying to find more caves but I didn’t have time to explore very far. Ever been to Mesa Verde?”

“In Colorado? No.”

“Cliff dwellings, you’ve seen pictures. Maybe somewhere up or down stream more likely down we will find pockets like those at Mesa Verde where we can build homes for the whole colony. You ought to send a team out for two weeks or more, searching. I volunteer for it.”

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