And while this long exchange went on, this silence that needed no words at all, Canopus stood there, part of the mass, quite passive and quiet. Yet nearly everyone in that throng, except for Alsi and - I think - Klin, still talked as if they believed Canopus would take us all off and away. That was still what we officially expected; and how - sometimes, but increasingly less frequently - we spoke. But not one of those people that day said to Johor: Canopus, where are your fleets that will take us all away from here, when will you keep your promise to us?

No, and it was not that there was reproach in the air, or anger, or accusation or even grief. That was the remarkable thing: the sober, quiet, responsible feeling among us, that did not admit grief, or mourning, or despair. Far away, deep in the snow-filled lands, where our friends lay in dark holes piled with hides, was the lethargy of grief, of despair. But here, among these few who had made the effort to travel to where the summer was, there was a different feeling altogether. And, after a long time, while we all stood there, looking at each other, it came to an end: we seemed to decide all at once, by some inner process, that it was enough. And everyone went off to the bogs and ponds, to see if they were frozen yet. No, but there was a thickening of the water's surfaces, and a breeze rippling them made wrinklings, then flakes and then cakes of the thinnest ice; and when we all roused ourselves next morning, where we lay together on the slopes above the water, we saw that the water had frozen over, was white, though with the blackness of bog water under it, and in the water the green and blue plant masses. We had to send out a party to drive off some young beasts from the herds, and kill them, and prepare food, since the harvest was over and no hay remained, nor fresh plants. The smell of blood came on the cold wind to us, and we heard the beasts nearest to us bellow and moan, as they, too, smelled the blood. And we wearily began again on this diet of ours, of meat, and meat, and meat, from which we had enjoyed so brief a respite.

In a few days the waters were solid ice, and we cut out great chunks, and piled these on to sledges, or tied ropes around them, and everywhere could be seen long lines of us bent over the toil and labour of transporting the ice blocks - white against white, for everywhere it was white again, snow covering all the earth, snow-heavy clouds above us, the snowy mountain peaks ahead. And the wind spun the snow off the drifts to meet the white eddies from the skies.

Heading in every direction went the plodding lines of white figures, and our team climbed straight up through the frozen passes and into the middle areas of our planet where, far ahead, we could see rearing up into a grey sky the white mass of our wall which, as we neared it, seemed like a vast water wave that had frozen in the moment before it fell. The jagged fanged crest stretched from horizon to horizon, overtopping a wall which was white now, all iced over, and with snow packed to half its height.

When we approached our own town, with our sledges piled with the ice we had brought with us, people went ahead to rouse up the sleepers. But again, only a few came staggering out, groaning and complaining, hardly able to see because of the glare after their long sojourn in half-dark. We pressed them: Try this ice we have brought - suck it, take it inside and melt it down, drink the water, see if you, too, will become invigorated and refreshed. And some did, and were enlivened, and did not return to their terrible death-in-sleep. For many were dying as they slept, and could not be revived, not with all the skills of Bratch.

About a quarter of the population of our town stood in the deep snow of the central square, and Klin and Marl and Alsi and Masson and Pedug and Bratch were there, and I, and Johor. And again there was the long silence, which went on for as long as it was necessary for - what? But it was not broken at all, but seemed to confirm and to feed us all. And, when this process had gone on, and on, something happened that was different from the other silence down on the slopes on the polar land. Johor stepped out a.little way from the crowd, and stood there, quite still, looking at us all. It was as if he were giving us an opportunity for something... for what? His eyes went from face to face, and we could see how wan and worn he was, as unhealthy as the rest of us, in spite of our little excursion into summer.

Oh, it was so dark there, so dark, with the storms driving all around us, the thick low clouds above, the sombre ice wall rearing up behind us, and the darkness was an expression of what I was feeling then, for on Johor's face, which was humble in his patience in enduring, there was a look that said he had hoped for something from us all that was not yet there... he could see in the faces now turned towards him what he had stepped out by himself to evoke, but had hoped not to evoke. They were crowding around him, and saying: 'Johor, are the space-fleets coming? When? How long must we wait?' - Yet these things were being said in voices quite at odds with the questions: as if a part of the questioners was asking, a part that even the questioners themselves were half-aware of or not aware of at all -suddenly everyone seemed to me to be asleep or even drugged or hypnotized, for these muttering questions were like those coming out of sleep. Yes, it seemed to me as I stood there, slightly to one side, as Johor was, looking at the faces, that I was among sleepwalkers who did not know what they were saying, and would not remember when they woke. And I was wondering if these queries had always sounded so to Johor: 'Where are your space-fleets, Canopus, when will you save us?' And I wondered more than that, in the sharp moment of clarity, when everyone around me seemed to be an automaton, was it possible that this was how we all usually looked and sounded to Canopus: automata, bringing out these words or those, making these actions or those, prompted by shallow and surface parts of ourselves - for it was clear to me, as i stood there, that these demands and pleas were quite automatic, made by sleepwalkers. Even Alsi, who had had moments with me and with Johor of showing she knew quite well no such thing was going to happen, was leaning forward, asking with the others: 'When, Johor? When?'

Johor said nothing, but gazed steadily back at them, and smiled a little.

And soon, in the same automatic, even indifferent way, they turned away from him, and began walking about the cleared space between the piles of dingy snow, and saying to each other: 'Let us clear the snow away. How can the space-fleets land? There is nowhere for them to set themselves down.' And they all began a hurrying scurrying activity, Alsi too, pushing the snow back off this space between the houses, piling it up, clearing paths - yet there was not room here for even Johor's Space Traveller to land comfortably, and certainly not one of the great interconstellation ships that would be needed to transfer large numbers. And yet there they all were, rushing about, working furiously, frowning, concentrated... and still I was seeing them as Johor must be - as if they had been set into action by some quite superficial and unimportant stimulus. I was watching Alsi most particularly, with sorrowful disbelief, but with a patient expectation that soon she would come to herself - and it struck me that this was the look I saw often on Johor's face as he watched me.

I said to him: 'Very well, I understand, it is not yet time - though I don't know for what it isn't yet time.'

We two were still standing quietly to one side, watching. We were not far from the shed behind the runs of the snow animals. We went there over the rutted and stained snow, past piles of the ice blocks that had the flowers and leaves of the summer plants, green and blue, frozen into them. The interior of the shed was crammed. Alsi had heaped it with sacks of the dried plant.