There was a pause, as though he was shuffling papers in his hand, and then the rich Jamaican tones began again.

“As you are aware, our air strike against your camp was provoked by your destruction of our satellites. It was ordered only after full exploration of all alternatives. Our intention was to wipe your base out completely. However, as you are also aware, we terminated the strike after inflicting relatively minor damage on your base. The reason for this decision is the reason for this offer of armistice now.

“Our star, Kung, is unstable. It is about to flare.

“We have been aware for some time that its radiation level has been fluctuating. Within the past twenty-four hours it has become more extreme. While the air strike was in progress we received information from our astrophysicists that a major flare will occur in the near future. We do not have an exact time. Our understanding is that it may occur as early as forty-eight hours from now, and almost surely within the next two weeks. If you accept our offer of armistice, we will transmit all technical data at once, and your people can make their own judgments.”

The voice hesitated, then resumed in a less formal way. “We have no knowledge of conditions on Earth at present and suppose you have none as well. But it is clear that for all practical purposes we on Jem are alone in the universe at this time. We think we will need all the resources we have to prepare our camp for this flare. If we continue to fight, we suppose we will all die. I do not propose that we work together. But I propose that we stop fighting, at least until this crisis is past.” Another pause. Then: “Please respond within an hour. God help us all.”

Margie closed her eyes for a moment while everyone waited. Then she opened them again and said, “Call them back, Dimitrova. Tell them we accept their offer, ask for their technical data at once, and say we will be in contact again when we have something to say. Folks, the war is over.”

Ten minutes later, the whole camp knew it. Margie had gone on the public-address system, played the tape from Marshal Pontrefact, and broken the news of the disaster and the truce. She had called a general meeting for 0300 hours, about ninety minutes from then, and ordered Alexis Harcourt, the nearest thing they had left to an astronomer, to go over the data from the Greasies and report before that time. Then she turned to Danny Dalehouse and said, “I don’t have a bed anymore, but I need about an hour’s sleep real bad.”

“There’s a spare in my tent.”

“I was hoping you’d ask.” She peered up toward the sullen glow in the clouds where Kung was hiding and shook her head. “It’s been a son of a bitch of a day,” she said as they picked their way toward the tent row. “And it’s not over yet. Know what I’m going to do at the meeting?”

“Am I supposed to guess?”

“No way, Danny. You’d never make it. I’m going to announce the impending retirement of Colonel Marjorie Menninger from active service.”

“What?”

“Pick your teeth up, Danny, and don’t just stand there,” she advised, tugging him along. “We’re going to convert this place to civilian government, effective as soon as the emergency is over. Or maybe before. I don’t care. Maybe all you guys who’re bitching about the army way of doing things are right. I have to say that my way hasn’t been working out too well, everything considered. So I think we’re going to need elections for a new government, and if you want my advice you’ll run.”

“For what? Why me? Margie, you get me all mixed up!”

“Why you? Because you’re practically the only original settler left, you know that? Just you and Gappy. Because nobody hates your guts. Because you’re the only person in the camp who has the age and experience to handle the job of running things and who isn’t a soldier. Don’t let me pressure you. It’s your decision. But you’ve got my vote. If,” she added in a different tone, “anything we decide makes any difference at all now.”

They were at his tent, and Marge paused at the flap, staring up at the sky. “Oh, shit,” she said, “it’s beginning to rain.” It was — big drops, with promise of more behind them.

“The casualties!” he said.

“Yeah. We’re going to have to get them under cover. And that’s a pity, Danny, because I was kind of hoping we could catch us a little R and R before the meeting.”

In spite of everything, Danny could not help himself. He laughed out loud. “Marjorie Menninger, you are some kind of strange. Get in there and get some sleep.” But before she turned, he put his arms around her for a moment. “I never would have thought it of you,” he said. “What converted you to civilian values?”

“Who’s converted?” Then she said, “Well, maybe it was that fucking Krinpit. If it hadn’t been for him, you’d’ve been burying me a little while ago, too. I didn’t trust him, either, but he gave his silly life to save me.”

With so few of them left, they didn’t really need the PA system to cope with the fifty-five or sixty persons listening, but they hooked in one speaker for the benefit of the casualties who were well enough to hear, in their tents down the hill. The rest sat or stood on the wet planks of the dance floor in the sullen, steady rain while Marge Menninger spoke to them from the little dais. She turned the stage over to Harcourt.

He said, “A lot of the data from the Greasies isn’t astronomy, it’s geology. They’ve done a lot of digging. They say there seem to be flare episodes every twenty or thirty years. There’s no set pattern, but by the amount of ash and char, they think your average flare involves about a seventy-five percent increase in radiation spread out over a period of a week or more. That’s enough to kill us. Partly heat. Mostly ionizing radiation.

“Now, when does it happen? Their best guess is ten days, — give or take ten days.” There was a murmur from the audience, and he nodded. “Sorry about that, but I don’t have the training to make it any closer than they do; in fact, I’m only taking their word. The picture I get is of slowly increasing heat over a period of a couple of weeks. I think we’ve been having that, and maybe it’s why the weather has been so lousy. Then the flare. Surface temperature goes up to maybe three-fifty degrees. That’s Kelvin — say, somewhere between where we are now and the boiling point of water. I don’t think it goes over that, not for very long, anyway. But there are peak flares, and they’re like striking a match. If anything can burn, it will. Apparently the forests burn, but maybe not right away — they’d probably have to dry out first. Then the flare recedes, the temperature comes down, the air drops out moisture, and you get rain to put out the fires. Probably a hell of a lot of rain, over a period of weeks or months. Then you’re back to normal.”

“Only dead,” somebody called out from the audience. Harcourt spread his hands defensively.

“Maybe not. If you’re in shelter, you might survive.” He started to continue, then stopped himself. Margie came up beside him.

“You don’t sound too confident.”

“I’m not. The — ah, the geological record doesn’t inspire much confidence. The Greasies took cores from more than a hundred different sites, and they all showed the same pattern — recurring char and soil, back thousands of years.”

Dalehouse stood up. “Alex,” he called, “why hasn’t it killed off everything on the surface of Jem long ago?”

“You’re asking for a guess? I guess it has. At least all the vegetation. It burns off, then regrows from roots, most likely. Seeds probably would survive, though. And those drenching rains after each flare would give the new growth a good start in fertile soil — the char’s great fertilizer; primitive man used to slash and burn to get his farms started, back on Earth. I don’t know about the animals. I’d guess the Creepies would be all right in their tunnels if they didn’t starve to death waiting for new growth to live on. Probably a lot of them do. Maybe the same for the Krinpit, because it would take a lot to kill them off. They don’t have to worry about being blinded by the radiation, because they don’t have any eyes to begin with. And those shells are pretty good armor for their vital organs. Probably get a lot of mutations, but in the long run that’s as much good as it is bad for the race.”