There were about forty of us Representatives on that slope above the herds, and a hundred or so of those who had taken the messages to the people. Some people were coming in, in small groups, to take their share of the harvest, which was so sparse now, and they too rolled around in the green and ate the flowers. But only a few had been able to rouse themselves from their torpor and make the journey. We stood, a small multitude, in a hollow between low hills.
Long before those times of The Ice, I had learned to watch the disposition of people, events, what is said and what is not said - so as to understand what was likely to happen - what was already happening, but not yet fully disclosed. Those crowds standing about there, again huddling into the thick skins, watching the skies, where the first snow clouds were massing, were not differentiated in any way, and Johor stood among them, almost unnoticed, though everyone knew that Canopus was among us. Soon we Representatives moved out of the mass of people and up on to a slope. It was because this was expected of us; we could see, feel, sense, that we should do this. But Johor stayed where he was.
And when we stood there, the forty of us, looking at the mass of people, and they stood looking at us, there was a long silence. What was happening? - we all wondered that, for usually the verbal exchanges between the two, represented and Representatives, were brisk enough: practical. Usually it was evident what had to be done by everyone. We had never had to make speeches, or exhort, or persuade, or demand - as I have seen done on other planets, and read about. No, there had always been a consensus, an understanding among us all, and this had meant that it had been a question of: so-and-so will see to this, and such and such will be done - by someone. And it was at these times that a Representative who felt a change was needed would step back into the mass, or someone who felt entitled and equipped would step up into the Representative group. But long silences had not been our style at all. We were looking closely at each other, examining each other: we them, and they, closely and carefully, us. We stood there a very long time. On one side the herds stretched away to the horizon, where the storms were raging black on white. On the other, trampled and fading meadows sent up the faintest reminiscent breath of the now past summer. Over us the skies were grey and low, and a few snow-flakes spun down, and melted at once on faces, on our still exposed hands. And we searched each other's faces, as if examining our own: What was happening? Well, I know now, but then I did not. I did feel as if I were being elected, but in a capacity previously not experienced. I felt tested, probed, almost handled by those eyes that were so thoughtfully focused on me and the rest of us Representatives. And, looking at them, it was as if I had not seen them before, not properly, not as I was seeing them now. So close we all were to each other, in this desperate and terrible enterprise that would involve us all, and in ways we could only partly know.
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.