Margery Chung was cook for the day; she cut Rod a chunk of scorched meat. He thanked her and started to gnaw it. Cowper was talking. Rod was not trying to overhear but there seemed to be no reason not to listen.
"-which is the only way we will get the necessary discipline into the group. I'm sure you agree. Cowper glanced up, caught Rod's eye, looked annoyed, then grinned. "Hello, Rod."
"Hi, Grant."
"Look, old man, we're having an executive committee meeting. Would you mind finding somewhere else to eat lunch?"
Rod stood up blushing. "Oh! Sure."
Cowper seemed to consider it. "Nothing private, of course- just getting things done. On second thought maybe you should sit in and give us your advice."
"Huh? Oh, no! I didn't know anything was going on." Rod started to move away.
Cowper did not insist. "Got to keep working, lots to do. See you later, then. Any time." He grinned and turned away.
Rod wandered off, feeling conspicuous. He heard himself hailed and turned gratefully, joined Jimmy Throxton. "Come outside the wall," Jimmy said quietly. "The Secret Six are having a picnic. Seen the happy couple?"
"You mean Carmen and Bob?"
"Know any other happy couples? Oh, there they are- staring hungrily at their future mansion. See you outside."
Rod went beyond the wall, found Jacqueline and Caroline sitting near the water and eating. From habit he glanced around, sizing up possible cover for carnivores and figuring escape routes back into the kraal, but his alertness was not conscious as there seemed no danger in the open so near other people. He joined the girls and sat down on a rock. "Hi, kids."
"Hello, Rod."
"H'lo, Roddie," Caroline seconded. "'What news on the Rialto?'"
"None, I guess. Say, did Grant appoint an executive committee last night?"
"He appointed about a thousand committees but no executive committee unless he did it after we adjourned. Why an executive committee? This gang needs one the way I need a bicycle."
"Who is on it, Rod?" asked Jacqueline.
Rod thought back and named the faces he had seen around Cowper. She looked thoughtful. "Those are his own special buddies from Teller U."
"Yes, I guess so.
"I don't like it," she answered.
"What's the harm?"
"Maybe none... maybe. It is about what we could expect. But I'd feel better if all the classes were on it, not just that older bunch. You know."
"Shucks, Jack, you've got to give him some leeway."
"I don't see why, put in Caroline. "That bunch you named are the same ones Hizzonor appointed as chairmen of the other committees. It's a tight little clique. You notice none of us unsavory characters got named to any important cominittee- I'm on waste disposal and camp sanitation, Jackie is on food preparation, and you aren't on any. You should have been on the constitution, codification, and organization committee, but he made himself chairman and left you out. Add it up."
Rod did not answer. Caroline went on, "I'll add it if you won't. First thing you know there will be a nominating committee. Then we'll find that only those of a certain age, say twenty-one, can hold office. Pretty soon that executive committee will turn into a senate (called something else, probably) with a veto that can be upset only by a three-quarters majority that we will never get. That's the way my Uncle Phil would have rigged it."
"Your Uncle Phil?"
"Boy, there was a politician! I never liked him- he had kissed so many babies his lips were puckered. I used to hide when he came into our house. But I'd like to put him up against Hizzonor. It'ud be a battle of dinosaurs. Look, Rod, they've got us roped and tied; I say we should fade out right after the wedding." She turned to Jacqueline. "Right... pardner?"
"Sure... if Rod says so."
"Well, I don't say so. Look, Carol, I don't like the situation. To tell the truth... well, I was pretty sour at being kicked out of the captaincy. But I can't let the rest of you pull out on that account. There aren't enough of us to form another colony, not safely."
"Why, Roddie, there are three times as many people still back in those trees as there are here in camp. This time we'll build up slowly and be choosy about whom we take. Six is a good start. We'll get by."
"Not six, Carol. Four."
"Huh? Six! We shook on it last night before Jimmy woke you."
Rod shook his head. "Carol, how can we expect Bob and Carmen to walk out... right after the rest have made them a wedding present of a house of their own?"
"Well... darn it, we'd build them another house!"
"They would go with us, Carol- but it's too much to ask."
"I think," Jacqueline said grudgingly, "that Rod has something, Carol."
The argument was ended by the appearance of Bob, Carmen, and Jimmy. They had been delayed, explained Jimmy, by the necessity of inspecting the house. "As if I didn't know every rock in it. Oh, my back!"
"I appreciate it, Jim," Carmen said softly. "I'll rub your back."
"Sold!" Jimmy lay face down.
"Hey!" protested Caroline. "I carried more rocks than he did. Mostly he stood aromid and bossed."
"Supervisory work is exceptionally tiring," Jimmy said smugly. "You get Bob to rub your back."
Neither got a back rub as Roy Kilroy called to them from the wall. "Hey! You down there- lunch hour is over. Let's get back to work."
"Sorry, Jimmy. Later." Carmen turned away.
Jimmy scrambled to his feet. "Bob, Carmen- don't go 'way yet. I want to say something."
They stopped. Rod waved to Kilroy. "With you in a moment!" He turned back to the others.
Jimmy seemed to have difficulty in choosing words. "Uh, Carmen... Bob. The future Baxters. You know we think a lot of you. We think it's swell that you are going to get married- every family ought to have a marriage. But... well, shopping isn't what it might be around here and we didn't know what to get you. So we talked it over and decided to give you this. It's from all of us. A wedding present." Jimmy jammed a hand in his pocket, hauled out his dirty, dog-eared playing cards and handed them to Carmen.
Bob Baxter looked startled. "Gosh, Jimmy, we can't take your cards-your only cards."
"I- we want you to have them."
"But-"
"Be quiet, Bob!" Carmen said and took the cards. "Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you very much. Thank you all." She looked around. "Our getting married isn't going to make any difference, you know. It's still one family. We'll expect you all... to come play cards... at our house just as-" She stopped suddenly and started to cry, buried her head on Bob's shoulder. He patted it. Jimmy looked as if he wanted to cry and Rod felt nakedly embarrassed.
They started back, Carmen with an arm around Jimmy and the other around her bethrothed. Rod hung back with the other two. "Did Jimmy," he whispered, "say anything to either of you about this?"
"No," Jacqueline answered.
"Not me," Caroline agreed. "I was going to give 'em my stew pan, but now I'll wait a day or two." Caroline's "bag of rocks" had turned out to contain an odd assortment for survival- among other things, a thin-page diary, a tiny mouth organ, and a half-litre sauce pan. She produced other unlikely but useful items from time to time. Why she had picked them and how she had managed to hang on to them after she discarded the bag were minor mysteries, but, as Deacon Matson had often told the class: "Each to his own methods. Survival is an art, not a science." It was undeniable that she had appeared at the cave healthy, well fed, and with her clothing surprisingly neat and clean in view of the month she had been on the land.