The fawning expression vanished from Bemmon’s face. “I see,” he said. “Now that I’ve turned Anders’s muddle into organization, you’ll hand my authority over to another of your favorites and demote me back to common labor?”

“Setting up work quotas for sick and dying people isn’t organization,” Lake said. He spoke to the two boys, “Both of you go lie down. West will find someone else.” Then to Bemmon, “Come with me. We’re both going to work at common labor.”

They passed by the cave where Bemmon slept. Two boys were just going into it, carrying armloads of dried grass to make a mattress under Bemmon’s pallet. They moved slowly, heavily. Like the two boys in the food storage cave they were dull-eyed with the beginning of the sickness.

Lake stopped, to look more closely into the cave and verify something else he thought he had seen: Bemmon had discarded the prowler skins on his bed and in their place were soft wool blankets; perhaps the only unpatched blankets the Rejects possessed.