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The three of theo in back, Raht, Doc would have walked Or would he? At least he&039;d have said so up his right arm
"If cars come up behind us, you pass me," he shouted to Hixon "That e&039;ll be able to use the uns, fire on &039;eood, he thought as he shifted into gear, but it would have to do
Richard Hillary irl was sitting in thein theto be quite the way to meet people, Richard reflected, and truth to tell it was at least a great deal better than finding the face down in it
She was crouched soso quietly that he ht two hours after sunset She was carrying nothing but a sed like a baby
During the past thirty-six hours Richard had witnessed several rescues and reunions and numerous befriendments, and now he realized that he wanted very much to befriend someone himself He was acutely anxious that no one but he should hear this girl&039;s soft sobs, or come upon theestures of coht of how chilly it was getting and thelast night under the straw, and also the thought of how this was the end of the world, or at least a very good imitation; yet at the sahts did not fully describe his present motives
He offered her fresh bread he had saved from a thrifty scatter of little loaves dropped near Cleeve from a helicopter, but it turned out that Vera&039;s chief disco water in the new tidal areas was no sis salt-drowned Some pipes held fresh water, but that was chancy
He re looted two squares back, and as they went toward it past the watermarked, half-timbered houses and a hotel nariefs: she had lost a heel and in any case her tight, pointed slippers weren&039;t the best for walking
There was quite a line of looters at the pub Oh, -abiding Britons, Richard thought, we queue up even for looting He remembered a shoe store just beyond it and broke into it determinedly - which was quite easy, since the tide had done that before hied to find in the wet, reeking drawers a pair of tennis shoes for Vera and so, of course, but that was of no consequence
By that time the queue was shorter, and soon he and Vera had received a bottle of beer apiece and one small flask of rum between theht even have been the actual proprietor, though he did not say so
Outside, a fat : "Ah, there&039;s the bastid now!"
It was the Wanderer, rising in its bloated-X face and ringed ahnost sylanced at it for a ether and looked away Richard felt a surge of approval at her reaction She held her elbow out toward him just a little He took it firinally been going, setting an easy pace at first as they drank their beer andabout his Malvern Hills plan Ti Severn by Telford&039;s old iron bridge - if it hadn&039;t been torn away
Vera turned on her transistor wireless, and they listened all the way around the dial to a sound like bacon frying Richard wanted to tell her to throw it away, but instead he asked her how her new shoes fitted, and she smiled at hio Richard had been tra of all the millions or scores of millions of new dead thereif it really ht, Does the world need so many people? Take the crowd around me now - ed by the flood, yet most of them still stupid stereotypes the world could well do without How many people does it take to sustain a reasonably rich culture? Aren&039;t more than that a waste? And aren&039;t h price to pay for a few exceptions? Isn&039;t there soross about the concept of an endlessly, planlesslylike rats to the stars? Did having so many people ever matter, except to the people? The world needs and deserves this ing!
But now his thought was that if just one ht have been Vera In theory there were tens of thousands of Veras, he supposed, but only one where this Richard Hillary could have found her He gripped her arly