out of the farmhouse; before his absence was discovered he was well on
his way down the road.




3


That night, Hradzka slept under a bridge across a fairly wide stream;
the next morning, he followed the road until he came to a town. It was
not a large place; there were perhaps four or five hundred houses and
other buildings in it. Most of these were dwellings like the farmhouse
where he had been staying, but some were much larger, and seemed to be
places of business. One of these latter was a concrete structure with
wide doors at the front; inside, he could see men working on the
internal-combustion vehicles which seemed to be in almost universal use.
Hradzka decided to obtain employment here.

It would be best, he decided, to continue his pretense of being a
deaf-mute. He did not know whether a world-language were in use at this
time or not, and even if not, the pretense of being a foreigner unable
to speak the local dialect might be dangerous. So he entered the
vehicle-repair shop and accosted a man in a clean shirt who seemed to be
issuing instructions to the workers, going into his pantomime of the
homeless mute seeking employment.

The master of the repair-shop merely laughed at him, however. Hradzka
became more insistent in his manner, making signs to indicate his hunger
and willingness to work. The other men in the shop left their tasks and