Once the destruction was done, however, the university community, or what was left of it, must have pulled together again, burying whatever old differences that might still exist, and set about the work of establishing an enclave that stood apart from the rest of the world, designed to preserve at least some fraction of human sanity. Times would have been perilous for many years, as the protective wall built above this small segment of the campus must testify. The building of the wall would have been a long and arduous chore, but sufficiently effective leadership must have emerged to see that it was done. The university, during this period, probably was the target of many sporadic forays, although undoubtedly the dedicated looting of the city across the river and the other city to the east may have distracted some of the pressure on the campus. The contents of the stores, the shops, the homes within the cities, probably were far more attractive than anything the campus had to offer.

Since there are no communications with the world outside the wall and all the news we get are the tales told by occasional travelers, we cannot pretend to know what may be happening otherwhere than here. Many events may be taking place of which we know nothing. But in the small area that we do know, or of which we have some fragmentary knowledge, the highest level of social organization seems to be the tribe or those farming communes, with one which we have set up rudimentary trade relations. Immediately to the east and west of us, in what once were fair and pleasant cities, now largely gone to ruin, are several tribes grubbing a bare existence from the land and occasionally warring with one another over imagined grievances or to gain some coveted territory (although only Cod knows why coveted) or simply for the illusionary glory that may be gained from combat.