Existence, he had thought, survival so hard and dearly bought—a continual fight to assure survival. Not like those ancient days Wilson had written about so long ago, reaching back with fumbling fingers to try to create the past that had come to an end centuries before he had put quill to paper, forced to exercise a niggling economy of paper—writing on both sides of each sheet, leaving no margins on either side of the page, with no whiteness left at either top or bottom. And always that small and niggardly, that painfully small, script, so that he could cram in all the words seething in his brain. Agonizing over the concern that he mentioned time and time again—that the history he wrote was based more on myth and legend than on fact, a situation that could not be avoided since so little fact remained. Yet, convinced it was paramount that the history be written before what little fact remained completely disappeared, before the myth and legend had become more distorted than they already were. Agonizing, as well, over his measurement of myth and legend, sweating over his evaluation of them; asking himself, time and time again, "What should I put in? What should I leave out?" For he did not put in all of it; some he had left out. The myth about the Place of Going to the Stars he had left out.

But enough of Wilson, Cushing told himself; he must get back to his hoeing and his weeding. Weeds and bugs were enemies. The lack of rain, an enemy. The too hot sun, an enemy. It was not only he who thought SO: there were others working patches of corn and potatoes that lay on other tiny benches, so much like his own, all up and down the river, close enough to the walls to gain some protection against the occasional raiders from across the river.