"What did your people take you in the country for?" "A picnic.... Yes, yes, that's it! I remember now!" Endicott's words poured out. "You know it is forbidden to think of the old days." "Shut up! Let me think. You want heat, don't you?" "It's forbidden to think of the old days," Allison repeated stubbornly. "You'll get heat when I report this--in a different way." "Shut up! Look, you want to keep from freezing tonight?" Endicott glared. "All right. Come with me and do as I say." Without a backward glance Endicott crossed the slippery deck and entered the passageway. At the midship cargo natch he stopped. "How are you going to open it without power?" Allison's breath-plume shot over Endicott's shoulder. "It's locked and unlocked by a button on the control board. Remember Chief?" "Stop gloating, Allison. This is for your benefit as well as mine. There's an escape hatch in the control room." "That's controlled by power, too." "Yes, but in these older models the hatch also has a manual control, as I remember." Endicott moved off toward the control room. Allison hesitated, then followed, and joined Endicott as he began to search the control board. Endicott found the emergency lever for the escape hatch and tugged on it, turning his head to watch the hatch in the side of the hull, back of his seat. The hatch, big enough for one man to pass through at a time, popped, crackling with frost, and stirred slightly. "Now, Allison, my boy, let's put our shoulders to it." Endicott was in high spirits again. As soon as the hatch swung open, Endicott put his head and shoulders through the opening, squinting his eyes against the icy snow which swirled past him. He grabbed a handhold on the outside of the hull and pulled his legs through, and dropped into the snow alongside the ship. Allison's head and shoulders appeared in the opening, and in a moment he was beside Endicott. "Now what?" Allison yelled above the wind. Endicott looked toward the clearing in which they had landed, then turned to face the trees around the disabled ship. He waded through the snow to the nearest one and reflectively took hold of a dry branch over his head, tugged it several times as though judging its resiliency, before snapping it off. "Now, Allison, you see what I did? Well, you do the same, only gather an armload of branches. When you have them, bring them to me at the ship. And keep on gathering them until I tell you to stop." Allison stood still in the deep snow, peering suspiciously at Endicott through the snow-swirl. "Is this something from the old--?" "Never mind that now, Allison," Endicott said patiently. "Let's not worry about all that twaddle. You want to be warm, don't you? So, just do as I say." Allison's eyebrows shot up and lowered instantly, and his face set in stubborn planes. "If this is from the old days I'm not sure I want any part of it." He looked furtively over his shoulders at the gloomy woods.