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it. Too little Christianity.”
    His eyebrows went up. “Christianity has had its chance. Now I have mine. No, sir; the two great curses of mankind are very simple: hunger and crowding. Crowd human beings together, and all miseries multiply. And there is no greater misery—believe me, sir—than hunger. Therefore there are two great needs: more food, more land. And this has always been true, even when food and land were absolutely plentiful. It is a problem of distribution.”
    I stared at him, amazed as much as disgusted. It was incredible that a two-bit warlord from nowhere, infected with some outmoded Middle Eastern strain of agrarian socialism, could be kinging it over my town—let alone my whole country. I had it in my hand, if the gun was loaded, to end it right now. And if he was as crazy as he must be, it might really be loaded, and we might really be alone. I didn't think it would take two weeks for this country to shake off Arslan's wolf packs. If the gun was loaded.
    And I would have the gun and the Land Rover, and maybe a little time. My hand was slippery with sweat. Good God, I had thought of the noise—why hadn't I thought of silencing it? But with what?
    “So you're going to redistribute the wealth,” I said. “It's been tried.” I scooted back as far away from him on the seat as I could get.
    “No, sir. I am going to redistribute the people.” I flipped the chamber open, flipped it shut. It was loaded. Arslan watched, but he didn't move. “And I am cutting lines of communication,” he said. “I intend that every community should be self-sufficient. It should produce everything it consumes, and contain no more people than it can support in comfort.” He was speaking dully, absently. His eyes were on the gun.
    I had started to take off my suit coat. And just now, when I needed every speck of coolness I could manage, sweat ran into my eyes and I kept seeing faces in the corner of my mind's eye: the children's faces, Hunt and his mother, Betty white with fear, and Colonel Nizam's face, and faces of soldiers; and over and behind what Arslan was saying now, I heard him saying to Perry, “No games,” and the noise Perry made.
    “I thought there were too many people to go around.” I had my left arm out of the sleeve. I reached across my chest and pulled the coat loose from behind me, pulled it down from my right shoulder, leaving my right arm in its sleeve, and began to wrap the loose folds around the gun.
    “Of course. It is too late to solve the problem by distribution alone. But it is better to die quickly than by starvation or malnutrition. And those who remain alive will have enough. Also, there is more land than you may think, sir. Very much is now wasted.” He watched the gun. It was the first time I had seen that face dead serious, without a trace of mockery or humor. No games , I heard his voice saying, and I saw the soldier's rueful look, and Paula's face.
    “Destruction of civilization sounds like a good name for it, all right. What about industry?”
    “Only local industry. No trade. Total self-sufficiency based on the land.” He glanced from the gun to my face and smiled faintly. “Yes, these are clichés. You yourself live by clichés, sir. But mine are enforceable.”
    “Not for long.”
    “No. But for long enough to change the pattern of society, the pattern of human life. If I succeed, I think it will be several hundred years before the world becomes again as bad as it was last summer.”
    “In other words, you want to set the world back several hundred years. What about medicines? What about training doctors and dentists?”
    “They can be trained like other craftsmen, by apprenticeship. There will be less disease, because conditions will be more healthful; less contagion, because less travel. Medicines enough can be produced locally.”
    “What are you doing here? Why Kraftsville?”
    “There was a cause for celebration. It was convenient to halt here. And