"Go right ahead." The man had stopped screaming outside but another boulder was going past. In the distance, the avalanche was trying to grind to a halt but it sounded as if millions of tons of rock were on the move to a safer location.
"Are you one of the new people?" the nurse asked.
The cough was real this time. Zen could not suppress his surprise. "What on earth makes you ask a question like that?"
"I just felt like asking it," the nurse replied. "Am I wrong?"
"Who are the new people?"
"Why, everybody has heard of them. They're the new race that is going to provide the nucleus for new growth after all ordinary men and women have been destroyed in this war." Surprise showed in her violet eyes. "Do you mean you have never heard of them?"
"I've heard the usual rumors that are afloat," Zen said, shrugging. "But all the stories have impressed me as a pack of lies. Really, I think the enemy has started most of them, to get us to relax our war effort."
"Do you honestly think that?" Her voice had a puzzled note in it. "I mean, honestly and truly."
"I think what the evidence tells me to think, nothing less. In this case, I have seen none of the so-called evidence."
Shrugging, Zen moved toward the opening of the tunnel, then drew back as a mass of rock crashed outside. "It's raining boulders out there," he said. "What do you know about the so-called new people?"