The Changes Trilogy by Peter Dickinson Page A

“This is food . I climbed an iron ladder up one of those round towers and opened a lid at the top and it’s full of corn. There’s enough to feed us for a year. Look, it’s dry and good.”
    He ran on to show his treasure to the menfolk, while Nicky returned to combing through the weeds for strawberries. She found no more of the little red globules of sweetness, but caught a grasshopper instead, let it tickle her prisoning palms for a moment, then held it free and watched it tense itself for its leap, and vanish.
    The baby was born in a cow stall. It was a boy. That night the Sikhs held full council. It was just as noisy and muddled with cross talk as any of the ones they’d held on the road, but Nicky got the feeling that even in the middle of rowdy arguments they were being more serious, paying more attention to what the others said. From time to time they would ask her a question.
    â€œWe can’t use any of the tractors, can we, Nicky?”
    She shook her head.
    â€œBut we can reap and plow and dig and plant by hand?”
    â€œOh yes.”
    â€œAnd there’s nothing wrong with this wheat?”
    â€œWrong?” She looked through the gateway to where the beautiful tall blades waved, gray as fungus under the big moon, but already tinged with yellow by daylight as the year edged toward harvest.
    â€œOh yes,” said Mr. Surbans Singh, “this is a modern crossbred variety of wheat, and another of barley. The madness does not apply to them, you think?”
    â€œOh no!”
    Another long fusillade of Punjabi followed. Then …
    â€œNicky, would the madness make the villagers come and destroy us if we were to set up a blacksmith’s shop?”
    â€œWhat would you do?”
    â€œMake and mend spades and sickles and plows and other tools.”
    â€œI mean, how would you do it? What would you use?”
    â€œWe’d have to make charcoal first, which is done by burning wood very slowly under a mound of earth. Then we’d have to contrive a furnace, with bellows to keep the charcoal burning fiercely. And when the iron was red-hot we’d hammer it, and bend it with vises and pincers, and then temper it in water or oil.”
    â€œWater,” said Nicky. “Where would you get the iron from?”
    â€œThere is plenty lying around the farm.”
    â€œI think that would be all right. You could try, and I could always tell you if I thought it wasn’t. Why do you want to know?”
    â€œFirst, because if we are to stay here we shall need hand tools. This farm is highly mechanized, which is no doubt why the farmer left; he felt he couldn’t work it without his tractors. But secondly, we shall need more to eat than wheat. We shall have to barter for meat and vegetables until we can produce our own. Some of us have seen smithwork done in India, in very primitive conditions; Mr. Jagindar Singh was a skilled metalworker in London, and two more of us have done similar work in factories and garages; so we think we can set up an efficient smithy. But perhaps the villagers will not have our advantages, so we shall be able to barter metalwork with them in exchange for the things we need.”
    â€œThat’s a good idea,” said Nicky, astonished again by the amount of sense that seemed to come out of all the clamor and repetition. “But do you think the villagers will actually trade with you? They didn’t look very friendly when we came through, and they haven’t come up here at all.”
    â€œIf we make something they need, they will trade with us,” said Uncle Jagindar somberly. “It does not matter how much they dislike us. We have found this in other times.”
    The whole council muttered agreement. Kewal gave a sharp, snorting laugh which Nicky hadn’t heard before.
    â€œWe must be careful,” he said. “If we become too rich they will want to take our wealth away from us.”
    â€œI expect