'Olivia was right, you know. There isn't anything we can do individually. Just wait and see, and hope for the best.'

'Hope for the best? Don't tell me you've started taking notice of his gloomy prophecies!'

Not answering immediately, John looked at the scattering autumn leaves and the neat suburban grass. The car travelled past a place where, for a space of ten or fifteen yards, the grass had been uprooted, leaving bare earth: another minor battlefield in the campaign against Phase 5.

'No, I don't think so, really. It couldn't happen, could it?'

As autumn settled into winter, the news from the East steadily worsened. First India, then Burma and Indo—

China relapsed into famine and barbarism. Japan and the eastern states of the Soviet Union went shortly afterwards, and Pakistan erupted into a desperate wave of Western conquest which, composed though it was of starving and unarmed vagabonds, reached into Turkey before it was halted.

Those countries which were still relatively unaffected by the Chung-Li virus, stared at the scene with a barely credulous horror. The official news accentuated the size of this ocean of famine, in which any succour could be no more than a drop, but avoided the question of whether food could in fact be spared to help the victims.

And those who agitated in favour of sending supplies were a minority, and a minority increasingly unpopular as the extent of the disaster penetrated more clearly, and its spread to the Western world was more clearly envisaged.

It was not until near Christmas that grain ships sailed for the East again. This followed the heartening news from the southern hemisphere that in Australia and New Zealand a vigilant system of inspection and des