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 Badiru

INDUSTRIAL
INDUSTR
Ibidapo-Obe
Ayeni

CONTROL
CONTRO
CONTROL SYSTEMS Models and Techniques
INDUSTRIAL

SYSTEMS
SYSTEMS
MathematicalMathematical
and an
Statistical Models
Statistical Model
and Techniques
and Techniques
Mathematical and Statistical

Adedeji B. Badiru
Adedeji B.
Oye Ibidapo-Obe
Oye Ibidap
Babatunde J. Ayeni
Babatunde
INDUSTRIAL
CONTROL
SYSTEMS
Mathematical and
Statistical Models
and Techniques
 Industrial Innovation Series
Series Editor
Adedeji B. Badiru
Department of Systems and Engineering Management
Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) – Dayton, Ohio

PUBLISHED TITLES
Computational Economic Analysis for Engineering and Industry
Adedeji B. Badiru & Olufemi A. Omitaomu
Conveyors: Applications, Selection, and Integration
Patrick M. McGuire
Global Engineering: Design, Decision Making, and Communication
Carlos Acosta, V. Jorge Leon, Charles Conrad, and Cesar O. Malave
Handbook of Industrial Engineering Equations, Formulas, and Calculations
Adedeji B. Badiru & Olufemi A. Omitaomu
Handbook of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Adedeji B. Badiru
Handbook of Military Industrial Engineering
Adedeji B.Badiru & Marlin U. Thomas
Industrial Control Systems: Mathematical and Statistical Models and Techniques
Adedeji B. Badiru, Oye Ibidapo-Obe, & Babatunde J. Ayeni
Industrial Project Management: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques
Adedeji B. Badiru, Abidemi Badiru, and Adetokunboh Badiru
Inventory Management: Non-Classical Views
Mohamad Y. Jaber
Kansei Engineering - 2 volume set
• Innovations of Kansei Engineering, Mitsuo Nagamachi & Anitawati Mohd Lokman
• Kansei/Affective Engineering, Mitsuo Nagamachi
Knowledge Discovery from Sensor Data
Auroop R. Ganguly, João Gama, Olufemi A. Omitaomu, Mohamed Medhat Gaber,
and Ranga Raju Vatsavai
Learning Curves: Theory, Models, and Applications
Mohamad Y. Jaber
Moving from Project Management to Project Leadership: A Practical Guide
to Leading Groups
R. Camper Bull
Quality Management in Construction Projects
Abdul Razzak Rumane
Social Responsibility: Failure Mode Effects and Analysis
Holly Alison Duckworth & Rosemond Ann Moore
STEP Project Management: Guide for Science, Technology, and Engineering Projects
Adedeji B. Badiru
Systems Thinking: Coping with 21st Century Problems
John Turner Boardman & Brian J. Sauser
Techonomics: The Theory of Industrial Evolution
H. Lee Martin
Triple C Model of Project Management: Communication, Cooperation, Coordination
Adedeji B. Badiru
FORTHCOMING TITLES
Essentials of Engineering Leadership and Innovation
Pamela McCauley-Bush & Lesia L. Crumpton-Young
Modern Construction: Productive and Lean Practices
Lincoln Harding Forbes
Project Management: Systems, Principles, and Applications
Adedeji B. Badiru
Statistical Techniques for Project Control
Adedeji B. Badiru
Technology Transfer and Commercialization of Environmental Remediation Technology
Mark N. Goltz
INDUSTRIAL
CONTROL
SYSTEMS
Mathematical and
Statistical Models
and Techniques

Adedeji B. Badiru
Oye Ibidapo-Obe
Babatunde J. Ayeni

Boca Raton London New York

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To Iswat, Sola, and Flora, the rocks behind the writing
Contents
Preface����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xv
Acknowledgments���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xvii
Authors�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xix

Chapter 1 Mathematical modeling for product design........................... 1

Introduction......................................................................................................... 1
Literature review................................................................................................. 3
Memetic algorithm and its application to collaborative design................... 5
Proposed framework for collaborative design.......................................... 5
Pseudo Code................................................................................................... 6
Parameters.................................................................................................. 8
Pseudo Code lines..................................................................................... 8
Forearm crutch design........................................................................................ 9
Aluminum union..................................................................................... 10
Composite tube........................................................................................ 10
Design problem formulation...................................................................... 10
Design agent for weight decision.......................................................... 10
Design agent for strength decision....................................................... 11
Implementation............................................................................................ 12
Results and analysis..................................................................................... 14
Conclusion......................................................................................................... 15
References........................................................................................................... 16

Chapter 2 Dynamic fuzzy systems modeling......................................... 19

Introduction: Decision support systems and uncertainties........................ 19
Decision support systems........................................................................... 20
Uncertainty.................................................................................................... 21
Fuzziness....................................................................................................... 22
Fuzzy set specifications............................................................................... 23
Information type I: Sample of very small size.................................... 24
Information type II: Linguistic assessment.......................................... 24

ix
x Contents

Information type III: Single uncertain measured value..................... 25

Information type IV: Knowledge based on experience...................... 26
Stochastic–fuzzy models............................................................................. 26
Applications....................................................................................................... 27
Development model.................................................................................... 27
The optimization of the fuzzy–stochastic development model............ 30
Urban transit systems under uncertainty................................................. 31
Water resources management under uncertainty.................................... 32
Energy planning and management under uncertainty..................... 33
University admissions process in Nigeria: The post-UME
test selection saga......................................................................................... 33
Conclusions........................................................................................................ 35
References........................................................................................................... 36

Chapter 3 Stochastic systems modeling................................................... 39

Introduction to model types............................................................................ 39
Material/iconic models............................................................................... 39
Robotic/expert models................................................................................ 39
Mathematical models.................................................................................. 40
General problem formulation................................................................ 41
Systems filtering and estimation..................................................................... 43
Identification................................................................................................. 43
Correlation techniques..................................................................................... 45
Advantages............................................................................................... 47
System estimation.................................................................................... 47
Problem formulation............................................................................... 47
Nomenclature........................................................................................... 47
Maximum likelihood.............................................................................. 47
Least squares/weighted least squares................................................. 48
Bayes estimators...................................................................................... 48
Minimum variance.................................................................................. 49
Partitioned data sets................................................................................ 51
Kalman form............................................................................................ 52
Discrete dynamic linear system estimation.............................................. 52
Observation vector.................................................................................. 52
Prediction.................................................................................................. 53
Filtering..................................................................................................... 53
Smoothing................................................................................................. 53
Continuous dynamic linear system...................................................... 53
Continuous nonlinear estimation.............................................................. 56
Extended Kalman filter........................................................................... 58
Partitional estimation.............................................................................. 58
Invariant imbedding............................................................................... 59
Stochastic approximations/innovations concept.................................... 60
Contents xi

Model control—Model reduction, model analysis....................................... 62

Introduction.................................................................................................. 62
Modal approach for estimation in distributed parameter systems...... 65
Modal canonical representation................................................................. 66
References........................................................................................................... 73

Chapter 4 Systems optimization techniques.......................................... 75

Optimality conditions....................................................................................... 75
Basic structure of local methods..................................................................... 81
Descent directions........................................................................................ 81
Steepest descent............................................................................................ 81
Conjugate gradient....................................................................................... 82
Newton methods.......................................................................................... 82
Stochastic central problems............................................................................. 83
Stochastic approximation............................................................................ 85
General stochastic control problem........................................................... 85
Intelligent heuristic models............................................................................. 87
Heuristics....................................................................................................... 87
Intelligent systems....................................................................................... 87
Integrated heuristics.................................................................................... 88
Genetic algorithms....................................................................................... 91
Genetic algorithm operators....................................................................... 92
Applications of heuristics to intelligent systems..................................... 95
High-performance optimization programming...................................... 96
References........................................................................................................... 97

Chapter 5 Statistical control techniques.................................................. 99

Statistical process control................................................................................. 99
Control charts.................................................................................................... 99
Types of data for control charts................................................................ 100
Variable data........................................................................................... 100
Attribute data......................................................................................... 100
X-bar and range charts.............................................................................. 100
Data collection strategies........................................................................... 101
Subgroup sample size................................................................................ 101
Advantages of using small subgroup sample size........................... 101
Advantages of using large subgroup sample size............................ 101
Frequency of sampling.............................................................................. 102
Stable process.............................................................................................. 102
Out-of-control patterns.............................................................................. 102
Calculation of control limits..................................................................... 104
Plotting control charts for range and average charts............................ 105
xii Contents

Plotting control charts for moving range and individual

control charts............................................................................................... 106
Case example: Plotting of control chart.................................................. 106
Calculations................................................................................................. 109
Trend analysis..............................................................................................111
Process capability analysis..............................................................................114
Capable process...........................................................................................115
Capability index..........................................................................................116
Time series analysis and process estimation............................................... 120
Correlated observations............................................................................ 120
Time series analysis example........................................................................ 121
Exponentially weighted moving average.................................................... 124
Cumulative sum chart.................................................................................... 125
Engineering feedback control................................................................... 127
SPC versus APC.......................................................................................... 129
Statistical process control..................................................................... 129
Automatic process control................................................................... 129
Criticisms of SPC and APC.................................................................. 130
Overcompensation, disturbance removal,
and information concealing....................................................................... 130
Integration of SPC and APC.......................................................................... 131
Systems approach to process adjustment.................................................... 131
ARIMA modeling of process data................................................................ 132
Model identification and estimation............................................................ 134
Minimum variance control............................................................................ 135
Process dynamics with disturbance............................................................. 135
Process modeling and estimation for oil and gas production data......... 136
Introduction............................................................................................ 136
Time series approach–Box and Jenkins methodology..................... 137
The ARIMA model..................................................................................... 137
Methodology.......................................................................................... 138
Decline curve method........................................................................... 139
Statistical error analysis............................................................................. 142
Average relative error........................................................................... 142
Average absolute relative error........................................................... 142
Forecast root mean square error.......................................................... 143
Minimum and maximum absolute relative error............................. 143
Cumulative ratio error.......................................................................... 143
ARIMA data analysis................................................................................. 143
Model identification for series WD1................................................... 144
Model identification for series Brock....................................................... 147
Estimation and diagnostic checking........................................................ 149
Comparison of results................................................................................ 150
References......................................................................................................... 153
Contents xiii

Chapter 6 Design of experiment techniques........................................ 155

Factorial designs.............................................................................................. 155
Experimental run........................................................................................ 158
One-variable-at-a-time experimentation................................................ 158
Experimenting with two factors: 22 design..............................................161
Estimate of the experimental error.......................................................... 165
Confidence intervals for the effects......................................................... 166
Factorial design for three factors...................................................................167
Fractional factorial experiments............................................................... 171
A 24 factorial design................................................................................... 172
Saturated designs.............................................................................................176
Central composite designs............................................................................. 186
Response surface optimization..................................................................... 186
Applications for moving web processes................................................. 187
Dual response approach............................................................................ 190
Case study of application to moving webs............................................ 191
Case application of central composite design............................................. 193
Analysis of variance................................................................................... 195
Response surface optimization................................................................ 197
References......................................................................................................... 200

Chapter 7 Risk analysis and estimation techniques........................... 201

Bayesian estimation procedure..................................................................... 201
Formulation of the oil and gas discovery problem............................... 202
Computational procedure.............................................................................. 202
The k-category case.................................................................................... 204
Discussion of results.................................................................................. 205
Parameter estimation for hyperbolic decline curve....................................214
Robustness of decline curves..........................................................................214
Mathematical analysis.................................................................................... 215
Statistical analysis............................................................................................216
Parameter estimation...................................................................................... 217
Optimization technique................................................................................. 217
Iterative procedure.......................................................................................... 219
Residual analysis test...................................................................................... 220
Simplified solution to the vector equation.................................................. 222
Integrating neural networks and statistics for process control................ 224
Fundamentals of neural network................................................................. 225
The input function.......................................................................................... 225
Transfer functions........................................................................................... 226
Statistics and neural networks predictions................................................. 226
Statistical error analysis................................................................................. 226
Integration of statistics and neural networks............................................. 227
References......................................................................................................... 234
xiv Contents

Chapter 8 Mathematical modeling and control

of multi-constrained projects................................................ 237
Introduction..................................................................................................... 237
Literature review............................................................................................. 238
Methodology.................................................................................................... 240
Representation of resource interdependencies
and multifunctionality............................................................................... 240
Modeling of resource characteristics............................................................ 242
Resource mapper............................................................................................. 245
Activity scheduler........................................................................................... 247
Model implementation and graphical illustrations................................... 255
Notations.......................................................................................................... 258
References......................................................................................................... 259

Chapter 9 Online support vector regression with varying

parameters for time-dependent data................................... 261
Introduction..................................................................................................... 261
Modified Gompertz weight function for varying SVR parameters......... 263
Accurate online SVR with varying parameters.......................................... 266
Experimental results....................................................................................... 268
Application to time series data................................................................. 269
Application to feed-water flow rate data................................................ 271
Conclusion....................................................................................................... 276
References......................................................................................................... 277

Appendix: Mathematical and engineering formulae................................ 279

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seconds you've made an enemy for life. Life's so short enemies must
be made quickly." And she laughed with an irony strange for one so
young, who was growing older before her rightful time. "You must
fight to protect yourself. Others, superstitious ones, will try killing
you. There is a belief, a ridiculous belief, that if one kills another, the
murderer partakes of the life energy of the slain, and therefore will
live an extra day. You see? As long as that is believed, you're in
danger."
But Sim was not listening. Bursting from a flock of delicate girls who
tomorrow would be tall, quieter, and who day after that would gain
breasts and the next day take husbands, Sim caught sight of one
small girl whose hair was a violet blue flame.
She ran past, brushed Sim, their bodies touched. Her eyes, white as
silver coins, shone at him. He knew then that he'd found a friend, a
love, a wife, one who'd a week from now lie with him atop the
funeral pyre as sunlight undressed their flesh from bone.
Only the glance, but it held them in mid-motion, one instant.
"Your name?" he shouted after her.
"Lyte!" she called laughingly back.
"I'm Sim," he answered, confused and bewildered.
"Sim!" she repeated it, flashing on. "I'll remember!"
Dark nudged his ribs. "Here, eat," she said to the distracted boy. "Eat
or you'll never get big enough to catch her."
From nowhere, Chion appeared, running by. "Lyte!" he mocked,
dancing malevolently along and away. "Lyte! I'll remember Lyte, too!"
Dark stood tall and reed slender, shaking her dark ebony clouds of
hair, sadly. "I see your life before you, little Sim. You'll need weapons
soon to fight for this Lyte one. Now, hurry—the sun's coming!"
They ran back to the caves.
One-fourth of his life was over! Babyhood was gone. He was now a
young boy! Wild rains lashed the valley at nightfall. He watched new
river channels cut in the valley, out past the mountain of the metal
seed. He stored the knowledge for later use. Each night there was a
new river, a bed newly cut.
"What's beyond the valley?" wondered Sim.
"No one's ever been beyond it," explained Dark. "All who tried to
reach the plain were frozen to death or burnt. The only land we
know's within half an hour's run. Half an hour out and half an hour
back."
"No one has ever reached the metal seed, then?"
Dark scoffed. "The Scientists, they try. Silly fools. They don't know
enough to stop. It's no use. It's too far."
The Scientists. The word stirred him. He had almost forgotten the
vision he had short hours after birth. His voice was eager. "Where are
the Scientists?" he demanded.
Dark looked away from him, "I wouldn't tell you if I knew. They'd kill
you, experimenting! I don't want you joining them! Live your life,
don't cut it in half trying to reach that silly metal thing on the
mountain."
"I'll find out where they are from someone else, then!"
"No one'll tell you! They hate the Scientists. You'll have to find them
on your own. And then what? Will you save us? Yes, save us, little
boy!" Her face was sullen; already half her life was gone, her breasts
were beginning to shape. Tomorrow she must divine how best to live
her youth, her love, and she knew no way to fully plumb the depths
of passion in so short a space.
"We can't sit and talk and eat," he protested. "And nothing else."
"There's always love," she retorted acidly. "It helps one forget. Gods,
yes," she spat it out. "Love!"
Sim ran through the tunnels, seeking. Sometimes he half imagined
where the Scientists were. But then a flood of angry thought from
those around him, when he asked the direction to the Scientists'
cave, washed over him in confusion and resentment. After all, it was
the Scientists' fault that they had been placed upon this terrible
world! Sim flinched under the bombardment of oaths and curses.
Quietly he took his seat in a central chamber with the children to
listen to the grown men talk. This was the time of education, the
Time of Talking. No matter how he chafed at delay, or how great his
impatience, even though life slipped fast from him and death
approached like a black meteor, he knew his mind needed
knowledge. Tonight, then, was the night of school. But he sat
uneasily. Only five more days of life.
Chion sat across from Sim, his thin-mouthed face arrogant.
Lyte appeared between the two. The last few hours had made her
firmer footed, gentler, taller. Her hair shone brighter. She smiled as
she sat beside Sim, ignoring Chion. And Chion became rigid at this
and ceased eating.
The dialogue crackled, filled the room. Swift as heart beats, one
thousand, two thousand words a minute. Sim learned, his head filled.
He did not shut his eyes, but lapsed into a kind of dreaming that was
almost intra-embryonic in lassitude and drowsy vividness. In the faint
background the words were spoken, and they wove a tapestry of
knowledge in his head.

He dreamed of green meadows free of stones, all grass, round and

rolling and rushing easily toward a dawn with no taint of freezing,
merciless cold or smell of boiled rock or scorched monument. He
walked across the green meadow. Overhead the metal seeds flew by
in a heaven that was a steady, even temperature. Things were slow,
slow, slow.
Birds lingered upon gigantic trees that took a hundred, two hundred,
five thousand days to grow. Everything remained in its place, the
birds did not flicker nervously at a hint of sun, nor did the trees suck
back frightenedly when a ray of sunlight poured over them.
In this dream people strolled, they rarely ran, the heart rhythm of
them was evenly languid, not jerking and insane. Their kisses were
long and lingering, not the parched mouthings and twitchings of
lovers who had eight days to live. The grass remained, and did not
burn away in torches. The dream people talked always of tomorrow
and living and not tomorrow and dying. It all seemed so familiar that
when Sim felt someone take his hand he thought it simply another
part of the dream.
Lyte's hand lay inside his own. "Dreaming?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Things are balanced. Our minds, to even things, to balance the
unfairness of our living, go back in on ourselves, to find what there is
that is good to see."
He beat his hand against the stone floor again and again. "It does
not make things fair! I hate it! It reminds me that there is something
better, something I have missed! Why can't we be ignorant! Why
can't we live and die without knowing that this is an abnormal living?"
And his breath rushed harshly from his half-open, constricted mouth.
"There is purpose in everything," said Lyte. "This gives us purpose,
makes us work, plan, try to find a way."
His eyes were hot emeralds in his face. "I walked up a hill of grass,
very slowly," he said.
"The same hill of grass I walked an hour ago?" asked Lyte.
"Perhaps. Close enough to it. The dream is better than the reality."
He flexed his eyes, narrowed them. "I watched people and they did
not eat."
"Or talk?"
"Or talk, either. And we always are eating, always talking. Sometimes
those people in the dream sprawled with their eyes shut, not moving
a muscle."
As Lyte stared down into his face a terrible thing happened. He
imagined her face blackening, wrinkling, twisting into knots of
agedness. The hair blew out like snow about her ears, the eyes were
like discolored coins caught in a web of lashes. Her teeth sank away
from her lips, the delicate fingers hung like charred twigs from her
atrophied wrists. Her beauty was consumed and wasted even as he
watched, and when he seized her, in terror, he cried out, for he
imagined his own hand corroded, and he choked back a cry.
"Sim, what's wrong?"
The saliva in his mouth dried at the taste of the words.
"Five more days...."
"The Scientists."
Sim started. Who'd spoken? In the dim light a tall man talked. "The
Scientists crashed us on this world, and now have wasted thousands
of lives and time. It's no use. It's no use. Tolerate them but give
them none of your time. You only live once, remember."
Where were these hated Scientists? Now, after the Learning, the
Time of Talking, he was ready to find them. Now, at least, he knew
enough to begin his fight for freedom, for the ship!
"Sim, where're you going?"
But Sim was gone. The echo of his running feet died away down a
shaft of polished stone.

It seemed that half the night was wasted. He blundered into a dozen
dead ends. Many times he was attacked by the insane young men
who wanted his life energy. Their superstitious ravings echoed after
him. The gashes of their hungry fingernails covered his body.
He found what he looked for.
A half dozen men gathered in a small basalt cave deep down in the
cliff lode. On a table before them lay objects which, though
unfamiliar, struck harmonious chords in Sim.
The Scientists worked in sets, old men doing important work, young
men learning, asking questions; and at their feet were three small
children. They were a process. Every eight days there was an entirely
new set of scientists working on any one problem. The amount of
work done was terribly inadequate. They grew old, fell dead just
when they were beginning their creative period. The creative time of
any one individual was perhaps a matter of twelve hours out of his
entire span. Three-quarters of one's life was spent learning, a brief
interval of creative power, then senility, insanity, death.
The men turned as Sim entered.
"Don't tell me we have a recruit?" said the eldest of them.
"I don't believe it," said another, younger one. "Chase him away. He's
probably one of those war-mongers."
"No, no," objected the elder one, moving with little shuffles of his
bare feet toward Sim. "Come in, come in, boy." He had friendly eyes,
slow eyes, unlike those of the swift inhabitants of the upper caves.
Grey and quiet. "What do you want?"
Sim hesitated, lowered his head, unable to meet the quiet, gentle
gaze. "I want to live," he whispered.
The old man laughed quietly. He touched Sim's shoulder. "Are you a
new breed? Are you sick?" he queried of Sim, half-seriously. "Why
aren't you playing? Why aren't you readying yourself for the time of
love and marriage and children? Don't you know that tomorrow night
you'll be an adolescent? Don't you realize that if you are not careful
you'll miss all of life?" He stopped.
Sim moved his eyes back and forth with each query. He blinked at
the instruments on the table top. "Shouldn't I be here?" he asked,
naively.
"Certainly," roared the old man, sternly. "But it's a miracle you are.
We've had no volunteers from the rank and file for a thousand days!
We've had to breed our own scientists, a closed unit! Count us! Six!
Six men! And three children! Are we not overwhelming?" The old
man spat upon the stone floor. "We ask for volunteers and the people
shout back at us, 'Get someone else!' or 'We have no time!' And you
know why they say that?"
"No." Sim flinched.
"Because they're selfish. They'd like to live longer, yes, but they know
that anything they do cannot possibly insure their own lives any extra
time. It might guarantee longer life to some future offspring of theirs.
But they won't give up their love, their brief youth, give up one
interval of sunset or sunrise!"
Sim leaned against the table, earnestly. "I understand."
"You do?" The old man stared at him blindly. He sighed and slapped
the child's thigh, gently. "Yes, of course, you do. It's too much to
expect anyone to understand, any more. You're rare."
The others moved in around Sim and the old man.
"I am Dienc. Tomorrow night Cort here will be in my place. I'll be
dead by then. And the night after that someone else will be in Cort's
place, and then you, if you work and believe—but first, I give you a
chance. Return to your playmates if you want. There is someone you
love? Return to her. Life is short. Why should you care for the unborn
to come? You have a right to youth. Go now, if you want. Because if
you stay you'll have no time for anything but working and growing
old and dying at your work. But it is good work. Well?"
Sim looked at the tunnel. From a distance the wind roared and blew,
the smells of cooking and the patter of naked feet sounded, and the
laughter of lovers was an increasingly good thing to hear. He shook
his head, impatiently, and his eyes were wet.
"I will stay," he said.
 VI

The third night and third day passed. It was the fourth night. Sim
was drawn into their living. He learned about that metal seed upon
the top of the far mountain. He heard of the original seeds—things
called "ships" that crashed and how the survivors hid and dug in the
cliffs, grew old swiftly and in their scrabbling to barely survive, forgot
all science. Knowledge of mechanical things had no chance of
survival in such a volcanic civilization. There was only NOW for each
human.
Yesterday didn't matter, tomorrow stared them vividly in their very
faces. But somehow the radiations that had forced their aging had
also induced a kind of telepathic communication whereby
philosophies and impressions were absorbed by the new born. Racial
memory, growing instinctively, preserved memories of another time.
"Why don't we go to that ship on the mountain?" asked Sim.
"It is too far. We would need protection from the sun," explained
Dienc.
"Have you tried to make protection?"
"Salves and ointments, suits of stone and bird-wing and, recently,
crude metals. None of which worked. In ten thousand more life times
perhaps we'll have made a metal in which will flow cool water to
protect us on the march to the ship. But we work so slowly, so
blindly. This morning, mature, I took up my instruments. Tomorrow,
dying, I lay them down. What can one man do in one day? If we had
ten thousand men, the problem would be solved...."
"I will go to the ship," said Sim.
"Then you will die," said the old man. A silence had fallen on the
room at Sim's words. Then the men stared at Sim. "You are a very
selfish boy."
"Selfish!" cried Sim, resentfully.
The old man patted the air. "Selfish in a way I like. You want to live
longer, you'll do anything for that. You will try for the ship. But I tell
you it is useless. Yet, if you want to, I cannot stop you. At least you
will not be like those among us who go to war for an extra few days
of life."
"War?" asked Sim. "How can there be war here?"
And a shudder ran through him. He did not understand.
"Tomorrow will be time enough for that," said Dienc. "Listen to me,
now."
The night passed.

VII

It was morning. Lyte came shouting and sobbing down a corridor,

and ran full into his arms. She had changed again. She was older,
again, more beautiful. She was shaking and she held to him. "Sim,
they're coming after you!"
Bare feet marched down the corridor, surged inward at the opening.
Chion stood grinning there, taller, too, a sharp rock in either of his
hands. "Oh, there you are, Sim!"
"Go away!" cried Lyte savagely whirling on him.
"Not until we take Sim with us," Chion assured her. Then, smiling at
Sim. "If that is, he is with us in the fight."
Dienc shuffled forward, his eye weakly fluttering, his bird-like hands
fumbling in the air. "Leave!" he shrilled angrily. "This boy is a Scientist
now. He works with us."
Chion ceased smiling. "There is better work to be done. We go now
to fight the people in the farthest cliffs." His eyes glittered anxiously.
"Of course, you will come with us, Sim?"
"No, no!" Lyte clutched at his arm.
Sim patted her shoulder, then turned to Chion. "Why are you
attacking these people?"
"There are three extra days for those who go with us to fight."
"Three extra days! Of living?"
Chion nodded firmly. "If we win, we live eleven days instead of eight.
The cliffs they live in, something about the mineral in it! Think of it,
Sim, three long, good days of life. Will you join us?"
Dienc interrupted. "Get along without him. Sim is my pupil!"
Chion snorted. "Go die, old man. By sunset tonight you'll be charred
bone. Who are you to order us? We are young, we want to live
longer."
Eleven days. The words were unbelievable to Sim. Eleven days. Now
he understood why there was war. Who wouldn't fight to have his life
lengthened by almost half its total. So many more days of youth and
love and seeing and living! Yes. Why not, indeed!
"Three extra days," called Dienc, stridently, "if you live to enjoy them.
If you're not killed in battle. If. If! You have never won yet. You have
always lost!"
"But this time," Chion declared sharply, "We'll win!"
Sim was bewildered. "But we are all of the same ancestors. Why
don't we all share the best cliffs?"
Chion laughed and adjusted a sharp stone in his hand. "Those who
live in the best cliffs think they are better than us. That is always
man's attitude when he has power. The cliffs there, besides, are
smaller, there's room for only three hundred people in them."
Three extra days.
"I'll go with you," Sim said to Chion.
"Fine!" Chion was very glad, much too glad at the decision.
Dienc gasped.
Sim turned to Dienc and Lyte. "If I fight, and win, I will be half a mile
closer to the Ship. And I'll have three extra days in which to strive to
reach the Ship. That seems the only thing for me to do."
Dienc nodded, sadly. "It is the only thing. I believe you. Go along
now."
"Good-bye," said Sim.
The old man looked surprised, then he laughed as at a little joke on
himself. "That's right—I won't see you again, will I? Good-bye, then."
And they shook hands.
They went out, Chion, Sim, and Lyte, together, followed by the
others, all children growing swiftly into fighting men. And the light in
Chion's eyes was not a good thing to see.

Lyte went with him. She chose his rocks for him and carried them.
She would not go back, no matter how he pleaded. The sun was just
beyond the horizon and they marched across the valley.
"Please, Lyte, go back!"
"And wait for Chion to return?" she said. "He plans that when you die
I will be his mate." She shook out her unbelievable blue-white curls
of hair defiantly. "But I'll be with you. If you fall, I fall."
Sim's face hardened. He was tall. The world had shrunk during the
night. Children packs screamed by hilarious in their food-searching
and he looked at them with alien wonder: could it be only four days
ago he'd been like these? Strange. There was a sense of many days
in his mind, as if he'd really lived a thousand days. There was a
dimension of incident and thought so thick, so multi-colored, so richly
diverse in his head that it was not to be believed so much could
happen in so short a time.
The fighting men ran in clusters of two or three. Sim looked ahead at
the rising line of small ebon cliffs. This, then, he said to himself, is my
fourth day. And still I am no closer to the Ship, or to anything, not
even—he heard the light tread of Lyte beside him—not even to her
who bears my weapons and picks me ripe berries.
One-half of his life was gone. Or a third of it—IF he won this battle.
If.
He ran easily, lifting, letting fall his legs. This is the day of my
physical awareness, as I run I feed, as I feed I grow and as I grow I
turn eyes to Lyte with a kind of dizzying vertigo. And she looks upon
me with the same gentleness of thought. This is the day of our
youth. Are we wasting it? Are we losing it on a dream, a folly?
Distantly he heard laughter. As a child he'd questioned it. Now he
understood laughter. This particular laughter was made of climbing
high rocks and plucking the greenest blades and drinking the
headiest vintage from the morning ices and eating of the rock-fruits
and tasting of young lips in new appetite.
They neared the cliffs of the enemy.
He saw the slender erectness of Lyte. The new surprise of her white
breasts; the neck where if you touched you could time her pulse; the
fingers which cupped in your own were animate and supple and
never still; the....
Lyte snapped her head to one side. "Look ahead!" she cried. "See
what is to come—look only ahead."
He felt that they were racing by part of their lives, leaving their youth
on the pathside, without so much as a glance.
"I am blind with looking at stones," he said, running.
"Find new stones, then!"
"I see stones—" His voice grew gentle as the palm of her hand. The
landscape floated under him. Everything was like a fine wind, blowing
dreamily. "I see stones that make a ravine that lies in a cool shadow
where the stone-berries are thick as tears. You touch a boulder and
the berries fall in silent red avalanches, and the grass is very
tender...."
"I do not see it!" She increased her pace, turning her head away.
He saw the floss upon her neck, like the small moss that grows
silvery and light on the cool side of pebbles, that stirs if you breathe
the lightest breath upon it. He looked upon himself, his hands
clenched as he heaved himself forward toward death. Already his
hands were veined and youth-swollen.
They were the hands of a young boy whose fingers are made for
touching, which are suddenly sensitive and with more surface, and
are nervous, and seem not a part of him because they are so big for
the slender lengths of his arms. His neck, through which the blood
ached and pumped, was building out with age, too, with tiny blue
tendrils of veins imbedded and flaring in it.
Lyte handed him food to eat.
"I am not hungry," he said.
"Eat, keep your mouth full," she commanded sharply. "So you will not
talk to me this way!"
"If I could only kiss you," he pleaded. "Just one time."
"After the battle there may be time."
"Gods!" He roared, anguished. "Who cares for battles!"
Ahead of them, rocks hailed down, thudding. A man fell with his skull
split wide. The war was begun.
Lyte passed the weapons to him. They ran without another word until
they entered the killing ground. Then he spoke, not looking at her, his
cheeks coloring. "Thank you," he said.
She ducked as a slung stone shot by her head. "It was not an easy
thing for me," she admitted. "Sim! Be careful!"
The boulders began to roll in a synthetic avalanche from the
battlements of the enemy!
Only one thought was in his mind now. To kill, to lessen the life of
someone else so he could live, to gain a foothold here and live long
enough to make a stab at the ship. He ducked, he weaved, he
clutched stones and hurled them up. His left hand held a flat stone
shield with which he diverted the swiftly plummeting rocks. There
was a spatting sound everywhere. Lyte ran with him, encouraging
him. Two men dropped before him, slain, their breasts cleaved to the
bone, their blood springing out in unbelievable founts.
It was a useless conflict. Sim realized instantly how insane the
venture was. They could never storm the cliff. A solid wall of rocks
rained down. A dozen men dropped with shards of ebony in their
brains, a half dozen more showed drooping, broken arms. One
screamed and the upthrust white joint of his knee was exposed as
the flesh was pulled away by two successive blows of well-aimed
granite. Men stumbled over one another.
The muscles in his cheeks pulled tight and he began to wonder why
he had ever come. But his raised eyes, as he danced from side to
side, weaving and bobbing, sought always the cliffs. He wanted to
live there so intensely, to have his chance. He would have to stick it
out. But the heart was gone from him.
Lyte screamed piercingly. Sim, his heart panicking, twisted and saw
that her hand was loose at the wrist, with an ugly wound bleeding
profusely on the back of the knuckles. She clamped it under her
armpit to soothe the pain. The anger rose in him and exploded. In his
fury he raced forward, throwing his missiles with deadly accuracy. He
saw a man topple and flail down, falling from one level to another of
the caves, a victim of his shot. He must have been screaming, for his
lungs were bursting open and closed and his throat was raw, and the
ground spun madly under his racing feet.
The stone that clipped his head sent him reeling and plunging back.
He ate sand. The universe dissolved into purple whorls. He could not
get up. He lay and knew that this was his last day, his last time. The
battle raged around him, dimly he felt Lyte over him. Her hands
cooled his head, she tried to drag him out of range, but he lay
gasping and telling her to leave him.
"Stop!" shouted a voice. The whole war seemed to give pause.
"Retreat!" commanded the voice swiftly. And as Sim watched, lying
upon his side, his comrades turned and fled back toward home.
"The sun is coming, our time is up!" He saw their muscled backs,
their moving, tensing, flickering legs go up and down. The dead were
left upon the field. The wounded cried for help. But there was no
time for the wounded. There was only time for swift men to run the
gauntlet home and, their lungs aching and raw with heated air, burst
into their tunnels before the sun burnt and killed them.
The sun!
Sim saw another figure racing toward him. It was Chion! Lyte was
helping Sim to his feet, whispering helpfully to him. "Can you walk?"
she asked. And he groaned and said, "I think so." "Walk then," she
said. "Walk slowly, and then faster and faster. We'll make it. Walk
slowly, start carefully. We'll make it, I know we will."
Sim got to his feet, stood swaying. Chion raced up, a strange
expression cutting lines in his cheeks, his eyes shining with battle.
Pushing Lyte abruptly aside he seized upon a rock and dealt Sim a
jolting blow upon his ankle that laid wide the flesh. All of this was
done quite silently.
Now he stood back, still not speaking, grinning like an animal from
the night mountains, his chest panting in and out, looking from the
thing he had done, to Lyte, and back. He got his breath. "He'll never
make it," he nodded at Sim. "We'll have to leave him here. Come
along, Lyte."
Lyte, like a cat-animal, sprang upon Chion, searching for his eyes,
shrieking through her exposed, hard-pressed teeth. Her fingers
stroked great bloody furrows down Chion's arms and again, instantly,
down his neck. Chion, with an oath, sprang away from her. She
hurled a rock at him. Grunting, he let it miss him, then ran off a few
yards. "Fool!" he cried, turning to scorn her. "Come along with me.
Sim will be dead in a few minutes. Come along!"
Lyte turned her back on him. "I will go if you carry me."
Chion's face changed. His eyes lost their gleaming. "There is no time.
We would both die if I carried you."
Lyte looked through and beyond him. "Carry me, then, for that's how
I wish it to be."
Without another word, glancing fearfully at the sun, Chion fled. His
footsteps sped away and vanished from hearing. "May he fall and
break his neck," whispered Lyte, savagely glaring at his form as it
skirted a ravine. She returned to Sim. "Can you walk?"

Agonies of pain shot up his leg from the wounded ankle. He nodded
ironically. "We could make it to the cave in two hours, walking. I have
an idea, Lyte. Carry me." And he smiled with the grim joke.
She took his arm. "Nevertheless we'll walk. Come."
"No," he said. "We're staying here."
"But why?"
"We came to seek a home here. If we walk we will die. I would rather
die here. How much time have we?"
Together they measured the sun. "A few minutes," she said, her
voice flat and dull. She held close to him.
He looked at her. Lyte, he thought. Tomorrow I would have been a
man. My body would have been strong and full and there would have
been time with you, a kissing and a touching. Damn, but what kind of
life is this where every last instant is drenched with fear and alert
with death? Am I to be denied even some bit of real life?
The black rocks of the cliff were paling into deep purples and browns
as the sun began to flood the world.
What a fool he was! He should have stayed and worked with Dienc,
and thought and dreamed, and at least one time cupped Lyte's
mouth with his own.
With the sinews of his neck standing out defiantly he bellowed
upward at the cliff holes.
"Send me down one man to do battle!"
Silence. His voice echoed from the cliff. The air was warm.
"It's no use," said Lyte, "They'll pay no attention."
He shouted again. "Hear me!" He stood with his weight on his good
foot, his injured left leg throbbing and pulsating with pain. He shook
a fist. "Send down a warrior who is no coward! I will not turn and run
home! I have come to fight a fair fight! Send a man who will fight for
the right to his cave! Him I will surely kill!"
More silence. A wave of heat passed over the land, receded.
"Oh, surely," mocked Sim, hands on naked hips, head back, mouth
wide, "surely there's one among you not afraid to fight a cripple!"
Silence. "No?" Silence.
"Then I have miscalculated you. I'm wrong. I'll stand here, then, until
the sun shucks the flesh off my bone in black scraps, and call you the
filthy names you deserve."
He got an answer.
"I do not like being called names," replied a man's voice.
Sim leaned forward, forgetting his crippled foot.
A huge man appeared in a cave mouth on the third level.
"Come down," urged Sim. "Come down, fat one, and kill me."
The man scowled seriously at his opponent a moment, then
lumbered slowly down the path, his hands empty of any weapons.
Immediately every cave above clustered with heads. An audience for
this drama.
The man approached Sim. "We will fight by the rules, if you know
them."
"I'll learn as we go," replied Sim.
This pleased the man and he looked at Sim warily, but not unkindly.
"This much I will tell you," offered the man generously. "If you die, I
will give your mate shelter and she will live, as she pleases, because
she is the wife of a good man."
Sim nodded swiftly. "I am ready," he said.
"The rules are simple. We do not touch each other, save with stones.
The stones and the sun will do either of us in. Now is the time—"

VIII

A tip of the sun showed on the horizon. "My name is Nhoj," said
Sim's enemy, casually fingering up a handful of pebbles and stones,
weighing them. Sim did likewise. He was hungry. He had not eaten
for many minutes. Hunger was the curse of this planet's peoples—a
perpetual demanding of empty stomachs for more, more food. His
blood flushed weakly, shot tinglingly through veins in jolting throbs of
heat and pressure, his ribcase shoved out, went in, shoved out again,
impatiently.
"Now!" roared the three hundred watchers from the cliffs. "Now!"
they clamored, the men and women and children balanced, in turmoil
on the ledges. "Now! Begin!"
As if at a cue, the sun leaped high. It smote them a blow as with a
flat, sizzling stone. The two men staggered under the molten impact,
sweat broke from their naked thighs and loins, under their arms and
on their faces was a glaze like fine glass.
Nhoj shifted his huge weight and looked at the sun as if in no hurry
to fight. Then, silently, with no warning, he kanurcked out a pebble
with a startling trigger-flick of thumb and forefinger. It caught Sim
flat on the cheek, staggered him back, so that a rocket of unbearable
pain climbed up his crippled foot and burst into nervous explosion at
the pit of his stomach. He tasted blood from his bleeding cheek.
Nhoj moved serenely. Three more flickers of his magical hands and
three tiny, seemingly harmless bits of stone flew like whistling birds.
Each of them found a target, slammed it. The nerve centers of Sim's
body! One hit his stomach so that ten hours' eating almost slid up his
throat. A second got his forehead, a third his neck. He collapsed to
the boiling sand. His knee made a wrenching sound on the hard
earth. His face was colorless and his eyes, squeezed tight, were
pushing tears out from the hot, quivering lids. But even as he had
fallen he had let loose, with wild force, his handful of stones!
The stones purred in the air. One of them, and only one, struck Nhoj.
Upon the left eyeball. Nhoj moaned and laid his hands in the next
instant to his shattered eye.
Sim choked out a bitter, sighing laugh. This much triumph he had.
The eye of his opponent. It would give him ... Time. Oh, gods, he
thought, his stomach retching sickly, fighting for breath, this is a
world of time. Give me a little more, just a trifle!
Nhoj, one-eyed, weaving with pain, pelted the writhing body of Sim,
but his aim was off now, the stones flew to one side or if they struck
at all they were weak and spent and lifeless.
Sim forced himself half erect. From the corners of his eyes he saw
Lyte, waiting, staring at him, her lips breathing words of
encouragement and hope. He was bathed in sweat, as if a rain spray
had showered him down.

The sun was now fully over the horizon. You could smell it. Stones
glinted like mirrors, the sand began to roil and bubble. Illusions
sprang up everywhere in the valley. Instead of one warrior Nhoj he
was confronted by a dozen, each in an upright position, preparing to
launch another missile. A dozen irregular warriors who shimmered in
the golden menace of day, like bronze gongs smitten, quivered in one
vision!
Sim was breathing desperately. His nostrils flared and sucked and his
mouth drank thirstily of flame instead of oxygen. His lungs took fire
like silk torches and his body was consumed. The sweat spilled from
his pores to be instantly evaporated. He felt himself shriveling,
shriveling in on himself, he imagined himself looking like his father,
old, sunken, slight, withered! Where was the sand? Could he move?
Yes. The world wriggled under him, but now he was on his feet.
There would be no more fighting.
A murmur from the cliff told this. The sunburnt faces of the high
audience gaped and jeered and shouted encouragement to their
warrior. "Stand straight, Nhoj, save your strength now! Stand tall and
perspire!" they urged him. And Nhoj stood, swaying lightly, swaying
slowly, a pendulum in an incandescent fiery breath from the skyline.
"Don't move, Nhoj, save your heart, save your power!"
"The Test, The Test!" said the people on the heights. "The test of the
sun."
And this was the worst part of the fight. Sim squinted painfully at the
distorted illusion of cliff. He thought he saw his parents; father with
his defeated face, his green eyes burning, mother with her hair
blowing like a cloud of grey smoke in the fire wind. He must get up to
them, live for and with them!
Behind him, Sim heard Lyte whimper softly. There was a whisper of
flesh against sand. She had fallen. He did not dare turn. The strength
of turning would bring him thundering down in pain and darkness.
His knees bent. If I fall, he thought, I'll lie here and become ashes.
Where was Nhoj? Nhoj was there, a few yards from him, standing
bent, slick with perspiration, looking as if he were being hit over the
spine with great hammers of destruction.
"Fall, Nhoj! Fall!" screamed Sim, mentally. "Fall, fall! Fall and die so I
can take your place!"
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