they carve grooves deep in his
mind which aren't easily wiped away. He knew he'd been living a lie, a
bitter, hopeless, endless lie, all his life, but a liar grows to believe
his own lies. Even to the point of destruction, he believes them. It was
so hard to see the picture, now that he had the last piece in place.

A fox, and a bear trap. Such a simple analogy. War was a hellish
proposition, it was cruel, it was evil. It could be lost, so very
easily. And it seemed so completely, utterly senseless to cut off one's
own leg--

And then he thought, somewhere, sometime, he'd see her again. Perhaps
they'd be old by then, but perhaps not--perhaps they'd still be young,
and perhaps she wouldn't know the true story yet. Perhaps he could be
the first to tell her, to let her know that he had been wrong-- Maybe
there could be a chance to be happy, on Earth, sometime. They might
marry, even, there might be children. To be raised for what? Wars and
wars and more wars? Or was there another alternative? Perhaps the stars
were winking brighter--

* * * * *

A hoarse shout rang through the quiet rooms. Ingersoll sat bolt upright,
turned his bright eyes to Mariel, and looked down the passageway. And
then they were crowding to the window as one of the men snapped off the
lights in the room, and they were staring up at the pale bluish globe
that hung in the sky, squinting, breathless--

And they saw the tiny, tiny burst of brightness on one side of that
globe, saw a tiny whisp of yellow, cutting an arc from the edge, moving
farther and farther into the black circle of space around the Earth,
slicing like a thin scimitar, moving higher and higher, and then,
magically, winking out, leaving a tiny, evaporating trail behind it.

"You saw it?" whispered Mariel in the darkness. "You saw it, David?"

"Yes. I saw it." Ingersoll breathed deeply, staring into the blackness,
searching for a glimmer, a glint, some faint reassurance that it had not
been a mirage they had seen. And then Ingersoll felt a hand in his, Tom
Shandor's hand, gripping his tightly, wringing it, and when the lights
snapped on again, he was staring at Shandor, tears of happiness
streaming from his pale, tired eyes. "You saw it?" he whispered.

Shandor nodded, his heart suddenly too large for his chest, a peace
settling down on him greater than any he had ever known in his life.

"They're coming," he said.

Transcriber's Note: