en it flashed bright again
as power flowed back into the thousands of coils in the ceiling
material. Twice more it darkened, when the giant switch was thrown, and
the lights came on again. This time it stayed bright.

Dick ran to the doorway, and gazed at the dome above. _It was silent!_
The people were frightened, and moved restlessly about. Twice more he
turned the power into the metal, and after one long darkened period, the
city remained bright. _No sound came from the dome!_ Either the worms
were dead--or frightened away!

Within a week the doors to the deserted city were opened, and the
earthmen passed through. When they glimpsed the interior, they stopped
in consternation, then started to laugh.

Huge worms covered the ground, and smaller editions of the same species,
crawled around them. _They were using the dome for a hatching place!_

They had only entered it to bring forth their young! It was not _brains_
that tempted them to attack the city, but the instinct to find a
protected place for their eggs. Since they had broken in, many of the
young had hatched, and were crawling around the ground.

Sight of the earthmen seemed to excite their feelings, and several of
the creatures started toward them. The men fired carefully, and the
forms squirmed on the ground. The ones that came behind stopped, and
some of the young tried to feed on the remains of their companions.

The sight was so sickening that the earthmen fired at every living thing
they could see. Several of the wounded creatures crawled up the huge
pillars, to disappear through the opening above, while the men shot at
their disappearing forms. When the last caterpillar lay dead, the entire
area appeared like a battlefield.

Three days later the gas had been expelled, and the hole in the dome
repaired. The population was returning to their homes, burying the
carcasses in the fields. The city was livable again, and they knew
electric current would stop any future attack of the strange creatures.

* * * * *

Ten years later, Dick Barrow sat on the balcony before his apartment.
His son John, eight years old, was playing with Dick McCarthy. While he
watched the boys, his mind swung back to the earth the little group had
left so many years before.

For three years they had talked of returning to their home planet, and
the evening before the conversation reached a climax. They were starting
in two months.

It no longe