s of metal.... On Ragnarok that was like asking for
the sun.

The years went by and each year there was the same determined effort,
the same lack of success. And each year the suns were farther south,
marking the coming of the end of any efforts other than the one to
survive.

In the year thirty, when fall came earlier than ever before, he was
forced to admit to himself the bleak and bitter fact: he and the others
were not of the generation that would escape from Ragnarok. They were
Earth-born--they were not adapted to Ragnarok and could not scour a
world of 1.5 gravity for metals that might not exist.

And vengeance was a luxury he could not have.

A question grew in his mind where there had been only his hatred for the
Gerns before. _What would become of the future generations on Ragnarok?_

With the question a scene from his childhood kept coming back to him; a
late summer evening in the first year on Ragnarok and Julia sitting
beside him in the warm starlight....

"You're my son, Billy," she had said. "The first I ever had. Now, before
so very long, maybe I'll have another one."

Hesitantly, not wanting to believe, he had asked, "What some of them
said about how you might die then--it won't really happen, will it,
Julia?"

"It ... might." Then her arm had gone around him and she had said, "If I
do I'll leave in my place a life that's more important than mine ever
was.

"Remember me, Billy, and this evening, and what I said to you, if you
should ever be leader. Remember that it's only through the children that
we can ever survive and whip this world. Protect them while they're
small and helpless and teach them to fight and be afraid of nothing when
they're a little older. Never, never let them forget how they came to be
on Ragnarok. Someday, even if it's a hundred years from now, the Gerns
will come again and they must be ready to fight, for their freedom and
for their lives."

He had been too young then to understand how truly she had spoken and
when he was old enough his hatred for the Gerns had blinded him to
everything but his own desires. Now, he could see....

The children of each generation would be better adapted to Ragnarok and
full adaptation would eventually come. But all the generations of the
future would be potential slaves of the Gern Empire, free only so long
as they remained unnoticed.

It was inconceivable that the Gerns should never pass by Ragnarok
through all time to come. And whe