een from
here, so far that it will be another hundred and fifteen years before
our first signal gets there. Why is it, then, that you and all the other
groups of children have to learn such things as history, physics, the
Gern language, and the way to fire a Gern blaster?"

The hand of every child went up. West selected eight-year-old Clifton
Humbolt. "Tell us, Clifton," he said.

"Because," Clifton answered, "a Gern cruiser might pass by a few
light-years out at any time and pick up our signals. So we have to know
all we can about them and how to fight them because there aren't very
many of us yet."

"The Gerns will come to kill us," little Marie Chiara said, her dark
eyes large and earnest. "They'll come to kill us and to make slaves out
of the ones they don't kill, like they did with the others a long time
ago. They're awful mean and awful smart and we have to be smarter than
they are."

Howard looked again at the Athena constellation, thinking, _I hope they
come just as soon as I'm old enough to fight them, or even tonight...._

"Teacher," he asked, "how would a Gern cruiser look if it came tonight?
Would it come from the Athena arrowhead?"

"It probably would," West answered. "You would see its rocket blast,
like a bright trail of fire----"

A bright trail of fire burst suddenly into being, coming from the
constellation of Athena and lighting up the woods and hills and their
startled faces as it arced down toward them.

_"It's them!"_ a treble voice exclaimed and there was a quick flurry of
movement as Howard and the other older children shoved the younger
children behind them.

Then the light vanished, leaving a dimming glow where it had been.

"Only a meteor," West said. He looked at the line of older children who
were standing protectingly in front of the younger ones, rocks in their
hands with which to ward off the Gerns, and he smiled in the way he had
when he was pleased with them.

Howard watched the meteor trail fade swiftly into invisibility and felt
his heartbeats slow from the first wild thrill to gray disappointment.
Only a meteor....

But someday he might be leader and by then, surely, the Gerns would
come. If not, he would find some way to make them come.

* * * * *

Ten years later Howard Lake was leader. There were three hundred and
fifty of them then and Big Spring was on its way to becoming Big Summer.
The snow was gone from the southern end of the