" he thought. And then, "_Of course._"

The chrysalids under the sod, their eclosion time completed, were coming
into their own--bringing perfection with them. Born in gorgeous
iridescent _imago_, they were beautiful in a way that hurt with the
yearning pain of perfection, the sorrow that imperfection existed at
all--the joy of finally experiencing flawlessness.

An imperative buzzing from the ship behind him made a rude intrusion. A
familiar voice, polite but without inflection, called from an open port:
"Captain Stryker in the scoutboat, requesting answer."

Farrell hesitated. To the girl, who followed him with puzzled, eager
eyes, he begged, "Don't run away, _please_. I'll be back."

In the ship, Stryker's moon-face peered wryly at him from the main
control screen.

"Drew another blank," it said. "You were right after all, Arthur--the
fourth dome was empty. Gib and I are coming in now. We can't risk
staying out longer if we're going to be on hand when the curtain rises
on our little mystery."

"Mystery?" Farrell echoed blankly. Earlier discussions came back slowly,
posing a forgotten problem so ridiculous that he laughed. "We were wrong
about all that. It's wonderful here."

* * * * *

Stryker's face on the screen went long with astonishment. "Arthur, have
you lost your mind? _What's wrong there?_"

"Nothing is wrong," Farrell said. "It's _right_." Memory prodded him
again, disturbingly. "Wait--I remember now what it was we came here for.
But we're not going through with it."

He thought of the festival to come, of the young men and girls running
lithe in the dusk, splashing in the lake and calling joyously to each
other across the pale sands. The joyous innocence of their play brought
an appalling realization of what would happen if the fat outsider on the
screen should have his way:

The quiet paradise would be shattered and refashioned in smoky facsimile
of Earth, the happy people herded together and set to work in dusty
fields and whirring factories, multiplying tensions and frustrations as
they multiplied their numbers.

For what? For whom?

"You've got no right to go back and report all this," Farrell said
plaintively. "You'd ruin everything."

The alternative came to him and with it resolution. "But you won't go
back. I'll see to that."

He left the screen and turned on the control panel with fingers that
remembered from long habit the settings required. Stryke