s was almost ashamed.

Then the boy in the brown tunic spoke very, very bitterly to the girl
who'd evidently said something to restrain him. He turned his eyes from
Soames. He went into the ship, stumbling a little.

The whole air of the three remaining children changed utterly. They had
been composed and confident and even zestful. They'd acted as if the
wrecking of their ship were an adventure rather than a catastrophe. But
now they were dazed by disaster. First one of the girls, and then the
second boy, and then the other girl went despairingly into the ship.

* * * * *

Soames looked at Gail. The boy in the brown tunic had pointed at him
with the object that cut metal plates in half. He'd been stopped, most
likely, by the girl's grief-stricken words. Soames had a profound
conviction that the boy could easily have killed him. He had an equally
strong conviction that it could have been a low price to pay for
preventing the rest of these children's race from finding Earth.

"I suppose," said Gail, "that you feel pretty badly."

"I'm a savage. I've destroyed their signalling device. I may have kept
their civilization from destroying ours. I feel like a murderer," he
told her grimly. "And of children, at that. With luck, I may have kept
them from ever seeing their families again."

After a long time Gail said with a curiously mirthless attempt at humor:

"Do you know, this is the biggest news story that's ever happened? And
do you know that nobody would believe it?"

"But this," said Captain Moggs firmly, "is a matter of such military
importance that nothing must be said about it at all! Nothing!"

Soames made no comment, but he didn't think the matter could be kept
secret.

They waited. The children stayed in the ship.

After a very long time the children appeared again. The girls' faces
were tear-streaked. They brought small possessions and placed them
neatly in the snow. They went back for more.

"At a guess," said Soames, "that super-radar of theirs has shown them a
'copter on the way. They know they can't stay here. I've made it
impossible for them to hope to be found. They've got to let themselves
be taken away and they want to keep these things."

The bringing-out of small objects ended. The boy in the brown tunic went
back in the ship.

When he re-emerged, he said something in the bitterest of bitter voices.
The girls turned their backs to the ship. The girl with br