hem the means to save
everything and everybody they care about, even though we're destroyed in
the process! Isn't it pretty?

"If anybody else finds out what we know, the children will be hated as
nobody was ever hated before. They'll be known for the deadly danger
they are. We're primitives, beside their civilization! We'll have to
fight, because there's no room for the population of another whole
world, here! There's no food for more people! We can't let them come,
and they must die if they don't come, and the children must be here to
open the way for them to come in hordes.

"The children mustn't be allowed to build anything we don't understand
or that might let them open communication with their people. If they
try, they'll be trying to serve their own race by destroying this. And
they'd have to destroy us and--" his voice was fierce--"I'm not going to
let anything happen to you!"

Gail's cheeks were white, but a trace of color came into them then. Yet
she looked remorseful as she glanced forward to where the children
murmured hopelessly together.

CHAPTER 5

The jet transport got new flight orders while it was in the air over
South Carolina. There was a new attitude toward their ship and its
occupants among the military men and the political heads of
governments. The new attitude was the result of mathematics.

It was the burst of static screaming, three whole seconds long, which
made the matter something much more than a thing to maneuver with and
make public pronouncements about. In every nation it eventually occurred
to somebody to compute the power in that meaningless signal. It was
linked with the appearance of the children's ship--which nobody really
believed had contained children--and therefore it was artificial. But
the power, the energy involved was incredible. The computations went to
defense departments and heads of state. They reacted. And in consequence
the jet-plane was ordered to change course and head west.

After many hours the transport landed. A hillside rose before it. A
vast, grass-covered area lifted up. It was a great door. The transport
rolled deliberately into a monstrous, windowless, artificial cavern, and
the hillside closed behind it.

This was a base, too, but not like the one at Gissell Bay. The existence
of this one would be denied. It was hoped that it would be forever
unused for its designed purpose. Soames never saw any part of it that he
was not supposed to see.