THE STARS ARE OURS

"Peacemen?" She was shaking with more than cold as she started down the stairs. "Say that I think so. They came in a 'copter." That was the one thing he had not been able to guard against- surprise from above. But they had so few of the 'copters left, now that it was forbidden to manufacture any of the prepurge machines. And why should they use one to raid an insignificant farmhouse sheltering a child a cripple and a boy? Unless Lars' work was important-so important that they dared not allow him to pass along his findings to the underground.

Dard watched the dark shapes take cover. They were probably all around the house by this time, moving in. They wanted to take the inhabitants alive. Too many cornered scientists in the past had cheated them. So they would move slowly now-slow enough to-Dard's smile was no more than a drawn grimace.He still had one secret, one which might save the Nordis family yet.

Having watched the last of the raiders take cover Dard ran down into the kitchen. The fire was still burning and before it crouched Lars.

"They came by air. And they have the house surrounded," Dard reported in a matter-of-fact voice. Now that the worst had at last happened he was surprisingly calm. "But they don't have their trap completely closed- as they are going to discover!"

He brushed past Lars and jerked open the cupboard doors. Dessie stood beside her father, and now Dard threw her a bag.

"Food- everything you can pack in," he ordered. "Lars, here!"

From the pegs he pulled down all the extra clothing they had. "Get dressed to go out."

But his brother shook his head. "You know I can't make it, Dard."

Dessie went on stuffing provisions into the hag "I'll help you, Daddy," she promised "'just as soon as I can."

Dard paid no attention to his brother. Instead he ran to the far end of the room and raised the trap door of the cellar.

"Last summer," he explained as he came back to gather up the clothing, "'I found a passage down there behind the wall. It leads out to the foundations of the barn. We can hide there-"

"They know we are here They'll be looking for a move such as that," objected Lars.

"Not after I cover our trail."

He saw that Lars was pulling on the remnants of a coat. Dessie was almost ready to go and now she helped her father not only to dress but to crawl across the floor to the hole. Dard gave her a pine knot torch before he went to work.

The doors and all the downstairs shutters were barred. Those ought to hold just long enough-

He took a small can from the cupboard and poured its long-saved contents liberally about the room. Then he withdrew to the head of the cellar ladder before hurling a second blazing torch into the nearest patch of liquid. A billow of fire sent him hurtling down with just enough time to pull the trap door shut behind him.

As he shoved aside the rotting bins which concealed the opening to the passage, he could hear the crackling above, and smoke drifted down through the flooring cracks.

A moment later Dessie scuttled into the passage ahead as Dard hauled Lars along with him. Over their heads the house burned. These outside might well believe that their prey burned with it. At the very least the blaze would cover their escape for the precious minutes which meant the difference between life and death.

2: HIDING OUT

BEFORE THEY REACHED the outlet below the barn, Dard brought them to a halt. There was no use emerging into the arms of some snooping Peaceman. It was better to stay in hiding until they could see whether or not the enemy had been fooled by the burning house.

The passage in which the three crouched was walled with rough stone and so narrow that the shoulders of the two adults brushed both sides. It was cold, icy with a chill which crept up from the bare earth underneath through their ill-covered feet to their knees and then into their shivering bodies. How long they could stay there without succumbing to that cold Dard did not know. He bit his lip anxiously as he strained to hear the sound from above.

He was answered by an explosion, the sound and shock of which came to them down the passage from the house. And then there was a slightly hysterical chuckle from Lars.

"What happened?" began Dard, and then answered his own question, "The laboratory!"

"Yes, the laboratory," Lars said, leaning against the wall. There was relaxation in both his pose and voice. "They'll have a mess to comb through now.

"All the better!" snapped Dard. "Will it feed the fire?"

"Feed the fire! It might blow up the whole building. There won't be enough pieces left for them to discover what was inside before the blast."

"Or who might have been there!" For the first time Dard saw a ray of real hope. The Peacemen could not have known of this passage, they probably believed that the dwellers in the farmhouse had been blown up in that explosion. The escape of the Nordis family was covered-they now had a better than even chance.