THE STARS ARE OURS

They came out on what was now a well-defined path running up to the main entrance of the cave. Three men were working on a swinging platform suspended from the top of the cliff, fitting clear glass into a hole ready to receive it as a window:

"Dardie! Dardie! Dardie!"

A whirlwind swept down upon him, wrapping thin arms about his waist, burrowing a face against him. He went down on his knees and took Dessie into a tight hug.

"Dardie," she was sniffling a little. "They said you would come an' I've been watching all the time! Dardie," she smiled at him blissfully, "I do like this place! I do! There are lots of animals in the grass and some of them have houses just like us-and they like me! Now that you've come home, Dardie, everything is wonderful-truly it is!"

"It sure is, honey."

"So there you are, son," Trude Harmon bore down upon him. "Hungry, too, I'll wager. You come right in and rest and eat. Heard tell that you had yourselves some excitin' times."

With Dessie holding his hand tightly and Lanny bringing up the rear still carrying his pack, Dard came into a room where there was a long table flanked by benches. Kimber was already sitting there, empty plates before him, talking to an excited Kordov.

"But where did they go-those city dwellers?" the little biologist sputtered as Dard waded into the food Trude Harmon spread before him. "They could not just vanish- pouff!" He snapped his fingers. "As if they were but puffs of smoke!"

Kimber gave the same answer to that question as Dard had made. "Say an epidemic following war-germ warfare-or radiation sickness-who can tell now? By the weathering of the city they have been gone a long time. We found no traces of anything but animal life. And nothing to fear but the lizards...

"A whole world deserted!" Kordov shook his head. "It is enough to frighten one! Those Others took the wrong turning somewhere."

"It is up to us to see that we don't follow their example," Kimber cut in.

That evening the voyagers gathered about a giant campfire in the open space before the cliff house, while Kimber and the others in turn recited the saga of their journey into the interior. The city, the robot-controlled battery, the battle with the lizards, held their listeners enthralled. But when they had done the question came again:

"But where did they go?"

Kordov gave the suggested answers, but then he added:

"It would be better if we asked ourselves now why did they go and be governed by the reply to that. They have left us a deserted land in which to make a new beginning. Though we must not forget that in other continents of this world some remnants of that race may still exist. Wisdom suggests alertness in the future."

Dessie, sitting in Dard's lap, leaned her head back against his shoulder and whispered:

"I like hearing about the night monkeys, Dardie. Do you suppose they will ever come here so I can see them too? Knowing them would be fun."

"Yes, it would," he whispered back.

Maybe someday when they were sure of safety beyond the cliffs, all the Terrans could venture out and he could show Dessie the night monkeys. But not until the last of that scaled death had been found and exterminated!

Since Kimber could not use his arm until the shoulder wound healed, Dard became hands for the pilot, working with Cully on the damaged sled. Seeing that he could and did follow instructions, Cully went back to his own pet project of dismantling the engine of the carrier they had rescued from the sea tube. He intended some day, he insisted, to hunt out that second car from the lizard valley and compare the two.

Dessie kept near them as they worked. She was Dard's shadow in the waking hours, as she had always been since taking her first uncertain steps. The other children were objects to be watched with sober interest, but as yet she preferred company she knew. And, since she was perfectly content to sit quietly, absorbed in the antics of the hoppers, insects, and the butterfly-birds; they often forgot she was with them.

"No- "

Dard was startled into turning by her sudden cry. She was having a tug of war with the largest hopper he had yet seen, a grandfather of a clan at least. But Dessie's strength was superior, and she wrenched away the prize the animal had just stolen from the blouse Dard had discarded in the heat.

"He opened your pocket," she told the boy indignantly,"and he took this out, just as if it were his own! What is it? Pretty-" She crooned the word as she fingered the sheets in which colors ran in waving bands.

"Why- I'd forgotten all about that. It's a book-or I think it is, Dessie. It belonged to Those Others."

"A what!" Kimber reached for it. "Where did you get it., kid?"

Dard explained how he had found it in the hidden room of the gun emplacement and of his theory that Those Others might have used the bands of color as a means of communication.

"I was going to compare it with those shots you took on microfilm of that doorway in the city. And then so much happened I forgot all about it."