it's you who owns the short-wave set downstairs?" demanded Mr. Friedlander. "I never stopped on the landing. I always ran upstairs. You see, I didn't want to know who owned the short-wave, who listened to the—"

"The free radio, other side of the Rockies? Go ahead, say it. Listen to me, Mr. Friedlander. Those Karadi ain't here to stay. If you stopped to think of it a minute, you'd understand like the rest of us."

"The rest of you?"

"Well, a lot of us, anyway. They don't need us. We have nothing they want. They enjoy making us knuckle under, is all. Something in their makeup, I don't know what. They won't stay here forever, though some of us won't be around long enough to see them go."

"What's all that got to do with...?"

"With Freddie and the short-wave? He's been captured, Mr. Friedlander! By the free folk. He's on their side now, the side all of us want to be on but can't be. He's alive, you understand?"

"You wouldn't just be saying this? You're sure?"

"Wouldn't you trust the word of your own people, the people who saw him come down by parachute, who took him in, got his name and beamed it back here so you, his folks, wouldn't have to worry none? Well, wouldn't you?"

"Yes!" Mrs. Friedlander cried in a tremulous voice. "Oh, yes...."

"Sensible girl," said Mr. Davidson.

Walking to the window and wiping away a circle of frost with his hand, Mr. Friedlander felt a spring in his step he hadn't felt for twenty years, since the day the Karadi came swooping down from space and caught the world in a tired breathing spell in World War III. Freddie was alive—and safe. Freddie was free. He must tell everyone. He must shout it now, to all the neighbors, and shout it again at work tomorrow, and withdraw his announcement from the Karadi Newspaper and a hundred other things. He lifted the warped window, with cardboard replacing two of the shattered panes, and breathed in the crisp, cold night air. "I'll visit the newspaper in the morning," he said. "Tell them to forget all about the announcement." He turned around and faced his wife and Mr. Davidson. "What are you crying for? Stop crying."

"I'm so happy, Fred."

"Maybe I can get down to the newspaper now and see their night man."

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