there were too many of them. He'd just better sneak up quiet and see what was going on.

He eased himself around another turn in the path and came again in view of the oak. The lights were still there, but they no longer looked to be mere points of brightness against an empty sky. He stopped, more puzzled than ever ... they looked like navigation lights on a ship, and a couple of them like the glow from inside a radio. And all of them were swaying gently in the night wind, twenty feet or so above the tree.

Rags went slowly ahead, two feet, three, four, then stopped ... belly almost to the dust. His teeth shone in a soundless snarl, not a muscle of his body moving. Eddie had never seen him act like this, not even when the bear had come down into the valley to raid for chickens. Rags was plainly terrified, and something of the dog's emotion communicated itself. The boy bit his lip grimly, then strained to listen, heard what the dog was hearing; someone ... something was moving about up in the oak.

Some of his fear gave way to anger. "Messin' around in my tree house!"

He gripped the rifle tightly, took two determined steps forward. The third step he never completed. He was unconscious when he pitched into the ground. And when Rags leaped after him, he too crumpled as if dead....

The Commander left his report-strewn desk and strode heavily over to the forward port. Glumly, he looked down at the frosty pitted surface of the satellite a thousand miles away, and in his imagination saw the planet that swung on the dead orb's opposite side. It was nonsense to have to hide behind a moon from such a primitive planet, waiting and waiting like a coward for reassuring information. But such prudence had ever been part of holy Law.

He sighed, turned away from the huge wall of window. Sometimes one wondered about Law, he mused darkly. One did not disobey, of course, but one could not help wondering sometimes. And occasionally one even wondered the blackest heresy of all—was it really important to kill all life everywhere for the sake of colonization.

The Commander caught sight of his reflection in a polished door panel. His own hard eyes glowered out from the reflection accusingly, so he pulled up his shoulders and put all suspicion from his mind. Would he not destroy any of his people for such thoughts? Then he must not allow himself to entertain such blasphemy. Naturally, colonization was all-important. That was Law.

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