into the workshop and they swung the massive magnetic dredge carefully aboard. Loesser and the others then hastily chained it to the bed of the truck. Jonny limped toward the cab. "All right, we're starting. Harb, you drive. No, Marn—you're not going to the spaceport with us." Marn, face white and eyes big with fear, saw the gleam of the atom-pistol that Harb was thrusting into his pocket. "Oh, Jonny, not that, no matter what happens!" Jonny's blue eyes flashed arctic light. "That, or anything, now," he rasped. "You know what this means to our people, Marn." Then his face softened, and he patted her arm. Tears streaked her cheeks as she kissed and clung to him, and then to Harb. Carlin was climbing heavily onto the truck when he felt her touch on his arm. "You too, Laird," she whispered, quivering lips blindly pressing his cheek. "All of you must come back." "Get on!" cried Harb Land, and then the truck went into gear. Carlin jumped for the cab, and under the starry night they were rolling at increasing speed down the twisting road toward the valley. And suddenly all the nightmare mocking in Carlin's brain was gone and there was only the rush of sweet air against his face, and the splash of the lamps ahead, and the jolt and rumble of the big machine as they raced down toward the spaceport's distant beacons. Earth air and Earth smells in Carlin's nostrils, sleepy Earth sounds in his ears; the shine of the old spaceport's beacons, and the soaring loom of the distant tower that marked the spot where a man of long ago had first dared space. This world, this little Earth, was worth risking death for, even for a stranger from far stars! He knew he was a little crazy, he still had a corner of his mind that told him all this was mere intoxication of emotion which was sweeping away reason. But the mocking devil in Carlin's mind was gone, and he was one in mind and purpose with his companions, now. The others too were feeling that wild reaction, for Loesser clapped Carlin's shoulder, crying:
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