“What would the sentence have been?”
“The logical one would be restriction to the half-mile circle for a week or two. You certainly behaved like a six-year-old. Let’s consider that that’s hanging over your head, and go on to more immediate matters. I suppose Edie knows all about this?”
“She knows about what happened that night. Not about the times I’ve gone out since.”
“All right. After breakfast, get her and come with me. We have a number of things to talk over.”
It turned out that Don was also at the meeting. This was held in a little natural amphitheater a few yards uphill from the house, which had been fitted with split-log benches. Mr. Wing wasted no time, but told the younger children the same story he had told Donald a few days before. Then Roger repeated his tale, mostly for his older brother’s benefit. Don had, of course, seen a Sarrian torpedo by this time, as he had been present when the first load of tobacco had been delivered a few days before; and there seemed to be little doubt that the structure Roger had encountered was of the same origin.
“I don’t understand why they’re shifting their base of operations after all these years.” Mr. Wing looked puzzled. “They’ve been coming back to that same gadget which we think is a directional transmitter every summer since before Don was born.”
“You don’t really know that they haven’t landed anywhere else, though,” pointed out Donald. “It just happened that Roger met one of their torpedoes. There might have been any number of others, anywhere on the earth.”
“That’s true, of course. Rog, you didn’t find any traces of other landings on these night walks of yours, did you?”
“I’m not sure, Dad. There’s a little patch of bushes all by itself on a hilltop out that way, that’s been burnt over. I couldn’t find any sign of a campfire, and there haven’t been any thunderstorms. I thought maybe one of the things had dropped something like the thing that burned my hand, and started the fire; but I couldn’t find anything of the sort. I don’t really know what started it.”
“I see. Then to sum up, we’ve been trading with creatures not native to this world for a long time; we may or may not be the only ones doing so; on at least one occasion they sent down a craft whose primary mission does not seem to have been trade.”