The horizon split into jagged, broken moats of dark flame, and Earth was no longer what men had built, but what they eternally feared they must one day create....
Then Johnny Love was suddenly awake bolt upright in his cot and his eyes were open wide. His muscles were taut and cramped. And he was afraid although the men of Mars had offered friendship and told him that there was nothing for him to fear.
Slowly, he lay down again. And gradually, the cold perspiration that had encased him vanished; his body relaxed, and the fear subsided.
The day's tour had been exhausting both mentally and physically, and there was the excitement of knowing that in five more days Harrison and Janes would land. If they did not, his own ship would carry him safely back to Earth on the day following, for the little men had miraculously repaired it; they had shown him. They had shown him, and he wanted to go home.
Johnny Love rolled over on the wide, soft cot, sighed, and went back to sleep.
"He sleeps again, Andruul."
"Yes, but the damage is probably done."
"No, or he would not sleep again so easily. His kind do not have such emotional control."
The two turned away from the fading transparency of the sleeping-room wall, and their short, thin bodies were in incongruous contrast to the spaciousness of the metal-sheathed corridor down which they walked.