"Dad?"
"Yes. Me, your old man...."
"We been dodgin' and watchin' for hours, Dad. Let's get out of here!"
He held them to him a second longer, then turned to the communications panel, Mike at his left, Terry at his right. "... They almost caught us at the door down there.... Dad I—I think I killed one...."
"We did as you said, Dad. We watched as much as we could, but most of the time we had to stay on the ground, playing dead...."
The communications dial was still at FIELD ADDRESS.
He looked at it, then looked at the viewscreen. Thousands of them, stilled for so short a moment, now surging, tearing at each other's vitals again. There was a terrible hurt somewhere deep inside him, and he wanted to voice it, to get it out, to tell them somehow.
But they would not understand him if he were to speak for a minute or for an hour. These whom he watched had been lost from the day of their birth.
But, thank Heaven, not the two at his side.
"Get in those hammocks, kids," he said.