"So the kids have taken over everything."
"What they wanted, yes. For a while we thought it was temporary. Dr. Vayle didn't begin drinking until we knew the change was permanent. The oldest kids are nineteen now. They're beginning to marry, and all their children have the same abilities. Or witchcraft. Call it what you like."
"As old as nineteen? Then the change dates from—"
"From your first flight, Captain Greg. I sometimes look at that damn statue in the square and laugh till it hurts. A brave, new frontier you discovered—but that wasn't all you gave us."
"You believe I'm responsible for—" Greg gestured toward the slow decay in the patio. "For this?"
"Who else, Captain? It's the kids who should build you a monument. You gave them the earth."
For the first time Greg saw the monstrosity hidden by his dream. He had made the pioneer flight; and he had created this new generation. The relationship was plain. If he could unravel it and find the real cause—but he knew that now. An invasion, an invisible virus life that had taken over their minds. How? When he knew that, how could he fight it? How could he turn back the clock and restore the earth to man?
He walked slowly to the end of the patio where he could see the deserted field across the highway. In the slot they were still scooping the Redearth of Mars out of the hull of his ship. He smiled grimly. A decade ago the Redearth had been priceless; that one import alone had made the conquest of space commercially possible. Redearth had built Port City and the colonies; Redearth had created the import companies, once so tremendously profitable.
A light burned for a moment above Greg's ship. Clearly he saw the puny, twelve year old boy and the four other children who were dumping the cargo. It gave him another explosive insight. Greg knew then how the invasion had come from the stars.
The Redearth of Mars; the invisible molds of that unknown world: that was the alien life form no man had recognized. The enemy was tangible. The enemy was real. And such an enemy could be conquered.