"I don't know," she said slowly. "You saved my life. I couldn't let them kill you. I saw how you felt, how you suddenly changed. How you'd become a new person all at once. I couldn't pass judgment on you after that. I hated you and then I didn't hate you anymore. It doesn't matter. It's too late to matter. I ... I...."
Her mind was warm against his.
"They're going back to join the others in the desert now," she said. "They're going to get ready to fight the attack."
"Lauri," Parr said. "Lauri, I've got to do something!"
CHAPTER X
(New York had broken windows now, and the streets were glass littered. An occasional white face peered out suspiciously from above a ground floor. But the heart beat of subways was stilled. The cry had been: "You'll starve in the City!" and there had been an hysterical exodus, slow at first and then faster and faster and faster. The moon marched her train of shadows in the cavern streets.)
In Denver, the moon rode the mountains, calm, misted, serene.
"Parr," he spoke into the comset, and he felt Lauri's hand tighten on his elbow.
He glanced nervously at the sky. He was afraid to see the planet shield blossom as it might any minute to signify the attack had begun. But he feared even worse the absence of it.