His face was stricken in the light of a new flare, and as suddenly as he had come to object, he left, plunged back under the trees to seek his people, be beside them, comforting them when disaster struck down.
After a time the three men gave up trying to wave their acknowledgment of the flares in darkness. They watched for an hour or so, and then tried to sleep. The periodic flares continued to come throughout the long night, as if now no longer pleading for acknowledgment, but rather reassuring men in such deep distress that they could not answer. Reassuring them that help was at hand and morning would come.
They tried to sleep, and although fitfully disturbed by the continuing flares, they did sleep. But at the first hint of dawn, Cal awoke and aroused his two companions, and by the time there was enough light for the ship to see clear detail upon the ground, the three men were ready for a better attempt at answering the ship's signal.
They went up to the village site, where the colonists were sleeping in the way a herd is bedded down together. They awoke Frank and Martha, Ahmed and Dirk, and told them of their plan. Louie, too, awoke, heard the plan, and tried to warn them against it. Any attempt, he said, to communicate with those not on Eden would surely increase the wrath of Those who wanted only the natural state here—a wrath still withheld because of superhuman mercy, but which must not be tried too far.
In spite of his warnings, Cal, and those co-operating with him, got together enough colonists to carry out his plan.
Good-naturedly, the colonists did as they were told, but with the attitude that it was something amusing, that there was nothing they'd rather be doing at the moment. Any sense of urgency about communicating with home seemed to have been washed from their minds.
In a clear space, on the soft grass, Cal got the colonists to sit or lie in certain positions. Checked against Tom's knowledge of ancient signal patterns, those certain positions took the shape of space-navy patterns.
Three men lay in a triangle. Next to that, six men sat in a circle, and last three more men lay in another triangle. Cal hoped someone on the ship would be able to read the ancient message.
"Keep clear of me. I am maneuvering with difficulty."
The signal had no more than formed when there was a flash from the ship so bright that it could be seen in the morning sky. They had read his signal, and now they began a series of flashes, of questions. "What's going on down there?" was the essence of their questioning.