"I wouldn't forget," Billy Kasker said.
"But, Billy, it's been twelve years since I traded you, as a kid of five, for one of their brats—changing the bracelet as I changed you. Many times since then I've thought you had forgotten, or that I wouldn't live to see the day when you came back here with a graduating class."
"I don't forget," Billy Kasker said. "I'm even class president!" The words burst out of him as if he was still having trouble understanding what they meant.
"That's wonderful, Billy. You're accepted as one of them, but you're one of us all the time. You're in with them, you're set. You have done a wonderful job and I'm proud of you."
The glow in the native's eyes was a wonderful sight to behold. In it there showed the hope of the future for all the conquered natives of this lost planet that had once been called Earth—the faith, the sure knowledge that they would rise again ... indeed, that they were already rising.
"Thank you! But—" Billy nodded toward the body of the instructor, then spun hastily as a sound came from the rear of the shed, the Thor gun coming to focus. A trap door was rising there. Three natives were looking up from under it.
"They're all right," the brown native said quickly. "They're with us."
Three ragged men scrambled up from below. They looked at the brown native, then at the body of the instructor on the floor. A look of fierce exultation appeared on their faces. Then they looked at Billy Kasker and at the Thor gun he was holding.
"Give the Thor gun to Jim," the brown native said.
Without hesitation Billy Kasker handed the gun to the native who reached for it. Jim did everything but kiss the weapon. "God, the years I've spent dreaming of the moment when I would get one of these babies into my hands! One was all I needed."