Diane stood up, still trembling. "It took me three days to save your life," she said. "You saved mine in seconds."
Johnny handed her the knife. "Let's find your people," he said.
CHAPTER III
It was Harry Starbuck who met them when they emerged from a long, winding defile overgrown with vegetation. The defile opened into a depression, perhaps half a mile wide, surrounded on all sides by low hills, steep-sloped and blue green with pine. Unless the Robots happened upon the almost hidden defile, Diane's Shining Ones could not have selected a better hiding place for their present encampment.
Starbuck greeted Diane with, "In this case you had more luck than brains. I see he has survived."
"He's one of us now."
When she said that, Johnny looked down at his silver knees self-consciously. In time, he hoped, he would grow accustomed to it. But right now he felt himself somehow between two worlds, divorced from his own people but not ready to accept the nomadic existence of the Shining Ones.
Starbuck grinned without humor. "Well, then he's in time to help us move, although I'm opposed to it."
"To what?" Diane demanded angrily. "To Johnny? That's just too bad."