Down dropped the aircars to a landing near the laboratory, and to the cubes in the forepeak of each Sarka sent the mental command:
"Assure yourselves that the aircars will remain where they are! Muster inside the laboratory, keeping well away from the Master Beryl!"
Then to the people who had returned, clothed in strange radiance, from the Moon with Sarka and with Jaska he spoke:
"Leave the cars and enter my laboratory, where further orders will be given you!"
With Jaska still by his side, Sarka entered the laboratory through the Exit Dome. Inside, clothing was swiftly brought for the rebels, for Sarka and for Jaska. But, even when they were clothed, these people who had come back seemed to glow with an inner radiance which transfigured them.
Sarka the Second, his face drawn and pale, came from the Observatory to meet his son, and the two were clasped in each other's arms for a moment. Sarka the Second, who had looked no older than his son, seemed to have aged a dozen centuries in the time Sarka had been gone.
But it was not of the threatened attack by Martians that Sarka the Second spoke. He made no statement. He merely asked a question:
"Was Lunar very beautiful, and just a bit unearthly in appearance?"
Sarka started.