Dr. L'Hai shrugged the thought away. He cared little for the extinct generations of Martians, only for the new one, budding carefully under the hands of Earth-science. And then the air in their head-covering plastic bubbles had run short, and they had returned clumsily in the vague and always-alien atmosphere toward their bubble-home, where the generators made air that was always fresh and breathable. And now here was Bar, one of those babies grown, burnt by an alien sun, and an alien defiance. "We did much too good a job," the professor thought again, and waited for the young man to speak. "You're looking at me," Bar boomed. He didn't need a microphone; his resonant voice carried easily. "I'm different from you now, aren't I, Professor?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Yes, I'm different. We're _all_ different. We can breathe this air while _you_ must stay in your domes. We are strong and big. _You_, and all your kind--are weak and puny. "You made one mistake, Professor Dayton. You carefully nurtured us, fifty-three kids, so that we could breathe and walk on Mars as free men. You did it, Professor, and it was a marvelous job. "But now, esteemed Professor, we want to be _free_. We don't want to walk on our planet for Earthlings. We are Martians...." There was a murmur of assent from the others. "We are bronze-skinned Martians," Bar went on. "And Mars is _ours_, by all rights. Earth may be our mother, but Mars is our father. And, like all good sons, we stay with our father!" A cheer went up, and again Dayton shivered. His mind flashed back and for the second time he asked himself: "How long have I half-expected this?" The children were all seven and a half years old, and they had made remarkable progress. One month earlier, they had been taken out of their air-bubbles. All the scientists had watched them with trepidation, but nothing had gone wrong. The children had not even noticed the difference. Their little lungs had already swelled and they inhaled and exhaled the vague air as they might have inhaled the normal air on Earth. * * * * * They were still bundled tightly against the cold, but--for the first time--they were permitted to run around. They could actually run; they didn't leap and spring like so many pogo-sticks, as did the older men. They ran, they played, and the heavy little muscles in their young legs held them down. Around them were always three men, supervising. Dayton was one of the supervisors that day. Bar was the ring-leader, only then his name had been David Lombardy. He was a sharp one, the first to discover that they could out-run, out-leap, out-maneuver their elders. "Catch me!" he taunted Dayton, evading the latter's grip at every turn. "Catch me, if you can!" And the others took it up, laughing and screaming and running helter-skelter.