But most persons, apparently, could not contemplate action of any sort. They could only sit and think, like the Wolvers. A faint smile relaxed Celeste's face. She was thinking, _how beautiful! It means the death of the Solar System, which is a horrifying subjective concept. Objectively, though, it would be a more awesome sight than any human being has ever seen or ever could see. It's an absurd and even brutal thing to wish--but I wish I could see the whole cataclysm from beginning to end. It would make death seem very small, a tiny personal event._ Dotty's face was losing its blank expression, becoming intent and alarmed. "We are in contact with our pursuers," she said in the familiar-unfamiliar voice. "Negotiations are now going on. There seems to be--there _is_ a change in them. Where they were harsh and vindictive before, they now are gentle and conciliatory." She paused, the alarm on her childish features pinching into anxious uncertainty. "Our pursuers have always been shrewd. The change in them may be false, intended merely to lull us into allowing them to come close enough to destroy us. We must not fall into the trap by growing hopeful...." They leaned forward, clutching hands, watching the little face as though it were a television screen. Celeste had the wild feeling that she was listening to a communique from a war so unthinkably vast and violent, between opponents so astronomically huge and nearly immortal, that she felt like no more than a reasoning ameba ... and then realized with an explosive urge to laugh that that was exactly the situation. "No!" said Dotty. Her eyes began to glow. "They _have_ changed! During the eons in which we lay sealed away and hidden from them, knowing nothing of them, they have rebelled against the tyranny of a communal mind to which no thoughts are private ... the tyranny that we ourselves fled to escape. They come not to destroy us, but to welcome us back to a society that we and they can make truly great!" * * * * * Frieda collapsed to a chair, trembling between laughter and hysterical weeping. Theodor looked as blank as Dotty had while waiting for words to speak. Edmund sprang to the picture window, Celeste toward the TV set. Climbing shakily out of the chair, Frieda stumbled to the picture window and peered out beside Edmund. She saw lights bobbing along the paths with a wild excitement. On the TV screen, Celeste watched two brightly lit ships spinning in the sky--whether human spaceships or Phobos and Deimos come to help Earth rejoice, she couldn't tell. Dotty spoke again, the joy in her strange voice forcing them to turn. "And you, dear children, creatures of our camouflage, we welcome you--whatever your future career on these planets or like ones--into the society of enlightened worlds! You need not feel small and alone and helpless ever again, for we shall always be with you!"