Dr. Ashley very deliberately allowed his anger to cool, his quick brown eyes flashing to Peter in radiant sympathy. "It won't happen again, son," he promised. "If it does, he'll wish he never was born," Mrs. Ashley agreed, staring at Mr. Caxton with a hate so cold and merciless it brought all of his terror back. Perhaps buried somewhere deep in Mr. Caxton's mind was a childhood fear of punishment at the hands of a scolding woman. It could have explained why he trembled and turned pale, and went stumbling out of the shack without a backward glance. It was of no great importance, and it would have been silly for Peter's parents to waste any sympathy on him. They didn't. Dr. Ashley went up to his son, and gripped him by the shoulder with all of the gentleness of a supremely wise parent with a bedrock of granitelike strength to draw upon. "Never let malicious envy disturb you, son," he said. "If anyone hates you enough to push you around you can rest assured there's a secret envy gnawing away at him." Seeing the puzzlement in Peter's eyes, Dr. Ashley smiled reassuringly. "Mr. Caxton has a complicated approach to everything. He'd like to see nature as you do, son--simply and clearly with a boy's shining vision. He never could, and that shriveled him up tragically." "I really did see a bird, Pop. It stood in the doorway and--" "We've neglected you shamefully, Tommy," Mrs. Ashley said. "We've gone poking around in buried cities without realizing that the Martians never had it so good. A living son and daughter are worth all of the archeological treasures on Earth. Why shouldn't they be worth even more on Mars?" "Your mother's right," Dr. Ashley said. "It's a brave, new world, and there are so many shining roads ahead we'd be crazy not to go jogging along them together." Mr. Caxton stood for a moment just outside the shack listening to the children's excited voices rejoicing in a reunion he was powerless to spoil. He stood swaying and cursing, telling himself that he had been quite mad to let the Ashleys make him look like a fool. Peter had lied about the bird, hadn't he? Deliberately made the whole thing up for the sole purpose of ruining his reputation as a kindly and tolerant man whose only fault was a certain severity of temper which he could not always control. For a moment Mr. Caxton fingered his bruised jaw, and remembered with a shudder the look of quite unreasoning fury in Mrs. Ashley's eyes. Then he straightened his shoulders, shook his fist at the empty air, and started back toward his own shack. Mr. Caxton did not get far. At first all he saw was a weaving blur in the darkness a few yards ahead of him, and all he felt was a chill wind blowing up his spine. He thought for a moment that the blur was casting an actual shadow, and that terrifyingly in the darkness there had appeared for the barest instant the glitter and gleam of claws.