Christmas came again, but this time there was no free hour to sing carols. It was like any other day, and the meditation hours on Sunday were discontinued. A series of strikes came in quick succession, but the protection was better and there was insulation against the pressure. She spent long hours with others huddled in padded dungeons a mile below the surface. She got so she could sleep through the strikes when they were not too close to the factory. Alfred came back in February. He looked much older, but his hair was not totally gray and his features were not wrinkled. He arranged for special accommodations, and late that night when he took off his clothes she saw the scars. It was the first time she had cried since her mother's death. He chucked her under the chin and said, "This is nothing. You should've seen me before the surgeons got through." The Council and the Center clashed over the rule that girls should not be permitted to work more than sixteen hours when their husbands were on leave. The Center won, claiming it was a morale factor, and she went back to a sixteen-hour shift. The age to go out was lowered to fourteen and a half and it was announced that the next class would be thirteen and a half. Boys now were going out with half the training earlier ones had had. When it was announced that production was catching up and that girls might be permitted to volunteer for training she mentioned it to Alfred. And that was the first time she ever saw his features show fear. "No, Sue," he said. "Don't even think of it. You can't conceive of what it is." In irritation she demanded, "Tell me about the Zeehites." He looked startled. "You mustn't think about them. That's why we are fighting, so our women won't ever have to see one." "But I have to know." He understood her thoughts, as he had in the past, and finally said, "I shan't describe them because there is nothing on Earth to compare them with, and a picture of one would give you nightmares. They have remarkable minds but no emotions. They can concentrate on a single objective and persevere toward it with unbelievable endurance. They are almost incapable of suffering pain and as a result are cruel beyond imagining. They hardly know fear and are terrible fighters. Because they lack a faculty for caution we can trick them, and often we pick up their thoughts and know their plans in advance. Those are the things that have enabled us to survive, for they seem to number as the stars." "Where did they come from?"