THE STARS ARE OURS

Dard studied what he had just done. Dessie was right, legs kicked, one a little more exuberantly than the other. He smiled and then glanced up with a start, for Lars had struggled to his feet and was edging around the table without the aid of his crutches. He looked at the straggling lines his brows drawn together in a frown of concentration. From the breast pocket of his patched shirt he took out a scrap of peeled bark they used for paper-keeping it half-concealed in the palm of his hand so that what was noted on it remained a secret. Taking the writing stick from Dard he began to make notations, but the scratchings were all numbers not words.

Erasing with the side of his hand now and again he worked feverishly until at last he gave a quick nod as if in self-reassurance, and let his last combinations stand among the line pattern Dard had seen in Dessie's nonsense rhyme.

"This is important-both of you-" his voice was almost a whip lash of impatient command "The pattern you see for Dessie's lines, Dard-but-these words." Slowly he recited, accenting heavily each word he spoke.

"Seven, nine, four and ten.

Twenty, sixty, and seven again."

Dard studied the smudged diagram on the table top until he was sure that it was engraved on his memory for all time.

When he nodded, Lars turned and tossed the note chip into the fire. Then his eyes met his brother's in a straight measuring look over the little girl's bent head.

"It's all yours, Dard, just remember-"

But the younger Nordis had only said, "I'll do it," when Dessie, uncomprehendingly, broke in.

"Seven, nine, four and ten," she repeated solemnly,

"Twenty, sixty, and seven again. Why, it sings just as mine does-you're right, Daddy!"

"Yes. Now how about bed." Lars lurched back to his chair. "It's dark. You'd better go, too, Dard."

That was an order. Lars was expecting someone tonight, then. Dard raked two bricks away from the fire and wrapped them up in charred pieces of blanket. Then he opened the door to the crooked stairs which led to the room overhead. There it was dark and the cold was bitter. But moonlight made a short path from the uncurtained window-enough to show them the pile of straw and ragged bed covers huddled close to the chimney where some heat came up from the fire below. Dard made a nest with the bricks laid in to warm it and pushed Dessie back as far as he could without smothering her. Then he stood for a moment looking out across the moonlit snow.

They were a safe mile from the road and be had taken certain precautions of his own to insure that no sneaking patrol of Peacemen could enter the lane without warning. Across the fields was only Folley's place-though that was a lurking danger. Behind loomed the mountains, which, wild as they were, promised safety of a kind. If only Lars were not crippled they could have gone into the hills long ago.

When they first reached the farm it had seemed a haven of safety after two years of hiding and being hunted. There was so much confusion after Renzi's assassination and the following purge, with the Peacemen busily consolidating their power, that small fry among the remaining techneers and scientists had managed to stay free of the first nets. But now patrols were combing everywhere and some day, sooner or later, one would come here-especially if Folley revealed his suspicions to the right people. Folley wanted the farm, and he hated Lars and Dard because they were different. To be different nowadays was to sign your own death warrant. How much longer would they escape the notice of a roundup gang?

Dard was aroused from the blackest of forebodings to discover that he was biting savagely on the knuckles of a balled fist. With two quick steps he crossed the small room and felt along the shelf. His heart leaped as his groping fingers closed about the haft of a knife. Not much good against a stun rifle maybe. But when he held it so, he did not feel completely defenseless.

On impulse he put it inside his clothing, against skin which shrunk from the icy metal. And then he crawled into the nest of straw.

"Hmm- ?" came a sleepy murmur from Dessie.

"It's Dardie," he whispered reassuringly "Go to sleep."

It might have been hours later, or minutes, when Dard came suddenly awake. He lay rigid, listening. There was no sound in the old house, not even the creak of a board. But he pulled out into the cold and crawled to the window. Something had awakened him, and the fear he lived with put him on guard.

He strained to see all the details of the bright white and black landscape. A shadow moved between moon and snow. There was a 'copter coming down, making a silent landing just before the house. Figures leaped out of it and flitted to right and left, encircling the dwelling.

Dard ran back to scoop Dessie out of the warmth of the bed, clapping his hand over her mouth. Her eyes opened, wide with fear. as he put his lips close to her car.

"Go down to Daddy," he ordered. "Wake him!"