Soames went numbly to see what had happened. He picked up scraps of the trimmed-away metal.
Soames puzzled over the metal scraps. They did not look cut. They had mirror-bright surfaces, as if melted apart. But there'd been no flame....
The boys reappeared with the dented case that Soames guessed was a communication device of some sort. They carried it to the new tripod. One of them carried, also, a complicated structure of small rods which could be an antenna-system to transmit radiation of a type that Soames could not conceive of.
Captain Moggs came towards him from the 'copter.
"I called Base," she said. "Two snow-weasels will start here within the hour. Another 'copter is due in from an advanced observation post at any moment. It will be sent here as soon as it arrives."
Soames wondered numbly just how indiscreet she'd been, in a short-wave conversation that could be picked up by any of the other-nation bases that cared to listen in. But, just then, Gail came out of the ship.
"Brad," she said anxiously, "what are the boys doing?"
Soames knew only too well. If the dented case contained a communicator, which would use so complicated an antenna as lay ready for use, there could only be one answer. And there could be only one thing for him to do, considering everything.
"They're shipwrecked. They're setting up something to signal for help with. They've landed on a world of rather primitive savages and they want somebody to come and take them away."
"It mustn't be permitted!" said Captain Moggs firmly. "The ship must be examined! In our modern world, with the military situation what it is...."
Soames looked at her ironically.
He had metal scraps in his hand, those he'd picked up to examine as a savage might examine sawdust. There was a threadlike extension of metal from one scrap. He twisted it off and put it on his sleeve. He struck a light with his cigarette lighter. He touched it to the fibre of metal. There was a burst of flame. His sleeve was singed.
"Mostly magnesium," he said detachedly. "It's possible that they don't think of fire as a danger. They may not use fire any more. We don't light our houses with open flames any longer. They may not use flames at all. But I'm a savage. I do."
He sorted through the bits of silvery metal. Another morsel had a wire-like projection. He saw the boy with the green tunic laying something on the snow, from the ship to the tripod.
"A power-line," he said appalled. "They've got to signal nobody knows how far, with nobody can guess how much power in the signal. And they use power-leads the size of sewing-thread! But of course the people who built this ship would have superconductors!" Then he said, "I may be committing suicide, but I think I ought to, rather than let ..."
He moved forward. His throat was dry. He struck his lighter and touched the flame to the thread of metal on the second scrap. It flared. He threw the whole piece just as all the flammable alloy caught fire. In mid-air it became a ball of savage white incandescence that grew larger and fiercer as it flew. It was a full yard in diameter when it fell upon the dented case the boys had brought here.
That burst into flame. The new-made tripod caught. Flame leaped thirty feet into the air. Soames was scorched and blinded by the glare. Then the fire died swiftly and snow-white ash-particles drifted down on every hand.
The boy in the brown tunic cried out fiercely. He held out his hand with the thing that had cut metal glittering in it.
Soames faced the fourteen-year-old grimly. The boy's face was contorted. There was more than anger in it. The boy in the green tunic clenched and unclenched his hands. His expression was purest horror. One of the girls sobbed. The other spoke in a tone of despair so great and grief so acute that Soames was almost ashamed.
Then the boy in the brown tunic spoke very, very bitterly to the girl who'd evidently said something to restrain him. He turned his eyes from Soames. He went into the ship, stumbling a little.
The whole air of the three remaining children changed utterly. They had been composed and confident and even zestful. They'd acted as if the wrecking of their ship were an adventure rather than a catastrophe. But now they were dazed by disaster. First one of the girls, and then the second boy, and then the other girl went despairingly into the ship.
Soames looked at Gail. The boy in the brown tunic had pointed at him with the object that cut metal plates in half. He'd been stopped, most likely, by the girl's grief-stricken words. Soames had a profound conviction that the boy could easily have killed him. He had an equally strong conviction that it could have been a low price to pay for preventing the rest of these children's race from finding Earth.
"I suppose," said Gail, "that you feel pretty badly."
"I'm a savage. I've destroyed their signalling device. I may have kept their civilization from destroying ours. I feel like a murderer," he told her grimly. "And of children, at that. With luck, I may have kept them from ever seeing their families again."
After a long time Gail said with a curiously mirthless attempt at humor:
"Do you know, this is the biggest news story that's ever happened? And do you know that nobody would believe it?"
"But this," said Captain Moggs firmly, "is a matter of such military importance that nothing must be said about it at all! Nothing!"
Soames made no comment, but he didn't think the matter could be kept secret.
They waited. The children stayed in the ship.
After a very long time the children appeared again. The girls' faces were tear-streaked. They brought small possessions and placed them neatly in the snow. They went back for more.
"At a guess," said Soames, "that super-radar of theirs has shown them a 'copter on the way. They know they can't stay here. I've made it impossible for them to hope to be found. They've got to let themselves be taken away and they want to keep these things."
The bringing-out of small objects ended. The boy in the brown tunic went back in the ship.
When he re-emerged, he said something in the bitterest of bitter voices. The girls turned their backs to the ship. The girl with brown eyes began to weep. The boy in the green tunic shifted the small tripod to a new position. As he carried it, the calmness and the warmth of the air changed remarkably. There was a monstrous gust of icy wind, and warm calm, and another gust. But when he put the tripod down again there was only calm once more.
Soames heard the droning of another 'copter, far away.
The boy in the green tunic held out his hand. It had the glittering tiny object in it. From a fifty-foot distance, he swept his hand from one end to the other of the wrecked ship. Flame leaped up. The magnesium-alloy vessel burned with a brightness that stung and dazzled the eyes. A monstrous, a colossal flaming flare leaped and soared ... and died. Too late, Soames fumbled for his camera. There was no longer a wrecked ship on the ice. There were only a few, smoking, steaming fragments.
When the second 'copter landed beside the first, the four children were waiting composedly to be taken away.
CHAPTER 3
The world's affairs went on as usual. There were the customary number of international crises. The current diplomacy preferred blackmail by threat of atomic war.
Naturally, even Antarctica could be used to create turmoil. The population of the continent was confined to the staffs of research-bases established during the International Geophysical Year. In theory the bases were an object-lesson in co-operation for a constructive purpose, which splendid spirit of mutual trust and confidence must spread through the world and some day lead to an era of blissful and unsuspicious peacefulness.
But that time was not yet.
There'd been an outburst of static of an unprecedented kind.