CHAPTER VIIJim Lawrence suddenly found himself watching the flickering again, startled by the streaks of jet blackness which were creeping into it. As he continued to stare the streaks resolved themselves into trees, their enormous boles spaced at sentry-like intervals around a forest clearing. In the midst of the clearing the wrecked Scorpion spaceship leapt into sudden prominence, its long, cylindrical hull enveloped in slanting shafts of moonlight.
Lawrence had known the setting as a boy, and it took him only an instant to recognize it. Hillsdale Wood, the sloping stretch of dense trees and grassland a few miles to the east of the town. Only the ship was new, an intruder on the sylvan solitude. The descent of the ship had charred the great oaks close to it, and had channeled a deep cre
