Right then he was the scaredest he'd ever been in his life. Yet even as he watched the spaceship turning within the glow of its flaring jets, he kept thinking of his father's warning: "A boy's duty, son, is to keep his eyes and ears open and to give the alarm. We must be alerted ... or we're doomed." It had been drummed into him ever since the landing and explosion of the rockets. He'd been very little then and it was hard to understand. But they'd explained it carefully—over and over again. The