CHAPTER 5It was then that Manning became aware that he was not alone in watching the screen.
He might not have seen the three children who were crouching in shadows close to the edge of the clearing if the cylinder’s tugging had not become suddenly more violent, causing him to tear his gaze from the screen and stare down at it. The cylinder was pointing directly toward one of the shallow depressions in the soil a short distance from where the vegetation terminated. The shadow of a tall tree fell across it, breaking up the light from the screen into small, weaving patches.
The three children bore a striking family resemblance. They ranged in years from seven or eight to thirteen and one of them was a girl. The girl wore a frayed calico dress, badly soiled and crumpled, and the two boys we
