He shut his eyes tight.
In his mind’s gaze Jimmy saw himself holding the Harmon brothers up by their long, mottled legs. The Harmon brothers were frogs. Not friendly, good natured frogs like Uncle Al, but snake frogs. Cottonmouth frogs.
All flannel red were their mouths, and they had long evil fangs which dripped poison in the sunlight. But Jimmy wasn’t afraid of them no-ways. Not any more. He had too firm a grip on their legs.
“Don’t let anything happen to Uncle Al and Pigtail!” Jimmy whispered, as though he were talking to himself. No—not exactly to himself. To someone like himself, only larger. Very close to Jimmy, but larger, more powerful.
“Catch them before they harm Uncle Al! Hurry! Hurry!”
There was a strange lifting sensation in Jimmy’s chest now. As though he could shake the river if he tried hard enough, tilt it, send it swirling in great thunderous white surges clear down to Lake Pontchartrain.
But Jimmy didn’t want to tilt the river. Not with Uncle Al on it and Pigtail, and all those people in New Orleans who would disappear right off the streets. They were frogs too, maybe, but good frogs. Not like the Harmon brothers.
Jimmy had a funny picture of himself much younger than he was. Jimmy saw himself as a great husky baby, standing in the middle of the river and blowing on it with all his might. The waves rose and rose, and Jimmy’s cheeks swelled out and the river kept getting angrier.
No—he must fight that.
“Save Uncle Al!” he whispered fiercely. “Just save him—and Pigtail!”
It began to happen the instant Jimmy opened his eyes. Around the bend in the sunlight came a great spinning disk, wrapped in a fiery glow.
Straight toward the Harmon shantyboat the disk swept, water spurting up all about it, its bottom fifty feet wide. There was no collision. Only a brightness for one awful instant where the shantyboat was twisting and turning in the current, a brightness that outshone the rising sun.
Just like a camera flashbulb going off, but bigger, brighter. So big and bright that Jimmy could see the faces of the Harmon brothers fifty times as large as life, shriveling and disappearing in a magnifying burst of flame high above the cypress trees. Just as though a giant in the sky had trained a big burning glass on the Harmon brothers and whipped it back quick.
Whipped it straight up, so that the faces would grow huge before dissolving as a warning to all snakes. There was an evil anguish in the dissolving faces which made Jimmy’s blood run cold. Then the disk was alone in the middle of the river, spinning around and around, the shantyboat swallowed up.
And Uncle Al was still swimming, fearfully close to it.
The net came swirling out of the disk over Uncle Al like a great, dew-drenched gossamer web. It enmeshed him as he swam, so gently that he hardly seemed to struggle or even to be aware of what was happening to him.
Pigtail didn’t resist, either. She simply stopped thrashing in Uncle Al’s arms, as though a great wonder had come upon her.
Slowly Uncle Al and Pigtail were drawn into the disk. Jimmy could see Uncle Al reclining in the web, with Pigtail in the crook of his arm, his long, angular body as quiet as a butterfly in its deep winter sleep inside a swaying glass cocoon.
Uncle Al and Pigtail, being drawn together into the disk as Jimmy stared, a dull pounding in his chest. After a moment the pounding subsided and a silence settled down over the river.
Jimmy sucked in his breath. The voices began quietly, as though they had been waiting for a long time to speak to Jimmy deep inside his head, and didn’t want to frighten him in any way.
“Take it easy, Jimmy! Stay where you are. We’re just going to have a friendly little talk with Uncle Al.”
“A t‑talk?” Jimmy heard himself stammering.
“We knew we’d find you where life flows simply and serenely, Jimmy. Your parents took care of that before they left you with Uncle Al.
“You see, Jimmy, we wanted you to study the Earth people on a great, wide flowing river, far from the cruel, twisted places. To grow up with them, Jimmy—and to understand them. Especially the Uncle Als. For Uncle Al is unspoiled, Jimmy. If there’s any hope at all for Earth as we guide and watch it, that hope burns most brightly in the Uncle Als!”
The voice paused, then went on quickly. “You see, Jimmy, you’re not human in the same way that your sister is human—or Uncle Al. But you’re still young enough to feel human, and we want you to feel human, Jimmy.”
“W—Who are you?” Jimmy gasped.
“We are the Shining Ones, Jimmy! For wide wastes of years we have cruised Earth’s skies, almost unnoticed by the Earth people. When darkness wraps the Earth in a great, spinning shroud we hide our ships close to the cities, and glide through the silent streets in search of our young. You see, Jimmy, we must watch and protect the young of our race until sturdiness comes upon them, and they are ready for the Great Change.”
For an instant there was a strange, humming sound deep inside Jimmy’s head, like the drowsy murmur of bees in a dew-drenched clover patch. Then the voice droned on. “The Earth people are frightened by our ships now, for their cruel wars have put a great fear of death in their hearts. They watch the skies with sharper eyes, and their minds have groped closer to the truth.
“To the Earth people our ships are no longer the fireballs of mysterious legend, haunted will-o’-the-wisps, marsh flickerings and the even more illusive distortions of the sick in mind. It is a long bold step from fireballs to flying saucers, Jimmy. A day will come when the Earth people will be wise enough to put aside fear. Then we can show ourselves to them as we
