So we were glad to see the soldiers when they came trudging up to our pits. They came after another air raid; a very close one. But the Thing had not infected them yet. War was still a lark. Their faces were still heavy with flesh, their ribs padded, their eyes innocent. They were older than we, an average twenty-five to our average twenty; yet we treated them like children. I remember when two of them, having heard of the Ilu, immediately set off for it, picking their way through the barbed wire, like botanists off on a field trip.
