 Why were the cadets outside alone?
They were something more—and something less—they were, in short, humanity's hopes for survival! The Starship Pandora creaked and groaned as her landing pads settled unevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. She seemed to be restless to end her fool's errand here, two hundred light years from the waiting hordes on Earth. Captain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. The starlanes between Earth and her potential colonies were rough on the men who traveled them now. The blobs were a peculiarity of this planet about which nobody knew anything. They looked like overgrown fireballs, but seemed to have an almost sentient curiosity about anything moving on the ground. "And our two cadets sneaked out again. Earth couldn't turn out enough starmen in the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for training as cadets on their twelfth birthday. The two he'd drawn, Kaufman and Pinelli, seemed to be totally devoid of any sense of caution. The blobs hadn't seemed dangerous, and the local animals were apparently all herbivorous and harmless. But something had happened to the exploration party fifteen years back, and to the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to check up. The Sol-type sun must be rising, since there was a dim light. Even the deep gorge where they'd found Hennessy's carefully buried ship was completely hidden by the fog. There were three of the blobs dancing about over the grazing animals now, as they often seemed to do. Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load of deep-sleep stored colonists on Official World 71, to check on any sign of Hennessy. Now the three were streaking at fantastic speed to a spot near the ship, to hover excitedly above something that moved there. He saw the two cadets then, heading back to the waiting ship, just beyond the movement he'd seen through the mist. It was too far to see clearly, but Gwayne grabbed the microphone, yelling into the radio toward the cadets. One seemed to be almost eight feet tall, leading the others directly toward the spacesuited cadets. There was a momentary halt, and then the leader lifted one arm, as if motioning the others forward. One, at the front, was stuttering into life, and Gwayne dashed for it as the exit port slid back. The creatures dived downward into lower ground, beginning to disappear into the mists. Then it cleared to show the mob of creatures doubling back on their own trail to confuse the pursuers.
 They were young and untrained.
 They were lost.  They were young and untrained.  They were on a mission.  They were insubordinate.