rhaps the same way that the normals
pitied him.

Still, he wanted to talk to her. He wanted to be her friend. Because he
was sure now that he could search the mountains forever, and perhaps
find other people, even if those he found were like her, and Mag and
Nell.

"Listen, Lisa," he said. "I can't live up here. I live in the valley. I
came in an aircar, and it's down in the canyon below here. I have to go
back--soon. Before it gets completely dark."

"Why?"

"If I don't the normals will come looking for me. They'll find the
aircar and then they'll find us. And you and your family will be taken
away. Don't you understand?"

"You're going?" Lisa said.

"In a little while. I must."

She looked at him, strangely. She looked at his clothes, at his face, at
his body. Then she looked at her own hands and touched her own coarse
dress, and she nodded.

"You won't come back," she said. "You don't like me. I'm not what you
were searching for."

He couldn't answer. Her words hurt him. The very fact that she could
recognize their difference from each other hurt him. He pitied her still
more.

"I'll come back," he said, "Of course I will. As often as I can. You're
the only other people I've ever known who didn't perceive."

She looked up into his face again. Her eyes were very large. They were
the only beautiful thing about her.

"Even if you do come back, you won't want me."

There wasn't any answer at all.

* * * * *

It was dusk when Eric got back to the museum. He landed the aircar and
climbed out and walked across to the building, still feeling unreal,
still not believing that the events of this day had actually happened.

He nodded to Prior and the old caretaker nodded back and then stood
staring at him, troubled and curious. Eric didn't notice the other's
expression, nor the fact that Prior followed him to the top of the
spiral ramp and remained there for a while, watching.

Eric stood at the bottom of the well where he had so often stood before,
staring across at the ship, then looking up, up, up its sleek length to
where its nose pointed yearningly toward the night sky. But tonight he
found no comfort in the sight, no sense of kinship with its builders.
Tonight the ship was a dead and empty thing.

"_You won't want me--_" Her voice, her eyes, came between him and the
stars.

He had thought of finding his people and sharing with them their common
heritage from the pas