meet him, laughing, openly glad that he
had come.

He smiled back at her and walked along beside her, having to take long
strides to match her skipping ones, and he too was glad that he'd come.
Lately he felt like this every day. It was a feeling he couldn't
analyze. Nothing had changed. The girl was still too thin and too brown
and too dirty, although now she had begun to wash her dress and her body
in the mountain stream and to comb the snarls from her hair. But it
didn't make her attractive to him. It only made her less unattractive.

"Will you always have to go away every night?" she asked guilelessly.

"I suppose so."

He looked down at her and smiled, wondering why he came. There was still
an air of unreality about the whole situation. He felt numb. He had felt
that way ever since the first day, and the feeling had grown, until now
he moved and spoke and smiled and ate and it was as if he were someone
else and the person he had been was gone completely. He liked coming
here. But there was no triumph in being with these people, no sense of
having found his own kind, no purpose, nothing but a vague contentment
and an unwillingness to search any farther.

"You're very quiet," Lisa said.

"I know. I was thinking."

She reached out and touched his arm, her fingers strong and muscular. He
smiled at her but made no move toward her, and after a moment she sighed
and took her hand away.

"Why are you so different, Eric?"

"Perhaps because I was raised by the others, the normal ones. Perhaps
just because I've read so many books about the old race...."

They came up to the boulders that blocked the entrance of the little
gorge where the hut was. Lisa started toward them, then stopped
abruptly.

"Let's go on up the hill. I want to talk to you, without them."

"All right."

He followed her without speaking, concentrating all his effort on
scrambling over the rougher spots in the trail. She didn't say anything
more until they had come out on a high ledge that overlooked the whole
canyon and she had sat down and motioned for him to sit down too.

"Whew," he panted. "You're a mountain goat, Lisa."

She didn't smile. "I've liked your coming to see us," she said. "I like
to listen to you talk. I like the tales you tell of the old ones. But
Mag and Nell are upset."

He knew what was coming. His eyes met hers, and then he looked away and
reddened and felt sorry for her and what he would have to tell her. This
wa