By now probably every normal person
within a hundred miles of the museum must know.

At the entrance he glanced back idly and saw that one of the aircars
that had followed him had landed and that the others were angling off
again, leaving. It was too dark to see how many men got out of the car,
but Walden and Prior were facing in that direction, communicating, and
Eric knew that they knew. Everything.

It was like a trap around him, with each of their minds a strand of the
net, and he was unable to see which strands were about to entangle him,
unable to see if there were any holes through which he might escape. All
he could do was pretend that he didn't even know the net existed, and
wait.

Half a dozen men came up to Prior and Walden. One of them was Abbot. His
face was very stern, and when he glanced over at where Eric stood in the
building entrance his face grew even sterner.

Eric watched them for a moment; then he went inside, the way he usually
did when there were lots of people around. He wished he knew what they
were saying. He wished he knew what was going to happen.

He went on into the library and pulled out a book at random and sat down
and started turning the pages. He couldn't read. He kept waiting for
them to come in, for one of them to lay a hand on his shoulder and tell
him to come along, that they knew he had found other people like himself
and that he was a danger to their race and that they were going to lock
him up somewhere.

What would happen to Lisa? They'd find her, of course. She could never
escape alone, on foot, to the hills.

What had happened to Mag and Nell?

No one came. He knew that their perceptions lay all around him, but he
could sense no emotions, no thoughts but his own.

He sat and waited, his eyes focused on the book but not seeing it. It
seemed hours before anyone came. Then Prior and Abbot and Walden were in
the archway, looking across at him. Prior's face was still worried,
Abbot's stern, Walden's reassuring....

Eric forced himself to smile at them and then turn another page and
pretend to go on reading. After a moment he heard their footsteps
retreating, and when he looked up again they were gone.

He sat a while longer and then he got up and walked down the ramp and
stood for a few minutes looking at the ship, because that too would be
expected of him. He felt nothing. The ship was a world away now, mocking
him, for his future no longer lay in the past, with th