had never been nearer.

He slammed the door shut, bolted it, and turned back to where the
councilman was struggling to his feet.

"Now will you let us go?" Eric said softly. "Or must we take off now,
with you--for the stars?"

For a long moment Abbot looked at him, and then his lips trembled and
his whole body went slack in defeat.

"The ship is yours," he whispered. "Just let me go."

Outside the ship, Walden chuckled wryly.

* * * * *

The Vacuum Suit was strange against Eric's body, as strange as the
straps that bound him to the couch. He looked over at Lisa and she too
was unrecognizable, a great bloated slug tied down beside him. Only her
face, frightened behind the helmet, looked human.

He reached for the controls, then paused, glancing down through the view
screens at the ground, at the people two hundred feet below, tiny ants
scurrying away from the ship, running to shelter but still looking up at
him. He couldn't see his parents or Walden.

His fingers closed about the control lever but still he stared down.
Everything that had been familiar all his life stood out sharply now,
because he was leaving and it would never be there again for him. And he
had to remember what it was like....

Then he looked up. The sky was blue and cloudless above him, and there
were no stars at all. But he knew that beyond the sky the stars were
shining.

And perhaps, somewhere amid the stars, the old race waited.

He turned to Lisa. "This may be goodbye, darling."

"It may be. But it doesn't matter, really."

They had each other. It was enough. Even though they could never be as
close to each other as the new race was close. They were separate, with
a gulf always between their inmost thoughts, but they could bridge that
gulf, sometimes.

He turned back to the controls and his fingers tightened. The last line
of the poem shouted in his mind, and he laughed, for he knew finally
what the poet had meant, what the old race had lived for. _We have cast
off the planets like outgrown toys, and now we want the stars...._

He pulled the lever back and the ship sprang free. A terrible weight
pressed against him, crushing him, stifling him. But still he laughed,
because he was one of the old race, and he was happy.

And the meaning of his life lay in the search itself.

* * * * *

They stood staring up at the ship until it was only a tiny speck in the
sky, an