iles uphill from
the two ships, gazing broodingly down at them. He was a big fellow in
neatly patched shipboard clothing. His hands were clean, his face
carefully shaved. He had two of the castaway's traditional possessions
with him; a massive hunting bow rested against the rocks, and a minor
representative of the class of life which was this world's equivalent of
birds was hopping about near his feet. This was a thrush-sized creature
with a jaunty bearing and bright yellow eyes. From the front of its
round face protruded a short, narrow tube tipped with small, sharp
teeth. Round, horny knobs at the ends of its long toes protected
retractile claws as it bounded back and forth between the bow and the
man, giving a quick flutter of its wings on each bound. Finally it
stopped before the man, stretching its neck to stare up at him, trying
to catch his attention.

He roused from his musing, glanced irritably down at it.

"Not now, Birdie," he said. "Keep quiet!"

The man's gaze returned to the two ships, then passed briefly along a
towering range of volcanos on the other side of the lake, and lifted to
the cloudless blue sky. His eyes probed on, searching the sunlit, empty
vault above him. If a ship ever came again, it would come from there,
the two wrecks by the lake arm already fixed in its detectors; it would
not come gliding along the surface of the planet....

Birdie produced a sharp, plaintive whistle. The man looked at it.

"Shut up, stupid!" he told it.

He reached into the inner pocket of his coat, took out a small object
wrapped in a piece of leather, and unfolded the leather.

Then it lay in his cupped palm, and blazed with the brilliance of twenty
diamonds, seeming to flash the fires of the spectrum furiously from
every faceted surface, without ever quite subduing the pure violet
luminance which made a star hyacinth impossible to imitate or, once
seen, to forget. The most beautiful of gems, the rarest, the most
valuable. The man who was a castaway stared at it for long seconds, his
breath quickening and his hand beginning to tremble. Finally he folded
the chip of incredible mineral back into the leather, replaced it
carefully in his pocket.

When he looked about again, the sunlit air seemed brighter, the coloring
of lake and land more vivid and alive. Once during each of this world's
short days, but no oftener, he permitted himself to look at the star
hyacinth. It was a ritual adhered to with almost reli