ng the book--the bible-like book which all the people seemed
to treasure so much. As his work progressed, a striking change began
to come over him. He spent much time alone under the sky, watching the
soft haze through which, very soon, the stars would begin to shine.

He tried to explain what he felt to Wyatt, but Wyatt had no time.

"But, Billy," Beauclaire said fervently, "do you see what these people
go through? Do you see how they live?"

Wyatt nodded, but his eyes were on the girl as she sat listening
dreamily to a recording of ancient music.

"They live every day waiting," Beauclaire said. "They have no idea
what the meteors are. They don't know that there is anything else in
the Universe but their planet and their sun. They think that's all
there is. They don't know why they're here--but when the meteors keep
falling like that, they have only one conclusion."

* * * * *

Wyatt turned from the girl smiling absently. None of this could touch
him. He had seen the order and beauty of space, the incredible
perfection of the Universe, so often and so deeply that, like
Beauclaire, he could not help but believe in a Purpose, a grand final
meaning. When his father had died of an insect bite at Oberon he had
believed in a purpose for that, and had looked for it. When his first
crewmate fell into the acid ocean of Alcestis and the second died of a
horrible rot, Wyatt had seen purpose, purpose; and each time another
man died, for no apparent reason, on windless, evil useless worlds,
the meaning of things had become clearer and clearer, and now in the
end Wyatt was approaching the truth, which was perhaps that none of it
mattered at all.

It especially did not matter now. So many things had happened that he
had lost the capacity to pay attention. He was not young any more; he
wanted to rest, and upon the bosom of this girl he had all the reason
for anything and everything he needed.

But Beauclaire was incoherent. It seemed to him that here on this
planet a great wrong was being done, and the more he thought of it the
more angry and confused he became. He went off by himself and looked
at the terrible wound on the face of the planet, at all the sweet,
lovely, fragrant things which would never be again, and he ended by
cursing the nature of things, as Wyatt had done so many years before.
And then he went on with the translation of the book. He came upon the
final passage, still cursing