that pain
shall forever come into thee, though thy years be without
end and thy days without sleep, even and forever. And
knowing this, in thine armor, thou shalt rise up.

Red and full and glowing is thy heart; a steel is forging
within thy breast. And what can hurt thee now? In thy
granite mansion, what can hurt thee ever? Thou shalt only
die. Therefore seek not redemption nor forgiveness for thy
sins, for know that thou hast never sinned.

Let the Gods come unto _thee_.

When it was finished, Wyatt sat very still.

Beauclaire was looking at him intently.

Wyatt nodded. "I see," he said.

"They don't ask for anything," Beauclaire said. "No immortality, no
forgiveness, no happiness. They take what comes and don't--wonder."

Wyatt smiled, rising. He looked at Beauclaire for a long while, trying
to think of something to say. But there was nothing to say. If the
young man could believe this, here and now, he would save himself a
long, long, painful journey. But Wyatt could not talk about it--not
just yet.

He reached out and clapped Beauclaire gently upon the shoulder. Then
he left the ship and walked out toward the yellow hills, toward the
girl and the love that was waiting.

* * * * *

_What will they do_, Beauclaire asked himself, _when the stars come
out_? _When there are other places to go, will these people, too,
begin to seek?_

They would. With sadness, he knew that they would. For there is a
chord in Man which is plucked by the stars, which will rise upward and
outward into infinity, as long as there is one man anywhere and one
lonely place to which he has not been. And therefore what does the
meaning matter? We are built in this way, and so shall we live.

Beauclaire looked up into the sky.

Dimly, faintly, like God's eye peeking through the silvery haze, a
single star had begun to shine.

--MICHAEL SHAARA

* * * * *

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