looked muscular. She had been toughened by her
environment. Edna had not been as tough as Glynnis.

With sudden embarrassment, he realized he had been comparing Glynnis
and Edna frequently. He didn't want to do that--but he couldn't help
himself.

"Something wrong?" Glynnis asked anxiously.

She was returning his stare. "No," he said. "I was ... looking at
you." For a long moment, neither spoke. Then he said, "We'll be
together for a long time."

"I know. We'll have to be."

"I'm glad I found you. I lost my wife to the patrol some time back."

"I've never been anyone's wife before. There was Frank, but I was
never really what you could call his wife, exactly."

"Many people ever stay with your folks?"

"Not many. Frank only stayed a few days. I liked him. I wanted to go
with him."

"Why didn't you?"

She broke off a blade of grass and slowly began tearing it into
strips, intently gazing at it. "He just left suddenly without taking
me. I guess he thought I was just a stupid brat. That was maybe two or
three years ago." Her voice sounded as if she were smiling a little.
Nelson thought that strange.

"You ever think much about the sleepers?" he asked suddenly.

"Sometimes. I wonder what it's like in their dreams."

"They like it in their dreams. Those dreams are built for them. They
get along happily in their world, grateful for it. That's the word,
grateful." He listened for a moment to nightsounds. "But they're
helpless. If anything happens, they're asleep and unable to act. If
they wake up, they're in a world they don't know how to live in."

"If you were a sleeper, what kind of world would you want to dream
about?"

"I don't want to be a sleeper."

"Yes, but if you were. Would you live in a castle?"

He thought on it for the first time. "I don't know," he said finally.
"I don't think so. I think I'd travel. Go out to the stars. There's a
whole universe out there. Men went out there; they're still out there.
I guess they've forgotten us."

"You think they'll ever come back?"

"Some day I think somebody from out there will come back and land on
Earth to see what it's like. Maybe they'll try to invade us. We'd be
pretty helpless with most of us asleep in our pipe-dream utopias."

"I wouldn't like to be caught and put in a dream," she said. "But I'd
like to live in a castle." Nelson gazed at her. She had never known a
commune, he realized. If she had, she would have bred when told to and
then doc