ll gazing at Lee, she came slowly
forward with her hair dangling, framing her small oval face. The glow in
the night-air tinted her features. It was a face of girlhood, almost
mature--a face with wonderment on it now.

He knew that he was smiling; then, a few feet from the window she
stopped and said shyly:

"You are Lee Anthony?"

"Yes."

"I am Aura. When you have finished eating, I am to take you to him."

"To him?"

"Yes. The One of Our Guidance. He bade me bring you." Her soft voice was
musical; to her, quite obviously, the English was a foreign tongue.

"I'm ready," Lee said. "I'm finished."

One of her slim bare arms went up with a gesture. From the corner of the
little house the guard there turned, came inside. Lee turned to the
room. The guard entered. "You are to come," he said.

"So we just stay here, prisoners," Franklin muttered. He and Vivian
were blankly staring as Lee was led away.

* * * * *

Then in a moment he was alone beside the girl who had come for him.
Silently they walked out into the glowing twilight, along a little
woodland path with the staring people and the rustic, nestling dwellings
blurring in the distance behind them. A little line of wooded hills lay
ahead. The sky was like a dark vault--empty. The pastel light on the
ground seemed inherent to the trees and the rocks; it streamed out like
a faint radiation from everywhere. And then, as Lee gazed up into the
abyss of the heavens, suddenly it seemed as though very faintly he could
make out a tiny patch of stars. Just one small cluster, high overhead.

"The Universe you came from," Aura said.

"Yes." The crown of her tresses as she walked beside him was at his
shoulder. He gazed down at her. "To whom are you taking me? It seems
that I could guess--"

"I was told not to talk of that."

"Well, all right. Is it far?"

"No. A little walk--just to that nearest hill."

Again they were silent. "My Earth," he said presently, "do you know much
about it?"

"A little. I have been told."

"It seems so far away to me now."

She gazed up at him. She was smiling. "Is it? To me it seems quite
close." She gestured. "Just up there. It seemed far to you, I
suppose--that was because you were so small, for so long, coming here."

Like a man the size of an ant, trying to walk ten miles. Of course, it
would be a monstrous trip. But if that man were steadily to grow larger,
as he progressed he would cover