bout. But first, there was Louie,
racked with broken sobbing.

Here was a man whose life had been a search for certainties, absolutes
that would not shift under the weight of his questioning. No doubt in
his youth he had turned to the religions of the day--and found them a
tissue of rationalizations without contact in reality. Then to
science--and found it, too, constantly shifting in its interpretations,
making new evaluations as evidence discounted the old. The shock of
landing on Eden to drive him back into childhood interpretations
again--at last, the clear evidence that had been denied his belief in
youth.

Wholehearted in his belief of Them, yet it was not to him They had
talked.

"Louie," Cal said slowly. "If you were lonely, very lonely, if you had
searched through the years for companionship, and thought you might have
found it, would it please you to have that companion drop to his knees,
grovel before you? Would this be your idea of companionship?

"What manner of monstrous egotism would require that? What but the
incredible vanity of primitive man, to whom life meant nothing more than
conquering or being conquered, could imagine such conduct would be
pleasing to another intelligence?

"We are men, Louie. If, in our loneliness, we found another
intelligence, wouldn't we want an equal exchange instead of abasement?
The use of that intelligence to know, to understand, instead of a denial
of it?"

Louie twisted out of Cal's embracing arm, and ran stumbling toward the
depths of the forest.

23

For another week, perhaps ten days or more, since time measurement had
lost its meaning, Cal lived among the colonists, watched their complete
retrogression into a state of unawareness. Even the speech which they
had retained seemed now to thin and falter as the simplifying of their
idea-content no longer required its use.

Only Tom and Jed seemed to retain their orientation to the past, the
clarity of awareness. These two spent much time together, seemed always
available when Cal needed them, yet did not intrude upon his thought.
Frank now seemed one with the colonists. Louie lived on the outskirts of
the herd, near the colonists but not of them. He had ceased to exhort,
warn, command, argue. His face was closed, told nothing of what he was
thinking.

And he had ceased to demand his tithe as intercessor. He was gathering
his own food, catching his own fish.

And he seldom let Cal out of his sight.