ding, creeping through
the gorges like a hunted animal, flattening himself in the underbrush
whenever an aircar passed by.

He sat and listened to them talk, and his amazement grew. Their beliefs
were so different. He listened to their superstitious accounts of the
old race, and the way it had been "in the beginning."

He listened to their legends of the old gods who flew through the air
and were a mighty people, but who were destroyed by a new race of
devils. He listened as they told him of their own ancestors, children of
the gods, who had fled to the hills to await the gods' return. They had
no conception at all of the thousands of years that had elapsed between
the old race's passing and their own forefathers' flight into the hills.
And when he tried to explain, they shook their heads and wouldn't
believe him.

He didn't hear Lisa come. One minute the far end of the clearing was
empty and still and the next minute the girl was walking across it
toward them, a bow in one hand and a pair of rabbits dangling from the
other.

She saw him and stopped, the rabbits dropping from her hand.

"Here's your young man, Lisa," Mag said. "Valley boy. His name's Eric."

He stared back at her, more in curiosity than in surprise. She wasn't
nearly as unattractive as he had thought she would be. She wouldn't be
bad looking at all, he thought, if she were clean. She was fairly tall
and lean, too skinny really, with thin muscular arms instead of the
softly rounded arms the valley girls had. She was too brown, but her
skin hadn't turned leathery yet, and there was still a little life in
the lank brown hair that fell matted about her shoulders.

"Hello, Lisa," he said.

"Hello." Her eyes never left him. She stared at him, her lips trembling,
her whole body tensed. She looked as if she were going to turn and run
at any moment, as if only his quietness kept her from fleeing.

With a sudden shock Eric realized that she too was afraid--afraid of
him. His own hesitation fell away and he smiled at her.

Mag got up and went over to the girl and put her arm around Lisa's
shoulders. "Don't be afraid of him, child," Mag said. "He's a nice boy.
Not like one of _them_."

Lisa trembled.

Eric watched her, pitying her. She was as helpless as he before the calm
assumption of the older women. More helpless, because she had probably
never thought of defying them, of escaping the pattern of their lives.

"Don't worry, Lisa," he said. "I won