ile I did it, I knew that it wasn't good enough. But there was
no more time. The accelerations were terrific and all my people died.
I managed to save myself, and I barely managed that. I did all that
could be done, but it just wasn't enough. I circled your sun for many
years before I could make enough repairs to work the auxiliary drive.
Then I landed here on this mountaintop. I've been here ever since.

"It has been a lonely time," he added wistfully.

* * * * *

Garth's mind tried to absorb all the vastness of that understatement,
and failed. He could not begin to comprehend the meaning of seven
thousand years of separation from his own kind.

The Visitor's high-pitched voice continued for several minutes,
explaining how Garth's ancestors of several thousand years
before--naked and primitive, barbarous, with almost no culture of
their own--had made contact with The Visitor from space, and had been
gently lifted over the millennia toward higher and higher levels of
civilization.

Garth had trouble keeping his attention on the words. His mind kept
reverting to the thought of one badly injured survivor, alone on a
spaceship with a thousand corpses, light-years from home and friends,
still struggling to stay alive. Struggling so successfully that he had
lived on for thousands of years after the disaster that had killed all
the others.

At last, after waiting for Garth's comment, The Visitor cleared his
throat querulously. "I asked you if you'd like for me to show you
around the ship," he repeated somewhat testily.

"Oh, yes, my Lord," said Garth quickly, jumping to his feet. "It's an
honor I've never heard of your giving to anyone before."

"That's true enough," answered The Visitor. "But then no one ever
asked me about myself before. Now just follow me, stick close, and
don't touch anything."

The wheelchair rolled slowly toward a blank wall, and an invisible
door snicked open just before it arrived.

"Come along," quavered The Visitor. "Step lively."

Garth leaped forward and just managed to pull his tail through the
doorway as the door slid shut again.

Garth dropped his jaw in amazement. He stood in a long corridor that
seemed to stretch to infinity in both directions. The light was
bright, the walls featureless. The floor was smooth and unmarred.
While Garth glanced unhappily behind himself to notice that there was
no sign of the doorway through which he had entered, The