he would be prepared at once to face down any
resurrected memory.

Walking slowly, pausing to listen for the slightest sound which might
herald the coming of a new illusion, Shann tried to guess which of his
nightmares might come to face him. But he was to learn that there was
more than one kind of dream. Steeled against old fears, he was met by
another emotion altogether.

There was a fluttering in the air, a little crooning cry which pulled at
his heart. Without any conscious thought, Shann held out his hands,
whistling on two notes a call which his lips appeared to remember more
quickly than his mind. The shape which winged through the fog came
straight to his waiting hold, tore at long-walled-away hurt with its
once familiar beauty. It flew with a list; one of the delicately tinted
wings was injured, had never healed straight. But the seraph nestled
into the hollow of Shann's two palms and looked up at him with all the
old liquid trust.

"Trav! Trav!" He cradled the tiny creature carefully, regarded with joy
its feathered body, the curled plumes on its proudly held head, felt the
silken patting of those infinitesimal claws against his protecting
fingers.

Shann sat down in the sand, hardly daring to breathe. Trav--again! The
wonder of this never-to-be-hoped-for return filled him with a surge of
happiness almost too great to bear, which hurt in its way with as great
a pain as Logally's lash; it was a pain rooted in love, not fear and
hate.

Logally's lash....

Shann trembled. Trav raised one of those small claws toward the Terran's
face, crooning a soft caressing cry for recognition, for protection,
trying to be a part of Shann's life once more.

Trav! How could he bear to will Trav into nothingness, to bear to summon
up another harsh memory which would sweep Trav away? Trav was the only
thing Shann had ever known which he could love wholeheartedly, that had
answered his love with a return gift of affection so much greater than
the light body he now held.

"Trav!" he whispered softly. Then he made his great effort against this
second and far more subtle attack. With the same agony which he had
known years earlier, he resolutely summoned a bitter memory, sat nursing
once more a broken thing which died in pain he could not ease, aware
himself of every moment of that pain. And what was worse, this time
there clung that nagging little doubt. What if he had not forced the
memory? Perhaps he could have taken Tr