ressed confidently
through the nurturing Earth, of the other tiny living things in and on
the Earth, and the heartbeat of the Earth itself, assuring him with
its great strength of the continuation of all things.

Then he was back with the girl, watching through her eyes a butterfly
as it fluttered to rest on a flower and perched there, gently waving
its gaudy wings.

He had not been cast out. The young woman herself had gone on that
wild journey to the heavens, not only with her mind, but with her
entire being, attuned to the rest of creation. There was a continuity,
he realized, a oneness between herself, the mother-to-be, and the
Universe. With her, then, he felt the stirrings of new life, and he
was proud and content.

He forgot for the moment that he had been a failure.

* * * * *

The soft breeze seemed to turn chill. The Sun was still high and
unclouded, but its warmth was gone. With the girl, he felt a prickling
along the spine. She turned her head slightly and, through her eyes,
he saw, a few yards away in tall grass, a creeping man.

The eyes of the man were fixed on the girl's body and the traveler
felt her thrill of terror. The man lay there for a moment, hands flat
on the ground under his chest. Then he moved forward, inching toward
her.

The girl screamed. Her terror gripped the visitor. He was helpless.
His thoughts whirled into chaos, following hers.

The eyes of the creeping man flicked from side to side, then up. The
visitor quivered and cringed with the girl when she screamed again. As
the torrent of frightened sound poured from her throat, the creeping
man looked into her eyes. Instantly the visitor was sucked into his
mind.

It was a maelstrom. A tremendous conflict was going on in it. One part
of it was urging the body on in its fantastic crawl toward the young
woman frozen in terror against the sky. The visitor was aware of the
other part, submerged and struggling feebly, trying to get through
with a message of reason. But it was handicapped. The visitor sensed
these efforts being nullified by a crushing weight of shame.

The traveler fought against full identification with the deranged part
of the mind. Nevertheless, he sought to understand it, as he had
understood the other minds he'd visited. But there was nothing to
understand. The creeping man had no plan. There was no reason for his
action.

The visitor felt only a compulsion which said, "You must