man--to having you here," old Anthony was saying. As he lay, so utterly
motionless, only his voice, his face, his eyes, seemed alive. It was an
amazingly expressive old face, radiant, transfigured. "I shall not be
here long. You see? And when I have--gone on--when I can only come back
here as a Visitor--like Anna Green, you have been aware of her, Lee?"

"Yes, grandfather. Yes, I think I have."

"The awareness is more acute, here, than it was back on Earth. A very
comforting thing, Lee. I was saying--I want you here. These people, so
simple--you might almost think them childlike--they need someone to
guide them. The one who did that--just as I came, was dying.
Maybe--maybe that is what led me here. So now I need you."

It welled in Lee with an awe, and a feeling suddenly of humbleness--and
of his own inadequacy, so that he murmured,

"But grandfather--I would do my best--but surely--"

"I think it will be given you--the ability--and I've been thinking, Lee,
if only some time it might be possible to show them on Earth--"

Lee had been aware that he and old Anthony were alone here. When Lee
entered, Aura had at once withdrawn. Now, interrupting his grandfather's
faint, gentle voice there was a commotion outside the underground
apartment. The sound of women's startled cries, and Aura's voice.

Then Aura burst in, breathless, pale, with her hair flying and on her
face and in her eyes a terror so incongruous that Lee's heart went cold.

He gasped, "Aura! Aura, what is it?"

"This terrible thing--that man who came with you--that man, Franklin--he
talked with Groff. Some evil spell to put upon Groff--it could only have
been that--"

Lee seized her. "What do you mean? Talk slower. Groff? The man who
served us that meal--"

"Yes, Groff. And two of the men who were to guard there. What that man
said to them--did to them--and when old Arkoh found it out he opposed
them--" Her voice was drab with stark horror--so new an emotion that it
must have confused her, so that now she just stood trembling.

"Child, come here--come here over to me--" Old Anthony's voice summoned
her. "Now--talk more slowly--try and think what you want to tell us....
What happened?"

"Oh--I saw old Arkoh--him whom I love so much--who always has been so
good to me--to us all--I saw him lying there on the floor--"

* * * * *

Words so unnatural here that they seemed to reverberate through the
little cave-room wit