said, unhappily. "Aside from my personal
wants, I find myself remembering that I'm a part of Anvhar. When you
think of the number of people who suffered and died--or adapted--so
that I could be sitting here now ... well, it's a little
frightening. I suppose it doesn't make sense logically that I should
feel indebted to them. But I do. Anything I do now, or in the next
few years, won't be as important as getting back to Anvhar."

"And I won't be going back with you." It was a flat statement
the way she said it, not a question.

"No, you won't be," he said. "There is nothing on Anvhar for you."

Lea was looking out of the port at Dis and her eyes were dry now.
"Way back in my deeply buried unconscious I think I knew it would
end this way," she said. "If you think your little lecture on the
Origins of Man was a novelty, it wasn't. It just reminded me of a
number of things my glands had convinced me to forget. In a way, I
envy you your weightlifter wife-to-be, and your happy kiddies. But
not very much. Very early in life I resigned myself to the fact that
there was no one on Earth I would care to marry. I always had these
teen-age dreams of a hero from space who would carry me off, and I
guess I slipped you into the pattern without realizing it. I'm old
enough now to face the fact that I like my work more than a banal
marriage, and I'll probably end up a frigid and virtuous old maid,
with more degrees and titles than you have shot-putting records."

As they looked through the port Dis began slowly to contract. Their
ship drew away from it, heading towards Nyjord. They sat apart,
without touching now. Leaving Dis meant leaving behind something
they had shared. They had been strangers together there, on a
strange world. For a brief time their lifelines had touched. That
time was over now.

"Don't we look happy!" Hys said, shambling towards them.

"Fall dead and make me even happier then," Lea snapped bitterly.

Hys ignored the acid tone of her words and sat down on the couch next
to them. Since leaving command of his rebel Nyjord army he seemed much
mellower. "Going to keep on working for the Cultural Relationships
Foundation, Brion?" he asked. "You're the kind of man we need."

Brion's eyes widened as the meaning of the last words penetrated.
"Are you in the C.R.F.?"

"Field agent for Nyjord," he said. "I hope you don't think those
helpless office types like Faussel or Mervv really represented us
there? They just