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“Yes. I have heard of them. Things on your Earth–which the humans create for themselves–but that is very silly. We do not have them here.”

Surely he could think of no retort to such childlike faith. Her faith. How horribly criminal it would be to destroy it. A priceless thing–human happiness to be created out of the faith that it was the normal thing. He realized that his heart was pounding, as though now things which had been dormant within him all his life were coming out–clamoring now for recognition.

And then, out of another silence he murmured, “Aura–you’re taking me to my grandfather, aren’t you? He came here from Earth–and then he sent back there to get me?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “So you know it? But I was instructed to–“

“All right. We won’t talk of it. And he’s told you about me?”

“Yes,” she agreed shyly. She caught her breath as she added, “I have been–waiting for you–a long time.” Shyly she gazed up at him. The night-breeze had blown her hair partly over her face. Her hand brushed it away so that her gaze met his. “I hoped you would be, well, like you are,” she added.

“Oh,” he said awkwardly. “Well–thanks.”

“And you,” she murmured out of another little silence, “you–I hope I haven’t disappointed you. I am the way you want–like you wished–“

What a weird thing to say! He smiled. “Not ever having heard of you, Aura, I can’t exactly say that I–“

* * * * *

He checked himself. Was she what he had wished? Why yes–surely he had been thinking of her–in his dreams, all his life vaguely picturing something like this for Lee Anthony….

“I guess I have been thinking of you,” he agreed. “No, you haven’t disappointed me, Aura. You–you are–“

He could find no words to say it. “We are almost there,” she said. “He will be very happy to have you come. He is a very good man, Lee. The one, we think, of the most goodness–and wiseness, to guide us all–“

The path had led them up a rocky defile, with gnarled little trees growing between the crags. Ahead, the hillside rose up in a broken, rocky cliff. There was a door, like a small tunnel entrance. A woman in a long white robe was by the door.

“He is here,” Aura said. “Young Anthony.”

“You go in.”

Silently they passed her. The tunnel entrance glowed with the pastel radiance from the rocks. The radiance was a soft blob of color ahead of them.

“You will find that he cannot move now,” Aura whispered. “You will sit by his bed. And talk softly.”

“You mean–he’s ill?”

“Well–what you would call paralysis. He cannot move. Only his lips–his eyes. He will be gone from us soon, so that then he can only be unseen. A Visitor–“

Her whisper trailed off. Lee’s heart was pounding, seeming to thump in his throat as Aura led him silently forward. It was a draped, cave-like little room. Breathless, Lee stared at a couch–a thin old figure lying there–a frail man with white hair that framed his wrinkled face. It was a face that was smiling, its sunken, burning eyes glowing with a new intensity. The lips moved; a faint old voice murmured:

“And you–you are Lee?”

“Yes–grandfather–“

He went slowly forward and sat on the bedside.

CHAPTER IV

Mad Giant

To Lee, after a moment, his grandfather seemed not awe-inspiring, but just a frail old man, paralyzed into almost complete immobility, lying here almost pathetically happy to have his grandson at last with him. An old man, with nothing of the mystic about him–an old man who had been–unknown to the savants of his Earth–perhaps the greatest scientist among them. Quietly, with pride welling in him, Lee held the wasted, numbed hand of his grandfather and listened….