Scientists told Dan and me that at present, for us of earth, the thing was impossible. If father had left his notes, perhaps, instead of putting them in his pocket that fatal afternoon; if some vestige of apparatus had been left behind by the invaders; if only we still had even a portion of the mechanism of Zetta's small vehicle, that our scientists might study it, try to learn its secret--Ah, those ifs! They are all encompassed in the one phrase, which each of us mortals at one time or another in life has murmured sadly: "If only I had known!" I was far older now in spirit than that winter thirty-five months before. We do not age in regular progression, but in spurts of stressed mental and physical suffering. I aged, for though I lost a sister and father, something else I lost, less tangible but unforgettable. The girl Zetta--the loss of what might have been, for me and for her. Love born of a glance, now to stay with me always? It was not that. I was not so youthful that I could cherish such romantic illusion. But this I knew. Something, that memorable afternoon when she and I first joined glances, sprang into being. As though over the gap from one world to another, from a man to a woman and back again, it sprang and clung reluctant to be broken. And it left its mark upon my mind and spirit. It was not to be; I believed that fully. But, it had been, the consciousness was within me that it would have been a thing very beautiful. And I was older; and, I think, a better man, just for the memory. Thirty-five months! A dreary, hopeless interval to Dan and me. Dreary, for in the midst of all the world's turmoil we seemed to stand apart; not actors, spectators merely, with our minds and spirits up there where the great purple star was shining. Thirty-five hopeless months, for it seemed that what we had lost was forever gone. On February 4, 1956, Dan and I were living in Porto Rico. Freddie was in Miami. Father's post in Southern Chile was taken by one of his fellow scientists. The world rolls on! Father was lost, his post filled, and himself almost forgotten. How fatuously we mortals attach importance to ourselves! We strut our little moment upon the stage, some in the spotlight, some shrinking in the shadows by the back drop. We miss our cues, fumble, and are abashed or terrified. But in a moment no one cares. The curtain rings down; up again, with the old play, but new scenes and other actors; and the changing audience forgets we ever were on the stage at all. Father's post was filled. Freddie and I had been down there in Chile one summer, but we did not like it and we came back. Summer! The very word had lost its meaning. They were beginning now to call it the Day. * * * * *