The blue sun was touching the hills, and the sky was flooded with a purple dusk. Lyllin came toward him. She was all Vegan and looked it, her flesh showed pale as new gold, with the darker masses of her hair picking up the same tint and turning it to copper. She was dressed in the fashion of her own people, in a chiton so mistily transparent that her fine slender body seemed to be draped in a bit of the oncoming dusk itself. He held her, and then told her his news, and was surprised that it did not seem to make her happy. "To Earth?" she murmured. "Just for the space-flight anniversary? It's strange--" "But this time you'll be with me," he said. "Not on the voyage--you'll ride transport, of course--but on Earth, all the time I'm there." "How long will that be, Kirk?" He didn't know, and said so. Lyllin's face shadowed subtly. But she had a way of silence, and it was not until later that night that she spoke of it. She said, suddenly, "I shall hate it at Earth." Kirk was shocked. "But why in the world? That's ridiculous. A place you've never seen, and hardly know about--" "It's your place, your people. Not mine." She was not looking at him. "You'll be going home. But what will they think of me there? What will _you_ think of me there, among your own people?" Kirk turned her around with rough and angry hands. "I'm ashamed of you. If you could even think a thing like that--" He shook her. "Listen to me. Earth is no more to me than it is to you. It's a name, a place where my grandfather five times removed happened to be born. I've as much blood of other worlds in me as Earth blood. And as for you--" Her eyes had tears in the corners of them, now. Her mouth was soft and uncertain, like a child's. He said, in a different tone, "No matter where we go, you'll be Lyllin. And I'll love you." She came close in the circle of his arms, and she kissed him with a wild possessiveness. And her lips were bitter with those sudden tears. But Kirk felt that she was not convinced. She had the Vegan pride, and if they treated her at Earth like a freak, an alien.... In the depth of his soul, he cursed Solleremos and his ambitious schemes. For the worry that was in him had deepened. The danger that the Fifth was going into, the danger that would explode if that unscrupulous grab for the old planet was attempted, was not the only one. He felt now that beside that there was another, subtler danger waiting for Lyllin and himself at Earth. CHAPTER IV