V'gu turned, his hand on the gangway rail. They waited and fidgeted as he stood without moving, looking up. After a time long enough for him to have memorized the entire star region, his eyes came down again, and he looked at them blankly, as if he had forgotten why they were there. McCann felt a sudden electric thrill of recognition. He had seen a similar paralyzed lack of expression on the faces of men who had just learned that they had made some terrible mistake. He turned abruptly and pushed through the crowd, heading for a phone. * * * * * The other reporters didn't understand. Not yet. "This nova," one of them said. "What was it from?" V'gu looked up at it. "A sun blew up," he muttered. "Five years ago. The light took five years to get here." The microphones barely picked up his voice. "Do you know anything about the people who lived there, Mr. V'gu?" V'gu opened his mouth as if to answer. Then he closed it again. He looked over his shoulder into his spaceship's entrance. A reporter asked, "What about the nova, Mr. V'gu?" "I was--I was very well acquainted with the people who caused it," V'gu said slowly. "Very well acquainted. I--cannot imagine why it happened." "It was a war, wasn't it, Mr. V'gu?" "A war?" V'gu looked up again and hesitated. "Yes, I suppose it was." A moment later he added, apparently without reason, "I've been away from home a long time." "How long will it take you to get back home, Mr. V'gu?" "Get back?" V'gu looked around vaguely, his shoulders slumped. He looked less alien, somehow, and more like the men around him, and more likeable. He looked back to his questioner. "Oh. Oh yes, I'm ... I've changed my mind. You may tell your papers that I've--ah--decided to extend my stay with you. For--for some time, I think." The youngest reporter asked suddenly, "Did the nova have anything to do with you changing your mind? With this decision, I mean." The tall greenish man in the odd clothes came down the gangplank and entered the crowd, peering about as if he had forgotten the microphones and the cameras he was supposed to be speaking to. Then he saw his object and went through the crowd to him. It was an airfield official. "Sir," said V'gu to the official, humbly--and suddenly everyone watching knew how well V'gu had known the people of the nova world. "Sir, I believe this spaceship is in your way. Where would you like me to park it?"