Eric stood frozen, looking up at the ship, trying to see Walden's face and unable to find it in the darkness. He didn't answer--couldn't answer. He listened, and heard nothing except Walden, there above him, moving on the seat. Where was Lisa? "I thought you'd come back here," Walden said. He climbed down out of the aircar and stood facing Eric, his body a dim shadow. "Why are you here?" Eric whispered. "I wanted to see you. Without the others knowing it. I was sure you'd come here tonight." Walden. Always Walden. First his teacher and then his friend, and now the one man who stood between him and freedom. For a second Eric felt his muscles tense and he stiffened, ready to leap upon the older man and knock him down and take the ship and run. Then he relaxed. It was a senseless impulse, primitive and useless. "The others don't know you have any idea what's happened, Eric. But I could tell. It was written all over you." "What did they find, Walden?" The old man sighed, and when he spoke his voice was very tired. "They found two women. They tried to capture them, but the women ran out on a ledge. The older one slipped and fell and the other tried to catch her and she fell too. They were dead when the men reached them." Eric listened, and slowly his tension relaxed, replaced by a dull ache of mourning. But he knew that he was glad to hear that they were dead and not captured, not dragged away from the hills to be bathed and well fed and imprisoned forever under the eyes of the new race. "The old one was blind," Walden said. "It may have been her blindness that caused her to fall." "It wasn't." "No, Eric, it probably wasn't." They were silent for a moment, and there was no sound at all except for their own breathing. Eric wondered if Lisa still hid in the aircar, if she was listening to them, afraid and hopeless and crying over the death of her people. "Why did you come out here, Walden?" "To see you. I came today, when I realized how suspicious the council had grown. I was going to warn you, to tell you to keep away from the hills, that they wanted an excuse to lock you up. I was too late." "I was careless, Walden." He felt guilt twist inside of him. "No. You didn't know the danger. I should have warned you sooner. But I never dreamed you would find anyone in the hills, Eric. I never dreamed there were any more without perception, this generation." Eric moved nearer the car and leaned against it, the cold plastic next to his body cooling him a little, steadying him against the feverish trembling that shook his legs and sent sweat down over him and made him too weak, suddenly, to want to struggle further. "Let me go, Walden. Let me take the car and go." Walden didn't move. He stood quietly, a tall thin shape in the darkness. "There are other people the searchers didn't find, aren't there? And you're going to them."