As though it came from the dark corridor of the years, Jack Odin seemed to hear the resounding echo of slow footsteps, and a deep voice that thundered: "For I, thy God, am a jealous God--" She had almost hypnotized him with her weary, earnest voice. For a moment, it had seemed that all this frantic quest was nothing. That it would be far, far better to find a home with Nea and build a world of his own than to go on searching the stars. Then he answered slowly, trying to measure his words, for he did not want to hurt her feelings. "No, Nea. If I go wandering forever, it will be no worse than my fathers did before me. For a man is vagrant and restless. What he gets, he loses. And if he is lucky, he can hold fast to his dreams." For a moment dark anger blazed in her eyes. Then they were calm and sad again. She got to her feet, as though she were very tired. She smiled. "If I followed all the books, I would make a scene now. I have offered myself and a world to you and have been refused. But I wish you and your dreams well, Jack Odin." She bent over him, and her lips brushed his. Faintly, like the touch of a rose petal, and the perfume of her hair seemed to fill the room. Then she was gone. Jack Odin sat there, looking long and long at the swarm of stars upon the screen, thinking of the unseen worlds about them--the worlds that he had just renounced. Until finally he got up and went to bed. CHAPTER 10 Ato's probing instruments still pointed the way to Aldebaran. In a surprisingly short time, the warning signals were flashing and jingling throughout The Nebula. There was that same sick feeling as it moved slower than the speed of light. And there was a glowing sun with nine planets circling stately about it. Slower The Nebula moved, and slower, until the outermost planet sparkled in the light of its sun below them. They swooped down. Not a single blast was fired at them. Every man was at his post, while Ato guided them in, and Odin worked the screens. Once more, Jack was disappointed. He had looked forward to some alien--even exotic--civilization. Here were fields and streams. And there were cities--looking very much like the cities of his world and of Opal. Those other worlds which he had seen had been blasted. So there was no way of knowing how their cities had looked. But these were too recognizable. He was certain that he had seen several of the taller buildings before. Was space no more creative than this? Had the worlds dedicated themselves to the same monotonous pattern? He had caught a glimpse of conventional, rocket-shaped spaceships, plying their courses back and forth among the planets. He saw boats and cars and a few long-nosed airplanes, with the merest trace of vestigial wings far back near the empennage, streaking through the sky in high arcs, leaving curling trails of fog and smoke behind them. But there was little here that his world had not already mastered--or at least had on the drawing board.