There was no sunlight underground. But when the fluorotube glow shone on her hair, I thought of sunlight on Earth, the high keen light of the Colorado plateaus, the morning light stealing through the trees of Hood Island. _Ydis, Ydis, I said, once your violet eyes were like the skies over Kalariho, over Kealvigh, our home, pasture land of winds. But it has been so long. It has been ten years since you died--_ I fought. May all the gods bear witness that I fought myself. And I thought I was winning. VI I will never forget one certain evening. Hawkins and I had come over to Barbara's for supper, and the three of us were sitting now, talking. Wieniawski's Violin Concerto cried its sorrow, muted in the background, and the serene home she had made of the bare little functional apartment folded itself around us. Then Kane dropped in as he often did, with a casualness that fooled nobody, and sat with all his soul in his eyes, looking at Barbara. He was a nice kid. I didn't know why he should annoy me so. The talk shifted to Valgolia. I found myself taking the side of my race. It wasn't that I hoped to convert anyone, but--well, it was wrong that we should be monsters in the sight of these friends. "Brutes," said Kane. "Two-legged animals. Damned bald-headed, copper-skinned giants. Wouldn't be quite so bad if they were octopi or insects, but they're just enough different from us to be a caricature. It's obscene." "Sartons look like a dirty joke on mankind," I said. "Why don't you object to them?" "They're in the same boat as us." "Then why mix political and esthetic prejudices? And have you ever thought that you look just as funny to an Eridanian?" "No race should look odd to another," said Nat Hawkins. He puffed blue clouds. "Even by our standards, the redskins are handsome, in a more spectacular way than humans, maybe." "And Barbara," I smiled, with a curious little pang inside me, "would look good to any humanoid." "I should think so," said Kane sulkily. "The redskins took enough of our women." "Well," I said, "their original conquistadores were young and healthy, very far from home, and had just finished a hard campaign where they lost many friends. At least there were no half-breeds afterward. And since the reconquest none of their soldiers has been permitted to have anything to do with an Earthwoman against her consent. It's not their fault if the consent is forthcoming oftener than you idealists think." "That sort of thing was more or less standard procedure at home with them, wasn't it?" asked Hawkins. * * * * *