Dana's face glowed with excitement, alive with new vitality, new hope. "Ravdin, can't you see? _They might have changed._ They might not be the same. Things can happen. Look at us, how we've grown since the wars with the Hunters. Think how our philosophy and culture have matured! Oh, Ravdin, you were to be master at a concert next month. Think how the concerts have changed! Even my grandmother can remember when the concerts were just a few performers playing, and everyone else just sitting and _listening_! Can you imagine anything more silly? They hadn't even thought of transference then, they never dreamed what a _real_ concert could be! Why, those people had never begun to understand music until they themselves became a part of it. Even we can see these changes, why couldn't the Hunters have grown and changed just as we have?" Nehmon's voice broke in, almost harshly, as he faced the excited pair. "The Hunters don't have concerts," he said grimly. "You're deluding yourself, Dana. They laugh at our music, they scoff at our arts and twist them into obscene mockeries. They have no concept of beauty in their language. The Hunters are incapable of change." "And you can be certain of that when _nobody has seen them for thousands of years_?" Nehmon met her steady eyes, read the strength and determination there. He knew, despairingly, what she was thinking--that he was old, that he couldn't understand, that his mind was channeled now beyond the approach of wisdom. "You mustn't think what you're thinking," he said weakly. "You'd be blind. You wouldn't know, you couldn't have any idea what you would find. If you tried to contact them, you could be lost completely, tortured, killed. If they haven't changed, you wouldn't stand a chance. You'd never come back, Dana." "But she's right all the same," Ravdin said softly. "You're wrong, my lord. We can't continue this way if we're to survive. Sometime our people must contact them, find the link that was once between us, and forge it strong again. We could do it, Dana and I." "I could forbid you to go." Dana looked at her husband, and her eyes were proud. "You could forbid us," she said, facing the old man. "But you could never stop us." * * * * *