'Why are you so threatened by the Children? From everything you've told me, they sound even more primitive than the hill-people.' For a moment his eyes flashed, but he knew she meant no insult. 'Because I think there could be some other colony on the Island as well.' Her eyes became suddenly large, and she turned toward him intently. He continued reluctantly. 'I told you I've seen the smoke of campfires, and as many as twelve riders at once making toward the island at sunset. But I've also seen other lights, bright and unnatural, and broad beams that split the night..... I don't know what they mean.' As she heard this her heart beat suddenly faster. It was all too fantastic. Old voices and dreams that she had thought dead and in the past, surged recklessly to life inside her. 'We've got to go there! We've got to find out.' 'Yes.' He paused, watching her intently in his turn. 'I'm sorry I couldn't tell you all at once. It was a lot to think about.' 'I understand.' She got up and began to pace restlessly, breathing too deep, unable to control it. 'Oh, Kalus, I feel as if I'm going to burst.' 'I'll be there with you.' 'Yes. YES.' Like a child she ran and wrapped her arms about him. But later that night, unable to sleep and watching his familiar form beside her in the darkness, she was dismayed by a strange voice that told her she wished she was going alone. Even as he had said, she began to wonder how deep, how true, how honest was their love? And for the first time in many months she felt the terrible uncertainty of the dreamer who has wrapped all hope and affection about the shoulders of a single lover. IS THIS THE MAN I WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE WITH? And as much as she wanted to say yes, she couldn't. Because she didn't know. * In the chill hour of dawn Kalus woke, and in turn looked upon the sleeping figure into whom he had poured his life's blood. To see her lying there beside him, breathing evenly, her face warm and softened like a child's, was all that he had ever asked, or ever could ask, of the Nameless. His love for her in that moment, when he knew, or feared, that her loyalty to him would soon be put to its severest test, was almost unbearable. Thoughts of a life without her he could not begin to face, and he, too, felt a moment of doubt. 'Sometimes if you love someone, you have to let them go.' She hadn't meant the words then, but what if now..... If their love could not stand, in the bright and hard light of day, then the efforts of a lifetime were in vain. For if she, who knew him to the depths of his being---his trials and broken dreams, his personal weakness and indomitable strength---if she found in him nothing to love and cherish and hold on to, then who in all the cold, lonely world ever would?