But he had already ceased to worry. Llyrdis. He said the name again, and it felt strange on his tongue. Llyrdis. A name and a world he had never heard of until a few short hours ago, and now.... The hollow spaces inside him were filled suddenly with homesickness, with a longing, with something akin to horror. He stared at the iron walls that closed him in, and he knew where he was, in an impossible ship with alien people, flying faster than light across nothingness to an alien star.... His stomach contracted, sending up a bitter fluid to burn his throat, and his hands were cold as a dead man's. Earth was gone. His Earth, sky, mountains, sunrise, city streets, country roads, the faces and voices of people, the men he had worked with, the women he had had or wanted to have, all the familiar things--the currency, the bars, the names of nations, books, pictures, shirtmakers, history--what was the use now of all the history he had learned, where did Caesar rank among the stars? Earth was gone, and even the sun had gone with it, and it was in a way as though he had died--and how do you start life again afterward, a stranger? There was this cabin, and outside its walls there was no world, no sunlight, nothing. Nothing. _Nothing...._ Edri led him swiftly to a tiny adjoining cubicle and left him alone with his misery while he used the intercom by the cabin door. Presently the ship's doctor joined him. They got Trehearne back into the bunk, and a needle glittered briefly in the light, sending him to a place where there were not even any dreams. On Number Four screen in the ship's control room, the pinpoint fleck that represented an isolated yellow sun flickered, faded, and went out. SIX Trehearne looked up from the bunk and asked, "How long have I slept?" "Nearly twenty-four hours by Earth reckoning," Edri answered. "You needed it." He leaned over and offered Trehearne a prosaic pack of American cigarettes. "Smoke?" Trehearne took one and sat up. He smoked for some time in silence, remembering. Finally he said, "It all happened, didn't it?" Edri nodded. "I know it must have, but I don't believe it." Trehearne shook his head. "Of all the incredible.... What were you doing there, Edri? How can you come and go on Earth without anyone knowing? What are the Vardda, besides--well, mutants?"