Trehearne beheld, and beholding, he forgot Edri and the ship and himself. He forgot Earth, the past, and the future. He forgot almost to breathe. Edri's voice came to him softly. "You may see this often, Trehearne, but never again for the first time." Trehearne barely heard him. The ship had fallen away beneath him, leaving him suspended in the plunging gulfs that lie between the island stars, and he looked awestruck into the dark and splendid loneliness of space. Through the magic of that quartzite dome he saw the great suns march in flame and thunder on their way around the ouroboros curve of infinity. Some were solitary hunters, others were joined together in companies of stars. He saw their cosmic pageant of life and death, the young suns blazing with a blue-white strength, the golden suns, the old red suns, the dead suns black with funeral ash. He saw the far-off galaxies, the coiling fires of the nebulae, the wonderful terrifying nations of the Milky Way streaming along the rim of creation. And as he looked the last of thought and feeling went from him and he was like a child still dazed from birthing. Some of the stars, perhaps, he recognized--Algol beating like a bloody heart, the splintered glory of Sirius. Orion strode gigantic across the gulfs, girded with suns, and dead ahead, tipping the far-flung Hyades, Aldebaran burned in sullen splendor. Aldebaran. Another sun. Other worlds, other peoples, other ways of life. He was going there, a stranger. A deep tremor shook him. Time went by, but he took no notice of it. He was a man lost, sunk and drowned in infinity. Edri watched him, with a certain sadness. After a while he pulled the switch again, and the dome went blank, showing only the flat darkness and the crawling streaks of light. Trehearne sighed, but he did not move. Edri smiled, and shook him. Trehearne turned slowly, and when Edri led the way back down the stair he followed, but without knowing where he was going or why. The passageway was empty. Edri stopped and waited until Trehearne's eyes focussed on him with some semblance of understanding. "I'm going," he said, "to break a life-long habit and say something important. Are you listening?" Trehearne nodded. "You'll be spending a lot of time with the others, which will inevitably mean with Shairn. Keep away from her, Trehearne. No matter whether you love her or hate her, stay away." Trehearne smiled. His head was ringing with stars, his vision was dazzled by the blaze of nebulae. "Shairn doesn't look to me like much of a permanent deal for anybody." "That's the trouble. Kerrel talked her into this flying jaunt around with him to break up the games she was playing with somebody else on Llyrdis. He's put up with an awful lot from her, and he's not the type at all--which makes people wonder." "What?"