But to her, half-dreaming, there had been some strangeness about him, which prevented her from seeing him too clearly even in the brilliant green moonlight. No dream and no man had ever seemed so living to her; and it was her fierce rationalization of the dream which kept her silent, months later, when she discovered (to her horror and secret despair) that she was with child. She had felt that she would lose the haze and secret delight of the dream, if she openly acknowledged that Colin had fathered her child. But at first--in the cool green morning that followed--she had not been at all sure it was a dream. Seeing only sunlight and leaves, she had held back from speaking, not wanting ridicule; could she have asked each man of the _Starholm_, Was it you who came to me last night? Because if it was not, there are other men on this world, men who cannot be clearly seen even by moonlight-- Severely she reminded herself, Merrihew's men had pronounced the world uninhabited, and uninhabited it must be. Five years later, hugging her sleeping son close, Helen remembered the dream, examined the content of her fantasy, and once again, shivering, repeated, "I had a hallucination. It was only a dream. A dream, because I was alone...." * * * * * When Robin was fourteen years old, Helen told him the story of his birth, and of the ship. He was a tall, silent boy, strong and hardy but not talkative; he heard the story almost in silence, and looked at Helen for a long time in silence, afterward. He finally said in a whisper, "You could have died--you gave up a lot for me, Helen, didn't you?" He knelt and took her face in his hands. She smiled, and drew a little away from him. "Why are you looking at me like that, Robin?" The boy could not put instant words to his thoughts; emotions were not in his vocabulary. Helen had taught him everything she knew, but she had always concealed her feelings from her son. He asked at last, "Why didn't my father stay with you?" "I don't suppose it entered his head," Helen said. "He was needed on the ship. Losing me was bad enough." Robin said passionately, "I'd have stayed!" The woman found herself laughing. "Well--you did stay, Robin." He asked, "Am I like my father?" Helen looked gravely at her son, trying to see the half-forgotten features of young Reynolds in the boy's face. No, Robin did not look like Colin Reynolds, nor like Helen herself. She picked up his hand in hers; despite his robust health, Robin never tanned; his skin was pearly pale, so that in the green sunlight it blended into the forest almost invisibly. His hand lay in Helen's palm like a shadow. She said at last, "No, nothing like him. But under this sun, that's to be expected." Robin said confidently, "I'm like the _other_ people." "The ones on the ship? They--"