"He didn't say 'it'--didn't refer to the monstrous creature as something unspeakably alien. "No--why should he? To him it wasn't a horror in the valley of the moon. It was something out of a nightmare and he knew he'd wake up safe in his own little bed at home. "He was still thinking of me as his father--in a nightmare. We'd been hunting jabberwocks together! "And that lad was still in me--a part of me! I tell you, it sobered me and made me feel ashamed. "I was still feeling ashamed when both the boy and the old one vanished. Perhaps melted back would be a better way of putting it. For they did seem to dissolve and flow back, rush back, into me an instant before I found myself standing alone again--in that valley that would never grow old!" Charley had arisen and was standing by the fire. Suddenly he stooped and threw another log into the flames. Far to the west the lights of the biggest spaceport on Earth blinked through the purple haze, and every time a ship took off, bound for the great outer planets, the desert would light up for miles. But that light couldn't hold a candle to the one that blazed in Charley's eyes.