"Why, yes, Doctor," he said--and he did not mean Christopher Wright, but some friend or instructor whose image might be standing in front of the shadows of Lucifer, "yes, Doctor, you could say I've traveled a great deal, in my sort of blundering fashion. And I would not exactly say that people are the same everywhere, but you'll have noticed yourself--the many common denominators are much more interesting than the seeming-great differences, aren't they, hey...? What? Sorry, Doctor, I've got no damned use for your abstraction Man, and why? Because he doesn't exist, except as a device in a brain that wants to prove something--which may or may not be useful. In any case it's not my dish. There are only men and women. They get born and love and suffer and work and grow old and die; or sometimes, Doctor, they die young. Men and women I can love and touch; sometimes I can even teach them the few things I know. You may take Man to the library; feed him back into your electronic brain and don't bother me with the results so long as I'm alive to see a child discovering his own body--or for that matter a bird coming out of the egg, a minnow in a spot of sunlight, a blade of grass." Pakriaa wailed: "What is he saying? He is not here." She squirmed past Wright, dropped to the ground, her cheek pressed on Sears' tangled hair, her free arm wandering over his face and shoulder as if she wanted to cover him like a shield. "He talked to me once. Sears, you said--you said----" He was back among them, gazing around in sane bewilderment. "I should be riding.... Pakriaa--why Pak, I'm all right." Paul moved the torch here and there to pick out his own face, Wright's, Mijok's, the white bulk of Susie looming close by, the pouting ugly mask of Abara, who had stolen up close, his underlip wobbling in an effort to speak. "I fell asleep--took a tumble?" "Almost," Wright muttered. "Just lucky chance I saw you tottering. You need to rest a bit." "Oh no." Sears frowned. "Can't stop." He smiled at Pakriaa, who had lifted herself to watch him pleadingly. "What's the matter, Pakriaa? What's the time?" "First-light before long," Paul said. "We made good distance, Jocko. The Vestoians won't have traveled in the dark. Plenty of time and we all need rest. Take it easy a while." But Pakriaa could not hide her knowledge that he was dying; Sears touched her cheek with a curious wandering finger. "You liked looking in the microscope, didn't you?" She nodded. "Remember--must be sure you've got the best focus you can before you make up your mind about anything. But this is more serious, Pak--because I think you love me and you have trouble. I tell you again, you must go to the island with the others. You must live. Now I expect to go there too, but--" Abara moved away. Paul glimpsed him striding back and forth, striking the air with little fists. When he returned, Paul made way for him. "--for a teaching is a gift, Pakriaa, not to be thrown away--"