Kuila followed the girl into the elevator and they came face to face. He was struck by the exquisite beauty of her clear features, a beauty that was striking even among a people who were all beautiful. Her skin was a warm olive, a complexion that had been evolved from the admixture of the five original races upon Earth. Her eyes were clear hazel, her lips a deep red. Each feature was as perfect as though hand-chiseled, from the little square chin to the fine sensitive eyebrows and smooth white temples. And framing it all was the hair of a rich blackness. Once human hair entailed the constant need of trimming, but Science had easily done away with that inconvenience by the simple means of the T-Ray. When the T-Ray was trained on the hair and beard by means of a cap-shaped helmet it not only halted the natural growth of the roots but at the same time treated them so that in a life-time not a single hair could fall from the scalp. In response to his smile the girl smiled back brightly. "I suppose we are both ascending to the roof?" she queried in a low well-modulated voice that was strangely thrilling to a man who had not heard a woman's voice in over ten years. He nodded, and she touched the lever that should carry them upward. The lift traveled fast, but in the thousand foot ascent there was still time for Kuila Rei to learn that the girl was Ramo Rei; that she had returned from Mount 47 whereupon was set an observatory like the one he had just left; that she had been associated only with two woman and two men, all of whom had already passed the third cycle (150 years of age); and so therefore, she had taken no companion (mate) and was, like himself, quite alone in the new world they were to enter. They were not immediately aware that the elevator had stopped. Only when the steady murmur of voices came to them from without did they suddenly realize they had reached the roof. Kuila managed to elbow his way through the crowd and found for them an unoccupied spot in a secluded part of the parapet. It was now almost time for rising of the sun. Once, the annals of history showed, the Earth had known approximately twelve hours of day-light. But gradually, through the ages, the periods of day had grown shorter until now at the present time there was scarcely one short hour of light. This was due to the fact that the Sun was no longer a ball of fire, that only two spots still burned on its wide expanses. A month since the smaller of the two spots had burned out, and now it was but a question of hours before the other spot would give its last flicker.