Gala Tropile met her husband's eyes. "Unless what, Glenn?" He shrugged and turned away. "Unless you go back, you mean." He stared at her; she nodded. "You want to go back," she said, without stress. "You don't want to stay here with me, do you? You want to go back into that tub of soup again and float like a baby. You don't want to _have_ babies--you want to _be_ one." "Gala, you don't understand. We can own the Universe. I mean mankind can. And I can do it. Why not? There's nothing for me--" "That's right, Glenn. There's nothing for you here. Not any more." He opened his mouth to speak, looked at her, spread his hands helplessly. He didn't look back as he walked out the door, but he knew that his back was turned not only on the woman who happened to be his wife, but on mankind and all of the flesh. * * * * * It was night outside, and warm. Tropile stood in the old street surrounded by the low, battered houses--and he could make them new and grand! He looked up at the stars that swung in constellations too new and changeable to have names. _There_ was the Universe. Words were no good; there was no explaining things in words. Naturally he couldn't make Gala or anyone else understand, for flesh couldn't grasp the realities of mind and spirit that were liberated from flesh. Babies! A home! And the whole grubby animal business of eating and drinking and sleeping! How could anyone ask to stay in the mire when the stars challenged overhead? He walked slowly down the street, alone in the night, an apprentice godling renouncing mortality. There was nothing here for him, so why this sense of loss? Duty said (or was it Pride?): "Someone must give up the flesh to control Earth's orbit and weather--why not you?" Flesh said (or was it his soul--whatever that was?): "But you will be _alone_." He stopped, and for a moment he was poised between destiny and the dust.... Until he became aware of footsteps behind him, running, and Gala's voice: "Wait! Wait, Glenn! I want to go with you!" And he turned and waited, but only until she caught up, and then he went on. But not--forever and always again--not alone. End of Project Gutenberg's Wolfbane, by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth