"No," Falk answered, wincing. Then he said, "I have been very happy here."

The Master paused a little, but returned to his questioning. "Do you think our life here is a good one, that we follow a good way for men to go?"

"Yes."

"Tell me another thing. Who is our enemy?"

"The Shing."

"Why?"

"They broke the League of All Worlds, took choice and freedom from men, wrecked all man's works and records, stopped the evolution of the race. They are tyrants, and liars."

"But they don't keep us from leading our good life here."

"We're in hiding—we live apart, so that they'll let us be. If we tried to build any of the great machines, if we gathered in groups or towns or nations to do any great work together, then the Shing would infiltrate and ruin the work and disperse us. I tell you only what you told me and I believed, Master!"

"I know. I wondered if behind the fact you had perhaps sensed the…legend, the guess, the hope…"

Falk did not answer.

"We hide from the Shing. Also we hide from what we were. Do you see that, Falk? We live well in the Houses—well enough. But we are ruled utterly by fear. There was a time we sailed in ships between the stars, and now we dare not go a hundred miles from home. We keep a little knowledge, and do nothing with it. But once we used that knowledge to weave the pattern of life like a tapestry across night and chaos. We enlarged the chances of life. We did man's work."

After another silence Zove went on, looking up into the bright November sky: "Consider the worlds, the various men and beasts on them, the constellations of their skies, the cities they built, their songs and ways. All that is lost, lost to us, as utterly as your childhood is lost to you. What do we really know of the time of our greatness? A few names of worlds and heroes, a ragtag of facts we've tried to patch into a history.