«Well,» said Alystra at last, «what are you going to do?»

«I can’t help it,» he said a little sulkily. «I think the rules are stupid. Besides, how can I remember them when I’m living a saga? I just behave in the way that seems natural. Didn’t you want to look at the mountain?»

Alystra’s eyes widened with horror.

«That would have meant going outside!» she gasped.

Alvin knew that it was useless to argue further. Here was the barrier that sundered him from all the people of his world, and which might doom him to a life of frustration. He was always wanting to go outside, both in reality and in dream. Yet to everyone in Diaspar, «outside» was a nightmare that they could not face. They would never talk about it if it could be avoided; it was something unclean and evil. Not even Jeserac his tutor, would tell him why.

Alystra was still watching him with puzzled but tender eyes. «You’re unhappy, Alvin,» she said. “No one should be unhappy in Diaspar. Let me come over and talk to you.»

Ungallantly, Alvin shook his head. He knew where that would lead and at the moment he wanted to be alone. Doubly disappointed, Alystra faded from view.

In a city of ten million human beings, thought Alvin, there was no one to whom he could really talk. Eriston and Etania were fond of him in their way, but now that their term of guardianship was ending, they were happy enough to leave him to shape his own amusements and his own life. In the last few years, as his divergence from the standard pattern became more and more obvious, he had often felt his parents’ resentment. Not with him-that perhaps, was something he could have faced and fought-but with the sheer bad luck that had chosen them from all the city’s millions, to meet him when he walked out of the Hall of Creation twenty years ago.