"Once," Bruce said. "She might have been sane. They got her when she was young. Too young to fight. But she would have, I think, if she'd been older when they got her."
He sat looking down at Marsha's face, and then at the water with the leaves floating down it.
"'... And the springs that flow on the floor of the valley will never seem fresh or clear for thinking of the glitter of the mountain water in the feathery green of the year....'"
He stood up, walked back with Helene along the canal toward the calm city. He didn't look back.
"They've all been dead quite a while," Bruce said wonderingly. "Yet I seemed to be hearing from Terrence until only a short time ago. Are—are the climbers still climbing—somewhere, Helene?"
"Who knows?" Helene answered softly. "Maybe. I doubt if even the Martians have the answer to that."
They entered the city.