"Eh?" There is always The Project. "Come with you?"
"We look for old ones," said the young man. There was a new note in his voice, and the note was impatience. "We traveled many days, up across the sun-path. We want you to speak the Abraham-words for marriage. The Old Ones said we must not mate as the animals do without the words. We want—"
"Marry, of course," said Brian feebly, rubbing his great, long-fingered hand across his face so that the words were blurred and dull. "Naturally. Beget. Replenish the Earth. I'm tired. I don't know any Abraham-words for marriage. Go on and marry. Try again. Try—"
"But the Old Ones said—"
"Wait!" Brian cried. "Wait! Let me think. Did he—he who told you to call him Jonas, did he teach you anything about the world as it was in the old days, before you were born?"
"Before? The Old Man makes fun of us."
"No, no." And since he now had to fight down physical fear as well as confusion, Brian spoke more harshly than he intended: "Answer my question! What do you know of the old days? I was a young man once, do you understand? As young as you. What do you know about the world I lived in?"
Jonason laughed. There was new-born doubt in him as well as anger, stiffening his shoulders, narrowing his innocent gray eyes. "There was always the world," he said, "ever since God made it a thousand years ago."
"Was there? I was a musician. Do you know what a musician is?"