Trying to explain was like describing color to a man born blind. With the surface of Venus she seemed to have a slight familiarity, but she had never glimpsed planets or stars, never seen the sun.
"You are from the World Beyond—and yet you are alive!" she said in awe.
She smiled and seemed relieved when Barry hastily assured her there was nothing supernatural about his place of origin, but she understood only that he was not an undersea dweller by birth. She hurried on to other questions.
"But why have only you of all your people come to the Here?" she asked. "And now—Oh, tell me how!—did you cause the Place Of Change to work again?"
Barry frowned, trying to grasp her meaning. "An accident happened to me out in space that made me different."
"You did not come through the Place Of Change?" She seemed bitterly disappointed. "Then how will you return?"
"I will never see my own people again, I fear," he admitted.
Xintel made a soft sound of sympathy.
"I owe my very life to you, for I would have killed myself rather than bear a child to those norus who captured me. You can stay here in Tana, with me—if Komso does not cause your death."
Barry knew that if he were to survive he must learn the ways of this undersea world. Alone he would soon perish. He had no choice.