"They could if they tried hard enough," Tommy said. "Someday they will."
Tommy looked almost apologetic. "I can't stay any longer. I saw your ship, and wanted to see if you really had come back. I thought it might be someone else. I'm sure glad it's you."
Tommy turned abruptly and walked straight out of the pilot-room, his small body lighting up the wall until he vanished.
Cynthia stared at her husband, her eyes dark with a questioning horror.
"The Green People," Ned said. "Think, Cynthia. Does the name mean anything to you?"
Cynthia shook her head, her lips shaping a soundless No.
Ned sat down slowly, rubbing his jaw. "I just thought you might know something about Druidism, and what the strange rites of that mysterious cult meant to the ancient inhabitants of Gaul and the British Isles. According to the Roman historian Pliny, the Druids built stone houses for their pupils and called themselves the Green People."
Starlight from the viewport illuminated Ned's pale face. He paused, then said: "The Druids were soothsayers and sorcerers who disappeared from history at the time of the Roman conquest. It was widely believed they had the power of conferring eternal youth. They taught that time was an illusion, space the shadow of a dream."
His eyes were grim with speculation. "The Druids were teachers almost in the modern sense. Pliny records that they had a passion for teaching, and thought of their worshippers as pupils, as children with much to learn. Instruction in physical science formed the cornerstone of the Druidic cult."