He paused and looked at her, confused.
Gala Tropile met her husband's eyes.
"Unless what, Glenn?"
He shrugged and turned away.
"Unless you go back, you mean." He stared at her; she nodded. "You want to go back," she said, without stress. "You don't want to stay here with me, do you? You want to go back into that tub of soup again and float like a baby. You don't want to have babies—you want to be one."
"Gala, you don't understand. We can own the Universe. I mean mankind can. And I can do it. Why not? There's nothing for me—"
"That's right, Glenn. There's nothing for you here. Not any more."
He opened his mouth to speak, looked at her, spread his hands helplessly. He didn't look back as he walked out the door, but he knew that his back was turned not only on the woman who happened to be his wife, but on mankind and all of the flesh.
It was night outside, and warm. Tropile stood in the old street surrounded by the low, battered houses—and he could make them new and grand! He looked up at the stars that swung in constellations too new and changeable to have names. There was the Universe.