Tropile stood poised, hands half-clenched. "Take—"
"Take you home. Yeah. Where you belong, Tropile. Not back to Wheeling, if that's what is worrying you."
"Where I—"
"Where you belong."
Then Tropile understood.
He got into the helicopter wonderingly. Home. So there was a home for such as he. He wasn't alone. He needn't keep his solitary self apart. He could be with his own kind.
He remembered Gala Tropile and paused. One of the men said with quick understanding: "Your wife? I think we saw her about half a mile from here. Heading back to Wheeling as fast as she could go."
Tropile nodded. That was better, after all. Gala was no Wolf, though he had tried his best to make her one.
One of the men closed the door; another did something with levers and wheels; the vanes whooshed around overhead; the helicopter bounced on its stiff-sprung landing legs and then rocked up and away.
For the first time in his life, Glenn Tropile looked down on the land.