"I will, perhaps. But not yet."
Not yet you cannot tell her, Kortha. It is for her sake that you have buried yourself alive. But she would not understand. She is turning now and going away from you, perhaps forever.
Kortha walked across the sands behind her toward the 'copter. Once his great hands went out hungrily, then fell listlessly at his sides. Ilse was not for him. She was part of his brooding, the part that ached and stabbed with loneliness. Ilse was what made him a coward.
In the shadows of the flier the girl faced him once again. She stood perilously close, her eyes beseeching silently, and the fragrance of her hair and her curving body steamed in his nostrils.
"You are no hermit, Kortha. You need life. You need a woman. You need—me."
He nodded, staring at her face, drinking it in. He did not ever intend to see Ilse again, Ilse whom he loved, Ilse of the fair hair and the blue eyes and the body tanned brown by Sol.
Kortha stepped back and his shadow fell from hers. He lifted a hand, saying softly, "Goodbye."
With arms hanging to his thighs, he stood on the desert, watching until the dot that was the 'copter in the sky passed beyond the horizon. Wearily he swung about and went back to his hut.
He yanked down a gigantic steel hammer from the wall, breaking the thong that held it to its nail. Gripping the hammer in his great hands, he swung it around his head, once, twice, in a flashing circle of blue-white light.
The walls crumpled when he hit them. The roof caved in and became the floor. Scraps of brick and metal fell to dance on the shuddering tiles. Fire leaped from the forge, caught hold and grew in a red frenzy. Red and huge in its crimson heat, Kortha battered and slammed his sledge, buckling even the wrought metalwork of his dwelling. This was his past, here before him. Sobbing, he fought it; and sobbing, watched as the fire came to consume it.