Sudden rebellion shook Stuart's bodiless brain. "Get out of my mind!" he raged at the double-voice. "What do you know about human beings? I've won for mankind—but what did I win for myself? Nothing—nothing! And Kari—Get out of my mind and let me die! What do you know about love?"
Amazingly, laughter pulsed softly.
"Love?" said the double-voice. "Love? You have not guessed who we are?"
Stuart's bewildered mind framed only a voiceless question.
"We know humanity," the twin voices said. "We were human once, a thousand years ago. Very human, Derek Stuart. And we remembered love."
He half guessed the answer. "You are—"
"There was a man and a woman once," the voices told him gently. "Mankind still remembers their legend—John Starr and Lorna, who defied the Aesir."
"John Starr and Lorna!"
"We fought the Aesir in the days when we and they were human. We worked with them on the entropy device that made them what they are now—and made us—ourselves. When we saw what they planned with their power, we fought.... But they were five, and strong because they were ruthless. We had to flee."
The voices that spoke as one voice were distant, remembering.