She had almost hypnotized him with her weary, earnest voice. For a moment, it had seemed that all this frantic quest was nothing. That it would be far, far better to find a home with Nea and build a world of his own than to go on searching the stars.
Then he answered slowly, trying to measure his words, for he did not want to hurt her feelings. “No, Nea. If I go wandering forever, it will be no worse than my fathers did before me. For a man is vagrant and restless. What he gets, he loses. And if he is lucky, he can hold fast to his dreams.”
For a moment dark anger blazed in her eyes. Then they were calm and sad again. She got to her feet, as though she were very tired.
She smiled. “If I followed all the books, I would make a scene now. I have offered myself and a world to you and have been refused. But I wish you and your dreams well, Jack Odin.”
She bent over him, and her lips brushed his. Faintly, like the touch of a rose petal, and the perfume of her hair seemed to fill the room.
Then she was gone.
Jack Odin sat there, looking long and long at the swarm of stars upon the screen, thinking of the unseen worlds about them—the worlds that he had just renounced.
Until finally he got up and went to bed.