"Because I signed to them to let you stay. You did not see, whatever-your-name-is...."
"Call me Carlin Keele, Carl for short. What is your name, and what is your race, and why are you so different from people as I know them?"
"My name is Nokomee, as I told you before. You are still confused from the magic that led you here. I have saved you once, and now we are even; my debt to you is paid. You will never see your friends again, and if you do, you will be sorry that you saw them, for they will have become beasts of burden. Now go, before it is too late. This is not your kind of country."
Something in her eyes, something in the sharp peremptory tone she used, told me the truth.
"You don't really want me to go, Nokomee. I don't want to go. Many things make me want to stay—your beauty is not the least attraction. I could learn so much that my people do not know, that yours seem to know."
"I would not want my beauty to lead you to your death." Nokomee did not smile, she only looked at me, and I saw there a deep loneliness, a tender need for companionship and sympathy that had never been filled in her life. She looked at me, and her lower lip trembled a little, her eyes suddenly averted from mine.
"Nokomee, there is so much we would have to tell each other, you of your life, and I of the great country of which you have never heard. Would you not like to see the great cities of my country?"
She shook her head, turned on me with sudden fierce words:
"When you came and struck down that hideous cross-eyed man, my heart went out to you in gratitude. Go, while my heart remains soft, it is not so often that the heart of a Zerv is soft toward any outlander. Go, I cannot protect you from this place."
"I will stay," I said.