"Louie," Cal said slowly. "If you were lonely, very lonely, if you had searched through the years for companionship, and thought you might have found it, would it please you to have that companion drop to his knees, grovel before you? Would this be your idea of companionship?
"What manner of monstrous egotism would require that? What but the incredible vanity of primitive man, to whom life meant nothing more than conquering or being conquered, could imagine such conduct would be pleasing to another intelligence?
"We are men, Louie. If, in our loneliness, we found another intelligence, wouldn't we want an equal exchange instead of abasement? The use of that intelligence to know, to understand, instead of a denial of it?"
Louie twisted out of Cal's embracing arm, and ran stumbling toward the depths of the forest.
23
For another week, perhaps ten days or more, since time measurement had lost its meaning, Cal lived among the colonists, watched their complete retrogression into a state of unawareness. Even the speech which they had retained seemed now to thin and falter as the simplifying of their idea-content no longer required its use.
Only Tom and Jed seemed to retain their orientation to the past, the clarity of awareness. These two spent much time together, seemed always available when Cal needed them, yet did not intrude upon his thought. Frank now seemed one with the colonists. Louie lived on the outskirts of the herd, near the colonists but not of them. He had ceased to exhort, warn, command, argue. His face was closed, told nothing of what he was thinking.
And he had ceased to demand his tithe as intercessor. He was gathering his own food, catching his own fish.