"Valduma," he whispered.
Basil, you were very dear to me. You were something new and strong and of the future, come to our weary old world, and I think I loved you.
I could still love you, Basil. I could hold you forever, if you would let me.
"Valduma—have done!"
A mocking ripple of laughter, sweet as rain in springtime, the gallantry of a race which was old and sick and doomed and could still know mirth. Donovan shook his head and stared rigidly before him. It was as if he had laid hands on that piece of his soul which had been lost, and she was trying to wrench it from him again. Only he wanted her to win.
Go home, Basil. Go home with this female of yours. Breed your cubs, fill the house with brats, and try to think your little round of days means something. Strut about under the blue skies, growing fat and gray, bragging of what a great fellow you used to be and disapproving of the younger generation. As you like, Basil. But don't go out to space again. Don't look at the naked stars. You won't dare.
"No," he whispered.
She laughed, a harsh bell of mockery ringing in his brain. You could have been a god—or a devil. But you would rather be a pot-bellied Imperial magistrate. Go home, Basil Donovan, take your female home, and when you are wakened at night by her—shall we say her breathing?—do not remember me.
The Terrans slogged on down the street, filthy with dust and grease and blood, uncouth shamblers, apes in the somber ruin of the gods. Donovan thought he had a glimpse of Valduma standing on a roof-top, the clean lithe fire of her, silken flame of her hair and the green unhuman eyes which had lighted in the dark at his side. She had been a living blaze, an unending trumpet and challenge, and when she broke with him it had been quick and clean, no soddenness of age and custom and—and, damn it, all the little things which made humanness.
All right, Valduma. We're monkeys. We're noisy and self-important, compromisers and trimmers and petty cheats, we huddle away from the greatness we could have, our edifices are laid brick by brick with endless futile squabbling over each one—and yet, Valduma, there is something in man which you don't have. There's something by which these men have fought their way through everything you could loose on them, helping each other, going forward under a ridiculous rag of colored cloth and singing as they went.