"And it's the truth," said Kieran. "But there's something else." He
looked thoughtfully at her. "It was a good idea. It was bound to work--a
man of my time was bound to feel just this way you wanted him to feel,
and would go away from here crying your party slogans and believing
them. But you overlooked something--"
He paused, looking out the window into the sky, at the faint
vari-colored radiance of the cluster.
* * * * *
"You overlooked the fact that when you awoke me, I would no longer be a
man of my own time--or of any time. I was in darkness for a hundred
years--with the stars my brothers, and no man touching me. Maybe that
chills a man's feelings, maybe something deep in his mind lives and has
time to think. I've told you how I feel, yes. But I haven't told you
what I think--"
He stopped again, then said, "The people out there in the corral have my
form, and my instinctive loyalty is to them. But instinct isn't enough.
It would have kept us in the mud of Earth forever, if it could. Reason
took us out to the wider universe. Instinct tells me that those out
there are my people. Reason tells me that you--" he looked at Bregg,
"--who are abhorrent to me, who would make my skin creep if I touched
you, you who go by reason--that you are my real people. Instinct made a
hell of Earth for millennia--I say we ought to leave it behind us there
in the mud and not let it make a hell of the stars. For you'll run into
this same problem over and over again as you go out into the wider
universe, and the old parochial human loyalties must be altered, to
solve it."
He looked at Paula and said, "I'm sorry, but if anyone asks me, that is
what I'll say."
"I'm sorry, too," she said, rage and dejection ringing in her voice.
"Sorry we woke you. I hope I never see you again."
Kieran shrugged. "After all, you did wake me. You're responsible for me.
Here I am, facing a whole new universe, and I'll need you." He went over
and patted her shoulder.
"Damn you," she said. But she did not move away from him.