man such as you.”
She put her arm around his neck and began kissing him on his cheek, her lips slowly traveling toward his ear.
“His face?” Wolff said.
“I do not know. I could feel it, but I could not see it. A radiance from it blinded me. When he got close to me, I had to close my eyes, it was so bright.”
She shut his mouth with her kisses, and presently he forgot his questions. But when she was lying half-asleep on the soft grass by his side, he picked up the mirror and looked into it. His heart opened with delight. He looked like he had when he had been twenty-five. This he had known but had not been able to fully realize until now.
“And if I return to Earth, will I age as swiftly as I have regained my youth?”
He rose and stood for awhile in thought. Then he said, “Who do I think I’m kidding? I’m not going back.”
“If you’re leaving me now,” Elikopis said drowsily, “look for Chryseis. Something has happened to her; she runs away every time anybody gets close. Even I, her only friend, can’t approach her. Something dreadful has occurred, something she won’t talk about. You’ll love her. She’s not like the others; she’s like me.”
“All right,” Wolff replied absently. “I will.”
He walked until he was alone. Even if he did not intend to use the gate through which he had come, he did want to experiment with the horn. Perhaps there were other gates. It was possible that at any place where the horn was blown, a gate would open.
The tree under which he had stopped was one of the numerous cornucopias. It was two hundred feet tall, thirty feet thick, had a smooth, almost oily, azure bark, and branches as thick as his thigh and about sixty feet long. The branches were twigless and leafless. At the end of each was a hard-shelled flower, eight feet long and shaped exactly like a cornucopia.
Out of the cornucopias intermittent trickles of chocolatey stuff fell to the ground. The product tasted like honey with a very slight flavor of tobacco—a curious mixture, yet one he liked. Every creature of the forest ate it.
Under the cornucopia tree, he blew the horn. No “gate” appeared. He tried again a hundred yards away but without success. So, he decided, the horn worked only in certain areas, perhaps only in that place by the toadstool-shaped boulder.
Then he glimpsed the head of the girl who had come from around the tree that first time the gate had opened. She had the same heart-shaped face, enormous eyes, full crimson lips, and long tigerstripes of black and auburn hair.
He greeted her, but she fled. Her body was beautiful; her legs were the longest, in proportion to her body, that he had ever seen in a woman. Moreover, she was slimmer than the other too—curved and great-busted females of this world.
Wolff ran after her. The girl cast a look over her shoulder, gave a cry of despair, and continued to run.
He almost stopped then, for he had not gotten such a reaction from any of the natives. An initial withdrawal, yes, but not sheer panic and utter fright.
The girl ran until she could go no more. Sobbing for breath, she leaned against a moss-covered boulder near a small cataract. Ankle-high yellow flowers in the form of question-marks surrounded her. An owl-eyed bird with corkscrew feathers and long forward-bending legs stood on top of the boulder and blinked down at them. It uttered soft wee-wee-wee! cries.
Approaching slowly and smiling, Wolff said, “Don’t be afraid of me. I won’t harm you. I just want to talk to you.”
The girl pointed a shaking finger at the horn. In a quavery voice she said, “Where did you get that?”
“I got it from a man who called himself Kickaha. You saw him. Do you know him?”
The girl’s huge eyes were dark green; he thought them the most beautiful he had ever seen. This despite, or maybe because of, the catlike pupils.
She shook her head. “No. I did not know him. I first saw him when those”—she swallowed and turned pale