Front matter (continued 2)

He put the troublesome thoughts out of his mind and stripped off the strange coverings on his body. Hand in hand with Deve, he waded into the sea. They swam and played in the warm sunlight, and presently, tiring of their sport, sought the shade of a wooded glade.

As they walked hand in hand among the flowering shrubs under the trees, Deve stopped abruptly.

"Aram," she said, puzzled, "what is that?"

An alien shape stood among the verdure, gleaming where the sunlight pierced the foliage. It was a long cylinder, tapered at both ends and lined with round, blank ports. They stood there staring at the spaceship with perplexed incomprehension. Both had a vague feeling that it was familiar.

"What is it, Aram?" the girl asked again.

"I ... don't know," he confessed.

"I think we did know ... once," Deve said softly. "Aram, why are we here?"

Why? The question touched off sparks of memory that brightened and as quickly faded. Aram spoke, painfully dredging the words from beyond the veil of forgetfulness.

"We ... must ... save ... something ... from the ruins."

"What ruins?" the girl asked impatiently. "What is it we must save?"

But memory had faded. Aram could not answer her.

Still she persisted with feminine curiosity unsatisfied.

"Aram, what is this place?"

For a long moment he stood in silence beside her in the sun-splashed glade. He listened to the gentle sound of the wind in the trees and the restless murmur of the sea. Presently he replied, but with a question. "Are you happy here, Deve?"

"Oh, yes!" she breathed.

He took her in his arms, the spaceship and the past completely forgotten.

"Then this is ... Paradise," he said.

EPILOGUE

... And twenty thousand years after, as Man reached again for the stars ... these two lived in memory ... as Adam and Eve.