It was not like any human face. It was as long as his arm, and ghastly white. Breath jetted in vapor from what must be nostrils, and terrible, unmistakable, there was an eye. A large, dark eye, mournful, perhaps cynical? gone in the flash of the car’s lights.

“What was that?”

“Donkey, wasn’t it?”

“An animal?”

“Yes, an animal. By God, that’s right! You have no large animals on Anarres, have you?”

“A donkey’s a kind of horse,” said another of the men, and another, in a firm, elderly voice, “That was a horse. Donkeys don’t come that size.” They wanted to talk with him, but Shevek was not listening again. He was thinking of Takver. He wondered what that deep, dry, dark gaze out of the darkness would have meant to Takver. She had always known that all lives are in common, rejoicing in her kinship to the fish in the tanks of her laboratories, seeking the experience of existences outside the human boundary. Takver would have known how to look back at that eye in the darkness under the trees.

“There’s Ieu Eun ahead. There’s quite a crowd waiting to meet you, Dr. Shevek; the President, and several Directors, and the Chancellor, of course, all kinds of bigwigs. But if you’re tired we’ll get the amenities over with as soon as possible.”

The amenities lasted several hours. He never could remember them clearly afterward. He was propelled from the small dark box of the car into a huge bright box full of people—hundreds of people, under a golden ceiling hung with crystal lights. He was introduced to all the people. They were all shorter than he was, and bald. The few women there were bald even on their heads; he realized at last that they must shave off all their hair, the very fine, soft, short body hair of his race, and the head hair as well. But they replaced it with marvelous clothing, gorgeous in cut and color, the women in full gowns that swept the floor, their breasts bare, their waists and necks and heads adorned with jewelry and lace and gauze, the men in trousers and coats or tunics of red, blue, violet, gold, green, with slashed sleeves and cascades of lace, or long gowns of crimson or dark green or black that parted at the knee to show the white stockings, silver-gartered. Another Iotic word floated into Shevek’s head, one he had never had a referent for, though he liked the sound of it: “splendor.” These people had splendor. Speeches were made. The President of the Senate of the Nation of A-Io, a man with strange, cold eyes, proposed a toast: “To the new era of brotherhood between the Twin Planets, and to the harbinger of that new era, our distinguished and most welcome guest, Dr. Shevek of Anarres!” The Chancellor of the University talked to him charmingly, the First Director of the nation talked to him seriously, he was introduced to ambassadors, astronauts, physicists, politicians, dozens of people, all of whom had long titles and honorifics both before and after their names, and they talked to him, and he answered them, but he had no memory later of what anyone had said, least of all himself. Very late at night he found himself with a small group of men walking in the warm rain across a large park or square. There was the springy feeling of live grass underfoot; he recognized it from having walked in the Triangle Park in Abbenay. That vivid memory and the cool vast touch of the night wind awakened him. His soul came out of hiding.