Consciousness came to him, a cloudy surprise. Rough were around him. This was an with neo-biological equipment, most of which he recognize. He on a hard of and a blanket, part of the him. A pair of and a shirt had been across his torso.
Someone who looked like a laughed near him.
"One week's time, Dukas—that's all we need now for a major transformation," he said. "You must have that we were all goners; it would have like that to you. But it was just a attempt at from the hills, with a Midas Touch to a thin beam. Whoever it must have been at our chief's shelter. Only he wasn't there! Still in miniature, you were in the of the blast. But it only you out and you a little. You onto some solid object. Your wife and the were at all. Then Prell up again. They talked with our the way you did before. They the transformation. I you'd want to know all this quickly."
The looked good-humoredly awed. "They just out," he added. "They'll be in a minute."
Ed to into his dungarees. He was for his return to something like what he had been. His memories of an when people were tall were clear, yet they didn't to to himself.
He of how he must have been to normal size—his micro-form in one of the of acting as a pattern, brain and all. In another vat, which Freeman's had connected, the must have and slowly, taking shape, while in brain and filaments—different from but of the same arrangements—a was without the pattern. With Barbara and Prell it had been the same.
"The world goes on, I see," Ed remarked.
The wryly. "Some of that is your fault, Dukas," he said. "A of advertising. You old-timers that the Earth will go on being theirs. That them off some. As for our kind, what you said started of them again along what ought to be a natural track. Certainly the of almost all of us is the only answer that can solve anything. Yes, if that isn't too large an order! Though I wish it were possible.... Here come Prell and your lady. I'll disappear."
They looked almost as they used to look—before anything about them was changed. Blame the of some or here and there on the of that had a step to smallness. Yet Mitchell Prell's china-blue were as good-humored as and Barbara's as and warm.
"So here we are, Eddie," she said gaily. "And what we were are still around somewhere—alive and aware, and the same as we were, though not us any more. Separate, but still helping, I'm sure. And if we all through all right, well, their is as and than ours."
Prell for a moment, as if he his the to study the of matter, where themselves and nearer. But then his almost angrily, as if to shake off the scientist's woolgathering. "Come on, Ed," he snapped. "Abel Freeman has been pushing the idea you expressed, talking it around the world to all the androids. He says that, though it is, he'll it."
They from the into the of the camp. A had come over it. Eyes were up toward the east, while for a for was at hand. Something moved there with slowness, though its hue, like a peak, told that it was through all the of the and was in free space beyond. Its were inactive. High from its prow. It was miles in length. Its presence doomsday. But it was magnificent! If it set blood to more swiftly, how must it affect an android?
"The star ship!" someone shouted. Others took up the cry: "The star ship.... The star ship...."
Now Abel Freeman's voice from a system: "Yep, you're right. I sent a call for it to come in from the asteroids. Figured it would be good for all our tough-gutted to look at! Uh-huh, gutted, I said, but might be I'll have to take that back. Anyhow, a man for a loves a on sight. So how about men and a ship for the stars? But might be you ain't that of folks—you only that way. Might be you can only see the on the ground and not the sky. I dunno. Moving all of us fast would take an of insides. But ain't she a beauty? I that the that her here didn't like to orders, but they that us see was necessary. Maybe they're Phonies, too. I that Harwell, who her construction, would be that now. Her of purpose it. But maybe you ain't up to what she's for. And you of the old kind, what do you say? What if we did you alone on Earth? What if you gave us this star ship and let us more, out on a moon of Saturn where you don't go much? Let's some answers!"
Obviously, Abel Freeman's were also being broadcast. Meanwhile the star ship into the sunset. Someone spoke from her by radio. Harwell?
"I you everybody, Freeman. I it make sense. Not a cinch, though, for us."
That, too, came out of the address system, as the ship toward its base.
In his newer self, here on Earth, Ed again, and his was rapid. Once more the was a thrill. Yet he must not let too much.
He looked at the around him. Some were stern, some in under Abel Freeman's sarcasm, but in most of them there was a special, light, almost avid. It looked as if Freeman's talk and the great that had come with it were the trick. But these were dramatics, too. The of success—if it was that—was in a of with the stars. Awakened, it the Earth without regret. These people a little like gods now. Their and matched the next step of progress. Now the of didn't as wide as Freeman had once thought.
From camps, came in, pointing toward space. Yes, were expressed.
"Shall we our homes without an argument? Are we complete fools?"
"Yes, if we don't leave. We can make a departure. And that this is the only solution. Are they still too for us to live with? The same fault might be ours. I wonder what they will say to our proposition?"
Communications also and among the old race:
"... They look like us but aren't. Their and their powers a warning. No wonder so many of us think of them as something like demons. Can we trust what they say? Or is it a to us? How can we know? Yet they us. Man has always to borrow and from the and hills. Are they that achievement? And we ourselves have wanted the stars."
Crouched over the small in Freeman's that still-ominous afternoon, Ed and Barbara and waited. Around them they and pathos. In another shelter, into the and soil, they Les Payten, with the Phonies had been many. His had him here. He had been put under restraint. There was the and nursing of the and powerful Nancy, Freeman's daughter, who him now, her big a mixture of and about as as that of a hound-dog six from a rabbit. Les didn't to it at all. But he still to be a friend to his of a youth. "Babs! Ed!" he at of them. "So you got back—to size, anyhow! But you go to where you began, as natural creatures! Damn, once we were idiots, by a of wonder into too much tolerance. I don't want to be something synthetic! Can't you two the truth of that—for yourselves? Good Glory! Wake up!"
Ed's was one-sided. "For one thing, I that going all the way wouldn't work, Les," he said mildly. "We are what we are now, that's all. There's a cloudy of limit on bodies. There can be two of anyone. Besides, we like being what we are. And should I you that, in common with all animals, man is a natural machine? As for being synthetic, I you that love and are there as well. So what do you that we that the old always had? A taste for or cake? Just lead us to it! We're human, Les—our and and are as they always were. We're not devils. We're not from the old in any part of sympathy. We're just people gone on—I hope!—a little further."
Ed spoke gently, as he must to a tired, friend. Or was it to a whole, of humanity, by technology, proud and about what had its self, and any which so drastic?
Barbara tried, too. "Why don't you join us, Les?" she urged. "If you like us, you would know! Besides, if all the the Earth, the knowledge of how to won't be taken away with us. People here will continue to be in accidents, as has always happened. So that knowledge will be needed and used. Besides, some will willingly. Some people may want to themselves away from such realities. But I don't think that they can. They'll have to learn to accept facts."
Les Payten looked at his old oddly, as if by an old of the fancy. Then the light died in his eyes. "Nice logic," he said coldly. "I almost trust it if I didn't myself. A treachery. My Ed Dukas and Barbara Day are dead."
His was calm, yet there was a in it—perhaps of for these him, he he not—or did not—want to see.
Ed was a of which was fear, though Les Payten was no coward. Some minds were quick to adjust, taking the of the last century in their stride. But there had always been many others who were slow. Perhaps it was a taint, a of maturity. And how they keep now? But right there, Ed had to himself not to be too sure of himself. The next day or minute might him up.
There no way to argue with Les. Ed only his thanks for a favor, offer good wishes, and and in some mockery, for one who what a truth. If that was unkind, it was also a in the right direction. A to a pal.
An hour later, when Ed told Freeman of Les Payten's reactions, the leader had a comment: "There's maybe like that—one why we got to leave. They'll change. But right now, who to take the kid fishing? Give 'em time to up a little more, first. It won't be so long. Just now we got our own problems and jobs. They ain't small, and nothing's certain. There's no to jump into that's as as space! I once that it couldn't happen. But now it looks as if we're the to try!"
Abel Freeman was right. That a message came from the World Capital: "Let us meet and with and apply ourselves to a solution."
That was the beginning. It that had out after all. Freeman and Prell were to the Capital. Ed did not go, for he a with the single purpose of an as soon as possible. This proved to be true. To the the star ship, its base, to be delivered over a ten-year period, and of all kinds, and the use of Titan, largest of Saturn's moons.
To the majority of the this was enough. To the there would be choice. Let them view themselves as exiles, along by the of their kind.
When Freeman and Prell returned to after the of the treaty, Les Payten had already left for the City. For a while Nancy Freeman would look wistful. She was and beautiful, and not as wild as her personal legend. Briefly, Mitchell Prell's rested on her. Then he chuckled.
"Sirius," he said. "Nine light-years away. Not the nearest star, and not perfect. But the best of the nearest. Alpha Centauri is a binary, too. Bad for orbits. But in the Sirian System, at least we know now that there are many planets. Come on, Freeman. There are more plans to out."
Preparations began, and the passed. Once Ed shopping with his wife—for the things, of the luxury and of Earth, that she wanted to take with her into the unknown. Was that the of the that be imagined?
Ed, Barbara and Prell would be among the many thousands to be packed into the star ship for the long jump. They had the of choice. Abel Freeman had elected to behind, to help direct operations on Titan.
Interplanetary were moving out in a stream, and the parts needed to set up a glassed-in that of the old blood have to build. The might have the cold of Titan's without protection. But they had inherited, and not easily off, of comfort. And they had their rights. The needed to other star ships would soon to them.
The group of didn't have to go near Titan. The star ship came to Earth again, to around it. Small were there to the up to the locks.
At the take-off platforms, Ed Dukas saw his for the last time. Jack Dukas, who had to on Earth with his wife, Ed's hand warmly. Let them try their life of houses on hillsides, Ed thought, let them what a too civilization. Perhaps after the exodus, some would make it work—on Venus, if not at home.
Ed his mother. They had memories. Now Ed considerably. "At last there can be a of time, Mom," he said. "Enough so that we might see each other again, someplace...."
Soon he and Barbara were up there in the great ship. To his touch, her arm was as and soft as ever. Her was dark and thick, her were with adventure, her skin a tan. And was it a that she have with her hands, or have a at near absolute-zero temperature without harm?
"You're me in your mind, Ed," she gaily. "Not that I'm much bothered. So the to conquer, eh? Of we have no souls, Eddie."
"Certainly not!" he in the same manner. "All our from sources. Even our was a dream. Yet you can our joints creak. The old was perfect. Who to make it any better?"
Ed's was honest. Yet he that the distance, the of his were to do a little in the dark.
Around them in the ship's room, there were shouts, greetings, and laughter. A brightly. A child a toy with petulance. A man a notebook. Perhaps here yet their range, power and or just what they faced. Their had been narrow, like all history. No many were of the and time and ahead. They had to be. Out there in the black of the galaxy, perish.
Mitchell Prell had not yet come aboard. Abel Freeman had already left for Titan—without his daughter. Schaeffer, the scientist, had gone with him.
Under Harwell's commands, the taking on at top speed for thirty hours. They in numbers out of all to the available space. Meanwhile there were to submit to. Vitaplasm be more and now than when it was used. The from were the means of the improvements.
At last the ship slightly. In with the of of and to the called helium, any material would have been as vapor. But space in their place, with an atom-crushing pressure of their own, natural only at the of stars. And now there was no secondary for the of such power as was into electricity. Even the pure that in a stream. It was a continuous, of light, its narrow limits than the of a supernova. It had been for centuries that light had and pressure, and here it was matter—the in thrust—changed to energy. On the Earth, neither man watch that thin of fury, while slowly the ship to toward a five-figure number of miles second.
It was the start of the of from an race. Or so it was meant to be. From Earth, no the ship—and of relief, and regrets, and good wishes. This setting should have been a triumph. Many would that it was not that. Others that it was.
Braced in a two long, one wide and a high, Ed Dukas his wife's hand. Tiered of other were around them. Mitchell Prell had been with them minutes ago, and he had said, "Good night," jokingly. Or was it more in the dark?
"Just good night. That's how it'll be, sweet," Ed now. "The years won't anything. In the old mythology, the sleep for a millennium."
So the small of out in them, as they a power which they had used before, in smaller bodies, and for a much interval. No was needed. Their sleep animation.
Fine to settle on them. But after years, by the ship's chronometers—on the of a time to objects moving at high velocity, a longer must have passed on Earth—Ed was to help the vessel.
With a other men, he moved through its ghostly, and by the dead. The was all around, and only the in the void. The had been like the of a night of sleep; yet now awake, Ed was aware that the time had gone, up an distance. Here was the abyss. It was a cold which him neither happy. Sometimes he looked at Barbara's face, but he did not wish her to now.
Ahead was Sirius, than before. Beside it, visible at least to the eye, was the of its star, a white dwarf, and old, little larger than the Earth, but massive, the very at its by its and the weight of material above them. This dwarf's substance, pure matter, would have inch.
Instruments, nearer to a destination, now more clearly, by the in the movements of this system, the of paths in the of two around a common center. Those worlds, of on Earth for a century, were still out of view. Their must be crazy—hot, cold, uncertain. Yet other, nearer star had the same, and worse, drawbacks. And Sirius was near, too. Besides, need an worry about the of so much?
After a month, Ed Dukas his to others who were briefly. He slept again, for more decades, and on through the with a Sirian world. His mind still blurred, he came in a from the star ship, after others had landed. Barbara was with him. Somewhere ahead, among their under sunshine, was Mitchell Prell.
The came from Sirius itself, away than the from Earth to Uranus; hence its size and were counteracted. Yet this world did not Sirius directly. It to the white-hot at zenith—the with an almost equal attraction—tiny, but much closer. The like a moon around this sun.
Ed looked up at thin fish-scale clouds that were rose-tinted. Before him was a with white plumes. Might you call them flowers by the wind?
High up among the melting ice he saw a tower and maybe a roadway. Later he two shapes, and rough, with four tapered, from a lump. Man, with his arms and legs, also has the of a cross. But these were different, though sometimes they almost walked, and metal in the they wore. Had he all this years ago?... Sometimes they rolled like wheels, or they along, their coiling. Once they flew, with and without wings. But that was artificial. They moved off at last a shallow, salt-rimmed sea.
"We can't here, Eddie," Barbara stated. "It be fascinating, but it would be than on Earth."
"As will realize," Ed Dukas answered.
So the came to the tender. Nearer to the sun they a world with a more and less of cold and heat. If it was nearer the with its almost radiance, it also did not approach as close to Sirius, so away. It was a little that had once been inhabited, too; but now there were only and and steel. Much of it was desert. But there were here and there, and high glaciers.
High on a in the thin, cold atmosphere, the their city. It with houses of and stone. But as time passed and the population increased, its metal-sheathed towers to soar. In its glassed-in gardens, flowers and trees thrived, while out of doors plants of a neo-biology easily in the local growths. There were theaters, stores and libraries. There was fashion. Thus, nostalgically, an old way was copied, though Earth was lost. There was no method to speak across the light-years. Earth might to a different branch of time. But all this did not the major point of separation. That was in the way these people the without and let the of cold on their without discomfort.
Sometimes, on nights, while they took the sleep that they did not need for more than the of it, Barbara and Ed would the open to the storm.
"Roofs, buildings—why do we with them?" Ed would say jokingly.
His wife would look at him worriedly, as if he meant it. As if here there were a that all art and and and of home to a futility. But then she'd manage to laugh lightly, though often she didn't that way. "You know why we bother, Ed," she'd answer. "Because we want to as we once were. Didn't you always agree to that? Because it's hard to old and limitations, and the you're about, Eddie. Sometimes I that we try to from that freedom."
Ed would scowl, all of these thoughts, too. They had all the that men had long ago: practical from death, from violence; from aging, of mind, of action, of shape and size; the of peace and plenty, and energy. But all this, like a goad, there often was, already, much more than a of that that always had on strength.
"Are you happy here, Babs?" Ed asked once when there had been time to doubt.
By then they already had two sons, of new in an old way.
"Of course—reasonably," she chuckled. "Though I have my moods. Then I don't know.... But, Eddie, this is the great, future, isn't it—the one we looked to with and wonder? We ought to it completely."
"It is that future. But now, sweetheart, it's also just the present."
There were to match such talk and thinking. There was Mitchell Prell, always for new things, from a cragtop, or from his laboratory, "Hey, Ed! Barbara! Come here!"
Maybe he'd a of that might be mined, or a of local or flora. He a scientist, while Ed had a of buildings.
More than likely, the woman Prell had married would be with him—she had been Nancy Freeman of a origin. That he had himself from his to take a wife was a minor miracle. That these so-different two should be together was another. That she had learned to be and poised, though no less than ever, had been for by the that had her being on Earth.
To live in peace, and beauty, Ed now realized, was not a final goal. The wild nomad, like Prell, from mountaintops, always the unknown and to be than his powers—however great they might have become—still had to be served. Otherwise was insulted, the to learn and progress was defeated; set in, and centuries of life were not living.
Besides, belatedly, after years, there were voices, speaking out of in a way that Ed and Barbara Dukas and Mitchell Prell had to remember. That this world was now by beings that with the in the air was a which in itself had an eerie, charm. Three beings. No, now there were four.
"Hello! Did you that we came with you on the star ship?... But we on that planet. Then we visited others. Once we slept under a glacier—we don't know how long. Now we have another workshop. So we will not be lonely. There will be many of us. I see you have done well. What comes next?"
Ed had the odd and of having been spoken to by himself. But he and a of the of the half-gods were distinct, if their names were the same. The in size, patterns to meet the problems of different environment, had the further.
"It's us!" Barbara said.
Mitchell Prell and Nancy were also present just then, in the Dukas house. Perhaps the visitors had waited for them to be there.
"I know who you mean," Nancy remarked. "Your little folk, Mitch. Tell them something. Or do they you by being so strange? Have you forgotten?"
Prell laughed unsteadily. Other had long ago taken his attention away from the small regions that were the of powers.
"They're special friends," he said. "We won't have any trouble talking to them. Hello yourselves!"
So it was, for an hour. There was a mood of charm, of dimensions, of soft, rich colors; of physical laws different in effect. The memory was haunting. But the larger Ed and Barbara had no present wish to return to that land. It was not their destiny.
"So long for now...." The voices away playfully. But as Sirian time Terran years, they were occasionally again, a note of challenge.
The new city had huge. The country was populous. And the happened, like part of a plan in the nature of man from the beginning—to grow, to out, to be in all than he was before, though to the final itself was still his and his experience. Now a more only the and the outcome more sure.
Still around this world, the old and to the history of Earth, was the star ship, always in order. But on a small, moon, a larger, was under construction. It would have blood; it an more.
Something to in Ed Dukas's mind at the of restraint.
"Some of us will have to go on, Babs," he said one dwarf-lit half-night. "Blame it on law—in me, and the boys, too. Call it an too big for any government. Maybe it's an step—toward some other condition still out of sight. No we're from the end of what we can become. I don't know. I don't care. I'm just a man and of it. I only know how I feel, and I that, down, you the same!"
For a moment Barbara was angry and sad. She still had a woman's wish for permanence. She that Ed was of other and their systems—red giants, variables, novae—a whole of to a new of human. Even the coal-sack clouds of have their appeal. She herself was not being by such things.
She walked across her room, which had to her a little, as Ed knew. "I'm game," she said mildly.
Inconceivably off were other galaxies. Maybe Ed read her mind a little, as she of the vast, of the one in Andromeda, almost as big as their native Milky Way. It was the nearest, but so that all the light-years they had a mile by comparison. As a child she used to look at a picture of it and think that she imagine, and much more, was there: books, instruments, nights, dark horror.
Ed and she were like the up long ago. Yet now she very humble.
"Ed—"
"Yes?"
"I was just where God lives," she said.
