like a half-remembered dream.A dream the whole race had once had.
_And now we're waking up._
Jorun moved silently over the ruins. Trees growing between tumbledblocks dappled them with moonlight and shadow; the marble was very whiteand fair against darkness. He hovered by a broken caryatid, marveling atits exquisite leaping litheness; that girl had borne tons of stone likea flower in her hair. Further on, across a street that was a lane ofwoods, beyond a park that was thick with forest, lay the nearly completeoutline of a house. Only its rain-blurred walls stood, but he couldtrace the separate rooms: here a noble had entertained his friends,robes that were fluid rainbows, jewels dripping fire, swift cynicalinterplay of wits like sharpened swords rising above music and the clearsweet laughter of dancing-girls; here people whose flesh was now dusthad slept and made love and lain side-by-side in darkness to watch themoving pageant of the city; here the slaves had lived and worked andsometimes wept; here the children had played their ageless games underwillows, between banks of roses. Oh, it had been a hard and cruel time;it was well gone but it had lived. It had embodied man, all that wasnoble and splendid and evil and merely wistful in the race, and now itslate children had forgotten.
A cat sprang up on one of the walls and flowed noiselessly along it,hunting. Jorun shook himself and flew toward the center of the city, theimperial palace. An owl hooted somewhere, and a bat fluttered out of hisway like a small damned soul blackened by hellfire. He didn't raise awind-screen, but let the air blow around him, the air of Earth.
* * * * *
The palace was almost completely wrecked, a mountain of heaped rocks,bare bones of "eternal" metal gnawed thin by steady ages of wind andrain and frost, but once it must have been gigantic. Men rarely builtthat big nowadays, they didn't need to; and the whole human spirit hadchanged, become ever more abstract, finding its treasures within itself.But there had been an elemental magnificence about early man and theworks he raised to challenge the sky.
One tower still stood--a gutted shell, white under the stars, rising ina filigree of columns and arches which seemed impossibly airy, as if itwere built of moonlight. Jorun settled on its broken upper balcony,dizzily high above the black-and-white fantasy of the ruins. A hawk flewshrieking from its nest, then there was silence.
No--wait--another yell, ringing down the star ways, a dark streak acrossthe moon's face. "Hai-ah!" Jorun recognized the joyful shout of youngCluthe, rushing through heaven like a demon on a broomstick, and scowledin annoyance. He didn't want to be bothered now.
Well, they had as much right here as he. He repressed the emotion, andeven managed a smile. After all, he would have liked to feel gay andreckless at times, but he had never been able to. Jorun was little olderthan Cluthe--a few centuries at most--but he came of a melancholy folk;he had been born old.
Another form pursued the first. As they neared, Jorun recognizedTaliuvenna's supple outline. Those two had been teamed up for one of theAfrican districts, but--
They sensed him and came wildly out of the sky to perch on the balconyrailing and swing their legs above the heights. "How're you?" askedCluthe. His lean face laughed in the moonlight. "Whoo-oo, what aflight!"
"I'm all right," said Jorun. "You through in your sector?"
"Uh-huh. So we thought we'd just duck over and look in here. Last chanceanyone'll ever have to do some sight-seeing on Earth."
Taliuvenna's full lips drooped a bit as she looked over the ruins. Shecame from Yunith, one of the few planets where they still kept cities,and was as much a child of their soaring arrogance as Jorun of his hillsand tundras and great empty seas. "I thought it would be bigger," shesaid.
"Well, they were building this fifty or sixty thousand years ago," saidCluthe. "Can't expect too much."
"There is good art left here," said Jorun. "Pieces which for one reasonor another weren't carried off. But you have to look around for it."
"I've seen a lot of it already, in museums," said Taliuvenna. "Not bad."
"C'mon, Tally," cried Cluthe. He touched her shoulder and sprang intothe air. "Tag! You're it!"
She screamed with laughter and shot off after him. They rushed acrossthe wilderness, weaving in and out of empty windows and brokencolonnades, and their shouts woke a clamor of echoes.
Jorun sighed. _I'd better go to bed_, he thought. _It's late._
* * * * *
The spaceship was a steely pillar against a low gray sky. Now and then afine rain would drizzle down, blurring it from sight; then that wouldend, and the ship's flanks would glisten as if they were polished.Clouds scudded overhead like flying smoke, and the wind was loud in thetrees.
The line of Terrans moving slowly into the vessel seemed to go onforever. A couple of the ship's crew flew above them, throwing out ashield against the rain. They shuffled without much talk or expression,pushing carts filled with their little possessions. Jorun stood to oneside, watching them go by, one face after another--scored and darkenedby the sun of Earth, the winds of Earth, hands still grimy with the soilof Earth.
_Well_, he thought, _there they go. They aren't being as emotional aboutit as I thought they would. I wonder if they really do care._
Julith went past with her parents. She saw him and darted from the lineand curtsied before him.
"Goodbye, good sir," she said. Looking up, she showed him a small andserious face. "Will I ever see you again?"
"Well," he lied, "I might look in on you sometime."
"Please do! In a few years, maybe, when you can."
_It takes many generations to raise a people like this to our standard.In a few years--to me--she'll be in her grave._
"I'm sure you'll be very happy," he said.
She gulped. "Yes," she said, so low he could barely hear her. "Yes, Iknow I will." She turned and ran back to her mother. The raindropsglistened in her hair.
Zarek came up behind Jorun. "I made a last-minute sweep of the wholearea," he said. "Detected no sign of human life. So it's all taken careof, except your old man."
"Good," said Jorun tonelessly.
"I wish you could do something about him."
"So do I."
Zarek strolled off again.
A young man and woman, walking hand in hand, turned out of the line notfar away and stood for a little while. A spaceman zoomed over to them."Better get back," he warned. "You'll get rained on."
"That's what we wanted," said the young man.
The spaceman shrugged and resumed his hovering. Presently the couplere-entered the line.
The tail of the procession went by Jorun and the ship swallowed it fast.The rain fell harder, bouncing off his force-shield like silver spears.Lightning winked in the west, and he heard the distant exuberance ofthunder.
Kormt came walking slowly toward him. Rain streamed off his clothes andmatted his long gray hair and beard. His wooden shoes made a wet soundin the mud. Jorun extended the force-shield to cover him. "I hope you'vechanged your mind," said the Fulkhisian.
"No, I haven't," said Kormt. "I just stayed away till everybody wasaboard. Don't like goodbyes."
"You don't know what you're doing," said Jorun forthe--thousandth?--time. "It's plain madness to stay here alone."
"I told you I don't like goodbyes," said Kormt harshly.
"I have to go advise the captain of the ship," said Jorun. "You havemaybe half an hour before she lifts. Nobody will laugh at you forchanging your mind."
"I won't." Kormt smiled without warmth. "You people are the future, Iguess. Why can't you leave the past alone? I'm the past." He lookedtoward the far hills, hidden by the noisy rain. "I like it here,Galactic. That should be enough for you."
"Well, then--" Jorun held out his hand in the archaic gesture of Earth."Goodbye."
"Goodbye." Kormt took the hand with a brief, indifferent clasp. Then heturned and walked off toward the village. Jorun watched him till he wasout of sight.
The technician paused in the air-lock door, looki
ng over the graylandscape and the village from whose chimneys no smoke rose. _Farewell,my mother_, he thought. And then, surprising himself: _Maybe Kormt isdoing the right thing after all._
He entered the ship and the door closed behind him.
* * * * *
Toward evening, the clouds lifted and the sky showed a clear paleblue--as if it had been washed clean--and the grass and leavesglistened. Kormt came out of the house to watch the sunset. It was agood one, all flame and gold. A pity little Julith wasn't here to seeit; she'd always liked sunsets. But Julith was
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