by E. C. Tubb
Sickly Curt watched her fall, then, his eyes bleak, he returned to the silence of the room.
“You killed her,” he said, and was not surprised at the answer from the cubicle.
“No. Her heart was bad and she was dead long before she hit the ground. She was dangerous, Curt. She had a warped mind, a bitter mind, caused by her years of struggle and her blind denial of the normal needs of every woman ever bom. Her successor will not be like that.”
“Her successor? Nyeeda?”
“Yes. The world needs a ruler, Curt, and why not a woman? Nyeeda will fill the Matriarchy, and her children and yours will lead men back to the position they once had and threw away.”
“The stars?” Curt nodded and his arms closed around the woman at his side.
"Yes. Man must progress, Curt. He must thrust forever onwards, outwards, upwards to the new worlds waiting for him in the depths of space. He cannot rest in snug security, for if he does, then he dies from decadence and decay. We have learned our lesson you and I. There will be no more Atom Wars, no more poverty in the midst of plenty, but, equally so, there fan be no restriction of enterprise, no stifling of ambition and adventure. Man has a destiny and he must fulfil that destiny—or die.”
“The Martians,” whispered Curt. “Lasser and Carter. Wendis and Menson, all of them. They long to return to Mars. They will go, of course, but that is only a beginning.-Mars is an arid place, and yet it is a crucible in which the star-rovers yet to come will be forged.” He straightened and his voice held a new authority as he stared at Comain.
“You will work on a star drive. You will work on immortality or a means of extending the average life-span. You ' will resolve the paraphysical sciences so that all men can share in their benefits. All this you will do, but first, the Martians must return home.”
“All that I will do.”
“Together we can solve all the problems of mankind,” whispered Curt. “Now, after two and a half centuries, we are together again—and the old dreams have not lost their power.”
Unconsciously his arm tightened around the woman at his side. She promised all the things he had thought lost forever. A wife, children, a happy and a contented life. He would be content, he knew that, but there was something else. She would be the Matriarch, the accepted ruler of the world, and the three of them, Nyeeda, Curt, and Comain, would resolve old dreams and forgotten hopes.
For Nyeeda and himself were one, inseparable and united in bonds of love and trust. Comain rested in his machine, the thing built by his own genius and stocked with the knowledge of centuries, and Curt smiled as he realised what that meant.'
Curt and Comain. Together again.
To the stars.
