sincerely hope so," said Crownwall.
* * * * *
Refreshments were served to His Effulgence and to Crownwall during thetrip, without interrupting the smooth progress of the sedan. Thesoldiers of the cohort, the bearers and Ggaran continued to run--withoutfood, drink or, except for Ggaran, evidence of fatigue.
After several hours of travel, following Crownwall's directions, theprocession arrived at the copse in which he had concealed his smalltransportation machine. The machine, for spatial mobility, was equippedwith the heavy and grossly inefficient anti-gravity field generatordeveloped by Kowalsky. It occupied ten times the space of the temporaltranslation and coordination selection systems combined, but it had thegreat advantage of being almost undetectable in use. It emitted no massor radiation.
After elaborate and lengthy farewells, Crownwall climbed into hismachine and fell gently up until he was out of the atmosphere, beforestarting his enormous journey through time back to Earth. More quicklythan it had taken him to reach his ship from the palace of HisEffulgence, he was in the Council Chamber of the ConfederationGovernment of Earth, making a full report on his trip to Vega.
When he had finished, the President sighed deeply. "Well," he said, "wegave you full plenipotentiary powers, so I suppose we'll have to standbehind your agreements--especially in view of the fact that we'llundoubtedly be blown into atoms if we don't. But from what you say, I'drather be in bed with a rattler than have a treaty with a Vegan. Theysound ungodly murderous to me. There are too many holes in thatprotection plan of yours. It's only a question of time before they'llfind some way around it, and then--poof--we'll all be dust."
"Things may not be as bad as they seem," answered Crownwallcomplacently. "After I got back a few million years, I'm afraid I got alittle careless and let my ship dip down into Vega III's atmosphere fora while. I was back so far that the Vegans hadn't appeared yet. Now, Ididn't land--or _deliberately_ kill anything--but I'd be mightysurprised if we didn't find a change or two. Before I came in here, Iasked Marshall to take the ship out and check on things. He should beback with his report before long. Why don't we wait and see what he hasto say?"
* * * * *
Marshall was excited when he was escorted into the Council Chamber. Hebowed briefly to the President and began to speak rapidly.
"They're gone without trace--_all of them_!" he cried. "I went clear toSunda and there's no sign of intelligent life anywhere! We're all alonenow!"
"There, you see?" exclaimed Crownwall. "Our enemies are all gone!"
He looked around, glowing with victory, at the others at the table, thenslowly quieted and sat down. He turned his head away from their accusingeyes.
"Alone," he said, and unconsciously repeated Marshall's words: "We'reall alone now."
In silence, the others gathered their papers together and left the room,leaving Crownwall sitting at the table by himself. He shiveredinvoluntarily, and then leaped to his feet to follow after them.
Loneliness, he found, was something that he couldn't face alone.
--L. J. STECHER, JR.
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Galaxy Magazine_ June 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
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