Run to the sea: O sea, won’t you hide me?
The Lord said: O sinner-man, the sea’ll be a-sinking
All on that day.
The computer woke him gently with a series of soft chimes.
APPROACHING THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND PLANET EARTH, AS INDICATED BY YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS COURSE INSTRUCTIONS.
Planet Earth, man’s original home world. Holman nodded. Yes, this was where he had wanted to go. He had never seen the Earth, never been on this side of the Milky Way galaxy. Now he would visit the teeming nucleus of man’s doomed civilization. He would bring the news of the awful defeat, and be on the site of mankind’s birth when the inexorable tide of extinction washed over the Earth.
He noticed, as he adjusted the outside viewscreens, that the pain had gone.
“The generators have repaired themselves,” he said.
WHILE YOU SLEPT. POWER GENERATION SYSTEM NOW OPERATING NORMALLY.
Holman smiled. But the smile faded as the ship swooped closer to the solar system. He turned from the outside viewscreens to the computer once again. “Are the ‘scopes working all right?”
The computer hummed briefly, then replied. SUBSYSTEMS CHECK SATISFACTORY, COMPONENT CHECK SATISFACTORY, INTEGRATED EQUIPMENT CHECK POSITIVE. VIEWING EQUIPMENT FUNCTIONING NORMALLY.
Holman looked again. The sun was rushing up to meet his gaze, but something was wrong about it. He knew deep within him, even without having ever seen the sun this close before, that something was wrong. The sun was whitish and somehow stunted looking, not the full yellow orb he had seen in film-tapes. And the Earth. . .
The ship took up a parking orbit around a planet scoured clean of life: a blackened ball of rock, airless, waterless. Hovering over the empty, charred ground, Holman stared at the devastation with tears in his eyes. Nothing was left. Not a brick, not a blade of grass, not a drop of water.
“The Others,” he whispered. “They got here first.”
NEGATIVE, the computer replied. CHECK OF STELLAR POSITIONS FROM EARTH REFERENCE SHOWS THAT SEVERAL BILLION YEARS HAVE ELAPSED SINCE THE FINAL BATTLE.
“Seven billion. . .”
LOGIC CIRCUITS INDICATE THE SUN HAS GONE THROUGH A NOVA PHASE. A COMPLETELY NATURAL PHENOMENON UNRELATED TO ENEMY ACTION.
Holman pounded a fist on the unflinching armrest of his couch, “Why did I come here? 1 wasn’t born on Earth. I never saw Earth before. . .”
YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS INDICATES A SUBJECTIVE IMPULSE STIRRED BY. . .
“To hell with my subconscious!” He stared out at the dead world again. “All those people. . . the cities, all the millions of years of evolution, of life. Even the oceans are gone. I never saw an ocean. Did you know that? I’ve traveled over half the universe and never saw an ocean.”
OCEANS ARE A COMPARATIVELY RARE PHENOMENON EXISTING ON ONLY ONE OUT OF APPROXIMATELY THREE THOUSAND PLANETS.
The ship drifted outward from Earth, past a blackened Mars, a shrunken Jupiter, a ringless Saturn.
“Where do I go now?” Holman asked.
The computer stayed silent.
Run to the Lord: O Lord, won’t you hide me?
The Lord said: O sinner-man, you ought to been a praying
All on that day.
Holman sat blankly while the ship swung out past the orbit of Pluto and into the comet belt at the outermost reaches of the sun’s domain.
He was suddenly aware of someone watching him.
No cause for fear. I am not of the Others.
It was an utterly calm, placid voice speaking in his mind: almost gentle, except that it was completely devoid of emotion.
“Who are you?”
An observer. Nothing more.
“What are you doing out here? Where are you, I can’t see anything. . .”
I have been waiting for any stray survivor of the Final Battle to return to mankind’s first home. You are the only one to come this way, in all this time.
“Waiting? Why?”
Holman sensed a bemused shrug, and a giant spreading of vast wings.
I am an observer. I have watched mankind since the beginning. Several of my race even attempted to make contact with you from time to time. But the results were always the same—about as useful as your attempts to communicate with insects. We are too different from each other. We have evolved on different planes. There was no basis for understanding between us.
“But you watched us.”
Yes. Watched you grow strong and reach out to the stars, only to be smashed back by the Others. Watched you regain your strength, go back among the stars. But this time you were constantly on guard, wary, alert, waiting for the Others to strike once again. Watched you find civilizations that you could not comprehend, such as our own, bypass them as you spread through the galaxies. Watched you contact civilizations of your own level, that you could communicate with. You usually went to war with them.
“And all you did was watch?”
We tried to warn you from time to time. We tried to advise you. But the warnings, the contacts, the glimpses of the future that we gave you were always ignored or derided. So you boiled out into space for the second time, and met other societies at your own level of understanding—aggressive, proud, fearful. And like the children you are, you fought endlessly.
“But the Others. . . what about them?”
They are your punishment.
“Punishment? For what? Because we fought wars?”
No. For stealing immortality.
“Stealing immortality? We worked for it. We learned how to make humans immortal. Some sort of chemicals. We were going to immortalize the whole race. . . I could’ve become immortal.Immortal ! But they couldn’t stand that. . . the Others. They attacked us.”
