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.”
He sensed a disapproving shake of the head.
“It’s true,” Holman insisted. “They were afraid of how powerful we would become once we were all immortal. So they attacked us while they still could. Just as they had done a million years earlier. They destroyed Earth’s first interstellar civilization, and tried to finish us permanently. They even caused Ice Ages on Earth to make sure none of us would survive. But we lived through it and went back to the stars. So they hit us again. They wiped us out. Good God, for all I know I’m the last human being in the whole universe.”
Your knowledge of the truth is imperfect. Mankind could have achieved immortality in time. Most races evolve that way eventually. But you were impatient. You stole immortality.
“Because we did it artificially, with chemicals. That’s stealing it?”
Because the chemicals that gave you immortality came from the bodies of the race you called the Flower People. And to take the chemicals, it was necessary to kill individuals of that race.
Holman’s eyes widened. “What?”
For every human made immortal, one of the Flower Folk had to die.
“We killed them? Those harmless little. . .” His voice trailed off.
To achieve racial immortality for mankind, it would have been necessary to perform racial murder on the Flower Folk.
Holman heard the words, but his mind was numb, trying to shut down tight on itself and squeeze out reality.
That is why the Others struck. That is why they had attacked you earlier, during your first expansion among the stars. You had found another race, with the same chemical of immortality. You were taking them into your laboratories and methodically murdering them. The Others stopped you then. But they took pity on you, and let a few survivors remain on Earth. They used your Ice Ages as a kindness, to speed your development back to civilization, not to hinder you. They hoped you might evolve into a better species. But when the opportunity for immortality came your way once more, you seized it, regardless of the cost, heedless of your own ethical standards. It became necessary to extinguish you, the Others decided.
“And not a single nation in the whole universe would help us.”
Why should they?
“So it’s wrong for us to kill, but it’s perfectly all right for the Others to exterminate us.”
No one has spoken of right and wrong. I have only told you the truth.
“They’re going to kill every last one of us.”
There is only one of you remaining.
The words flashed through Holman. “I’m the only one. . . the last one?”
No answer.
He was alone now. Totally alone. Except for those who were following.
