by Unknown
Samul lifted his eyes, looking across the meadow. He could see how Danny felt, and Yoshi, too. It was a beautiful world, unbelievably quiet and serene. The emerald sky was much more pleasing than pinkish-gray. “Perhaps we could come back,” he said slowly.
“We?” She gazed demurely at him. Samul squeezed her hand in answer. “Do you believe it possible?” she whispered.
“I don’t see why not.” He felt a sudden assurance. “That falls in Sol Houston’s province. I’m certain he’d be happy to start colonizing this side of the Ebon Deeps.”
“But could he?” she asked hopefully.
“Of course.” Samul patted her hand. “It’s just a matter of finding the right regulation.”
Gultur, Lord of the Stars, slithered out to the balcony. Looking at the small patch of orange that lay like a smudge among the distant stars, he felt a great sorrow. He would never cross the black abyss, never sow the Wind of Death on the distant worlds beyond. Tomorrow his fleet would rise from the surface of this bleak planet, begin its retreat.
Retreat! Retreat! The shocking knowledge of Mind Master Zandro’s mental defeat at the hands of alien telepaths had brought immediate consternation to the High Council. Retreat! Retreat! That had been the essence of the orders flowing in through the Iku-Nukus.
Gultur gazed at the stars. He knew what the order meant. The great Kroon armadas would retreat on all fronts; throughout the ages the periphery of the frontier around Munga would shrink until, finally, only Munga would be left. When that time came, the remnants of his race once again would return to the waters of the slate-gray seas; they would live there, through eternities, until the gods once again called them forth. It had been that way before, for this was the Third Cycle of Life; it would be that way again.
He studied the monument to Dort. Seventy-four mokols high, it cut a slender notch against the sky. But there would be no stone for him. Yet what was stone but a transient thing, fleeting in any given shape? He had viewed the monuments to Grug, Ukul, Zorn; already they had begun to crumble. In truth, the Universe itself was but a fleeting happening in the Sea of Time.
That, too, was written in the Book of the Gods.
The Authors
JEAN AND JEFF SUTTON are a man-and-wife writing team who make their home in San Diego, California. This is their third novel for Putnam’s, the first being The Beyond and the second, The Programmed Man. Jeff Sutton is also the author of Apollo at Go and Beyond Apollo, both science fiction. An ex-newspaperman and the author of many novels, Mr. Sutton is an editorial consultant in the aerospace field. Mrs. Sutton teaches high school social studies in San Diego, California.