Homo Inferior
Page 8
race, and he was happy.
And the meaning of his life lay in the search itself.
* * * * *
They stood staring up at the ship until it was only a tiny speck in thesky, and then they looked away from it, at each other. A wave ofperception swept among them, drawing them closer to each other in theface of something they couldn't understand.
"Why did they go?" Abbot asked, in his mind.
"Why did any of the old race go?" Walden answered.
The sunlight flashed off the ship, and then it was gone.
"It's not surprising that the old race died," Abbot said. "They werebrilliant, in their way, and yet they did such strange things. Theirlives seemed so completely meaningless...."
Walden didn't answer for a moment. His eyes searched the sky for a lastglimpse of the ship, but there was nothing at all. He sighed, and helooked at Abbot, and then past him, at all the others.
"I wonder," he said, "how long it will be before some other race saysthe same thing about us."
No one answered. He turned and walked away from them, across thetrampled flowers, toward the museum and the great empty vault where thestarship had waited for so long.
THE END