"I am Theusaman, god of the sun," I said. "Take up your possessions and
follow me...."
Baiel had won, after all.
* * * * *
All that happened more than fifty years ago.
I did lead the tribe to safety; that much I accomplished. They have
since built many villages and they have learned the art of agriculture
and of domesticating cattle. They have thrived and grown and joined
with other tribes. They will survive and someday rule their planet.
As Baiel once predicted, the glacier is rapidly retreating. The process
began with the heat generated by the exposed dorsal tube of the dead
_Olympus_. Each spring the run-off of melting water is greater than the
ice which accumulates during the winter. When the glacier is gone, it
will give my people a fertile world like our own Earth.
For that I am glad, because I have given them nothing else.
Nothing else!
I have, instead, saddled them with a hierarchy of gods. The tribes
which migrated across the sea have taken a part of my name as their
sun god; they call me Amon. Here at home they call me Zeus. Dayhan has
become Diana, the goddess of the forests. Even Baiel leaves his name
with a people settled in the desert, though to us Baal persists as a
god of evil things.
Ironically, the one thing of Earth that I have given these people
is the name itself. This planet they call the Earth, unaware of any
other. They think of themselves as Earthmen. And I? I am called Zeus of
Olympus, father of all the gods!
Perhaps I judge my failure too bitterly. I am an old man, now, the last
living survivor of the expedition. I have looked into the face of my
sons and my grandsons, as I have the sons and grandsons of the other
Earthmen who were with our expedition. Our children have our features,
not the slant skulls and ape arms of their mothers. Have we, by chance,
left on this lonely planet something of our potential ability as
Earthmen?
* * * * *
Though I cannot live long enough to know the answer, I would like to
believe that we have. Because I want to believe, I leave this written
account of the truth. I address it to my sons of tomorrow--to men who
have finally made themselves free of taboo and superstition. To them
I say: Lift up your eyes to the sky, to that other Earth across the
emptiness of space. Seek them out, those other Earthmen, and know them
for your brothers.