Again there came a blankness, and I passed over a stretch of time,
perhaps over years or even decades. And I had wandered far in space, to
an island somewhere on a sunny sea; and there once more I heard the
sound of voices. And somehow, through some deeper sense, I knew that
these were the voices of the only men left anywhere on the whole wide
planet. And I looked down on them, and saw that they were but few, no
more than a dozen men and women in all, with three or four children
among them. But their faces, unlike those which I had seen before, were
not haggard and seamed, nor avid like those of hunting beasts, nor
distorted by fury or famine. Their brows were broad and noble, and their
eyes shone with the sweetness of great thoughts, and their smiles were
as unuttered music; and when they glanced at me with their clear, level
gaze, I knew that they were such beings as poets had pictured as
dwellers in a far tomorrow. And I did not feel sad, though I could not
forget that they were the only things in human form that one could find
on all earth's shores, and though I knew that they were too few to
perpetuate their kind for long. Somehow I felt some vast benevolent
spirit in control, that these most perfect specimens of our race should
endure when all the wreckers had vanished.
As I watched, I saw the people all turning their eyes to an eastern
mountain, whose summit still trailed the golden of the dawn-clouds. And
from above the peak a great illuminated sphere, like a chariot of
light, miraculously came floating down; and the blaze was such that I
could hardly bear to look at it. And exclamations of wonder and joy came
from the people's throats; and I too cried out in joy and wonder as the
radiant globe descended, and as it alighted on the plain before us,
casting a sunlike aura over everything in sight. Then through the sides
of the enormous ball--I would not say, through the door, for nothing of
the kind was visible--a glorious being emerged, followed by several of
his kind. He was shaped like a man, and was no taller than a man, and
yet there was that about him which said that he was greater than a man,
for light seemed to pour from every cell of his body, and a golden halo
was about his head, and his eyes shot forth golden beams so intense and
so magnetic that, once having observed them, I could hardly take my gaze
away.
With slow steps he advanced, motioning the people to him; and they drew
near, and flung themselves before him on the ground, and cried out in
adoration. And I too threw myself to earth, in worship of this
superhuman creature; and I heard the words he spoke, and with some
deeper sense I translated them, though they were not uttered in any
language I knew:
"Out of the stars we come, O men! and back to the stars we shall go,
that the best of your race may be transplanted there, and survive
through means known to us, and again be populous and great. Through the
immense evil within the breasts of your kind, you have been purged and
all but annihilated; but the good within your race has also been mighty,
and can never be expunged; and that good has called through you
surviving few to us your guardians, that we may take you to another
planet, and replenish you there, and teach you that lore of love and
truth and beauty which the blind members of your species have neglected
here while they unfitted the earth for human habitation."
So speaking, the radiant one motioned to the people, who arose, and
followed him inside the great sphere of light; and when they had all
entered, it slowly began to ascend, and slowly dwindled and disappeared
against the morning skies. And now, I knew, there was no longer a man
left anywhere on earth; yet as I gazed at the deserted shore, the empty
beach and the bare mountainside, a sense of supreme satisfaction came
over me, as though I knew that in the end, after fire and agony and
degradation, all was eternally well.
* * * * *
That sense of supreme satisfaction remained with me when, after still
another blank interval, I opened my eyes as from a deep slumber, and
stared at the familiar book-rack, the bureau, the mottled paper walls of
my own room. The clock on the little table at my side indicated the hour
of 10:09--in other words, all that had happened had occupied the space
of one minute! Yet I know as surely as I know that I write these
words--that the Release Drug had freed my spirit to range over thousands
of miles of space, and that I have looked on people and events which no
other eye will view for scores, hundreds or even thousands of years to
come.
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Fantasy Book_ Vol. 1 number 1 (1947).
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.