Edmond Hamilton

“ For Lorri Lee, her blonde head bright even in the dull light, turned loose all her practised charming gestures for the broadcast cameras, as she gestured with pretty excitement down toward the ruins.
"It's so unbelievable!" she cried to a thousand worlds. "To be here on Earth, to see the old places again—it does something to you!"
It did something to Kellon. It made him feel sick at his stomach. He turned and went back to the ship, feeling at that moment that if Lorri Lee went into a quicksand on the way back, it would be no great loss. ”

“ It was chill and oppressive in there, and he went out and sat on the little terrace in the sunshine.
He looked at the house. It could have been built no later than the Twentieth Century, he thought. A good many different people must have lived in it during the hundreds of years before the evacuation of Earth.
Kellon thought that it was strange that the airphoto surveys that Darnow's men had made in quest of relics had not discovered the place. But then it was not so strange, the stone walls were so grayly inconspicuous and it was set so deeply into the sheltering bay of the valley wall. ”

“ Nothing broke the drab color of raw soil, except the shards of ice still lingering in low places. A heavy desultory wind stirred the raw air, and then was still. There was not a sound except the clinkclinking of the ship's skin cooling and contracting, behind them. Kellon thought that no amount of sentimentality could make this anything but a dreary world.
But Darnow's eyes were shining. "We'll have to make every minute of the time count," he muttered. "Every minute."
Within two hours, the heavy broadcast equipment was being trundled away from the ship on two motor-tracs that headed eastward. ”

“ Jay Maxson, a rising politician in Federation Congress, discussed with Borrodale the governmental systems of the old days, in a way calculated to give his own Wide-Galaxy Party none the worst of it. The Arcturus Players, that brilliant group of young stage-folk, did readings of old Earth dramas and poems.
It was, Kellon thought disgustedly, just playing. Grown people, famous people, seizing the opportunity given by the accidental end of a forgotten planet to posture in the spotlight like smart-aleck children. ”

“ Did the woman stay in the house, perhaps with their children if they had any, and in the afternoons did she do things in the little flower-garden where a few bright, ragged survivors still bloomed? Did they ever dream that some future day when they were long gone, their house would lie empty and silent with no visitor except a stranger from far-off stars? ”

“ And so our Federation began, our community of human civilization on many stars and worlds."
Now, in the monitor, the view of Earth's dun globe had been replaced by the face of Borrodale in close-up. He paused dramatically.
"Then, over two thousand years ago, it was discovered that the sun of Earth was about to collapse into a white dwarf. So those people who still remained on Earth left it forever and when the solar change came, it and the other planets became mantled in eternal ice. And now, within months, the final end of the old planet of our origin is at hand. ”

“ There was real work to do in the galaxy, the work of the Survey, the endless and wearying but always-fascinating job of charting the wild systems and worlds. And instead of doing that job, he was condemned to spend weeks and months here with these phonies.
The scientists and historians he respected. They did few broadcasts and they did not fake their interest. It was one of them, Haller, the biologist, who excitedly showed Kellon a handful of damp soil a week after their arrival. ”

“ Well, Kellon thought, he couldn't quite understand it himself, so how could he explain it? He remained silent, and Borrodale looked at him and then at the old house.
"Yet maybe I do understand," Borrodale said thoughtfully, after a moment. "You've come here often, by yourself. A man can get too friendly with ghosts—"
Kellon said roughly, "Don't talk nonsense. We'd better get back to the ship, there's plenty to do before take off." ”

“ Kellon stared at that planet, a tawny blob. The ice that had sheathed it ever since its primary collapsed into a white dwarf, had now melted. Months before, a dark wandering body had passed very close to this lifeless system. Its passing had perturbed the planetary orbits and the inner planets had started to spiral slowly in toward their sun, and the ice had begun to go.
Viresson, one of the junior officers, came into the bridge looking harassed. He said to Kellon,
"They want to see you down below, sir. Especially Mr. Borrodale. He says it's urgent." ”

“ Borrodale had been given the last hour's broadcast, and it seemed that the others resented this.
"Why must you have the whole last hour?" Lorri Lee was saying bitterly to Borrodale. "It's not fair."
Quayle nodded angrily. "There'll be the biggest audience in history, and we should all have a chance to speak."
Borrodale answered them, and the voices rose and bickered, and Kellon saw the broadcast technicians looking worried. Beyond them through the filter-window he could see the dark dot of the planet closing on the white star. ”

“ He left Viresson in charge of the ship, there being nothing for any of them to do now anyway, and legged it away over the green slopes before anyone could call him back.
They had five more weeks of this, Kellon thought. Then, thank God, Earth would be getting so near the Sun that they must take the ship back into its proper element of space. Until that wished-for day arrived, he would stay out of sight as much as possible.
He walked miles each day. He stayed carefully away from the east and the ruins of old New York, where the others so often were. ”

“ Kellon stayed much of that time in his cabin. The gush that was going out over the broadcasts now, as the grand finale approached, made him sick. He wished the whole thing was over. It was, he told himself, getting to be a bore—
An hour and twenty minutes to E-time, and he supposed he must go up to the bridge and watch it. The mobile camera had been set up there and Borrodale and as many others of them as could crowd in were there. ”

“ And when that occurs, the world of man's origin will be gone forever."
Again the pause, for just the right length of time, and then Borrodale continued in a voice expertly pitched in a lower key.
"We on this ship—we humble reporters and servants of the vast telaudio audience on all the worlds—have come here so that in these next weeks we can give you this last look at our ancestral world. We think—we hope—that you'll find interest in recalling a past that is almost legend."
And Kellon thought, "The bastard has no more interest in this old planet than I have, but he surely is smooth." ”

“ Darnow looked disappointed. "Well, I suppose you're right."
Kellon told Riney to set up the landing-pattern. Then he asked Darnow skeptically,
"You surely don't expect to find much in those old cities now—not after they've had all that ice on them for two thousand years?"
"They'll be badly damaged, of course," Darnow admitted. "But there should be a vast number of relics. I could study here for years—"
"We haven't got years, we've got only a few months before this planet gets too close to the Sun," said Kellon. And he added mentally, "Thank God."
The ship went into its landing-pattern. ”

“ I'd like to do it alone, with just the emptiness of that world as background. Can you keep the others from spoiling the effect? Please?"
"We'll do what we can," Kellon mumbled. And as the rest of the pack converged on him he added hastily, "I'll talk to you later. Mr. Borrodale's broadcast—"
He got through them, following after Borrodale toward the cabin that had been set up as a telaudio-transmitter room. ”