Pebble in the Sky (31 page)

“Lieutenant Claudy?” cried Arvardan.

“Yes—Oh, you know him. Yes, I see. It’s quite clear in your mind.”

“I’ll bet. . . . Go ahead, Schwartz.”

“This officer
hated
Earthmen with a hate that’s difficult to understand, even for me, and I was inside his mind. He
wanted
to bomb them. He
wanted
to destroy them. It was only discipline that tied him fast and kept him from taking out his plane then and there.

“That kind of a mind is different. Just a little suggestion, a little push, and discipline was not enough to hold him. I don’t even think he realized that I climbed into the plane with him.”

“How did you find Senloo?” whispered Shekt.

“In my time,” said Schwartz, “there was a city called St. Louis. It was at the junction of two great rivers. . . . We found Senloo. It was night, but there was a dark patch in a sea of
radioactivity—and Dr. Shekt had said the Temple was an isolated oasis of normal soil. We dropped a flare—at least it was my mental suggestion—and there was a five-pointed building below us. It jibed with the picture I had received in the Secretary’s mind. . . . Now there’s only a hole, a hundred feet deep, where that building was. That happened at three in the morning. No virus was sent out and the universe is free.”

It was an animal-like howl that emerged from the Secretary’s lips—the unearthly screech of a demon. He seemed to gather for a leap, and then—collapsed.

A thin froth of saliva trickled slowly down his lower lip.

“I never touched him,” said Schwartz softly. Then, staring thoughtfully at the fallen figure, “I was back before six, but I knew I would have to wait for the deadline to pass. Balkis would
have
to crow. I knew that from his mind, and it was from his own mouth, only, that I could convict him. . . . Now there he lies.”

Thirty days had passed since Joseph
Schwartz had lifted off an airport runway on a night dedicated to Galactic destruction, with alarm bells shrilling madly behind him and orders to return burning the ether toward him.

He had not returned; not, at least, until he had destroyed the Temple of Senloo.

The heroism was finally made official now. In his pocket he had the ribbon of the Order of the Spaceship and Sun, First Class. Only two others in all the Galaxy had ever gotten it nonposthumously.

That was something for a retired tailor.

No one, of course, outside the most official of officialdom, knew exactly what he had done, but that didn’t matter. Someday, in the history books, it would all become part of a bright and indelible record.

He was walking through the quiet night now toward Dr. Shekt’s house. The city was peaceful, as peaceful as the starry glitter above. In isolated places on Earth bands of Zealots still made trouble, but their leaders were dead or captive and the moderate Earthmen, themselves, could take care of the rest.

The first huge convoys of normal soil were already on their way. Ennius had again made his original proposal that Earth’s population be moved to another planet, but that was out. Charity was not wanted. Let Earthmen have a chance to remake their own planet. Let them build once again the home of their fathers, the native world of man. Let them labor with their hands, removing the diseased soil and replacing it with healthy, seeing the green grow where all had been dead and making the desert blossom in beauty once again.

It was an enormous job; it could take a century—but what of that? Let the Galaxy lend machinery; let the Galaxy ship food; let the Galaxy supply soil. Of their incalculable resources, it would be a trifle—and it would be repaid.

And someday, once again, the Earthman would be a people among peoples, inhabiting a planet among planets, looking all humanity in the eye in dignity and equality.

Schwartz’s heart pounded at the wonder of it all as he walked up the steps to the front door. Next week he left with Arvardan for the great central worlds of the Galaxy. Who else of his generation had ever left Earth?

And momentarily he thought of the old Earth,
his
Earth. So long dead. So long dead.

And yet but three and a half months had passed . . .

He paused, his hand on the point of signaling at the door, as the words from within sounded in his mind. How clearly he heard thoughts now, like tiny bells.

It was Arvardan, of course, with more in his mind than words alone could ever handle. “Pola, I’ve waited and thought, and thought and waited. I won’t any more. You’re coming with me.”

And Pola, with a mind as eager as his, yet with words of the purest reluctance, said, “I couldn’t, Bel. It’s quite impossible. My backwoods manners and bearing . . . I’d feel
silly
in those big worlds out there. And, besides, I’m only an Ear—”

“Don’t say it. You’re my wife, that’s all. If anyone asks what and who you are, you’re a native of Earth and a citizen of the Empire. If they want further details, you’re my wife.”

“Well, and after you make this address at Trantor to your archaeological society, what next?”

“What next? Well, first we take a year off and see every major world in the Galaxy. We won’t skip one, even if we have to get on and off it by mail ship. You’ll get yourself an eyeful of the Galaxy and the best honeymoon that government money can buy.”

“And then . . .”

“And then it’s back to Earth, and we’ll volunteer for the labor battalions and spend the next forty years of our lives lugging dirt to replace the radioactive areas.”

“Now why are you going to do that?”

“Because”—there was the suspicion of a deep breath at this point in Arvardan’s Mind Touch—“I love you and it’s what you want, and because I’m a patriotic Earthman and have the honorary naturalization papers to prove it.”

“All right . . .”

And at this point the conversation stopped.

But, of course, the Mind Touches did not, and Schwartz, in full satisfaction, and a little embarrassment, backed away. He could wait. Time enough to disturb them when things had settled down further.

He waited in the street, with
the cold stars burning down—a whole Galaxy of them, seen and unseen.

And for himself, and the new Earth, and all those millions of planets far beyond, he repeated softly once more that
ancient poem that he alone now, of so many quadrillions, knew:

“Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made . . .”