Now—the reasons why they had not rebuilt were plain to see. The lean ships that appeared in the sky, sixty-eight years ago, bombing and flaming, had knocked the foundations out from under the colony. Too much plant was wrecked, too many lives were lost, too few resources were left. For a lifetime, the people could merely hang on, keep their economy stumbling along at a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century level, cling to the hope that we would answer their appeal. And all the while they knew fear.

I looked again at Tom Brenner. Before he was born, the enemy aliens had destroyed from pole to pole. In days—Earth-days—their fleet had departed back into unknownness. At any instant they might return, and not be content with blowing his toy towns off the map. I wondered how deep the weariness went that I read upon him. Yet he stood straight, and he had a squinty-eyed grin, and two of his children had survived to adulthood and one grandchild was alive and healthy.

“Come on,” I said in a harshened voice. “Let’s get this finished.”

We didn’t stop till we mounted the rim and looked down into the fused black bowl where New Washington had been. A few skeletons of buildings jutted from the edges, but only a few, their frameworks grotesquely twisted. I estimated that the blast had released fifty megatons.

* * *

The star became a taxi. It glided to a halt across the deck from me and balanced while the stocky figure climbed out. I wondered how he paid it. They had told me the Sibyllans were interned on a military reservation while the Director and his cabinet decided what to do about them. Well, when d’Indre demanded a live conference with the old man, perhaps the colonel had taken pity and slipped him some munits so he could arrive like a citizen, not a consignment.

The taxi took off. Brenner started toward the door. At home he had walked with a rolling, ursine gait. Here he flowstepped, light and easy as an Earthdweller on Mars. His cloak flapped loose, his singlet was open on the broad hairy chest. The unaccustomed cold didn’t seem to bother him, rather he savored it.

I moved to intercept him. “Good evening,” I said.

Shadows barred our faces. He leaned forward to peer at me. The cigar dropped from his jaws. “Holy hopping Judas—Nick Simić!” He shook his head in bewilderment. But you, your ship, you stayed behind.”

“Your settlement was out of touch with astronautics,” I said. My tone was sharper than intended; I really wanted to gentle the shock for him. “The Colonial Fleet accelerates at one gee. But in an exploratory vessel like the Bering, we’re selected professionals; and the motors have a lot less mass to act on. We load ourselves with gravanol and crank her up as high as ten gees. In five or six weeks we’re close to light speed and can ease off. I’ve been home for a year.”