"You saw us merely as shadows, did you not? That's all you were to us, too. Shadows; but very, very stubborn. Never in our recorded history had we met such a stubborn and such an able foe. No wonder. We were fighting against ourselves.
"It's time to go, Curt Wing, before the time door closes and locks you forever here."
Man to climb so far into the stars and to die by his own hand, Wing was thinking bitterly.
"Do not despair," the thought intruded. "What is done is done, and nothing can be changed."
"Wait," Wing cried out. "We beat you because a big, dumb guy by the name of Dead-Eye had the quiet faith that we could. He showed us the way.
"Dead-Eye said," and the words came from his memory like a prayer, "don't worry, Cap. Shucks, they can't be tough enough to lick us. Earthmen always fight better when the going's rough. Why, we'll knock 'em dead.
"Take hope from Dead-Eye's words. We were in the depths of despair when he uttered them, and we came up that long, terrible road to hope. We licked our problem. You, because you, too, are men, can lick yours."
There was nothing in the emotionless thought that answered him, that told they were heartened.
Curt Wing turned his back on Man's future, walked down the silver hallway, through the hexagonal door to his own world. He stepped out in the quiet hush of the church.
He saw the two spacers still staring in as he walked out of the darkness of the church into the brightness of day.