Why else had that enormous chair been already empty when the circle of light blazed upon it! In the same moment he had started to swing the beam, fearing that he was too late. The metal door, twice as high as a man, was closing swiftly when he first caught sight of it — closing swiftly, yet not quite swiftly enough.
Yes, Karellen had trusted him, had not wished him to go down into the long evening of his life haunted by a mystery he could never solve. Karellen dared not defy the unknown powers above him (were they of that same race also?) but he had done all that he could. If he had disobeyed them, they could never prove it. It was the final proof, Stormgren knew, of Karellen’s affection for him. Though it might be the affection of a man for a devoted and intelligent dog, it was none the less sincere for that, and Stormgren’s life had given him few greater satisfactions.
“We have had our failures.”
Yes, Karellen, that was true; and were you the one who failed, before the dawn of human history? It must have been a failure indeed, thought Stormgren, for its echoes to roll down all the ages, to haunt the childhood of every race of man. Even In fifty years, could you overcome the power of all the myths and legends of the world?
Yet Stormgren knew there would be no second failure. When the two races met again, the Overlords would have won the trust and friendship of mankind, and not even the shock of recognition could undo that work. They would go together into the future, and the unknown tragedy that must have darkened the past would be lost forever down the dim corridors of prehistoric time.
And Stormgren hoped that when Karellen was free to walk once more on Earth, he would one day come to these northern forests, and stand beside the grave of the first man to be his friend.
II. THE GOLDEN AGE
5
“This is the day!” whispered the radios in a hundred tongues. “This is the day!” said the headlines of a thousand newspapers. “This is the day!” thought the cameramen as they checked and rechecked the equipment gathered round the vast empty space upon which Karellen’s ship would be descending.
There was only the single ship now, hanging above New York. Indeed, as the world had just discovered, the ships above Man’s other cities had never existed. The day before, the great fleet of the Overlords had dissolved into nothingness, fading like mists beneath the morning dew.