With the source dried up, with the screen empty, with the Pluto gang wiped out, the cults would die and Stella would sing on, but there would come a time when the listeners would turn away from Stella, when her novelty wore off, when the strangeness and the alienness of her had lost their appeal.
The Solar System would go on thinking imp and incubus were no more than shuddery imagery from the days when men crouched in caves and saw a supernatural threat in every moving shadow.
But it had been a narrow squeak.
From a dark corner a thing mouthed at West in a shrill sing-song of hate.
So this was it, thought West. Here he was, at the end of the Solar System's trail, in an empty house. And it was, finally, as he had hoped it would be. No one around. A storehouse full of food. Adequate shelter. A shop where he could work. A place guarded by the patrol against unwelcome callers.
Just the place for a man who might be hiding. Just the place for a fugitive from the human race.
There were things to do ... later on. Two bodies to be given burial. A screen to be cleaned up and thrown on a junk heap. A few chittering things to be hunted down and killed.
Then he could settle down.
There were robots, of course. One had brought in the dinner.