"This was all hastened and brought to a focus when the sun of Earth suddenly began dimming in the 49th century. An old star, that sun died. In a short time, by the cosmic clock, another ice age fell on Earth—the final one. The oceans froze solid and all land areas turned to bleak wasteland."
There was a suitable pause at this point for the audience to weigh that calamitous event. People stood hushed, half in ancient sorrow.
Blake stopped, hardly daring to breathe. One clank now and he might be thrown out.
"Of course, long before the final death of the planet, the last Earthmen had left for other waiting homes. There was no swift storylike doom. No panic or hardship or loss of life. And then, perhaps inevitably but still queerly, Earth receded in all human memory and was forgotten."
The speaker paused again. It always came on cue here, a gasp from the audience, as certainly as the "ahs" and "ohs" of a fireworks display. The bald statement always had its shock effect on any audience, and here on hallowed Earth itself.
Lem Starglitter Blake resumed his slow progress toward the rostrum, glad for the noise.
Professor McKay braced himself, winced, and went on. Who had written the original purple prose for the lecture? Yet it could not be changed now. Not without an act of the Galactic Congress.
"Yes, Mother Earth was forgotten and abandoned as it floated frozen and lifeless about its dying primary. Forlorn, deserted. Nobody came to visit Earth any more, for any reason. Nor any of its sister planets, as they too were sheathed in ice. Earth became a ghost world.
"And as centuries marched on, with humanity busy on many thriving worlds, all records were lost as to where Earth might be. Earth fell into the category of a vague legend, known only to be a frozen globe circling a sun once typed G-O. But there were a hundred such. Which one was Earth's sun? Nobody knew any more."