"You have learned much about Earth and its people, but there is one thing you failed to learn: Man may be blind, warped and prejudiced, but his frameworks can be changed, and he must—above all—he must control his own destiny. This law has been proved so often through our history that I am surprised you missed it."
Huth bowed his head to acknowledge the rebuke.
"Then what do you see in the future of this project?"
"I see great problems, almost insurmountable obstacles; and the threshold of a vast unknown. I see our people slowly approaching that threshold—to find their own future."
Huth looked silently over the compound, over the shell of the project to which he had dedicated his life, and not even his tremendous will could keep his shoulders from sagging.
"I cannot say that I truly disagree with you, Dr. Brill. But my own culture views this project from its own framework. I, too, had to fight with prejudice to keep it going. We are a mighty race, in control of a great section of the galaxy, and I doubt that you could hold out against our full power, as you have done tonight against a fragment of it on this isolated outpost."
"There seems to be a new power on this tiny planet. A power greater than any of us can yet conceive," Lucifer answered calmly.
"That may be; but there is the extreme likelihood of its total destruction before you can find out how to use it. I could not prevent this destruction if I tried—once it is known what happened here tonight. My people, too, have a destiny, and they are determined to pursue it."
A great rumble, a mighty rush of air, swept them off their feet. The spaceship rose in a straight vertical line and leveled off some five hundred feet above the clearing. Its prow swung toward the Earth people. A finger of blue flame probed downward.
Huth heaved himself to his feet.