“But Carlin did not come back”, said the Brain.
“No”, said Newton, broodingly. “No, he didn’t. Perhaps for some reason he couldn’t.”
The android’s bright eyes were watching him. “What was it that Carlin changed into, Curt?”
Curt Newton turned and said slowly, “It’s an almost unbelievable story. Yet Carlin notes every source, here and in the ruined city.”
He paused as though trying to shape what he had learned into simpler terms.
“In the days of the Old Empire the Vulcanian scientists had a predominant interest in the Sun. In fact it appears that Vulcan was first settled as an outpost for the study of solar physics. And somewhere, in the course of those centuries-long researches into the life of the Sun, one man discovered a method of converting the ordinary matter of the human body into something resembling solar energy — a cohesive pattern of living force able to come and go at will into the very heart of the Sun.
“This was not destruction, you understand — merely conversion of a matter-pattern into an analogous functioning energy-pattern. By reversing the field the changed matter could be returned to its original form. And, since the mental and sensory centers remained functioning in the altered pattern, thought and perception remained intact though different.
“Never before had there been such a possibility of uncovering the inmost secrets of solar life — and the study of suns was vital to a transgalactic civilization. The scientists entered the conversion field and became — Children of the Sun.”
Otho caught his breath with a sharp hissing sound.
“So that’s the meaning of the inscription — and the legend! Do you mean that those little wisps of flames we saw were once men?”