"And have you?" Andrusco asked politely.
"I'm afraid so. It was quite a shock, let me tell you. We didn't know what to expect when we dissected this building of yours. But the last thing we expected to find was—a spaceship."
Andrusco smiled. "It was cleverly done. You'll have to admit that."
"I do," Tom said fervently. "You've got those space flight experts absolutely insane with curiosity. They'll want to hear the whole story. Will you give it to them?"
The man shrugged. "It doesn't matter, I suppose. I presume the engines have been dismantled?"
"Made inoperable, yes. It would have been a great trick, if you could have done it."
Livia spoke sadly. "It was the only thing we could have done. There's no place on this Earth where we could have erected a spaceship without being observed. So we created this building. In time, we would have perfected the mechanism and left this silly planet of yours."
"That's what I don't understand," Tom said. "What about Antamunda—and the survivors—"
"There's no longer an Antamunda," John Andrusco said hollowly. "The story we told you was true in its essence, but not, I'm afraid complete. You see, the exodus that took place five hundred years ago was a total exodus. The entire population of our world—a handful, a pitiful ragged thousand—left Antamunda for this planet. We thought to make it our new home, for all eternity. But in time, we learned that we had emigrated to an extinction just as certain."
"What do you mean?"