But as they stood at the edge of the gangplank leading aboard, she said: "Come immortal! There is nothing left for you here."
"Nothing?" he asked, somewhat blankly. "Nothing...?"
"Of course not," she said. "In all of this world not another like you is left alive."
Through the brain of Bly Stanton shot a thought that was like an arrow—he, alone, of all the males in the world. What sort of world could it be? What was he to do in this world where there was nothing but woman, and man had no place? He peered at these women and saw them for what they were—beasts, cruel and vicious, shaped as humans. There was no compromising with nature. If one did not serve the purpose for which one was intended, then one served another purpose. He looked at these women who were the rulers of this planet and knew they had an empty rule, and a losing fight. For immortality, in the sense in which he had achieved it, was lost to them.
He shook his head from side to side, and slowly turning, started off without a word of farewell.
But Naila was not as Mary. There was a cunning in her which the other had never possessed. Before Stanton had taken more than ten steps, she was at his side. Her sword flashed in a blinding arc as it sped toward the man. There was a sickening sound as the steel met the flesh of the throat. And a bloody geyser bloomed where the head had been. A vicious grin leaped to her lips as she stooped and lifted the head.
But the grin changed to a howl of fear as the eyes suddenly opened and the lips parted and words came from them: "You forgot, Naila. Death comes not to me. Remember?"
She dropped the head and sped for the ship. The others, witness to what happened, followed as quickly as possible. What they did not see, of course, was that the eyes and lips had closed forever on the instant of their departure.
For it was then that the soul of Miotis left the body of Bly Stanton.