He was braced for the wild reaction of alarm and passion, the attempt to seize his mind, to avert doom.
It didn't come. Instead, from the Last One, came a stunning pulse of gladness, of mounting joy.
"Why—why, you want me to do this?" Trevor cried.
"Yes, Trevor! Yes! I had thought that the centuries of waiting for death would be long yet, and lonely. But this, this will free me now!"
Dazed by surprise, Trevor slowly made a gesture, and their ship throbbed upward into the sky. Another gesture, and the technician beside him reached toward the key of the radio-detonator.
In that moment he felt the mind of Shannach crying out as in a vast, mingled music, a glad chorus of release against chords of cosmic sorrow for all that had been and would never be again, for the greatest and oldest of races that was ending.
The receding city below erupted flame and rock around the catacomb mouth as the key was pressed.
And the song of Shannach ebbed into silence, as the last of the children of mountains went forever into night.