Ristin said musingly, "A good thought. By putting that ship into an orbit around our system we'll create a monument that will remind all the Galaxy that it was a Vardda who gave them starflight."
Edri turned to Trehearne and Joris. He had tears in his eyes. He said, "Orthis is going home."
The message left for Trehearne had told him simply that Shairn would be at the Silver Tower. It was handed him when they finally emerged from the Council Hall. Joris got him a car and driver. Trehearne hesitated, suddenly hating to part from the old man. Edri, and Quorn and the others had their eager plans. But Joris took no joy in their victory.
"Had it been done a generation ago my son would be a star-captain now," he muttered, in answer to Trehearne's awkward words. "Well—"
The car took him out of the city, smooth and fast, and the great flare of Aldebaran sank toward the sea and dusk came on. The stars burgeoned and Trehearne looked up at them. He looked at the far faint spark of little Sol, and thought of Earth and of a changeling born there who had by a miracle won his way home.
That green and distant Earth knew nothing yet of the battle fought and won beyond the edges of the Galaxy. But it had been Earth's battle too and she would know of it in time. Even to Earth, when a generation had passed, the starships would begin to go openly. And with their internecine conflicts past, Earth's young men too would go out among the stars to join the great march of Galactic Man. Who could say where that march might not lead them? To other galaxies, other island continents of suns....
Trehearne's thoughts came back from the immensities of the future when he saw the Silver Tower glimmering in the starlight. He left the car and walked toward it, and then he saw the pale figure on the shadowy beach beside the slow wash of the sea, and he went down to it.
He put out his arms to her, but she held him off. She spoke to him, her voice clear, her face a white blur in the darkness. "I won't have hidden things between us, Michael. I want you to know. I hate you for what you've done to the Vardda. I'll always hate you for it."
He stepped back and let his arms fall. "In that case," he said, "I'd better go."