Lenk went back to his control room. And perversely, his thoughts insisted on accepting their explanation. It would be like man to think that important things could only happen on his own home planet, and prophecy an end for his own race, never dreaming it could happen to others.
It would be normal for him to sense somehow out of his own nature what his inevitable end must be—and then to be completely amazed when he found the same end for other races.
But....
Space travel—travel at faster than light speeds—had to make a difference. There were the other worlds on the other side of the sun, where men were already planning to colonize. Even if a world might normally blow up in a final wild holocaust, it would have its whole racial pattern changed when it began to spread out among the stars. It would have to have a revival of the old pioneering spirit. There had been the beginnings of that when they left. And with that, such a war could be prevented forever.
He heard Graves moving about in the galley, singing something about graves opening, and grimaced.
Besides, Jeremy had admitted that they didn't have all the answers. The mystery of the vanished skeletons remained—and until that was accounted for, nothing could be considered explained.
He forgot about the skeletons as he began planning how he'd wangle his way into one of the colonies. Then, even if catastrophe did strike Earth in another thousand years or so, the race could go on. Ten more years, and man would be safe....
He was feeling almost cheerful as they finally came out of hyperspace near Earth ... and landed....
The skeletons—lay scattered everywhere.