The old race was gone, gone with all its conflicts, all its violence, its stupidity—and its flaming rockets in the void and its Parthenon in the moonlight.
Eric came into the study and stopped. The room was filled with strangers. There were half a dozen men besides Walden, most of them fairly old, white-haired and studious looking. They all turned to look at him, watched him gravely without speaking.
"Well, there he is." Walden looked from face to face. "Are you still worried? Do you still think that one small boy constitutes a threat to the race? What about you, Abbot?"
"I don't know. I still think he should have been institutionalized in the beginning."
"Why? So you could study the brain processes of the lower animals?" Walden's thoughts were as sarcastic as he could send them.
"No, of course not. But don't you see what you've done, by teaching him to read? You've started him thinking of the old race. Don't deny it."
"I don't."
The thin man, Drew, broke in angrily. "He's not full grown yet. Just fourteen, isn't he? How can you be sure what he'll be like later? He'll be a problem. They've always been problems."
They were afraid. That was what was the matter with them. Walden sighed. "Tell them what you've been studying, Eric," he said aloud.