I nodded my head affirmatively. "Might. Time doesn't matter, though. Not so much. When I first began to see what caused the immense and self-evident discrepancy between what some men would like to be and what most men actually are I burned up with the idea of noising the news around. I learned the hard way that the idea was one for just a few people—too few to be more than leaven in the coming centuries. I finally realized that my burn was, mostly, the desire to be the missionary myself. To get a by-line. Ego in a low form. And I also slowly realized that the truth would be there, always—and since it was there, steps could be taken by anybody, anytime, toward finding it again."
"You just write off your whole civilization—like that."
"It's what we're here for. To write ourselves off."
"Usefully."
"Well—our civilization has learned enough useful technical tricks to last for millenniums. We served a purpose."
Tom looked at his watch—and sighed. "Gotta go."
"I thought we were to have a long evening together."
"So did I. But I have to go back to Medical Center. They called before supper. There's a peculiar pneumonia up there—and something that isn't leukemia but acts like it."
We stood up and went across the grass, blinking in the gloom and stepping around prone figures.