Then, in greater calm, he regarded what he had done. It was finished, almost unbelievably finished.
Yet there were a few things to do. He left the building and sought out the guards and the caretakers and whispered into their minds, "Demarzule is dead! The Great One has died and you are men once more."
He sought out the controls of the force shell and caused the operator to drop the shield. Then he whispered, "The Great One is dead," and like the wind, his voice encompassed the vast thousands who had gathered.
The message sank unspoken into their minds and each man looked at his neighbor as if to ask how it had come. They pressed forward, a battling, maddened mob who had for an hour lived in a childish, primitive world where men were not required to think but only to obey. They pushed forward and flowed into the building, battering, clawing one another. But they managed to view the body of the fallen Sirenian, so that the message was confirmed and spread, soon to circle the Earth.
Underwood studied the writhing, bewildered mass. Could Dreyer possibly be right? Would it ever end—men's unthinking grasping for leadership, their mindless search for kings and gods, while within them their own powers withered? Always it had been the same; leaders arose holding before men the illusion of vast, glorious promises while they carefully led them into hells of lost dreams and broken promises.
Yes, it would be different, Underwood told himself. The Dragbora had proved that it could be different. Their origin could have been no less lowly than man's. They must have trodden the same tortuous stairway to dreams that man was now on, and they had learned how to live with one another.
Man was already nearer that goal—far nearer now that Demarzule was dead. Underwood formed a silent prayer that fate would be merciful to man and not send another like Demarzule.
And he allowed himself a moment's pride, an instant of pleasure in the thought that he had been able to take part in the crisis.
With a final pity for the scene below, he fled back into space. What he saw there turned him sick with fear. The great fleet was broken and burned with atomic fires. Only two of the battleships remained to challenge the attackers. But they were no longer challenging. They signalled abject surrender and were fallen upon by ravenous interceptors.