And there was more. Climbing the steep wall of an ancient artificial gorge not far from the south polar cap; gripping at odd prickly vines to keep from falling into the hardy thickets below, where tough-shelled worms crawled sluggishly, he had found something in a small, sand-drifted cell that was part of a ruin. Something that meant power.
What kind of power? All kinds, perhaps. Scientific learning greater than that of Earth. Power like that of gold and jewels, but far exceeding it. Power to wreck and to create, power to destroy worlds. Power, maybe, to sway minds. Sam still could not guess how far it might extend, or how deep—
No the adventure was not over, yet. It was just beginning. It wasn't just nostalgia that tied the consciousness of Sam Conway to a planet, millions of miles away, whose people had perished in a strange travail ages ago—a catastrophe whose marks lay in fused, glassy ruins, and in machines melted and rusted beyond recognition.
Sam had that secret of power hidden away now in a little aluminum box that had once contained concentrated food rations. And having that secret—though it thrilled him—still made him wish nervously that he also had eyes in the back of his head....
Ellen Varney's slim fingers tightened on his arm.
"Sam!" she said almost sharply. "You're dreaming again. What is it?"
He looked at her almost furtively, conscious of the familiar room around him, the old bookcase, the piano with a shaft of sunlight touching it gently; the radio and television cabinet. The colonial rag rugs, bright colored and homey....
Sam wondered wistfully if sometime soon his power would enable him to preserve in timeless youth the fragile beauty of Ellen Varney. Dark wavy hair, and an earnest face whose wisdom one could never forget. Maybe now even immortality would be possible.
Sam was nervous. Haste and preoccupation pressed him. But he put on a good show for the girl's sake. The lines of worry dissolved around his grey, deep-set eyes. He ran stubby fingers through his stiff mop of ash-blond hair, and the tightness of his lips and jaw relaxed into a sheepish grin.
"Sure I'm dreamin', Honey," he chuckled. "What man in my shoes wouldn't? Three years back I was nobody, working my way as a student engineer. Then Joe Nichols and his experts found out that my reflexes were better than those of anybody they'd tested. And that my brains and my emotional stability were okay. So pretty soon I was flying out there toward Mars—all for the glory of giving the Joe Nichols Food Products a publicity splurge. And now—well don't get the wrong idea of how I feel about it, Ellen—they've made a big-shot out of me. The newspapers, the radio, the scientists. I've got a lot to do. I—you know!"