"The drive that carries a race is not lightly ended.
"But the human race ended in us, in our error.
"It was our mistake. It was our task to correct it, if we could.
"We tried.
"We could not go back through time, but we could force our thoughts back to certain cyclic periods. We could reach only a few periods, most of them too early or too late to meet our needs. Eventually we found a time that was right and a mind that could understand. To that mind we gave instructions, to Lee Garth...."
The voice paused, sought for energy, slowly gathered it, then went on.
"That is why you were brought here—to repopulate a world, to take up where we left off, to correct an error made two million years after your time.
"We have taken the living from the remote past and used them to bridge the chasm of death. Yours to carry on."
There was silence. Men moved awkwardly, staring at each other, at that sphere, at Lee Garth. The girls, somehow, seemed to understand.
It was Scoop Martin who came out of the crowd, stood apologetically before Lee Garth.