Alan stared around him at his friends. "Thank God," he said quietly.
Then Rob Pope said, "Look, the bubble of that disk is closing!"
It was true. The leader of the outlanders turned and saw it and gave a loud cry. "He is escaping! You let him out of your sight, you fools!" he thought angrily. All the gold-and-silver-clad men ran toward the disk. It rose into the air, flipping its edges impudently. Then it gathered speed and shot out of sight.
Brave said, "Jim, old Jim! He's made his break. I kind of thought he would. He was too restless a spirit to sit calmly under chains and captivity!"
The aliens had clustered together and were sending their brain waves out across the land, signalling other disks in remote spots to find and pursue the escaping McEldownie. Alan said, "I almost hope he makes it!"
Then straight across the sky from horizon to horizon a great silver ship flashed, bright in the rays of the vanished sun against a darkening lapis lazuli vault, on its way out to sea in the direction of Africa. The abandoned outlanders were piling into their second disk to give chase.
Brave put his arm over Alan's shoulders. "Chief, I hope he makes it too. Maybe he was Lucifer, fallen and using us as dogs of war to regain his lost kingdom; or maybe he was really Prometheus, fighting the stodgy gods to bring fire—the fire of real freedom—to his friends. By his lights, he was justified in using us to do it. He caused us an awful throng of troubles in the past two hundred years, but what he gave us may be worth it in the final estimate. And when he had his goal in sight he threw it away because he couldn't bring himself to kill us."
"Prometheus is the word, son. I'd hate to see old Zeus there bring him back in chains, to be bound to the rock for the vultures."
Brave looked into the sky where Jim McEldownie had disappeared. He chuckled deep in his chest.