The same will to raise up the helpless is in us both, he thought. The compulsion to carry the saving light of reason to those in darkness....
"Wait," he begged. "Your master wouldn't have ordered you away if Earth needed you—and if men can work out their own salvation, then they don't need me, either! Take me with you out there—let me help you, let me see the Outside galaxy of the Kha Niish for myself!"
He spoke to Havlik, but his eyes clung to the girl as to a magnet. She met his gaze fully, the compassion in her own eyes deeper than grief.
Havlik shook his head. "Your sanity would not bear the presence of the Kha Niish, nor of the other races Outside. You are drawn to this girl as to another of your own kind—but do you suppose that the Kha Niish would shape her in Their image? She is like the rest of us, an android creature, refashioned by the Masters to suit the environment of each new world we visit."
The last of the swarming figures vanished into the great cylinder. A muted gong-sound thrummed through the night. A voice called, urgently.
"The Kha Niish did not order us away because men are solving their own problems," the alien said. "We leave you to destroy yourselves, as you will, because man is one of the rare failures of the Galactic Urge. You are a race of incorrigibles."
Later Manson sat woodenly in his gyro, waiting for volition to return, the scent of scorched earth and ozone and trampled clover strong in his nostrils.
We Earthmen have another inerrant old saw, he thought bitterly. An excruciatingly funny one dealing with silk purses and sows' ears....
For a long time he sat quietly, straining his eyes to follow the last faint rocket-streak that arced upward against the stars. Then the stasis that held him fell away, and he reached for the blast gun that lay under his feet.