Sheer desperation. Sterile immortals of Xlarn supercharging a greatly improved Chronotron. A single emissary, shot through Time's great darkness beyond Beginning....
A long wait at the end of time. The remaining immortals wondered at the futility of it all. Theirs was the only life in the universe, in all space and time. Or was it? Would their emissary actually substantiate the theory of a world beyond Beginning?
"Extrapolation!" exclaimed the nuclear physicist, with an air of strained indulgence. His keen, blue eyes also told young Henry that the scientist was vastly amused. And he resented it. "Sonny, if you'd keep out of unabridged dictionaries until you were of age your mind might have a better chance of catching up to itself and the world around you!"
Henry closed his science fiction magazine with as much of an indignant "bang" as was possible with a well-worn pulp and turned his back on the intruder. He tried not to listen to him as he went on arguing with Uncle Andy. He tried to concentrate on the wisps of clouds straggling low over the gray Atlantic Ocean ten thousand feet below. He watched the giant nacelles of the right wing engines as the double-decked strato-cruiser droned monotonously onward toward New York. But he could not shut off his ears....
"Really, Dearden, you ought to watch that," the physicist was saying to the kindly man who had adopted Henry. "A bright, adolescent mind driving itself into the pit of self-delusion! Get him interested in something more realistic than science fiction. Lord knows the world needs some practical minds these days!"
"Just now I could quote Henry in a lot of appropriate ways," Uncle Andy replied. "He's very serious about this business of extrapolation. He thinks it is a new perspective, a seventh sense, as it were, that Man ought to develop. Furthermore, as long as you're interested...."
Good old Uncle Andy, thought Henry. A brilliant man, a leading technological specialist, yet as old-fashioned and unassuming as—as—Well, who was like Uncle Andy nowadays?
In his mind's eye he could see him, while he listened to his quiet conversation. Going on forty-five and looking the part, without pretense—graying at the temples, balding, and with a front upper plate in his mouth that was inoffensive but also no secret. He was a little heavy, and as out of condition, physically, as was considered to be average. But he had a good-looking, strong, kind face, clear gray eyes and a restful, reassuring manner. The strongest impression one gathered, outside of the fact that his pipe tobacco was abominable, was that he was the turtle that outran the hare. The reliable type, sans heroism, fanaticism or hysteria. A swell guy.
But what was that nosey Doctor Edwards putting in his two cents for? I am none of his business!—Henry decided abruptly.