Scarface sat at the console of a tremendous instrument panel. On his head was an elaborate headpiece equipped with silvery anodes that clamped against his skull. His eyes were closed. His fingers made delicate adjustments on the console while strange, almost ultra-sonic tones emanated from a battery of glowing tubes on the wall.
Martia and Henry sensed that they were not to disturb him. So they walked around inside the dome and looked at the sea, and the old, old land. Their minds were awakening to new perspectives and powers, and slowly they caught glimpses of a billion year pattern of destiny that dazzled their thoughts. So they barred these perspectives, holding them breathlessly at the threshold of soaring consciousness—waiting for experienced guidance.
At length, Scarface finished his task and came over to them. "While I am waiting for results," he said, "I will tell you what you want to know...."
He told them that somewhere in the era of time in which they had been raised, a cataclysm had occurred which had destroyed all life on Earth. Oceans had come over the land and the whole, slow, geo-biological process of regeneration had begun once more. Evolution through hundreds of millions of years had at last arrived at a dominant, intelligent species of which Mlargn, the "alien," was the last survivor.
He told them the story of Xlarn, of the cooling of the sun, of the reaction sphere, and of the Chronotron. And he described the developments which finally led to Mlargn's time journey in search of life before the Beginning.
"Actually, Mlargn made two trips into Earth time. On his first trip he must have arrived somewhere in an earlier century than the one you knew—"
"The thirteenth century," interrupted Henry.
Scarface looked at him in wonderment. So both Henry and Martia told him the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
For almost a minute, the other was silent. Then he said, "So that's where the ancestors of Galactic Civilization came from...."