"Well, I'll be…" But he did not finish the sentence. For there, not more than a hundred feet away, was the ship… Tommy Evans' ship, the ship that the voice had destroyed in a single flash of fire. It sat on the sand sedately, with light pouring from its ports, with the shine of starlight on its plates.
"Caroline!" he shouted. "The ship! The ship!”
"Hurry," said the voice to them. "Hurry, before I change my mind. Hurry, before I go insane again.”
Gary reached down a hand and pulled Caroline to her feet.
"Come on," he shouted.
"Think of me as kindly as you can," said the voice. "Think of me as an old man, an old, old man, who is not quite the man he was… not quite the man he was.”
They ran, stumbling in the darkness, toward the ship. "Hurry, hurry," the voice shouted at them. "I cannot trust myself.”
"Look!" cried Caroline. "Look, in the sky!”
The wheel of light was there, the slow, lazy wheel of light they first had seen on Pluto… the entrance to the space-time tunnel.
"I gave you back the ship," said the voice. "I gave you back the strand of hair. Think kindly of me please… think kindly…”