"Did you ask him something?”
"I guess I did," said Gary.
"Did you ever hear from the other Engineers?" asked Kingsley. "The ones who were in the other ships?”
"No," said the Engineer, "we never did. Presumably they have by now found other planets where they are doing the same work as we. We have tried to get in touch with them, but we have never been able to do it.”
"What is your work?" asked Gary.
"Why," said Caroline, "you should know that, Gary. It is to prepare a place for the Engineers' people to live. Isn't that right?" she asked the Engineer.
"It is right," said the Engineer.
"But," protested Gary, "those people are dead. There is no sign of them in our solar system and they certainly didn't start out looking for some other planet. They died off on Pluto.”
He remembered the chiseled masonry that Ted Smith had found. The hands of the Engineers' creators had cut those stones, billions of years ago… and today they still were on Pluto's surface, mute testimony to the greatness of a race that had died while the solar system's planets still were cooling off.
"They are not dead," said the Engineer, and his thoughts seemed to have a particular warmth in them.