Arkalion had deposited Temple in the nearby hills, promised they would see one another again. "It may not be so soon," Arkalion had said, "but what's the difference? You'll spend the rest of your life here. You realize you are lucky, Kit. If, you hadn't come, you would have been dead these five thousand years. Well, good luck."
Dead—five thousand years. The Earth as he knew it, dust. Stephanie, a fifty generation corpse. Nowhere was right. End of the universe.
Temple shuffled his feet, trudged on into town. A man passed him on the street, stooped, gray-haired. The man nodded, did a mild double-take. I'm an unfamiliar face, Temple thought.
"Howdy," he said. "I'm new here."
"That's what I thought, stranger. Know just about everyone in these here parts, I do, and I said to myself, now there's a newcomer. Funny you didn't come in the regular way."
"I'm here," said Temple.
"Yeah. Funny thing, you get to know everyone. Eh, what you say your name was?"
"Christopher Temple."
"Make it my business to know everyone. The neighborly way, I always say. Temple, eh? We have one here."
"One what?"