But there was something wrong, something that didn’t click.
He remembered Herb’s comment that the city looked like a place that was
waiting for someone who had never come. Herb had hit upon the exact
situation. This city had been built for a greater race, for a race that
probably had died long before the first stone had been laid in place. A
race that must have been so far advanced that it would make the human race
look savage in comparison.
He tried to imagine what effect such a city and such a civilization would
have upon the human race. He tried to picture the greed and hate, the
political maneuvering, the fierce trade competition, the social inequality
and its resultant class struggle… all of it inherent in humanity… in
this white city under the three suns. Somehow the two didn’t go together.
“We can’t do it,” he said. “We aren’t ready yet. We’d just make a mess of
things. We’d have too much power, too much leisure, too many possessions.
It would smash our civilization and leave us one in its stead that we could
not manage. We haven’t put our own civilization upon a basis that could
coincide with what is here.”
Kingsley stared at him.
“But think of the scientific knowledge! Think of the cultural advantages!”
he shouted.
“Gary is right,” said Caroline. “We aren’t ready yet.”
“Sometime,” said Gary. “Sometime in the future. When we have wired out some
of the primal passions. When we have solved the great social and economic
problems that plague us now. When we have learned to observe the Golden
Rule… when we have lost some of the lustiness of our youth. Sometime we
will be ready for this city.”
He remembered the ancient man they had met on Old Earth. He had said
something about the rest of the race going away, to a far star, to a place
that had been prepared for them.
That place the old man had spoken of, he realized now, was this very city.
And that meant that the Old Earth they had visited had been the real
Earth… no shadow planet, but the actuality existing in the future. And
the old man had spoken as if the rest of the race had gone to the city but
a short while earlier. He had said that he refused to go, that he couldn’t
leave the Earth.
The time would be long, then. Longer than he thought. A long and bitter
wait for the day when the race might safely enter into a better world, into
a heritage left to them by a race that died when the solar system was born.
“You understand?” he asked the Engineer.
“I understand,” the Engineer replied. “It means that we must wait for the
masters that we worked for… that it will be long before they come to us.”
“You waited three billion years,” Gary reminded him. “Wait a few million
more for us. It won’t take us long. There’s a lot of good in the human
race, but we aren’t ready yet.”
“I think you’re crazy,” said Kingsley, bitterly.
“Can’t you see,” asked Caroline, “what the human race right now would do to
this city?”
“But magnetic power,” wailed Kingsley, “and all those other things. Think
of how they would help us. We need power and tools and all the knowledge we
can get.”
“You may take certain information with you,” said the Engineer. “Whatever
you think is wise. We will watch you and talk with you throughout the
years, and it may be there will be times that you will wish our help.”
Gary rose from the table. His hand fell on the Engineer’s broad metal
shoulder.
“And in the meantime there is work for you,” he said. “A city to rebuild.
The development of power stations to use the fifth-dimensional energy.
Learning how to control and use that energy. Using it to control the
universe. The day will come, unless we do something about it, that our
universe will run down, will die the heat death. But with the eternal power
of the inter-space, we can shape and control the universe, mold it to our
needs.”
It seemed that the metal man drew himself even more erect.
“It will be done,” he said.
“We must work, not for Man alone, but for the entire universe,” said Gary.
“That is right,” said the Engineer.
Kingsley heaved himself to his feet.
“We should be leaving for Pluto,” he said. “Our work here is done.”
He stepped up to the Engineer. “Before we go,” he said, “I would like to
shake your hand.”
“I do not understand,” said the Engineer.
“It is a mark of respect,” Caroline explained. “Assurance that we are
friends. A sort of way to seal a pact.”
“That is fine,” said the Engineer. He thrust out his hand. And then his
thoughts broke. For the first time since they had met him, in this same
room, there was emotion in his voice.
“We are so glad,” he said. “We can talk to you and not feel so alone.
Perhaps some day I can come and visit you.”
“Be sure to do that,” bellowed Herb. “I’ll show you all the sights.”
“Are you coming, Gary?” asked Caroline, but Gary didn’t answer.
Some day Man would come home… home to this wondrous city of white stone,
to marvel at its breathtaking height, at its vastness of design, at its
far-flung symbol of achievement reared against an alien sky. Home to a
planet where every power and every luxury and every achievement would be
his. Home to a place that had grown out of a dream… the great dream of a
greater people who had died, but in dying had passed along the heritage of
their life to a new-spawned solar system. And more than that, had left
another heritage in the hands and brains of good stewards who, in time,
would give it up, in fulfillment of their charge.
But this city and this proud achievement were not for him, nor for
Caroline, nor Kingsley, nor Herb, nor Tommy. Nor for the many generations
that would come after them. Not so long as Man carried the old dead weight
of primal savagery and hate, not so long as he was mean and vicious and
petty, could he set foot here.
Before he reached this city, Man would travel long trails of bitter dust,
would know the sheer triumphs of the star-flung road. Galaxies would write
new alphabets across the sky, and the print of many happenings would be
etched upon the tape of time. New things would come and hold their sway and
die, Great leaders would stand up and have their day and shuffle off into
oblivion and silence. Creeds would rise and flourish and be sifting dust
between the worlds. The night watch of stars would see great deeds, applaud
great happenings, witness great defeat, weep over bitter sorrows.
“Just think,” said Caroline. “We are going home.”
“Yes,” said Gary. “At last, we’re going home.”