And when a few interested humans applied for permission to emigrate there, they were turned back by the private patrol. For the Articles composed by the horse Pericles forbade the introduction of man to Old Earth. Those Articles were written in endurasteel, framed in paragraphs of molten duralloy. Neither human curiosity nor money could make a chip in them.
It was clear to judges and law machines that while the Articles (especially the phrase about “the meek finally inheriting the Earth”) might not have been good manners or good taste, they were very good law.
It was finished.
It was secured.
It was given unto the mal till the end of time.
Casperdan and Pericles left the maze that was now Dream Enterprises and went to Old Earth. They came to stand on the same place where they’d stood decades before.
Now clean low surf grumbled and subsided on a beach of polished sand that was home to shellfish and worms and brittle stars..They stood on a field of low, waving green grass. In the distance a family of giraffe moved like sentient signal towers toward the horizon. The male saw them, swung its long neck in greeting. Pericles responded with a long, high whinny.
To their left, in the distance, the first mountains began. Not bare and empty now, but covered with a mat of thick evergreen crowned with new snow.
They breathed in the heady scent of fresh clover and distant honeysuckle.
“It’s done,” he said.
Casperdan nodded and began to remove her clothes. Someday she would bring a husband down here. She was the sole exception in the Articles. Her golden hair fell in waves to her waist. Someday, yes … But for now…