And then the last group of Ganymeans stood for a while to return the silent wavings of the multitudes on the surrounding hills before filing slowly up into the ship. With them went a small party of Earthmen destined for Ganymede, where the Shapieron was scheduled to make a short call to allow the Ganymeans to bid farewell to their UNSA friends there.

ZORAC spoke over the communications network of Earth to deliver a final message from the Ganymeans and then the link was broken. The Shapieron retracted its stern section into its flight position and for a while the huge ship stood alone while the world watched. And then it began to rise, slowly and majestically, before soaring up and away to rejoin its element. Only the sea of upturned faces, the lines of tiny figures arrayed around the empty space in the center of the concrete apron, and the rows of outsize deserted wooden chalets remained to show that it had ever been.

The mood inside the Shapieron was solemn too. In the command center, Garuth stood in the area of open floor below the dais surrounded by a group of senior officers and watched in silence as the mottled pattern of blue and white on the main screen shrank and became the globe of Earth. Shilohin was standing beside him, also silent and absorbed in thoughts of her own.

Then ZORAC spoke, his voice seemingly issuing from the surrounding walls. "Launch characteristics normal. All systems checked and normal. Request confirmation of orders."

"Existing orders confirmed," Garuth replied quietly. "Destination Ganymede."

"Setting course for Ganymede," the machine reported. "Arrival will be as scheduled."

"Hold off main drives for a while," Garuth said suddenly. "I'd like to see Earth for a little longer."

"Maintaining auxiliaries," came the response. "Main drives being held on standby pending further orders."

As the minutes ticked by the globe on the screen contracted slowly. The Ganymeans continued to watch in silence.

At last Shilohin turned to Garuth. "And to think, we called it the Nightmare Planet."

Garuth smiled faintly. His thoughts were still far away.

"They've woken up from the nightmare now," he said. "What an extraordinary race they are. Surely they must be unique in the Galaxy."

"I still can't bring myself to believe that everything we have seen can have evolved from such origins," she replied. "Don't forget I was brought up in a school that taught me to believe that this could never happen. All our theories and our models predicted that intelligence was unlikely to develop at all in any ecology like that, and that any form of civilization would be absolutely impossible. And yet . . ." she made a gesture of helplessness, "look at them. They've barely learned to fly and already they talk about the stars. Two hundred years ago they knew nothing of electricity; today they generate it by fusion power. Where will they stop?"

"I don't think they ever will," Garuth said slowly. "They can't. They must fight all the time, just as their ancestors did. Their ancestors fought each other; they fight the challenges that the universe throws at them instead. Take away their challenges and they would waste away."

Shilohin thought again about the incredible race that had struggled to claw its way upward through every difficulty and obstacle imaginable, not the least of which was its own perversity, and which now reigned unchallenged and triumphant in the Solar System that the Ganymeans had once owned.

"Their history is still abhorrent in many ways," she said. "But at the same time there is something strangely magnificent and proud about them. They can live with danger where we could not, because they know that they can conquer danger. They have proved things to themselves that we will never know, and it is that knowledge that will carry them onward where we would hesitate. If Earthmen had inhabited the Minerva of twenty-five million years ago, I'm sure that things would have turned out differently. They wouldn't have given up after Iscaris; they would have found a way to win."

"Yes," Garuth agreed. "Things would certainly have turned out very differently. But before long, I feel, we will see what would have happened if that had been true. Very soon now the Earthmen will explode outward all over the Galaxy. Somehow, I don't think it will ever be quite the same again after that happens."

The conversation lapsed once more as the two Ganymeans shifted their eyes again to take in a last view of the planet that had defied all their theories, laws, principles and expectations. In the years to come they would no doubt gaze many times at this image, retrieved from the ship's data banks, but it would never again have the impact of this moment.

After a long time, Garuth called out aloud, "ZORAC."

"Commander?"

"It's time we were on our way. Activate main drives."

"Switching over from standby. Commencing run-up to full power now."

The disk of Earth dissolved into a wash of colors that ran across the screen and began to fade. After a few minutes the colors had merged into a sheet of drab, uniform, grayish fog. The screen would show nothing more until they reached Ganymede.

"Monchar," Garuth called. "I have things to attend to. Will you take over here for a while?"

"Aye-aye, sir."

"Very good. I will be in my room if I am needed for anything." Garuth excused himself from the company, acknowledged the salutations around him, and left the command center. He walked slowly through the corridors that led to his private quarters, fully preoccupied with the thoughts inside his head and largely oblivious to his surroundings. When he had closed the door behind him, he stared at himself in the wall mirror in his stateroom for a long time, as if looking for visible changes in his appearance that might have been brought about by what he had done. Then he sank into one of the reclining armchairs and stared unseeingly at the ceiling until he lost track of time.

Eventually he activated the wall screen in the stateroom and called up a star chart that showed the part of the sky that included the constellation of Taurus. For a long time he sat staring at the faint point that would grow progressively brighter in the course of the long voyage ahead. There was a hope that they could all be wrong. There was always a chance. If the Ganymeans had migrated there, what kind of civilization would they have developed over the millions of years that had passed by since the Shapieron departed from Minerva? What kind of science would they possess? What wonders would they accept as commonplace that even he could never conceive? As his mind went out toward the faint spot on the star chart, he felt a sudden surge of hope welling up inside him. He began to picture the world that was there waiting to greet them and he grew restless and impatient at the thought of the years that would have to pass by before they could know.

He knew that the optimism of the human scientists knew no bounds. Already the huge disks of the radio-observatory situated on Lunar Farside were beaming a high-power transmission in Ganymean communications code out toward The Giants' Star to forewarn of the Shapieron's coming--a message that would take years to cover the distance, but which would still arrive well ahead of the ship.

Then he slumped back in the chair, despairing and dispirited. He knew, as his few trusted companions knew, that there would be nobody there to receive it. Nothing in the Lunarian records had proved anything. It was all Earthmen's wishful thinking.

His thoughts went back to the incredible Earthmen--the race that had struggled and fought for millennia to overcome such horrendous difficulties, and who now, at last, were emerging from their past to a prospect of lasting prosperity and wisdom . . . if they could only be left alone for a little longer to complete the things they had so valiantly strived to achieve. They had built their world out of chaos, against all the theories and predictions of all the sages and scientists of Minerva. They deserved to be left alone to enjoy their world without interference.