"It doesn't matter, really. When I return to Vallon, I'll recover my past. There are vaults where every citizen's trace is stored." "But you had yours here with you." "It could only have been a copy. The master trace is never removed from Okk-Hamiloth." "I guess you'll be eager to get back there," I said. "That'll be quite a moment for you, getting back home after all these years. Speaking of years: were you able to figure out how long you were marooned down on earth?" "I lost all record of dates long ago," said Foster. "I can only estimate the time." "About how long?" I persisted. "Since I descended from this ship, Legion," he said, "three thousand years have passed." * * * * * "I hate to see the team split up," I said. "You know, I was kind of getting used to being an apprentice nut. I'm going to miss you, Foster." "Come with me to Vallon, Legion," he said. We were standing in the observation lounge, looking out at the bright-lit surface of the earth thirty thousand miles away. Beyond it, the dead-white disk of the moon hung like a cardboard cutout. "Thanks anyway, buddy," I said. "I'd like to see those other worlds of yours but in the end I might regret it. It's no good giving an Eskimo a television set. I'd just sit around on Vallon pining for home: beat-up people, stinks, and all." "You could return here some day." "From what I understand about traveling in a ship like this," I said, "a couple of hundred years would pass before I got back, even if it only seemed like a few weeks en route. I want to live out my life here--with the kind of people I know, in the world I grew up in. It has its faults, but it's home." "Then there is nothing I can do, Legion," Foster said, "to reward your loyalty and express my gratitude." "Well, ah," I said. "There is a little something. Let me take the lifeboat, and stock it with a few goodies from the library, and some of those marbles from the storeroom, and a couple of the smaller mechanical gadgets. I think I know how to merchandise them in a way that'll leave the economy on an even keel--and incidentally set me up for life. As you said, I'm a materialist." "As you wish," Foster said. "Take whatever you desire." "One thing I'll have to do when I get back," I said, "is open the tunnel at Stonehenge enough to sneak a thermite bomb down it--if they haven't already found the beacon station." "As I judge the temper of the local people," Foster said, "the secret is safe for at least three generations." "I'll bring the boat down in a blind spot where radar won't pick it up," I said. "Our timing was good; in another few years, it wouldn't have been possible." "And this ship would soon have been discovered," Foster said. "In spite of radar-negative screens." I looked at the great smooth sphere hanging, haloed, against utter black. The Pacific Ocean threw back a brilliant image of the sun.