"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." "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." I looked at the great smooth sphere hanging, haloed, against utter black. The Pacific Ocean threw back a brilliant image of the sun. I turned to Foster. "We're in a ten-hour orbit," I said. "We'd better get moving. I want to put the boat down in southern South America. I know a place there where I can unload without answering too many questions." "You have several hours before the most favorable launch time," Foster said. "There's no hurry." "Maybe not, but I've got a lot to do--and I'm eager to start." CHAPTER VIII I sat on the terrace watching the sun go down into the sea and thinking about Foster, somewhere out there beyond the purple palaces on the far horizon, in the ship that had waited for him for three thousand years, heading home at last. It was strange to reflect that for him, travelling near the speed of light, only a few weeks had passed, while three years went by for me--three fast years that I had put to good use. The toughest part had been the first few months, after I put the life boat down in a cañon in the desert country south of a little town called Itzenca, in Peru. I hiked to town, carrying a pack with a few carefully selected items to start my new career. It took me two weeks to work, lie, barter, and plead my way to the seaport town of Callao and another week to line up passage home as a deck hand on a banana scow. I disappeared over the side at Tampa, and made it to Miami without attracting attention. As far as I could tell, the cops had already lost interest in me. The items I had brought with me from the life boat were a pocketful of little grey dominoes, that were actually movie film, and a small projector to go with them. I didn't offer them for sale, direct. I made arrangements with an old acquaintance in the business of making pictures with low costume budgets for private showings; I set up the apparatus and projected my films, and he copied them in 35 mm. I told him that I'd smuggled them in from East Germany.