A panel in the wall by his head lit up, making a square of brightness.
He strained his eyes at it, discerning a picture. A scanner of some
sort. It showed a transparent ovoid slanting up through the black trees
of the forest, a ship with Doc Willard at the controls and eleven
men and a girl in the vessel with him--a girl with red-gold hair,
going back to Earth, with the knowledge that would save a world from
destruction.
He had not failed.
The picture on the scanner darkened. The burning ache in Garth's lungs
grew worse. If he could breathe--
On the dais, the robot swayed, its metal legs giving beneath its
weight. The crash of its fall brought the Zarno to their feet, frozen
with amazement for a moment. Then they moved forward like a wave.
Garth saw them, dimly, through the vision-slit. A white curtain of pain
blotted them out. He was dying; he knew that. The shouts of the Zarno
came to him faintly,
"the wind bloweth ... and the place thereof shall know it no more...."
But in that place the seeds of the future would grow. Once more Garth
saw the children of Earth's unborn generations, and this time the
question in their eyes was answered. They would live and go on, to the
stars, and beyond.
Moira was beside him. Her cool hand touched his; she came into his arms.
And the white curtain flamed agonizingly for the last time.
Then, mercifully, there was no more pain. Under the black throne
Garth's body lay motionless in its strange tomb.
The Zarnos' cries filled the temple as they mourned their dead god--but
the man who had saved Earth did not hear them.
End of Project Gutenberg's Crypt-City of the Deathless One, by Henry Kuttner
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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