Oh, Veld, Veld, long-living Veld, what truly eternal sorrow! I sank down through the air, bereft and graceless. What could I do for the Veld? All that remained to me was what I could say to men. But I knew as I landed among them that the Veld's promise could not be kept, since the Veld was still here. I cried out to the men: "Awake! Arise!" They stumbled out of their houses, but when I said to the first of them: "Question me!" he obediently answered: "How?" * * * * * I go back to where the Foundation was, now and then. I bring doctors with me, after each time it seems to me I have found a way to tell them what to seek. The Veld lies where his chamber was, before the stone decayed, and tells me nothing. If he truly reflects me, as he is now, then I don't know if I can bear to wait for the day when I can dash myself down from the outraged air and surrender myself to the sea-speckled rocks. The doctors say that if only someone would tell them what questions to ask about the Veld, and if only someone would give them the answers to the questions, they might be able to do something. Charpantier is there sometimes, and mocks me. "You're getting crazier every day, Maurer," he says. "Suppose you restore the Veld? Then what? Does he make another transporter?" He shakes his head. "Poor Maurer. What're you doing to these people you bring here? What do you want from them? Something the Veld himself couldn't accomplish?" I try. I try to tell them how to question, and I command them to question. And I hope the Veld dies. But though Charpantier and I--even Charpantier and I--are growing a little older, the Veld is only moribund, and no more dead than he was before the days when thirty generations of men battled to keep the southernmost edge of the creeping ice from burying the Veld beyond the reach of hope. For I hope--though I can see a sprig of silver, here and there, in Charpantier's darkness now. The Veld must be accessible to my hope, though I must command millions of men. And I think Charpantier hopes, too, because so long as he can see me failing he knows I am imperfect, but he wishes perfection for me. I know he brings no doctors only because he has not yet found a way for a man to respond to the command, "Be perfect!" Each time the hope dies, I tell my men: "Go home, now. Rest." And they go home. But I? I blunder about, thinking that perhaps if I could kill the Veld, that would be an end to it. But nothing can kill the Veld, unless it be something the Veld knows of. So first we must heal the Veld. And healed he will once again seek his heart's desire, hopelessly. As do I. As do I. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rag and Bone Men, by Algis Budrys