Newspapers across the nation were reporting sudden fogs of short
duration which baffled local weathermen. The U. S. Weather Bureau in
Washington refused to comment.
For the first time in the history of an East-West conference, there was
no haggling, no propaganda speeches. Hour after hour, even as the talks
went on, the cream of the world's scientific brains quietly continued to
disappear, it was revealed later.
In three days, the major powers accomplished what they had failed to do
in the previous 15 years. Just 4 days and 21 hours after Forster had
first talked to General Morganson at the Pentagon, a treaty was signed
ending the world atomic weapons race.
And it had all happened, was over and done, before the people of the
globe could realize what was happening, before they could rise in mass
panic in the face of the incredible unknown.
Almost immediately after the announcement, radio and radar
communications suddenly returned to normal, and reports of the
mysterious fogs ceased.
Back at the Center, as he walked down the floodlit ramp of the heliport
towards his car, Forster found himself thinking of the experimental work
on the dream state which he had performed as a graduate student. He knew
that a dream which might take half an hour to recount took only a
fraction of a second to occur in the sub-conscious of the sleeper as he
awoke.
It was the same way with the events of the last five days; already
details were becoming fuzzy and blurred as though they had happened
five years ago.
He opened the car door, and the soft glow of the dome light filled the
interior.
Then he saw again the neat rectangular discoloration on the seat covers,
and the jolt back to reality was almost a physical thing. Relief,
overwhelming, flooded over him.
He looked up into the indigo-velvet sky. Above him was the enormous
triangle formed by Deneb, Vega, and Altair. Framed within it were a
thousand other dimmer stars, but all, he knew, far, far bigger than the
speck of solidified gases called Earth.
Somewhere out there, living, thinking, breathing was Bentley.
"Good night," Forster said out loud.
And somehow, he was sure he wasn't talking into thin air.
THE END
Transcriber's Note
This etext was produced from _Amazing Science Fiction Stories_ April
1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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