“I see,” said Lansing, turning toward the door.
“Would you take it badly,” asked A, “if we said you go with all our blessings?”
“Not at all,” said Mary. “We thank you for your kindness and for the second chance.”
They walked to the door, but before they opened it turned to look back. The four still were sitting in a row upon the couch, the white, blind, skull-like faces watching after them.
Then Lansing opened the door and the two of them passed through.
They stood upon a meadow, and in the distance saw the spires and towers of the university, where evening bells were tolling.
Hand in hand they walked toward mankind’s second chance.
About the Author
Clifford D. Simak is a newspaperman, only recently retired. Over the years he has written more than twenty-five books and has some two hundred short stories to his credit. In 1977 he received the Nebula Grand Master award of the Science Fiction Writers of America and has won several other awards for his writing.
He was born and raised in southwestern Wisconsin, a land of wooded hills and deep ravines, and often uses this locale for his stories. A number of critics have cited him as the pastoralist of science fiction.
Perhaps the best known of his work is City, which has become a science-fiction classic.
He and his wife, Kay, have been happily married for more than fifty years. They have two children — a daughter, Shelley Ellen, a magazine editor, and Richard Scott, a chemical engineer.