"Heavy, slow, mortal,” muttered Dundonald beside him. “Why did we have to come back?"
Dim memory, struggling to return, warned Harlow of danger. He cringed in the expectation of bullets tearing into his now-vulnerable solid body. But there were no shots, and the whole plaza held a confusion of outcries that expressed only fear.
Suddenly he realized that he could not see the plaza. It was obscured in a bright fog, a mad whirling coruscation through which the tall Vorn men moved with calm certainty. Harlow and Dundonald faltered, confused, and then they realized that not all the Vorn had come through the Converter.
By hundreds, by thousands, they had settled upon the plaza in a glowing cloud that blinded and terrified the men who were there on guard, and the others who had run out at the first cry of alarm. They carried weapons, but they could not see to shoot them. Bright mists clotted around them, and the tall quiet men from the Converter moved among them quickly, with a frightening air of efficiency. They had come back a long way to do a certain thing, and they wanted it done and over without delay. The terrified Earthmen were disarmed, swept up, herded together, and held with their own weapons in the hands of the human Vorn.
Dundonald caught Harlow's arm and pointed suddenly. “Taggart!"
He appeared through a thinning of the bright mist, with a heavy rifle in his hands and a cobra look of fury on his face. He leveled the rifle at the dim shadows of the human Vorn in the mist, where they herded the Earthmen. He was bound to hit some of his own men if he fired, but Harlow sensed that he did not care. Harlow shouted a warning and ran forward.
Taggart heard him and wheeled. He smiled. “This was your idea, wasn't it, Harlow? Well—” He brought the rifle to bear.
Harlow launched himself in a low dive for Taggart's knees.
He heard the rifle go off. He felt the impact as he hit Taggart, and a second jarring crash as Taggart fell backward and they both landed on the pavement. But there was no fight. Hands lifted him up, while other hands hoisted Taggart less gently to his feet.
The voice of a Vorn spoke inside his mind. “That was rash and needless. We were ready for him."
Harlow turned and saw the tall leader beside him. He knew the man was speaking to him as he would have spoken before he returned through the Converter, and it dawned on Harlow that none of the re-created Vorn had spoken a word aloud, which was one reason for the weird silence in which all this had been done.
The Vorn leader smiled. “But it was brave, and we thank you. We are glad that we deflected the weapon in time."
Harlow whispered, “So am I!” He wiped his forehead.
The tall men led Taggart away. And the bright mist began to lift as the Vorn withdrew a little.
The strange, silent battle was over. Taggart, Frayne and their crews were captive. Dundonald's and Harlow's crews had been released, and now the tall Vern men relinquished their weapons and their captives to the men of the Star Survey.
Yrra was running out across the plaza, calling his name.
Harlow ran to meet her, catching her in his arms. He kissed her, and overhead the glowing, dancing stars that were the Vorn hung in the deepening twilight of their ancient world, as though they were waiting.
He said to Dundonald, “Your ship can take word to the Survey. We'll need more ships here, more men to guard the Converter permanently—"
The voice of the Vorn leader spoke again in his mind.
"There will be no need. Before we leave, we will make very sure that the Converter is not used again."
Night had fallen and the Vorn were leaving. Eagerly the tall, strange men crowded up the steps of the Converter. Joyously, they stepped into the blazing beam, and light, free, and joyful they sped out of the upper beam as radiant stars to join the hosts of other firefly stars that waited.
Harlow stood with Yrra and Dundonald and watched them. There were tears in Dundonald's eyes, and he took a half-step toward the stairs.
"No,” said Harlow. “No, you can't, you mustn't."
Dundonald looked at him. “You weren't free as long as I was, you don't know. And yet you're right. I can't."
A door in the cement side of the Converter — a hidden door they had not known before existed — opened and out of it came that tall Vorn man who had been their guide. His thought came to them.
"You will be wise to remove yourselves from the Converter, before the last of us depart."
Harlow understood, and a great sadness took him. “The greatest secret of the galaxy — to be destroyed. Yet it's better."
"It will exist again,” came the Vorn's thought.
Startled, Harlow looked at him. “Again? How?"
"You too, you men of Earth, will someday build a Converter. When you first stepped off your planet, you set yourself upon a road that has no turning-back. You will go farther and farther, as we did, until you hunger for the farthest shores of the universe, and those you can only reach as we did."
Harlow wondered. Would it be so? Or would Earthmen take a different road altogether.
Yrra tugged fearfully at his arm and spoke to him, and he looked up to find they were alone. The last of the Vorn was climbing the steps toward the beam.
He awoke to their danger, and turned and took Dundonald's arm. Dundonald seemed amazed with his own thoughts, his face pale and drawn by a wild regret, and Harlow had to drag him back with them across the plaza.
They turned by the ships, and looked back. No human figure now was visible by the Converter. But out of the upper beam sped a last radiant Vorn to join the hosts of others that swirled in the darkness.
A dull red spark appeared in the side of the massive cement pedestal that held the Converter. It was not flame, but a force unleashed by whatever fusing device the Vorn had left. It spread, and devoured, and the supernal beam that had been a gateway to the infinite for thousands of years flickered and dimmed and went out. The hungry redness ate all the Converter, and it too went out, and all was dark. Except—
"Look!” cried Yrra, in awe.
Overhead the Vorn were circling, a radiant will-of-the-wisp host, a maelstrom of misty shooting-stars as though they bade farewell forever to the world of their birth.
And then they shot skyward, joyously, a great plume of rushing little stars outward bound for the farthest shores of creation, for the freedom and wonder of all the universe, time without end.
It was not for Earthmen, Harlow thought. They had their own road, and must follow it. And yet, as he looked up, he felt that his own eyes held tears.