Blood was flowing out of him. Gritting his teeth to keep from crying out, Telis twisted the imbedded sword free. With a sobbing moan he dropped it to the sand. He fought back the blackness that threatened to engulf him. Gorla must not fight alone!
The Priest had sought the shelter of the air-sled and was shooting handily at the attackers on the crest. Already he had accounted for three men and a woman, and several of their companions, not knowing or caring that the stun-gun did not kill, had withdrawn from the fray to butcher the fallen ones into long strips of bloody meat which they stuffed hungrily into their mouths.
Telis felt Leslie stir, and he struggled to his feet and helped her to the sled.
With surprising quickness she adapted herself to the necessities of battle. She took a peculiar looking pistol from her pouch and levelled it at the attackers.
A sharp report burst from the weapon in the girl's hand and, on the crest of the dune, a Guski woman shrieked and pitched to the sand. Twelve times this process was repeated, and Telis began to have hopes that the battle would be won before he, himself, collapsed from loss of blood.
It was a vain hope. After the twelfth explosion, the weapon fell silent, and the strange performance was over.
There was a tense lull during which the Guski butchered their dead, and Gorla tried fruitlessly to start the dead motor of the sled. Then the Guski began to close in, and Gorla and Telis both were forced to leave the sled and advance to meet them. Leslie stayed near the aircraft, digging frantically at the jammed jet.
To Telis, his sword seemed suddenly very, very heavy. He touched Gorla on the shoulder. "At least ... we'll die ... friends ... together," he muttered.
Gorla's face contorted with grief. "Friends ... always, Telis. I never felt any other way," he said simply.
There was no time for more. The Guski were upon them—a savage, shrieking horde of vile-smelling beasts, hungering for the taste of human meat.
Then the cannibal-people were upon them—a savage, shrieking horde.
Then the cannibal-people were upon them—a savage, shrieking horde.
Then the cannibal-people were upon them—a savage, shrieking horde.
Time seemed to stand still. Telis thrust and slashed, cut and parried endlessly. Pain was his only reality. Faces appeared before him, and vanished into gouts of red as his blade found marks. Steadily his strength failed and finally he dropped to his knees, still lashing out feebly with his weapon.
Suddenly the cacophony of battle was overwhelmed by the jerky, uneven barking of an ailing jet. Leslie had cleared the nozzle! Startled and fearful of the jet flame, the Guski shrank back momentarily. In that moment, Gorla half-dragged, half-carried Telis to the sled. Telis could feel the movement of the sled as it coursed lamely across the sand, trying to gain flying speed. He heard Leslie gasp:
"It's no use, Gorla. It can't lift the three of us with the jet half-clogged."
Gorla's voice came sharp and clear. "Then I stay. Take him on. That's the important thing. He must be made to see...."
Telis realized with agonizing helplessness that since the sled could not lift three persons Gorla was remaining behind. To face the Guski!
He tried to cry out his protest, but he was too weak to do more than moan.
"Can you find the way?" Gorla asked the girl.
"I have maps. There's the transmitter, too. I can come in on D-F fixes. But what about you?"
"Never mind me ... remember, the fate of my world goes with you ... and with Telis. Explain that to him ... after he knows...."
Telis heard the motor speed up again, and he felt the bumping of the runners on the sand. But he was unconscious before the sled lifted into the air....
V
For what seemed a long time, Telis floated in throbbing darkness. Pain spun in little wind-devils of fire across the surface of his mind and it was not physical pain alone. Two thoughts tortured him constantly. He had failed the Maldia and he had deserted his friend, leaving him to die at the hands of the cannibal tribesmen.
Aeons swept by in that timeless, vitalizing darkness, and at last Telis opened his eyes.
For a moment he thought that he was back in the Central Temple of Dorliss, but as his eyes focused more clearly, he saw that he was in a small, neatly bare room. The walls were white, and one of them seemed to curve gently overhead until it met the first plane of the ceiling.
A cool hand was stroking his forehead, and Telis turned to meet the eyes of Leslie Karr. She sat at his bedside watchfully, and somehow he knew that she had been there for a long time.
Her clothing was different than he remembered. Her harness was gone. Now, her supple figure was clad in a straight tunic of dark metallic cloth that hung from her shoulders to the middle of her thighs, caught at her small waist by a linked belt. Her dark hair was swept back from her face, exposing her small, elfin ears. There was a look of health and vitality about her that was amazing when Telis recalled her condition in the air-sled.
"Wh ... what magic is this?" he asked.
Leslie smiled. "No magic," she said. "Only some decent air."
Telis drew a deep breath: It was true. The air was different ... and wondrous. Vitality filled him and with it came a thousand questions. Where was he? What was this place? What had happened after the fight on the desert? And the question he most wanted answered—what of Gorla?
Leslie laid a warning hand over his lips and cautioned him against spending his new found strength too prodigally. He was healing, she told him, and within a very few days he would be able to be up and around. At that time, all his questions would be answered. This last she told him with something like reluctance in her voice.
Plainly, wherever they were, Leslie was at home here.
The days passed almost too swiftly. Strange men came and went, giving him odd medications and dressing his wound. All his questions were tactfully avoided. Yet their concern for a stranger was confusing to Telis. By the code that Telis had lived his six haads with, a stranger was ipso facto an enemy. According to that tenet he had lived and had become a great soldier and a high officer of the Laurr of Laurr himself. Now here were strangers treating him with kindness ... and their kindness was striking at the roots of everything he had ever believed. And there was Leslie. She remained with him constantly, tending him and comforting him with her presence. Telis felt himself losing his heart to this exotic girl with her kindness and her breathtaking beauty.
Four days passed and then his confinement was over. He was able to rise from his hospital cot. His harness was brought to him, and even his weapons. If proof were needed, Telis thought, the act of returning his weapons proved that he was among friends. And true friends they must be, for they had nursed him and fed him, and he could not forget that his friend had been willing to remain behind alone to face the Guski so that he, Telis, might be brought here. And that recalled the burning question mark.Why?
When he had dressed himself, Leslie came into the room. Her face was sombre. "Telis," she began, "I have something that I must tell you before you leave this room. Believe me, it is not easy. You see, I ... I have not been honest with you.... Not that I have lied. Believe me, I haven't. But...." She broke off momentarily in confusion. Her face was flushed. "I have let you mislead yourself, and that's very like lying, isn't it?" She did not wait for a reply, but rushed on. "Now I have to stand by and watch you find out who and what I am. Oh, believe me, I have no wish to hurt you or your people, Telis. I couldn't ... now ... because I ... I...." She bit her lips. "All this is necessary. You had to be convinced, you see, because of your great influence with the Laurr...." She gave a short, nervous laugh. "All this isn't making very much sense, is it?"
"No," replied Telis, puzzled.
"You know by now that you were tricked into coming here. It was all planned by us and by the Temple...."
Telis felt the blood drain from his face. He knew exactly what was coming next. The whole incredible picture was clear.
"Oh, Telis," cried Leslie. "Please understand! Gorla understood ... and he gave his life so that we could makeyousee! Can't you see what I am trying to tell you? Can't you see that if you help us we can bring life back to Laurr? And that if you won't it might mean ages of senseless warfare? Telis ...try...."
Telis of Lars stared. It all came flooding back to him. All the tiny, irrelevant pieces of the puzzle. The mask back in Dorliss! A respirator! Her need for oxygen ... the anoxia that struck her down in the air-sled ... the rich air of this room! Her weight ... the greater density of a heavy gravity planet's evolution! Alien, alien!
Leslie Karr could feel the barrier rising between them and she cried out against it. Tears streaked her face, and even that added to Telis' sense of alienage. Laurrians did not weep. The water in their bodies was far too precious for that. It was all too grotesque! He, the former leader of the Maldia, beholden to the invaders for his very life!
Then the shock began to wear off, and his mind to function more clearly. This place with its sloping wall was a compartment in the Tellurian spacecraft, that much was now obvious. Yet they had trusted him within it ... armed. And they had been kind to him, they had nursed him back to health after the Guski's wound almost killed him. Why? It was not enough that he had great influence with the Laurr. He had had the feeling that theylikedhim. Could it be, he wondered, that the whole basic philosophy of the Maldia was in error? The Temple spoke of mighty Tellurian science. Could it actually do what the High Superior of Dorliss claimed? Redeem the planet and give it hope again?
And there was Leslie. In that moment of introspection, Telis knew with a distinct shock that, Tellurian or not, he loved her. Telis of Lars, peer of the ancient realm of Laurr, member of the dread, anti-Tellurian Maldia, was in love with an alien woman! Creature of another world—different and strange—and yet he loved her! Standing there, watching her tears course down her cheeks, he felt his heart constrict, and he knew that she had won.
"Please, Telis—my Telis—let me show that we can be friends!" she cried.
Telis stared at her. "Friends?" he asked thickly.
Leslie took a step nearer, her eyes suddenly wide, almost afraid. It came to Telis in a blinding flash of insight that she too was feeling the soul-wrenching conflicts of love for an alien creature. To her Telis was the exotic, the outlander.
Then like the snapping of a steel wire, the barrier was broken, and she was in his arms, returning his kisses with an almost desperate abandon....
The Tellurian camp was a revelation to Telis. Guided by Leslie and a group of Tellurian scientists, he beheld machines such as had not existed on the surface of Laurr for ten thousand haads. Here, among the squat, pressurized domes of the camp were the end-products of all the theories the Temple had salvaged from the lost books of the ancients.
Power was drawn from the destruction of infinitesimal particles of matter by a mysterious process the scientist referred to as "fission," and Telis found to his surprise that Leslie was not a noblewoman as he had supposed, but something called a "metallurgist." These terms meant nothing to him, but the teeming activity of the camp and the matter of fact way in which miracles were daily performed made him begin to understand what the High Superior had meant when he had said that together the races of Terra and Laurr might one day rule the solar system. The machines and the magnificent, graceful projectile that was the spaceship fired Telis' imagination.
If any doubt remained in his mind, it was shattered irretrievably when Leslie showed him the mining operations. Thus far, they had begun only on an experimental basis, the Tellurians wisely wary of extending themselves before permission to remain was granted by the Laurr. But, even on a small scale, what Telis saw stirred him more deeply than had any of the other wondrous things he had been shown.
Since the deserts of Laurr were almost pure iron oxide, it was explained to him that they were the result of the ubiquitous iron's propensity for uniting with oxygen. The result, after many aeons, was that the air was actually rusting away. By the marvelous miracle of Tellurian chemistry, the iron oxide was broken down into its constituent elements. This resulted in a stream of iron ingots, and ... free oxygen!
Telis was quick to realize what this process would mean to Laurr over a period of time if it was made universal. Great quantities of the precious oxygen would be released into the air to revitalize it, and later to combine with the large amounts of hydrogen in Laurr's atmosphere to form water!
The Tellurians had in fact already set up a pilot plant where oxygen and hydrogen were mixed to make the water they needed for their own purposes. Part of it was used for drinking and bathing, and part was used for puddling the iron oxide before it was passed through the separation process. Great pressure hoses washed the impurities from the ferric oxide even as Telis watched, astounded. Never had a Laurrian seen precious water treated so carelessly, but with a great effort he was able to acclimate himself finally to an economy of plentiful water, and the sight of great streams of it churning the desert to reddish mud shocked him less and less as the days passed.
Only two thoughts marred Telis' happiness during these days spent in the camp. First the thought of Gorla's fate remained with him always, and he resolved that his friend's sacrifice should not be for nothing. And, second, there was the Maldia. Now, with Prince Brand at its head, it was more than ever a threat to the safety of the people from the third planet, to himself, to the Laurr and by extension to the world of Laurr itself.
Telis resolved that he must return immediately to the capital and lay his findings before the Laurr. Only in that way could the danger of the Maldia be removed. With the safe-conduct from the supreme ruler confirmed publicly, the Maldia would not dare to attack the camp.
The air-sled was repaired, and Telis made ready to leave the following morning over the protests of Leslie and the camp medical staff who contended that his wound was not yet sufficiently healed.
But Telis' resolution had come too late. Even as the sled was loaded, a shout from the watchtower brought the whole camp out into the streets. With sinking heart Telis heard the words of the camp guard. The Maldia had come, and the camp found itself surrounded.
VI
Telis hurried with Leslie to the watchtower and his horrified eyes looked out over the surrounding desert. Fully five thousand Guski men and women surrounded them, led by at least five hundred well-armed and sith-mounted warriors. Telis recognized many of them as his former comrades of the Maldia. And Prince Brand was there. Telis felt a hot wave of hate for the man.
Thus far, they had made no move to attack, and that in itself showed the characteristic mark of Brand's leadership. With a force of fifty five hundred fighting men against an even two hundred poorly-armed men and women, mostly elderly scientists, Brand still chose to proceed with caution lest the unexpected defeat him....
Telis started. The unexpected!
He let his mind harken back to the stories the older Temple Priest told of the mythical coming of the Water Goddess. And he thought of the books he had read dealing with the forgotten science of weather on Laurr....
Quickly he called a meeting of all the department heads. Leadership fell on his shoulders like a cloak, for among all these learned men and women he was the only warrior.
One woman suggested that all the personnel of the camp move into the spaceship and that they lift the craft into the air, spraying the attackers with the deadly radioactive exhaust gases. But the ship's navigator vetoed that idea quickly. There was fuel enough only for the return flight to Terra when next the two planets came into conjunction. Moreover, such a move would destroy the camp and all its machinery, negating the entire purpose of the expedition.
It was then that Telis stepped forward with his plan. The Tellurians seemed doubtful that it would work, but Leslie who had been among the Laurrians more than the rest of them, convinced them that they could lose nothing by trying.
"Telis is of Laurr," she said to them, "and he knows the ways and beliefs of his people. I, for one, think that his plan is our only hope. Outnumbered as we are, and by savage fighting men and women, our only chance is fear. It saved our lives before, and can again!"
When the technicians had left to modify the necessary equipment, Telis summoned the non-essential able-bodied men. Arming them with the few Tellurian powder-guns that were available and with whatever cutting weapons came to hand, he made ready to lead them out to meet the attackers. Time was needed. Telis and his respirator-masked, make-shift company determined to gain that time.
He stationed his men near the main gate to the camp and walked slowly out toward the masked attackers, tensely aware that at last Prince Brand had him at a real disadvantage.
Knowing that to convince these caste-ridden fanatics and savage cannibals that the attack should not be launched, would be next to impossible, Telis evolved a stratagem that might save a few precious moments. The warlike society of Laurr had developed a very strict code duello. As it was among most warrior civilizations, "honor" or "face" were of the utmost importance. He, himself, by disappearing on the eve of the Maldia's planned attack had lost face. Now, he resolved to turn this fact into a weapon against his attackers.
"Ho! Brand, there!" he hailed. "Come forward!"
Prince Brand squinted across the distance to see if he could recognize the speaker. Slowly, recognition came, and with it a fulsome satisfaction. This was better than he could have hoped for!
"So it is my Lord Telis returned from the realm of the Goddess to guide our hand against the invaders!" he smirked. "Come! Join us, illustrious phantom. We are about to complete the work you so nobly began the night you decided not to risk yourself!"
For a moment there was a silence among the noblemen of the Maldia, and then the laughter started. It was what Telis had expected. It was ironic, bitter laughter for one who had failed the warrior's code. To these men he was a coward. Even the naked savages laughed, though they did not understand the reason for it.
Telis' fury rose under the goading mirth, but he knew with some satisfaction that all the palaver was taking up precious minutes, stalling the attack that he could hold at bay only with his wits.
"You, Brand," said Telis slowly and distinctly, "are a usurping rogue. Your mother was a she-sith and your father a Guski slave of questionable ancestry. You are a coward and a pandering lackey!"
A sudden quiet settled on the serried ranks and Telis continued with his insulting monologue.
"I challenge you to fight me here and now—so that I can strip the harness from your puffy carcass and throw it to the siths! Refuse, and I will come and get you!"
A low moan of rage rose from the ranks of the nobles. Never had a high-born prince been so grossly and deliberately insulted. According to their code, there was only one possible answer, and they awaited it with eagerness. Brand must fight.
But Prince Brand was no fool. He knew Telis for a swordsman, and he strongly suspected some sort of trickery from the too-silent camp. Still, he knew that Telis must be punished and before the troops or his hold over them would fail. It could be done without placing himself in jeopardy for the sake of a gallant gesture.
He turned to an equerry. "Bring him to me. Dead or alive."
Telis heard, and gave an insulting laugh. "Preferably dead, eh, Brand?"
The equerry looked pained. He turned to Brand. "Sir, he has offered a challenge. It would be in very bad form to...."
"Bring him!" Brand snapped testily. "If you are afraid, take a company...."
The officer stiffened. "I am not afraid, sir—though others are!" He wheeled his sith and trotted toward Telis.
"Get back, Captain," ordered Telis. "My quarrel is not with you!"
"Ride him down!" called Brand.
The officer unsheathed his lance and laid it in rest. Levelling it at Telis, he dug his booted heels into the sith's flanks and thundered across the sand, leaning low in the saddle.
Telis stood braced and, just as the animal came abreast of him, he stepped aside, catching the tip of the lance under his arm and whirling. The movement of the weapon overbalanced the officer and he tumbled from the saddle to sprawl in the sand. With a mortified howl of rage, the man was on his feet and upon Telis, but his fury made him careless. Telis' sword flashed out and the point found the officer's sword arm, piercing it neatly and ending the encounter with a flourish.
Telis turned to face the attackers once again. "Now Brand," he taunted, "will you come out to do your own dying? Or will you send another lackey to take the steel meant for you?"
Brand's heavy face darkened. For answer he raised his hands to the buglers.
"Attack!"
The force swept forward like a great tawny wave, shrieking and cursing. Telis stared aghast. An attack he had been expecting, and even the possibility of the Maldia finally taking the camp had occurred to him. But that fifty five hundred roaring madmen would attack one man was more than he had prepared himself for.
Death seemed a certainty, and a fleeting image of Leslie swept across his mind. He lifted his futile swords and murmured a prayer to the Goddess....
It was answered. The rain came like a gift from heaven. From the nozzles of the camp's pressure hoses there poured a great effluvium of pure, cold, water. It rose in a graceful curve high into the air and spilled down to lash the red sand into a morass and spray the attackers.
Telis himself was caught up in the wonder of it. And the effect on the Maldia's fighting force of Guski was nothing short of miraculous. The charging savages pulled up, faces lifted to the sky in mute amazement. Then came fear—shrieking, mad, insensate terror! Rain was falling where no rain had fallen for ten thousand haads! The Goddess had opened up the flood gates of heaven and the stuff of the sky was falling down on a sinful Laurr! Dropping their weapons, they fled out into the desert—away from the accursed place that the Goddess had chosen to enchant! And, in their flight, they carried the mounted nobles of the Maldia, cursing, shouting, trying to regroup their shattered cohorts.
Telis stood in the downpour, his body tingling to the touch of the precious water. He was thinking not that this trick of Tellurian technics had saved his life; rather he was thinking of Laurr and what this could mean to the planet. The deserts could be conquered, the world could be redeemed!
Presently, the water stopped and a Tellurian from his company ran forward to shout: "Telis! Look there! Aircraft!"
Telis looked skyward, and the door to the future seemed to slam shut in his mind. Fully two hundred air-sleds were beating rapidly toward them. The Maldia again ... more of them?
Telis looked out into the desert. The mounted force had abandoned the attempt to regroup the demoralized Guski, but it had formed into a phalanx and was returning to the attack.
Automatically, but without real hope, Telis motioned his men into extended order. They were caught between two forces, helpless between the sith-mounted Maldia and the airborne contingent. The irony of it caught at his breast painfully. It was bitter hard to die just at the brink of a golden age ... a golden age that would never come now.
Now he could make out Brand's face far to the rear of the mounted column. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the sleds were almost upon them, too. Telis braced himself for the attack.
Then, with a roar of jets, the air armada passed low over his head and began disgorging warriors onto the rapidly narrowing strip of sand between him and the Maldia. For a moment Telis was stunned by the strangeness of the maneuvers ... and then his astonished eyes caught the gleam of the device blazoned on the grounded sleds. It was the Sword and Atom of the Temple!
With a glad cry he leaped forward to greet the Temple Guardsmen. Snatched from the brink of disaster, the camp now revelled in a surfeit of friendly warriors! The Maldia halted in confusion and air-sleds moved out to cut off their escape.
Telis searched the ranks of the Temple troops for some explanation of this seeming miracle ... and his eyes found a familiar figure. It was battered and bandaged but unmistakably ... Gorla!
He caught the priest by the arm and spun him around with a shout. The familiar round face reddened with pleasure and he threw his free arm around Telis.
"You've healed, Telis!" he cried. "And in more ways than one!" he added significantly. "I see you leading the defense instead of the attack!"
"I've been a thick headed fool, Gorla! But you ... how are you here? I—"
"You thought me meat for those Guski back on the desert that night?"
Telis nodded.
The Priest laughed. "By the Goddess! I thought you were going to get up and give us trouble that night! I suppose I should be thankful for your wound. You never would have left me otherwise!"
"But, how did you ..." Telis began.
"The Temple takes care of its own, Telis, my friend," said Gorla. "We were being followed at a distance all the way from Dorliss by a guardship. Of course, when you threw my transmitter over the side, they lost us. But you were the one who had to be convinced about these Tellurians. So I stayed. There were a few bad moments ... once or twice I thought the Guski had me cold, but the guardship was searching and it found me before the brutes could finish me off. Since then, we have been standing by at Dorliss, waiting for the Maldia to move."
"And here you are, thank the Goddess!" breathed Telis.
They stood surrounded by Temple Guardsmen and Tellurians watching the air-sleds break up the sith-mounted force of the Maldia. The back of the assault was broken. Riderless animals careened about wildly through the confusion, and people were pouring out of the camp to greet their liberators.
"Who led them?" asked Gorla indicating the sullen nobles.
Telis looked around for Prince Brand, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then his sharp eyes caught a cloud of dust moving rapidly across the desert. It would be Brand. He alone, of all the Maldia, was cynic enough and coward enough to throw over the battle-to-death code at the first sign of opposition.
With an oath, Telis caught at a sith and swung into the saddle. "There!" he shouted to Gorla, pointing. "If he escapes the Maldia will form again!" Telis kicked the sith savagely, and the animal plunged off in pursuit of the fleeing renegade.
At full speed the sith carried Telis out into the desert. For half an hour, there was no loss or gain, Prince Brand's animal holding its lead tenaciously. Already, the Prince had turned to see that he was being followed. But Telis' beast was fresher, and now began to narrow the distance.
They were well away from the camp when Telis caught up. Riding in, he cut across the path of Brand's animal, forcing it to break step. Brand slashed wildly at him but Telis parried and dodged in under the other's guard. Then, hooking his knee under that of the struggling Prince, he heaved upward and dislodged him from the saddle so that he tumbled to the sand.
Telis reined in the sith and leaped to the ground. Brand was already on his feet, sword in hand, his face contorted with fear and rage. Telis advanced steadily, hate coursing through him.
If Brand had been a faintheart before, he was not now when his life depended on his skill and cunning. Even as their swords crossed, Telis knew that his work was cut out for him. There was no sound but the clash of steel and the labored breathing of the two men as they locked in combat. For almost a quarter of an hour they fenced without appreciable gain on either side. But Telis was younger, and the strain was beginning to tell on Brand. He knew that he must win quickly or die.
Stepping back, Brand snatched the helmet from his head and threw it full at Telis' face. Telis' sword made a glittering arc in the sunlight as it caught the missile and knocked it aside. But for the moment he left himself unguarded, and Brand lunged in to sink his point into Telis' naked thigh.
Telis staggered but did not fall; the painful wound stung him, and Brand, thinking that he had scored a telling blow, launched a furious attack. Telis backed steadily across the sand, leaving a trail of blood. He measured the pace carefully and, when Brand paused to catch his breath, Telis feinted at his head. Brand's blade came jerkily up to meet the thrust, and Telis stooped, whirled his point under Brand's guard and lunged with all his force.
The blade sank deep into Brand's chest. Telis stepped back and slipped it free. The renegade stood for a moment, staring unbelievingly at the wound in his chest that bubbled a bloody froth. His arms stiffened and the swords he held dropped noiselessly to the sand. Very deliberately, he sank to his knees, still staring at the wound, then he pitched forward into the sand face-downward. He was dead.
Telis sought his sith wearily and mounted. He turned back toward the camp without another look at Brand. All the fury and excitement of battle was washed out of him, and he felt very tired.
The gentle movement of the sith's gait helped to steady him. He rode slowly along, looking out over the wastes of the Great Red Desert, envisioning the land as it would be one day ... green and fertile, alive under a sky no longer starkly clear, but laced with clouds that would bring soft rains and stirring life from the land.
He topped the final rise and before him was the Tellurian camp and the tall, beautiful projectile of the spaceship. The throngs of mixed Laurrian and Tellurians were shouting and cheering the end of the struggle.
Now the future seemed assured. Telis promised himself that the future of the Tellurians on Laurr would be one with his own. And someday, he thought, perhaps he would see Terra—or even the stars!
It would be a great task, he reflected, this changing the face and fate of a dying world. But together the redeemers and the redeemed could work it out. Telis knew somehow that the thing would be done.
A figure detached itself from the crowd and ran towards him, calling his name. It was Leslie. With a quickened pace he made his way toward her. The door to the future opened, and he stepped through without looking back.