Epilogue




At Ganymede Base they had been tracking these events throughout. A Space Board vessel—a creaking old tug—had been launched in a token attempt at rescue of the Forster expedition, which, having ceased to communicate (by now everybody knew it), was surely in distress.
But the blazing forth of the silvery egg took all the watchers by surprise. On Ganymede, on Earth, on all the inhabited worlds, they saw the titanic engines ignite. They saw the kernel of a moon move against the grasp of mighty Jupiter. They followed its course, fully expecting it to aim itself out of the solar system, toward the most distant stars.It was with suspicion—then with disbelief—then with wonder that they finally believed the evidence of their own computers.On Ganymede, the commander watched it with a grim, unyielding expression. Too late he’d tracked down the last of the prophetae, the last mole within the Space Board’s delicate presence on the shore of the Shoreless Ocean. Whatever these pitiful conspiratorial pensionaires of the Free Spirit had to tell him was worthless in the face of an un­folding future.On Earth, Ari and Jozsef watched the spectacle. Tears streamed from Ari’s eyes, tears of joy and anger, that it was happening, that her daughter had helped it happen—and that she had been excluded from its happening.For what was left of Amalthea—its gleaming core, the world-ship, the diamond moon—was not headed for a des­tination somewhere in the constellation Crux. It was coming to a rendezvous with Earth.