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"Wolden has ordered speed and more speed, my friend," he called over the roar of the motor. "The governors are all gone from the old machines. The smiths are turning out newer and faster ones all the time. Sometimes I think even the hands of the clocks are going faster." Odin muttered a curse. What he had loved about this world was its leisure.

"Be patient, my friend," Wolden had sensed his thoughts again. "Before long, you will see more of the moon than men have ever known. We sent a smaller ship into space. Remember! Our scientists are here. In a place beyond your dreams. Look. They are coming now." Wolden was adjusting the screen again.

And Gunnar still lives." "Part of him." Gunnar blinked his good eye. "What happened down there? Oh," he gasped in pain, "to have missed the fighting!" "Maya lives and I live. Ato is wounded. Wolden came at the last to help us, Gunnar. We won. And I have killed Grim Hagen with my bare hands, even as I promised." "Good, Nors-King. I knew always that one of us would kill him.

Some of the machines might possibly be restored. But the paintings, the art, and the books. All gone. Wolden especially mourned a Navajo sand-painting, which he compared to Goya. Not a trace was left of it. Wolden had taken him into the tunnel, just as he had once before. It was dripping now, and the sound of the pumps throbbed through the ruins like the struggling heart of a wounded thing.

If Nea had lived, I might have felt differently. But Wolden and the others say that they will not stay here much longer. I have decided to go with them. Theirs is a sort of Nirvana, a timeless, dimensionless existence. Yesterday and tomorrow, near and far, are one " Maya shivered. "It sounds like a frightening existence. I don't understand it at all.

We are in touch with them. They went quietly and noiselessly. There was no need for all the destruction and havoc that Grim Hagen worked. But this model is larger even than the Old Ship, and all the improvements that we once dreamed of are here. You see, Odin," Wolden continued, "the Old Ship was ours for centuries. We of Orthe-Gard have exploring minds. We went over the ship thousands of times.

Once, when they stopped for Wolden to thrust some moldy folds of Hindu thread-of-gold weaving from their path, Odin stopped and picked up the cover of a book. It was soggy and faded. But he could make out the title: "Poems by a Bostonian." So they had gone on, but slower now than on their first journey into the tunnel which led to the floor of the Gulf.

To the last the people of Opal refused to take part in any governmental excitement. A car was there. A driver. Wolden was there looking much thinner and grayer. Beside him was his son, Ato, inches taller and perhaps a bit thicker in the shoulders and a bit thinner at the waist. These were all.

Then that sensation was gone, and there were two faint coiling spirals of yellow light upon the ceiling. The lights began to whisper. "We are Ato and Wolden," they said. "Remember us?" I remembered them from the notes that I had pieced together to tell the story of my old friend, Doctor Jack Odin, and his adventure in the World of Opal. It seemed impolite to tell them that we had never met.

In less than an hour, the onrushing moon filled the screens. And with scarcely a quiver of excitement the Nebula circled it swiftly and landed. Wolden and Ato, acting as pilot and co-pilot, set The Nebula down with as much ease as a housewife putting a fine piece of china upon the drainboard. There was no fuss and no noise.