Epilogue
It was an alien landscape. But to men and women who had spent their whole lives patrolling the remoter reaches of the solar system, Earth would have been just as alien.
With five suns to light the sky, true dark was the rarest of events. But a time of minimal light was approaching, with the closest and brightest pair already set and a third gliding towards the horizon. The ruddy glow of the other two, a pair of contact binary dwarfs a third of a lightyear away, provided the signal for the world’s nocturnal life to awaken.
Crawling, creeping and flying forms emerged from their deep burrows. The guards stared at them. There was no sense of fear on either side, and indeed there was no danger. For the guards it was astonishment at sheer numbers, at a thousand different species appearing in the twilight.
Blaine Ridley was standing in front of M-26A. During the fourteen hours between the rising and setting of the brighter primary, defined by convention at this time of year as daytime, he had monitored the robot assembly and installation of better living accommodations. Now he and the other Sargasso guards were drifting back towards the place where the Construct had remained, unmoving, since early morning. Ridley opened his mouth, produced a strange stammering sound, and closed it again. The words of M-26A spoke once more, clear in his mind.
The spell was as effective as ever, a lifting of the communal spirit. However, tonight it did not work so well on Blaine Ridley. He had been chosen by the other guards and charged with a mission, and in anticipation of speech his eye was rolling and his jaw working nervously from side to side. Except that he could not find words. Alone of all the guards, he remained standing instead of sinking cross-legged onto the loose gravel surface.
M-26A paused. The Construct appeared to notice Ridley, standing stiffly to attention before it, for the first time.
“It is true.” The question, addressed to Ridley directly, freed his tongue. “It is all true. I know what we were. I know what we are now. And we — we have a problem.”
“I speak for all of us.” Ridley glanced around for encouragement. Misshapen heads nodded, and there were grunts and murmurs of agreement. The faces turned toward him were earnest and dusky red in the meager light of the twin dwarf suns. Their support gave him the strength to continue. “We were nothing before you came to the Sargasso Dump. We helped each other as much as we could, but we were like beasts. Worse than beasts, because we had once been human. You raised us to humanity again.”
Maybe we do not have sanity, as other humans define it. Maybe that is why we have a question.”
“Is the way back closed? Would it be possible to go again to the Sargasso Dump?”
The great compound eyes froze, smoky-red and luminous in the twilight.
“No! Never!”
“We feel
“And still they must be coming to Sargasso. The accidents have not stopped. New recruits will be arriving as we are speaking — perhaps they have already arrived. Our hearts break for them. But who will help them? Who will teach
M-26A did not move, but the bright eyes seemed to cloud over.
“To go back, and stay there, that might mean insanity.
That is not what we mean. But to go back
“That is all right. We have been thinking about this for a long time. One other thing.” Ridley was talking to the back of M-26A, as the Construct slid silently across the gravel surface, toward the dark apertures of the sleeping units.
“You did not answer our question, whether it is possible to return for a time to the Sargasso Dump.” Ridley was standing straight, but he was no longer at attention. “If it is possible, no matter how difficult it may be, we would like to do it. More than that, if we are to remain human, we
Ridley stood, and listened, but M-26A did not speak again. He was quite sure of that.
It must have been only the night breeze of the new world, sighing in his ear, that seemed to whisper,