state to nation to hemisphere, the direction has been toward unification. Now the hemispheres will be joined and —'
Taylor stopped listening and glanced back at the location of the Tube. Mary was undersurface there. He hated to leave her, even though he couldn't see her again until the Tube was unsealed. But then he shrugged and followed the others.
If this tiny amalgam of former enemies was a good example, it wouldn't be too long before he and Mary and the rest of humanity would be living on the surface like rational human beings instead of blindly hating moles.
'It has taken thousands of generations to achieve,' the A-class leady concluded. 'Hundreds of centuries of bloodshed and destruction. But each war was a step toward uniting mankind. And now the end is in sight: a world without war. But even that is only the beginning of a new stage of history.'
'The conquest of space,' breathed Colonel Borodoy.
'The meaning of life,' Moss added.
'Eliminating hunger and poverty,' said Taylor.
The leady opened the door of the ship. 'All that and more. How much more? We cannot foresee it any more than the first men who formed a tribe could foresee this day. But it will be unimaginably great.'
The door closed and the ship took off toward their new home.
—PHILIP K. DICK
