d then they looked away from it, at each other. A wave of
perception swept among them, drawing them closer to each other in the
face of something they couldn't understand.

"Why did they go?" Abbot asked, in his mind.

"Why did any of the old race go?" Walden answered.

The sunlight flashed off the ship, and then it was gone.

"It's not surprising that the old race died," Abbot said. "They were
brilliant, in their way, and yet they did such strange things. Their
lives seemed so completely meaningless...."

Walden didn't answer for a moment. His eyes searched the sky for a last
glimpse of the ship, but there was nothing at all. He sighed, and he
looked at Abbot, and then past him, at all the others.

"I wonder," he said, "how long it will be before some other race says
the same thing about us."

No one answered. He turned and walked away from them, across the
trampled flowers, toward the museum and the great empty vault where the
starship had waited for so long.

THE END

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