. But Gunnar will sharpen his sword no more. There was a ford
near my father's house where the clear water ran fresh over the stones.
That might help me. But it is far away. And my father too. You tell Freida
that we did not make the long trip in vain."

"If I can," Odin promised.

"Oh, you can. For we have won the stars and nothing is beyond us--except
youth, maybe."

Gunnar closed his eyes and slept for a few minutes while Odin held him in
his arms. Then Gunnar awoke.

He smiled at Jack Odin and murmured:

"To awake on the sea of the stars--"

Jack Odin had heard Gunnar sing those words before. They belonged to an old
Norse lullaby that Gunnar's mother had crooned to him when he was a little
boy.

Then Gunnar died.

And Odin knelt over him, tears streaming down his broken face.

CHAPTER 19

Six months had passed since the battle.

The city of the violet dome was rebuilt. The ashes of the dead had been
strewn upon the mossy plains. The two ships now stood in peace and gazed
at each other across the expanse of moss and grass that had replaced the
cinders left from the fighting.

Another city was being built a few miles away.

Ato had soon recovered from his wounds, and as ship's captain had married
Maya and Odin.

So it was over. But Odin and Maya had asked for Gunnar's ashes, and had
buried them out there on the plain, beneath a gaunt tree which was
something like a mesquite. Gunnar would have liked that. Twisted, gnarled,
and tough, the tree spread out its branches above him; and a bird had built
its nest there and sang its old song of stars and men and time.

The Lorens were a happier people. One of the first things that the lights
had done was to plunge back into space. Within a few days they returned,
trailing a huge dust-cloud behind them. It must have been the last salvage
from the explosion that Odin had witnessed back there in space. The cloud
trailed out in one great streamer and slowly circled the ancient sun.
Slowly the spirals came nearer to the fires. The sun fed. Its old warmth
returning, it smiled at its lone child. The air of the planet of the Lorens
grew warmer and fresher. The plains seemed to shake themselves as a new
spring returned to enliven the land and take up its old work of helping
life to begat new life. Out there in empty space, Odin fancied, Death
lowered his scythe and smiled and shrugged his lean shoulders as he went
away to harvest other suns.

Oh, it was a w