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Still, journeys to these near galaxies had failed. Six expeditions to Andromeda had never returned. If there were a traveler there, a round trip should be possible. If there were not, then high-level macroscopic technology should have been developed and retained, and at least a few programs should have been beamed for intergalactic communication. Ordinary spherical broadcasts dissipated in the vast intergalactic reaches, but beams did not, as the Traveler itself had demonstrated.

Could it be that the Travelers encountered the other galaxies at different times? The local program appeared to originate about three million light-years distant, at a point source, and to expand to saturate the entire galaxy and its environs: the globular clusters, the Magellanic clouds, but not Fornax or Sculptor. About thirty thousand light-years beyond the rim (arbitrarily assigned; there was no physical discontinuity marking the edge of the galaxy) the beam stopped; its total cross section at this stage was about 150,000 light-years. By the time the beam might, in its onward travel, intercept another galaxy beyond the Milky Way, it would have spread into a tremendous cone-segment far too diffuse for proper effect. It had obviously been tailored to this particular locale.

If other beams were similarly tailored, and if they originated from the same spot in space, it might be that they had to take turns. A million years of traveler could be directed at one galaxy; then, while it was on its way, the projector could be reoriented to cover another galaxy. Thus direction and distance and schedule would determine the status of any particular galaxy.

After the Second Siege the confirmations began to come in. Civilized planets that had jumped to other galaxies and had been stranded there had broadcast back portions of the truth. They had made the transit, but had been unable to come out of organic stasis because of the absence of the traveler signal necessary for the reconstitution. Thus millions of years had had to pass before a Traveler intercepted the new location of an exploring world. At that point reconstitution had occurred, but with losses, since even the gaseous state did not have indefinite shelf-life. Then no return was feasible, unless another delay of tens of millions of years was undertaken while waiting for the local Third Siege.

This was the substance of the first report from Horv, stranded in a globular cluster orbiting Andromeda. It was almost as though the Travelers had been arranged to prevent intergalactic commerce. But Horven research continued, for the same signal that revived the sadly decimated populace now allowed the planet to travel freely around Andromeda. In due course the second, more remarkable report was broadcast.

Meanwhile, one drone moon from the Dooon did reappear in the Milky Way Galaxy, carrying their full report and recordings of their Traveler signal. The recordings had no potency in themselves, but were useful for direct comparison with similar records of the local Traveler. This established that two different Travelers were involved; the “fingerprint” differed in slight but consistent ways. One more fact had replaced conjecture, and another item in the tentative map of Traveler activity had been confirmed. Data was now available on three local beams — and all had emanated from the same point source.

No other drone-moon returnees were discovered. Evidently a number had been dispatched, but were either lost in the uncharted configurations of jumpspace or had arrived but not been located in or near the Milky Way. A continuous and complete scan of the entire volume of the galaxy simply was not feasible, so chance played its part.

Finally, utilizing several of the delayed macroscopic return-messages, the records of the single recovered moon, and detailed analysis of the Traveler itself when the Third Siege began, the locals were able to come at the complete story.

It was the dawning of a new era.

The lecture was over. The convoluting shapes faded, and on the stage a prima donna was singing. Her talent was superlative; she seemed to represent the pinnacle of human art, the culmination of individual opportunity. This was as close, in a cappella, as one could come to perfection. This was excellence personified.

Afra considered her human heritage, and that of the galaxy. It was as though six great manifestations of culture had occurred, in whatever mode they were considered. The galaxy had gone through three long civilizations and three short sieges, the last still in progress, and now was on the brink of the seventh and perhaps climactic manifestation. Every individual, every species, every culture was on the threshold. The mirror of history provided the reflection of all the past — but that past was a lesser history than what was about to be.

The prima donna was Schön; the symbols paid scant attention to the sex of the individual. Afra was not certain of the nature of her own symbol this time, having experienced no transformation other than purely conjectural, but the incipient realization of the truth — personal and galactic and universal — was enough. Schön might represent the ultimate in Man’s prior evolution, juvenile as he was, but he did not represent Man’s future. Neither did the starfish form that Brad had become; that type of maturity had been cast aside long ago as a dead-end attempt for adjustment to a bygone and limited environment. Man was destined for something else. Not physically, not technologically, but socially and emotionally. It might be millions of years before he achieved it, but that was a mere instant, galactically. The threshold was now, in his realization of his potential, in his vision of his own esthetic future.

With only moderate effort, Afra shifted into station reality. The room had changed; this was another busy complex. Machines were turning out the element-display samples and feeding them into conveyor-slots, undoubtedly for transport to the several visitors’ lounges. Art was being reproduced, and foodstuffs manufactured. This section was, in fact, an extensive but comparatively routine station production center. Either there was a considerable turnover in samples, implying many visits here, or the displays were replaced frequently as a matter of course.

Schön was present, and he held the S′ device. “Mercury was yours, 10 to 5,” he announced. “Your damned birds…” He slapped the instrument.

She had won a round at last! But the vision was upon her:

The street of Macon, she at age seven, the Negro man standing over her. But now her terror was gone. Six manifestations — ascendant, sun, moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury — transmuted to the seventh — Jupiter — and the auspices were beneficent. She knew that the Negro had not come to hurt her; he was not the gunman. The holdup man had been white.

“Little girl, you got to come with me. Your daddy’s been hurt.”

“I know,” she said.

“I work at the store,” he continued, helping her to her feet. “I saw you bolt, and I knew you was scared. But it’s all right now. Your daddy grabbed that robber and held him, and he’s in jail by now I know, but—”

Her knee was skinned, and her shoulder was bruised from the collision in the store, but these were minor injuries. She took the man’s hand and began the walk back. “How bad — I mean, my father—”

“He’s not hurt bad. I’m sure. He’s a brave man, doing that, stepping into a gun like that. A brave man.”

Afra stepped out of the memory-vision again, independent of its power as well. She did not have to run any more.

Schön was watching her, aware that he was losing ground. He had thought to win the round by throwing her into the vision of terror and forcing her to capitulate once more, but this time she had conquered her fear. Her liability was gone. Whatever type of conquest he had contemplated was farther from realization now than it had been during their initial encounter in the ascendant.