He waited. A long moment passed.
He thought of Vorst, making landfall on same other world. An inhabited world, perhaps? What would be Vorst’s impact when he came to that virgin territory? Vorst was an irresistible force, terrifying and unique. Wherever he went, he would transform all that was about him. Kirby felt sorry for the ten hapless pioneers who would have the benefit of Vorst’s immediate guidance. He wondered what kind of colony they would build.
Whatever it was, it would succeed. Success was in Vorst’s nature. He was hideously old, but he had frightening vitality still locked within him. The Founder seemed to relish the challenge of beginning anew. Kirby wished him well.
“There they go,” Capodimonte whispered.
It was true. The capsule was still on the ground, but now the air about it wavered, as though stirred by heat waves rising from the parched, sandy soil.
Then the capsule was gone.
That was all. Kirby stared at the empty place where it had been. Vorst had been taken up into the heavens, and a gateway to somewhere had been opened.
“There is a Oneness from which all life stems,” someone said gently behind Kirby. “The infinite variety of the universe we owe to—”
Another voice said, “Man and woman, star and stone, tree and bird—”
Another said, “In the strength of the spectrum, the quantum, and the holy angstrom—”
Kirby did not remain to listen to the familiar prayers, nor did he pray himself. He looked briefly at the bareness in the desert once more, and then upward at the harsh blue sky, already deepening toward nightfall. It was done. Vorst was gone, his scheming ended so far as Earth was concerned, and now it was the turn of lesser men. The way was open. Humanity could spill out across the heavens. Perhaps. Perhaps.
Alone in this great assembly of the faithful, Kirby turned his back on the now sacred spot from which Vorst had made his ascent. Very slowly, a tall figure whose late-afternoon shadow stretched for yards, Kirby walked away from the place where Noel Vorst had been, and toward the place where David Lazarus was waiting to speak with him.