He wondered sometimes why they came no more, those returning voyagers. All the ships he saw now were outward bound; never one drove down from the skies to berth at the great port beyond the hills. Why this should be, no one would tell him. He had learned not to speak of it now, having seen the sadness that his questions brought.
Across the sands the robot was calling to him softly. "Bran," came the words, echoing the tones of his mother's voice, "Bran – its time to go".
The child looked up, his face full of indignant denial. He could not believe it. The sun was still high and the tide was far away. Yet along the shore his mother and father were already coming toward him.
They walked swiftly, as though the time was short. Now and again his father would glance for an instant at the sky, then turn his head quickly away as if he knew well that there was nothing he could hope to see. But a moment later he would look up again.
Stubborn and angry, Bran stood among his canals and lakes. His mother was strangely silent, but presently his father took him by the hand and said quietly, you must come with us Bran. Its time we went. The child pointed sullenly at the beach. "But its too early. I haven't finished".
His father's reply had no trace of anger, only a great sadness. There are many things Bran, that will not be finished now. Still uncomprehending, the boy turned to his mother. "Then can I come again tomorrow"?
With a sense of desolating wonder, Bran saw his mother's eyes fill with sudden tears. And he knew at last that never again would he play upon the sands by the azure waters; never again would he feel the tug of the tiny waves about his feet. He had found the sea too late, and now must leave it forever. Out of the future, chilling his soul, came the first intimation of the long ages of exile that lay ahead.
He never looked back as they walked silently together across the clinging sand. This moment would be with him all his life, but he was too stunned to do more than walk blindly into a future he could not understand.
The three figures dwindled into the distance and were gone. A while later, a silver cloud seemed to lift above the hills and move slowly out to sea. In a shallow arc, as though reluctant to leave its world, the last of the great ships climbed towards the horizon and shrank to nothingness over the edge of the Earth.
The tide was returning with the dying day. As though its makers still walked within its walls, the low metal building upon the hills had begun to blaze with light. Near the zenith, one star had not waited for the sun to set, but already burned with a fierce white glare against the darkening sky. Soon its companions, no longer in the scant thousands that mankind had once known, began to fill the heavens. The Earth was now near the centre of the universe, and whole areas of the sky were an unbroken blaze of light.
But rising beyond the sea in two long curving arms, something black and monstrous eclipsed the stars and seemed to cast its shadow over all the world. The tentacles of the Dark Nebula were already brushing against the frontiers of the solar system….
In the east, a great yellow moon was climbing through the waves. Though mankind had torn down its mountains and brought it air and water, its face was the one that had looked upon Earth since its history began, and it was still the ruler of the tides. Across the sand the line of foam moved steadily onwards, overwhelming the little canals and planing down the mangled footprints.
On the sky line, the lights in the strange metal building suddenly died, and the spinning mirrors ceased their moonlight glittering. From far inland came the blinding flash of a great explosion, then another, and another fainter yet.
Presently the ground trembled a little, but no sound disturbed the solitude of the deserted shore. Under the level light of the sagging moon, beneath the myriad stars, the beach lay waiting for the end. It was alone now, as it had been at the beginning. Only the waves would move, and but for a little while, upon its golden sands. For mankind had come and gone.
THE END