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"Let's hurry then. I can't believe that we're free."
The sky-car lifted from behind the warehouse and swept north. Anacho asked:
"Where do we go?"
"To the Kotan steppes, south of where you and I first met."
All night they flew, over the barren center of Kislovan, then over the First
Sea and the Kotan marshlands.
At dawn they drifted over the edge of the Steppes while Reith studied the
landscape below. They crossed a forest; Reith pointed to a clearing. "There:
where I came down to Tschai. The Emblem camp lay to the east. There, by that
grove of feather-bush: there we buried Onmale. Drop down there."
The sky-car landed. Reith alighted and walked slowly toward the woods. He saw
the glint of metal. Traz came forth. He stood quietly as Reith approached. "I
knew that you would come."
Traz had changed. He had become a man: something more than a man. On his
shoulder he wore a medallion of metal, stone and wood. Reith said: "You dug up
the emblem."
"Yes. It called to me. Wherever I walked upon the steppe I heard voices, all
the voices of all the Omnale chieftains, calling to be taken up from the dark.
I
brought forth the emblem; the voices are now silent."
"And the ship?"
"It is ready. Four of the technicians are here. One stayed at Sivishe, two
lost heart and set off across the steppes for Hedaijha."
"The sooner we depart the better. When we're actually out in space I'll
believe that we've escaped."
"We are ready."
Anacho, Traz and Zap 210 entered the spaceship. Reith took a last look around
the sky. He bent, touched the soil of Tschai, crumbled a handful of mold
between his fingers. Then he too entered the unlovely hulk. The port was
closed and sealed. The generators hummed. The ship lifted toward the sky. The
face of
Tschai receded; the planet exhibited rotundity, became a graybrown ball, and
presently was gone.
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