cudyk stood at the top of the gentle rise opposite the washington avenue bridge, and looked down at the quarter. it was just after sunset, and the ranked street-lights cast a lonesome gleam. the streets were empty. there was no one left in the quarter except one man in the powerhouse. when the time was up, he would pull the switches on the master board and come out; then the quarter would be dead.
the niori edict had come on the wednesday morning after rack's death. they had been given four days to pack their belongings, arrange for assignment of cargo space, and wind up their several affairs. cudyk's stock was small and his personal belongings few; he had been ready two days ago.
the evening breeze, freshening, pressed cudyk's trousers against his calves and stirred the hair at the back of his head. looking into the east, he saw a few pallid stars in the sky.
several hundred people had already been collected by the air-cars which served the spaceport. cudyk, seu, exarkos and a few others, by unspoken assent, had taken places at the rear of the crowd, to be the last to go.
he glanced at seu. the little man was standing with his hands in his pockets, shoulders slumped, staring dully at the quarter. he looked up after a moment, smiled unhappily, and shrugged.
"it's absurd to feel homesick for it, isn't it?" he said. "it was a ghetto; we had no roots there. it was cramped, and it stank, and we fought among ourselves more viciously than we ever fought on earth. but twenty years ..."
"we could pretend that we had roots, at least," cudyk answered. "we don't belong anywhere. perhaps we'll be happier, in the long run, once we face that and accept it."
"i doubt it."
"so do i."
to cudyk's right, father exarkos was sitting on his suitcase, hands relaxed on his thighs. cudyk said, "if i were a believer, astereos, i think it would do me a great deal of good to confess to you and be absolved."
the priest's dry, friendly voice said, "why, have you sinned so terribly, laszlo?"
"i killed a man," said cudyk, "but that's not what i mean. i jumped over a stairway railing and stopped rack. if it hadn't been for me, he might have got away. there would have been nothing wrong with that. he couldn't have done any more harm, one man by himself. the guards would have captured him sooner or later, anyhow. and if he had gotten away, we wouldn't have given the niori the one more straw they needed. in that sense, it is my fault that we were expelled."
"no, laszlo," said seu.
exarkos said, "you have nothing for which to reproach yourself, on that score. you were only the instrument of history, my friend, and a minor instrument at that. and, speaking for myself, not for the church, rack deserved to die."
cudyk thought, at least it was quite suitably ironic. cudyk, the man of inaction, hurls himself through the air to kill a murderer. and the citizens of the quarter are deported, not because one of their race murdered a billion billion galactics, but because that same killer was killed by them.
that was one thin mark on the credit side. there was one more: the tension was gone, for some of them at least. now the worst thing that could happen had happened; the damocletian thread had snapped. the problems which had caused the tension no longer existed.
earth was two months away. cudyk expected nothing and hoped for nothing. but the niori had agreed to set each passenger down wherever on the globe he chose to go; each man, at least, could choose his own hell. the crews of the captured battleships, and the captured staff of the base on new earth, were also being sent back. the weapon that had been used on them had done no permanent damage; they would simply have to be retrained, to learn all over again, as if they were reborn.
seu was going to north america, where he hoped survival for a fat cosmopolite would be a little less difficult than in europe or asia. moskowitz had been born in new york, and was going back there. exarkos was going to istanbul first, for orders; he had no idea where he might be sent after that. cudyk had not yet made up his mind. he thought that perhaps he would go with the priest; if he should change his mind after landing it would be no great loss; one wilderness, as exarkos had once said, was as good as another.
it will all be anticlimax, he thought, and perhaps that is the definition of hell: unending anticlimax.
he wondered how it would feel to be earthbound again. the repatriation ship was to be the last galactic vessel which would ever call at earth. and there would be a constant guard. the niori had learned, belatedly but well. if humanity ever climbed high enough again to reach the stars with its bloody fingers, the citizens of the galaxy would be ready.
cudyk looked at his watch. the man in the powerhouse must be a sentimentalist; he was waiting until the last possible moment.
he heard the soft hum of the air-car behind him, turned and saw it settling lightly to the clipped lawn. the remaining passengers were moving toward it. exarkos stood up and lifted his suitcase. cudyk turned back for one last look at the quarter. it was full dark now, and all he could see of it was the blocky, ambiguous outline of its darkness against the glowing buildings beyond, and the cross-hatched pattern of yellow street lights.
the lights went out.
