The Face of the Waters by Robert Silverberg

Author:Robert Silverberg [Silverberg, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2015-02-18T21:00:00+00:00

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Thoughts of lost Earth came to Lawler often as he stood by the rail by night, listening to the heavy mysterious sounds of the sea and staring into the empty impenetrable darkness that pressed down on them. His obsession with the mother world seemed to be growing as the six ships made their daily way across the vast face of the water-planet. For the millionth time he tried to imagine what it was like when it was alive. The large islands called countries, ruled by kings and queens, wealthy and powerful beyond all comprehension. The fierce wars. Spectacular weapons, capable of wrecking worlds. And then that great migration into space, when they had sent the myriad starships outward, bearing the ancestors of all the human beings who lived anywhere in the galaxy today. Everyone. All had sprung from a single source, that one small world that had died.

Sundira, wandering the deck by night, appeared beside him.

"Pondering the destiny of the cosmos again, doctor?"

"As usual. Yes."

"What's tonight's theme?"

"Irony. All those years that the Earth people worried about destroying themselves in one of their feverish nasty little wars. But they never did. And then their own sun went and did it for them in a single afternoon."

"Thank God we were already out here settling among the stars."

"Yes," said Lawler, with a cool glance at the dark monster-infested sea. "How fine for us that was."

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