in an apoplectic fit, and tumbled down the rocks to lie at Sim’s feet.
Sim bent to peer at the ancient one, at the raw, dead eyes, the loose, sneering lips, the crumpled, quiet body.

‘Chion!’
‘Yes,’ said Dark behind him, in a croaking, strange voice. ‘Your enemy. Chion.’

That night two hundred men started for the ship. The water ran in the new channel. One hundred of them were drowned or lost behind in the cold. The others, with Sim, got through to the ship.

Lyte awaited them, and threw wide the metal door.
The weeks passed. Generations lived and died in the cliffs, while the Scientists and workers labored over the ship, learning its functions and its parts.

On the last day, two dozen men moved to their stations within the ship. Now there was a destiny of travel ahead.
Sim touched the control plates under his fingers.

Lyte, rubbing her eyes, came and sat on the floor next to him, resting her head against his knee, drowsily. ‘I had a dream,’ she said, looking off at something far away. ‘I dreamed I lived in caves in a cliff on a cold-hot planet where people grew old and died in eight days.’

‘What an impossible dream,’ said Sim. ‘People couldn’t possibly live in such a nightmare. Forget it. You’re awake now.’

He touched the plates gently. The ship rose and moved into space.

Sim was right.

The nightmare was over at last.

The end