Miles shook his head. "So far, I haven't accomplished anything
positive," he said. "All I did with this trip around the world was
convince them that I was telling the truth when I told them there was no
Dark Place under the World, where Alpha and Beta go at night." He
hastened, as the general began swearing, to add: "I know, that doesn't
sound like much. But it was necessary. I have to convince them that
there will be no Last Hot Time, and then--"

The shoonoon, on their drum-shaped cushions, stared at him in silence,
aghast. All the happiness over the wonderful trip in the ship, when they
had chased the Sky Fire around the World and caught it over Bluelake,
and even their pleasure in the frozen delicacies they had just eaten,
was gone.

_"No--Last--Hot--Time?"_

"Mailsh Heelbare, this is not real! It cannot be!"

"The Gone Ones--"

"The Always-Cool Time, when there will be no more hunger or hard work or
death; it cannot be real that this will never come!"

He rose, holding up his hands; his action stopped the clamor.

"Why should the Gone Ones want to return to this poor world that they
have gladly left?" he asked. "Have they not a better place in the middle
of the Sky Fire, where it is always cool? And why should you want them
to come back to this world? Will not each one of you pass, sooner or
later, to the middle of the Sky Fire; will you not there be given new
bodies and join the Gone Ones? There is the Always-Cool; there the crops
grow without planting and without the work of women; there the game come
into the villages to be killed in the gathering-places, without hunting.
There you will talk with the other Gone Ones, your fathers and your
fathers' fathers, as I talk with you. Why do you think this must come to
the World of People? Can you not wait to join the Gone Ones in the Sky
Fire?"

Then he sat down and folded his arms. They were looking at him in
amazement; evidently they all saw the logic, but none of them had ever
thought of it before. Now they would have to turn it over in their minds
and accustom themselves to the new viewpoint. They began whooshing among
themselves. At length, old Shatresh, who had seen the Hot Time before,
spoke:

"Mailsh Heelbare, we trust you," he said. "You have told us of wonders,
and you have shown us that they were real. But do you know this for
real?"

"Do you tell me that you do not?" he demanded in surprise. "You have had
fathers, and fathers' fathers. They