If you can imagine the emotions of a man unjustly sentenced and finally released from prison after six years of hell; if you can imagine what it would mean to have each of your faults become instead an additional virtue. If you can imagine the joy of having all of your fondest dreams come true--then, and only then, may you comprehend for one fleeting instant, the pounding chaos, the indescribable joy, the interminable relief that permeated Michel Drawers' being at that moment.
Those two hairy arms that had pounded the most savage and horrible beasts this world had ever known into bleeding pulp slipped tenderly, reverently about the exquisite form of Trajores. And as Persum slipped discreetly away, lips closed upon lips in the manner of lovers immemorial. And the gods of fate laughed at the importance two nothings in the mighty scheme of things attached to an equally undefinable nothing called love.
Now Michel Drawers lived in perpetual delirium. A delirium of unreasoning delight. He readied his "Star-Struck" for a voyage into space and a renewal of his search to find the way back--the way back with everything worthwhile to take with him.
And he barely acknowledged the farewells of a fine people, so intense was his desire to leave.
There was a sort of solemn rigidity in their farewell attitude. A brooding, soft, strange sorrow, and they seemed to wonder, too, to wish as well, thoughts they dared not express. To see their great dream for the reuniting of the cities come crashing down; to view their momentary gains as a hollow mockery in the years to come.
All this Michel Drawers did not notice. He waved one big arm and with the other pulled back the starting lever. His great frame pressed back in agony at the terrible acceleration of the takeoff. And then he was free--free again of binding gravitation; free to search the space-ways with the woman he loved beside him; free to return to a world that had discarded him, to be again a respected citizen.
And then he saw Trajores, her lovely form inert, a trickle of golden blood issuing from her mouth, and he was overcome with remorse at his own thoughtlessness. With fear and trepidation he raised her head and pressed a vial of revivifying liquid to her lips. She sighed softly and mustered a feeble smile.