Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 166: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

their footfalls in a dull clatter. Once in a while they passed someone else, a vague figure which bowed to Kormt. Only one did not notice them, an old woman who walked crying between the high walls. “They say it is never night on your worlds,” said Kormt. Jorun threw him a sidelong glance. His face was a strong jutting of highlights from sliding shadow. “Some planets have been given luminous skies,” said the technician, “and a few still have cities, too, where it is always fight. But when every man can control the cosmic energies, there is no real reason for us to five together; most of us dwell far apart. There are very dark nights on my own world, and | cannot see any other home from my own—just the moors.” “It must be a strange life,” said Kormt. “Belonging to no one.” They came out on the market-square, a broad paved Space walled in by houses. There was a fountain in its middle, and a statue dug out of the ruins had been placed there. It was broken, one arm gone—but still the white slim figure of the dancing girl stood with youth and laughter, forever under the sky of Earth. Jorun knew that lovers were wont to meet here, and briefly, irrationally, he wondered how lonely the girl would be in all the millions of years to come. The City Hall lay at the farther end of the square, big and dark, its eaves carved with dragons, and the gables topped with wing-spreading birds. It was an old building; nobody knew how many generations of men had gathered here. A long, patient fine of folk stood outside it, shuffling in one by one to the registry desk; emerging, they went off quietly into the darkness, toward the temporary shelters erected for them. Walking by the line, Jorun picked faces out of the Shadows. There was a young mother holding a crying child, her head bent over it in a timeless pose, murmuring to soothe it. There was a mechanic, still sooty from his work, CORniclooo SS (SO)