Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 174: what you’re looking at

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

Jorun watched him till he was out of sight. The technician paused in the airlock door, looking over the gray landscape and the village from whose chimneys no smoke rose. Farewell, my mother, he thought. And then, Surprising himself: Maybe Kormt is doing the right thing after all. He entered the ship and the door closed behind him. Toward evening, the clouds lifted and the sky showed a clear pale blue—as if it had been washed clean—and the grass and leaves glistened. Kormt came out of the house to watch the sunset. It was a good one, all flame and gold. A pity little Julith wasn’t here to see it; she’d always liked sunsets. But Julith was so far away now that if she sent a call to him, calling with the speed of light, it would not come before he was dead. Nothing would come to him. Not ever again. He tamped his pipe with a homy thumb and lit it and drew a deep cloud into his lungs. Hands in pockets, he strolled down the wet streets. The sound of his clogs was unexpectedly loud. Well, son, he thought, now you’ve got a whole world all to yourself, to do with just as you like. You're the richest man who ever lived. There was no problem in keeping alive. Enough food of all kinds was stored in the town’s freeze-vault to support a hundred men for the ten or twenty years remaining to him. But he’d want to stay busy. He could maybe keep three farms from going to seed—watch over fields and orchards and five-stock, repair the buildings, dust and wash and light up in the evening. A man ought to keep busy. He came to the end of the street, where it turned into a 175 graveled road winding up toward a high hill, and followed that. Dusk was creeping over the fields, the sea was a metal streak very far away and a few early stars blinked forth. A wind was springing up, a soft murmurous wind that talked in the trees. But how quiet things were! CORniclooo SS CO